I was not very shocked by al-Assad's speech in the Al-Osmaane Mosque to the Ministry of endowments, but it may have made me laugh a little bit because it was full of intellectual, historical, social and scientific paradoxes and fallacies. I was not surprised because I've already known that Bashar al-Assad and his regime are basically against liberalism, secularism and human rights, otherwise it would not have held up so far, Syria would not have been in this catastrophe, and he would not have committed all these massacres and violations against human rights since the beginning of the uprising in Syria until now if he had not had that mentality as he showed it in that sanctimonious sermon. However, I think that this sermon has to be analysed for the deluded people so far and for those who think recycling him globally might provide protection for minorities and that he is close to secularism which is the propaganda on which his mass media machine works.

Bashar al-Assad in his speech accused liberalism of moral decay and aiming to destroy societies, religions and being the cause of the war on Syria. In his comments, he stated his real positions against a number of human rights, for example, he is against promoting individualism which liberalism aims at. He only supports collectivism such as tribalism.

It is known that society develops only when its people develop and values ​​of citizenship and civil liberties are strengthened. Tribalism contradicts our humanitarian identity and our own individual identity which enables us to mature intellectually, humanly and cognitively, and it even contradicts citizenship. Al-Assad considered liberalism an enemy of the society providing examples about this saying that liberalism believes that a child has the right to choose the religion he wants when grows up but what should be according to al-Assad that he definitely has to follow the religion of his family or tribe.

This completely contradicts the principle of freedom of belief in the international human rights law. Al-Assad believes that secularism only means freedom of religions, therefore, it does not mean separating religion from the state but on the contrary, he said that the religious institution in Syria is a support to the army and part of the state. He also accused liberalism of being the cause of moral decay in the world saying that it was the reason for promoting and legalizing recreational drugs and same-sex marriage, hence he is against gay rights and considers their identity a part of the moral decay that he spoke about and linked it to the approval of same-sex marriage and this is also a violation against human rights. He also confuses the person's sex with their ​​gender.

Al-Assad also talked about the Arabism of Syria considering it a non-negotiable issue and connected "Arabism with Islam" with language in part of his speech, then he contradicted what he has said in another part saying that language and identity are two different things, especially when he attacked the pre-Islamic ancient Syriac identity of Syria saying that the Syrians used to speak Syriac but they were Arabs and he criticized that idea harshly. He rejected the existence of any civilization in Syria except the Arab civilization, not caring about the fact of the existence of other non-Arab ethnicities which have their own languages, civilizations and political systems, and which have existed in the region much before Islam and mixed later with other ethnicities or they were related to a common "Semitic" origin of the many peoples who inhabited the Arab region and the Levant including the Arameans, Arabs and others. Al-Assad did not care much about the fact of the existence of other ethnicities in Syria, and this means according to what he said that the Syriacs are Arabs and Assyrians are Arabs and all people in Syria are Arabs, even if they speak and write other languages, and even if history says something else.

Bashar al-Assad said that those who came out of the mosques at the beginning of the revolution were not necessarily Islamist. He literally said that many of them were atheists, and I (the writer) add that they were from all religions and beliefs, because the uprising in the beginning was popular and included all communities of the Syrian people, and there was no place to gather except in mosques and all attempts to get together outside them failed because of the repression of the government security to any gathering once it begins and arresting everyone in it and these are experiences I witnessed myself in Damascus at least. For those who forgot, Bashar al-Assad was promoting at that time that the uprising since the beginning was radical Islamist. Thus, do those brainwashed by the regime during that time remember what he said back then and what he is saying now?

In this speech, al-Assad clarified the identity of his regime in a way that leaves no room for doubt that this regime is dictatorial, not secular and based on centralism and chauvinism, does not respect human rights but he rather incites against anyone outside of the collectivist culture and does not respect the diverse cultures in the Syrian society. In his speech, he incited against liberals, atheists, secularists, homosexuals, and freedom of belief. All these indicate that he has no intention so far to change any constant on which this repressive regime has been based since it has been founded.

It is a regime that does not respect the identity of the non-Arab Syrian ethnicities, does not respect secularism or liberalism, but rather it incites Muslims against them by placing liberalism and secularism and their intellectuals and supporters in the place of the enemy who aims to destroy religion and spread moral decay, this what he said literally. The funny thing that the regime which brags about morals is the same regime which facilitates human trafficking by exploiting minors in nightclubs owned by those who are very loyal supporters in the suburbs of Damascus and elsewhere, it is the same regime which tortured and raped many arrested women, it is the same regime which impoverished people and killed them, it is the same regime which abused people and their property, and now its president comes to talk about morals, beliefs and values, and here he accuses, in his sanctimonious sermon, liberalism of promoting recreational drug and everyone knows that what the regime does inside and outside Syria perfectly matches with the ideology of the extremist religious ideologies which say about liberalism the same thing and stand against civil liberties, human rights, democracy and secularism and reject separating religion from the state.

By Rima Flihan