Living In My Own World

Somebody poke me: the government of Syria has made the move to block Facebook inside their borders.

According to sources speaking with Reuters, the official statement from officials is that they fear “Facebook could become a conduit for Israeli penetration of our youth”.  Critics of the government say that it is really to cut off access to the outside world. 

“Facebook helped further civil society in Syria and form civic groups outside government control. This is why it has been banned,” women’s rights advocate Dania al-Sharif told Reuters.

One Syrian confirmed on Digg.com that the block is in fact true, and that when he tries to log onto Facebook he gets the following message:

ERROR
The requested URL could not be retrieved
Requested URL:http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?
Error message: Access Denied
Administrator: webmaster@190.sy 

The “official” statement blames it on Israel, but as another Digger bluntly commented:

“Oh yeah, you wouldn’t want Israeli kids and Syrian kids to interact. I mean can you imagine? They might grow up to throw all the old racist, bigoted, war loving politicians out in both counties and actually get along in the future…Can’t f*ckin’ have that man. Gotta keep teaching them to hate each other otherwise who will they blame for all their left inflicted religious, social and economic problems?”

or as another digger puts it:

“It is sooooo typical of Syria to blame everything on Israel when in reality they just want to keep their community as ignorant as possible so they can control it better. just sad.”

or my personal favorite:

“Israel should just send a ‘friend request’ to Syria.”

So Syria can try as hard as they want - and they are definitely trying, including blocking off Hotmail and other websites - but the truth of the matter is that any person who truly wants to speak out and get heard, will always find a way to speak out and get heard.

That’s why it seems to me that dictorial regimes cannot last for long, once the people they seek to control and govern understand that they are the “oneness” that holds such governments together.

Or as Neale Donald Walsch puts it, in his book, Tomorrow’s God: Our Greatest Spiritual Challenge:

This is exactly what has already happened in the former Soviet Union. The people there understood that their solidarity was where the power was, not with the government, and so an oppressive government was ultimately dismantled, because it could not survive.  It was glasnost and perestroika that opened the door for this.

The same thing is what brought down the Berlin Wall, ended the regime of Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia, and truncated the reign of countless dictatorial, oppressive governments and leaders.

Dictatorships will never be possible when the mass of the people are educated in, and embrace the basic principles of [freedom] and people will accept nothing less when they realize that freedom is the natural state of all things.

So call me a dreamer, or call me crazy, but I can only hope and pray that the people of these countries will continue to find ways to educate themselves and others, and that the light of freedom will one day shine upon their people.