First they came.....

A friend of mine asked me to speak in her class, mainly to talk about my twitter experience and citizen journalism, to a bunch of Journalism student in Bierzait University. I talked about twitter, facebook, blogs, etc and how we usually use them to pass news "ideas, and random thoughts too", and to campaign for actions such as Freedom waves "the 2 boats headed to Gaza about a month ago".

As part of my talks, I mentioned the protest we did in solidarity with the Egyptian revolution and how this protest were suppressed by the Palestinian Authority, and how someone tweet made it all the way to Al Jazeera. At this point one of the student said "ohh yaa, the PA suppressed them because they chanted for over throwing the regime!" -please note, we were not discussing the reason legitimacy of the protest and suppressing it- I didn't response to this remarks and went on Talking, yet in my mind I was thinking, Is Suppression excusable?

As I am writing those lines I remembered an incident happened during Jan25 revolution in Egypt, the Egyptian national TV as part of it's propaganda campaigns called several Egyptian celebrities asking them to comments on what was taking place in the Tahrir Square, an actress "Samah Anwar" during a phone calls said "Burn them all". Few weeks later, Mubarak steps down. When she was asked to comment on her earlier statement, she said "they told me the people there, were all Ekhwan(Muslim brotherhood)"

Burns them all

Those 2 separate events, Justifies suppression of protesters based ideas, believes, and faith. don't get me wrong, its the same everywhere, right wing, left wing, Muslim, Christians, Jews, Sunnah, Shiaa, Fatah, Hamas, Jabha, Ekhwan, Salafis, Wahabi, every group, everywhere support the suppression of the other group by the government mercenaries "also known as the Police". The will stand there look to the other group's suffering with a big smile, "you deserve it, for speaking against your master!". They all forget! Nothing last for ever.

In the other hand, many people who are no one master, the average person in the street, who cant care any less about what happening around him, and usually manipulated by corporate or regimes media such, the Egypt and Syrian TV's make a good "funny" examples.
Those people usually justify suppression by saying "they deserve it those Ekhwan are ruining the country!" as someone once commented on a friend status on facebook.  those "someones" doesn't ideologically hate the Ekhwan or any other group, those people were just mislead by the regime medias. With simple logic and a small reminder "Ideologies, faith and political affiliation is not an excuse for oppression" they will be brought back to the people path, or at least shutting them up.

In the end, will leave you with Martil Niemoller words, it might help you understand.

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Best

Ahmad