In Eastern Ghouta, near Damascus, an estimated 400,000 people are reported trapped, under a siege by pro-Syrian government forces since 2013. In addition to severe shortages of food, fuel, and medicines, there are more than 600 critically sick and wounded patients urgently need to be evacuated for treatment. It was reported that a total of 401 people, including 103 children and 69 women, had now died in Eastern Ghouta since the Syrian regime stepped up its assault on 29 December. We are now in February 2018.
Panos Moumtz the UN’s regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria crisis warned, “Humanitarian diplomacy is failing,” he said.”We are not able to reach the conscience or the ears of politicians, of decision makers, of people in power.”
The reality is clear. This brutal offensive by the Syrian regime is supported by Russia, Iran and the complicity of the neighboring regimes due to their inaction – all with the blessing of America. So it is inevitable that any steps for a cessation of this brutality towards a settlement will not touch the conscience or penetrate the ears or limbs of those that only listen and work to achieve political objectives, irrespective of the human cost.
Therefore, Sweden and Kuwait requesting a meeting of the top UN body on the 7th February as Syrian government forces continue to shell rebel-held Eastern Ghouta is an empty gesture. The UN only moves in the orbit of the dictates and influence of the foreign policies of the powerful members of the Security Council – with hands that are stained with the blood of the innocent in Syria.
The new world order has been nothing more but an extension of the old colonial order, with America at its helm – and the likes of Britain, China, and Russia biting at her heels – at a time of growing political fault lines around the world. Syria (and its very creation as a nation-state) is just another victim of this world order. It was not the first and will not be the last – unless a unique political will upon a different ideological foundation and vision is established to stand, challenge and counter the existing world order.
Such a political will can only arise from the Muslims – for it can only originate from Islam – and as this will began to resonate and take root amongst the Muslims in Syria – it was brutally countered, as we have witnessed. But this desire only grows amongst the Muslims and will not stop until the goal is reached.
Syria will be a dark chapter in history. It will be recorded as neocolonial greed and the treachery and inaction of the rulers across the Muslim world. However, InshAllah, it will also mark the era where the Islamic political will was realized and manifest in the re-establishment of the Khilafah, upon the Prophetic method.
