By Andre
On June 7, the Mantaqa Branch of Military Intelligence detained Karim ‘Arbaji, 29, allegedly for moderating
www.akhawia.net, a popular online forum for Syrian youth covering social and political issues. Persons familiar with the case told Human Rights Watch that the Mantaqa Branch may have transferred him to the Palestine Branch in Damascus, but the authorities have provided no official notification of ‘Arbaji’s whereabouts.
taken from Sami Bin Ghariba report for Global voices advocacy, please read the whole report for more information on Karim and other activists who were detained as well.thanks to Golaniya for providing the link
i used to blog about freedom of expression detainees in Syria, but this post has an entire different meaning since I knew Karim in person, his family and his friends. It is interesting how some unfortunate familiar events take a whole different meaning once they involve someone whom we know, and not just a name.
This post is not a tribute to Karim himself, but to every “Karim” who was kidnapped by “them” because he dared to dream of a better future.
this is Karim's "will" that he wrote in his forum 8 months before the detention:
هلأ وصيتي الكم (تقرأ في حال تعبّينا)
للملحدين...
يا ملحدين
يا كفرة
يللي ما تعرفوش ربنا
اذكرونا بالخير كل ما تسمعوا فيروز و مارسيل خليفة
للمؤمنين...
ادعولنا شباب و صبايا
ادعولنا الله يشيل عنا و عنكم و عن حبابكم
ادعولنا الله يتوه طريقهم و ما يعرفولنا طريق
لجماعة المعارضة
عباية يا شباب عباية
و خصوصي بنوتة عيونا زرقا ... خراس و سد بوزك هالكام يوم، الشغلة مو عنترة ... لازم حدا يضل برا مشان يتابع الاخبار
لجماعة الموالاة
لك نيالكم ما اهنا بالكم
للمشرفين:
انتوا احلى عيلة ممكن حدا يتعرف عليها
خليكم ايد وحدة متل ما بعرفكم
للحكيم:
لا تواخزنا خيو ... وجعنالك راسك
شكرا جزيلا على مساحة الحرية يللي وفرتها للشباب و الصبايا
و سامحني على اخطائي و ازا خيبت املك
لك دخيل رب سوريا ما احلاها
amarta
و دمتم للحرية
Read More...
Summary only...
"The serious threat to our democracy is not the existence of foreign totalitarian states. It is the existence within our own personal attitudes and within our own institutions of conditions which have given a victory to external authority..The battlefield is also accordingly here--within ourselves and our institutions" John Dewey
This post is the first part of series of posts where I am going to examine the concepts of freedom and democracy from a psychological perspective. I do believe that totalitarian regimes do not come out of the blue; there are many factors in the society that foster such outcome. In these posts, I am going to study these factors specifically the ones related to the Arabic societies.
I will start this thread by reviewing Erich Fromm’s book Escape from freedom , it is a unique book since very few psychoanalysts have ventured to write about group psychology trying to explain sociological phenomena from psychodynamic point of view.
Fromm's theory is a rather unique blend of Freud and Marx. Freud, of course, emphasized the unconscious, instinctual drives (libido and death instincts) and repression (as a psychological mechanism) in determining our character. Marx, on the other hand, saw people as determined by their society, and most especially by their economic systems. (However, I do not agree on this distinction since Freud emphasized the role of society represented by the super ego agency in shaping our character, more accurate distinction can be based on Freud emphasis on the internal psychic life importance versus Marx emphasis on the role of the society as separate from our psychic)
In both highly deterministic systems, the concept of freedom is quite tricky to define. Maybe the closest definition will be using Isaiah Berlin’s concepts of positive and negative freedom where Freud’s view fit nicely with the negative type i.e. an individual's liberty from being subjected to the authority of others, and Marx’s theory embraces the positive freedom concept i.e. the opportunity and ability to act to fulfill one's own potential, (I will examine this issue in detail in separate essay).
Escape to Freedom by Armagan BiceFromm’s novel contribution was his suggestion that freedom is a central characteristic of human nature but then he adds that there maybe an instinctive wish for submission as well. I think put it in dynamic terms will capture the essence of Fromm’s idea i.e. our swing between the wish of being “free” and being in a “submissive” state is a distinctive human behavior.
There are examples, Fromm points out, where determinism alone operates. A good example of nearly pure biological determinism is animals (at least simple ones). Animals don't worry about freedom -- their instincts take care of everything. Ants, for example, don't need career counseling to decide what they are going to be when they grow up: They are going to be Ants!
A good example of socioeconomic determinism is the traditional society of the middle ages. Just like Ants, few people in the Middle Ages needed career counseling: They had fate, the king or the owner of their land, to tell them what to do. Basically, if your father was a peasant, you'd be a peasant. If your father was a king, that's what you'd become. And if you were a woman, well, there was only one role for women.
in his review to Fromm's book C. George Boeree stated that Historically speaking, this simple, if hard, life began to get shaken up with the Renaissance. In the Renaissance, people started to see humanity as the centre of the universe, instead of God. In other words, we didn't just look to the church (and other traditional establishments) for the path we were to take. Then came the reformation e.g. Calvinism, which introduced the idea of each of us being individually responsible for our own soul's salvation. Democratic revolutions where to follow in USA and France, all of a sudden we were supposed to govern ourselves!
"Liberty Leading the People" by Eugène Delacroix Musée du Louvre, ParisAt the same time the industrial revolution and emerged with it a new wealthy and powerful upper class, "f
illed with a spirit of initiative, power and ambition." (Fromm 1941) These classes destroyed the medieval social structure and stimulated the emergence of a more modern individual. "
The masses who did not share the wealth and power of the ruling group had lost the security of their former status and had become a shapeless mass." (ibid) all these changes gave the individual a feeling of independence but, "
at the same time made him feel alone and isolated, filled him with doubt and anxiety, and drove him into a new submission and into a compulsive and irrational activity." (ibid)
After the bonds of security had been severed as a result of revolutionary changes in the social structure, human beings had to find means to overcome the feelings of powerlessness and aloneness. "
By one course he can progress to 'positive freedom'; he can relate himself spontaneously to the world in love and work, in the genuine expression of his emotional, sensuous, and intellectual capacities... The other course open to him is to fall back, to give up his freedom, and to try to overcome his aloneness by eliminating the gap that has arisen between himself and the world... This course of escape is characterized by its compulsive character, like every escape from threatening panic it is also characterized by the more or less complete surrender of individuality and the integrity of the self. Thus it is not a solution which leads to happiness and positive freedom."(ibid)
In the next post, we are going to examine the three defenses people use to “escape from freedom”. We are going to focus on particular form which is widely used in the Arabic world, explain the link between the use of these defences and the type of family structures that predispose to such defences use, and based on this model, explain Fromm’s account for the reasons behind the strive of the Nazis in Germany post WWI.
References:
Erich Fromm,
Escape From Freedom first published by Holt, Rineheart and Winston, New York, 1941.
C. George Boeree,
Personality theories, e-text (http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/perscontents.html)
Read More...
Summary only...
