The human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tawakkol Karman today delivered a speech at the International Conference "The Way Starts Here… The Will To Live For Building The Syrian Society”

organized by Lebanon-based Basamat Foundation for Development in Istanbul during the period 22-23 May. In the presence of Turkish deputy prime minister Omer Faruk Korkmaz, about 400 people from 12 countries of the world participated in this major event that was aimed to discuss mechanisms of recovery and advancement of the Syrian society at home and neighboring countries. The text reads as follows: 

At the outset, I would like to express my sincere thanks for inviting me to participate in the conference for Syria. Syria is a country struggling for its freedom, independence and dignity without fear or despair. I apologize for not being able to attend due to other commitments.

 

Dear friends, 

A few days ago, my attention was drawn by Foreign Policy magazine’s article titled: Syria has effectively ceased to exist. It seems that the war and the interventions of by East and West in order to prolong the life of a brutal regime like al-Assad’s have produced these endless ruins. I am not here to discuss such an issue or to focus on what is being dealt with in Western and Arabic media, but I eagerly want to say that Syria is an ancient country, and deserves to live in peace and freedom. It is shameful to allow a fascist regime to commit the harshest and ugliest violations against civilians.

Bashar al-Assad's regime believes that it is immune to punishment, therefore it commits its crimes with a cruelty rarely seen in history, relying on Iranian militias and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia as well as on military support by Russia. On the other hand, there is an unmistakable Western and Arab collusion. What is happening to the Syrian people will be remembered by the world as a major crime carried out with the knowledge of the international community. 

 

My dears, 

I am not here to remind you of the crimes of Bashar Assad's regime, as the list is very long and you know it and the victims as well as you know your names. I am also not here to tell you about the regime’s horrendous detention centers and explosive barrels, or about the megalomaniac seizures the regime has whenever it hears the word of human rights. Rather, I am here to say something important: the Assad regime will pay a heavy price for what it has done, as tyrants fall faster than they expect.

Syrians will undoubtedly make a miracle, coming out of the cycle of violence and triumphing over tyranny and terrorism together. Autocracy and terrorism benefit from each other, and an end must be put to them. We would never accept to choose between dictatorship or terrorist groups. We reject both of them.

For us, it’s a principled position to be against despotism and terrorism, and no one in this world could ever convince us that either of them deserves our support.

 

Dear brothers and sisters, 

Western governments are scrambling to prevent Syrian refugees from reaching their countries. I would like to say to these governments: If you in Europe did not collude with regimes like the Assad regime, if you helped the Syrian people build a democratic state that respects human rights, if you -being consistent with slogans you raise- stood against the crimes of Bashar al-Assad and prevented the flow of terrorists into Syrian territory, you and we would have been better off.

The world is paying the price for abandoning the Syrian people, and this price will double in size within the coming months and years. The Syrian regime along with the allied states and terrorist groups are determined to exterminate a whole people in order to keep one person in power; in order to remain the president while people go to hell. What a nasty deal!

 

Dear brothers and sisters, 

You are facing an unjust war in Syria, which is aimed at turning you into slaves after being free, but this would never happen. A day will come when your dawn breaks without Bashar al-Assad and his forces; I have never heard that a dictator has defeated his people.

As you know, there are persistent attempts to put forth unfair solutions allowing Bashar al-Assad to continue in power, and carry out insignificant reforms and hold farcical elections. They think they could deceive us. They imagine they could restore al-Assad’s legitimacy, which is drowned in oceans of Syrian blood, by making sham reforms to the regime.

Any proposals emphasizing to keep Bashar al-Assad in office are incompatible with justice and equity, and are against the future. The continuation of Bashar al-Assad in office means only the continuation of division and grievances, and this should not be accepted. The continuation of Bashar al-Assad in his post is an attack on humanity.

I know that our wounds along the Arab Spring map are severe, and I also know how the last years have been full of sorrows and losses. The whole world keeps seeing with its own eyes what is happening. But despite all of this, we remain unbreakable peoples.

 

Brothers and sisters, 

After six years of Arab Spring, and of the counter-revolutions that have pursued methods of killing and destruction, torture and displacement, we must ask why all this should happen?

We all know that the followers of authoritarian regimes do not lack the audacity to accuse the Arab Spring of being part of a global conspiracy targeting the Arab and Islamic countries and the main reason behind these wars and chaos engulfing the region.

Yes, we have heard this nonsense and lies for six years, but this has never undermined our determination because we know that our revolutions were devoted to the principles of democracy, freedom and citizenship without any discrimination, and to respect for the law that was not respected under these despotic regimes.

It is our right to live free in our countries; we are not slaves to anyone, and we have the right to choose who governs just like the world’s countries, as we are not belongings inherited, or are not incompetent so that we need to be ordered what to do without objection.

The Arab Spring represented the unity of the Arab peoples in the aspiration to establish democratic states on the ruins of countries of terror, nepotism, corruption and dependence on foreigners. This has caused the anger of the regimes of oppression and corruption, which keep trying to extinguish the light of the Arab Spring and break its free will.

The wheel of change has already turned in our countries and will not stop unless an end is put to a whole world of tyranny, repression, prisons, oppression, arrogance, discrimination and corruption.

This bloody and difficult labor reveals the volume of ruins under the surface of deceptive stability, which has always been presented in the past as a justification for the exchange of freedom and democracy by the world order dominated by the major powers. 

The Arab Spring has begun a historic process that does not end by simply removing the head of tyranny and corruption. Rather, it is a long process of reshaping awareness about freedom, dignity, equality, policy and state building and public assembly.

Countering the counterrevolution is only a round of the popular revolution which started spontaneously as if it were one of the natural phenomena that need nobody’s permission and advance arrangements to take place, or stop to occur for fear of difficulties, obstacles and high prices.

It is our great battle for freedom, dignity, justice, democracy and equality, and all of this can be summed up in one word: the Arab Spring.

I am increasingly confident that we will win in the end. We would never fall in front of an alliance of killers. I strongly believe that we will successfully pass through this stage. I’m here not to sell you the illusion.  

I trust our strength and the justice of our cause, and understand that the tyrants win for a while, but they always lose. I have no doubt that we will win in the end; no one is greater than the people, no one is greater than you, trust that God is with you and will not abandon you, trust in your ability to achieve the desired change, and build a nation that respects human rights without discrimination.

For me, I have no doubt that this will happen...