One of SouthFront volunteers Orsat Spajić recently won a competition from rhetoric and he dedicates his win to all the Syrian people who are suffering, all the victims of war, as well as their president Bashar al Assad. The articles he wrote and contributed to SouthFront so far are located here.
Text by Orsat Spajić; translated by Mario Andrijasevic
Below is the translation of Orsat’s speech which brought him the well-deserved 1st place:
Introduction
Hello. I am Orsat Spajić, I am a student at Grgur Ninski rhetoric school. Dear mentors and colleagues, I am glad that we are gathered here together and that you have given me the opportunity to speak and explain in this short time the problem of war in Syria.
First time when ‘I familiarized myself’ with the Syrian war was back in high school. I remember, still being young and naive back then, reading sensationalist headlines of daily newspapers on the so-called ‘rebels’, ‘fighters for freedom and democracy’, to conquer city after city in Syria and in upheaval of the Arab spring they rose up against the so-called dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Like most of the West I had sympathy for them, but as time passed by, I grew older and became more wiser, I started to wondered – is the situation really as the mainstream media reports? Later, as a student in media I’ve learned that in journalism you have to be objective, truthful, neutral and transparent, but the reports on the events in Syria have been everything but so.
Main part
What I want to emphasize is that the West must support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. There are two key reasons for that. The first is that he is the legitimate president who was elected by the Syrian people in the presidential election, and the other reason is that the Syrian Arab Army is the only military force that stopped the so-called Islamic State from proceeding to the West, which means the proceeding to the eastern Mediterranean and forward into Europe.
Since the beginning of his first term, President Bashar al-Assad enjoys great support of the population, because he was the guarantor of peace, security, and survival of religious and ethnic minorities, and for all other groups of which there are many in Syria, such as Alawites, Christians, Druze, Kurds, Assyrians, as well as the two most prominent Islamic groups – Shiites and Sunnis.
It is worth mentioning that Syria has a secular constitution and that sharia law is prohibited. Syria is the only country on the Arabian Peninsula where the percentage of Christians is 10 percent. Religious tolerance is unique to that country and women are not obliged to wear the burqa, while CNN female reporters must veil while giving statements from the occupied territory.
Another proof of the stability of his government is reflected in the functioning of institutions in the country over areas controlled by the government. They have running hospitals, schools, companies, banks, universities, the police, while this is not the case for the occupied areas controlled by the so-called Islamic State and other terrorist factions.
The violent overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad would create a vacuum for the strengthening and expansion of the so-called ‘Islamic State’ and other terrorist factions, because his army forced the Islamic State and other terrorists from the offensive to the defensive, so now they’re covering themselves up and defend.
The defeat of the Syrian Arab Army would mean the expansion of the territory under the control of the Wahhabis who would occupy the entire Syria and then Lebanon, so the terrorists would be just another step closer to Europe.
Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Barack Obama, said the following: “I think Assad will have to step down so the bloodshed in the country will stop.”
This statement simply does “not hold water”, because information from the field show that Assad and the Kurds are the ones who defend themselves from Islamic State and other terrorist factions such as Al Qaeda, and these criminal organizations are the ones which carried out a bloodbath and are responsible for over 250,000 dead, while overall economic losses amount to a whopping 260 billion US dollars, the report said in the Guardian.
In summary
When after five years of exhaustive war Bashar al-Assad and the suffering Syrian people found themselves exhausted in a hopeless situation and in danger that the whole Syria falls into the hands of the Wahhabis, based on the legitimate call of the President of Syria, Russia has come to defend the Syrian people and all minorities, which were in danger.
To quote Pope Francis, who a month ago said: “Only Putin is protecting Christians around the world.” Obviously he, unlike many other politicians in the world, takes the threat of Islamic fundamentalists seriously and understands that Syria is now like a powder keg.
Now when we are all gathered here I urge all of you to explore the truth behind the Syrian war, not to rely on the mainstream media, but to scratch deep below the surface and dig, so you will realize the complexity and seriousness of the issue yourselves. Just like Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin realized. At the very end I have to mention his statement that was remembered, and it goes like this: “To forgive the terrorists is up to God, but it is up to me to send them to him.” Thank you for your attention.