“The Arab spring is over: we are experiencing a hot summer,” says Father Paolo Dall’Oglio. “Whoever was able to complete this change in just a few weeks really hit the jackpot; Syria and Yemen, countries marked by complex social, cultural and religious situations, and Libya which has its own complexities, are all stuck mid-stream and risk drowning.” Speaking from the Monastery of Mar Musa in Syria, the Jesuit priest was commenting on the massacres carried out by the Syrian army, and said that “Syria must not be divided, because if it is, it will die.”
- Pope Benedict XVI used his Sunday Angelus address to call for peace in Syria and to urge the government there to respect “the legitimate aspirations” of its citizens. “I renew an urgent appeal to the Syrian authority and population, for peaceful coexistence to be restored as soon as possible and for an adequate response to the legitimate aspirations of the citizens, respecting their dignity, and for the benefit of regional stability,” the Pope told pilgrims gathered at his summer residence August 7.
- Another Jesuit, Father Samir Khalil Samir, a Vatican Arab scholar says “In reality, most Syrians are just fed up.” He thinks that even if a change in government creates the possibility of producing an Islamic regime, the West should embrace the need to oust the Assad regime.
- President Bashar al-Assad and the protesters seeking to bring him down seem locked in a mortal and painfully protracted struggle, says Margot Patterson in the London Tablet “But time is not on the side of the regime. The economy is crumbling, the regime is increasingly isolated by the international community, its credibility shredded both inside and outside the country, and the opposition is becoming better organised.”
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