Polish a Post

As a writer, I like to return to my past writings and see what can be changed. I believe that any written work, as formal as a political science research paper and as casual as a personal blog post, can always use some editing and rewriting. I was glad to find that the mini assignment for this week is polishing a past blog post of our blogs. I sifted through my first few blog posts in “Democracy in the News” because posts in that category generally were derived from other news articles. I knew that I had used less “I”s and personal opinions in the beginning, attempting to ‘report’ stories. Now that I know that the purpose of our blog in this class is to discuss politics from our very own perspectives, there are a few articles I’d like to edit. I chose the one on Arab League and Syria in particular, because I was honestly repulsed by the dryness of the tone and the lack of voice in the writing. I tried to add a more personal tone to the article in general, and began the article with a ‘hook’. This hook serves to capture the reader’s attention and give them a preview on what the rest of the post will be about.  I also changed the structure of some sentences, realizing that I tend to write very looooong sentences with lots of conjunctions. See the original post here.

— edited version.

I’m becoming more concerned as I read more about what the world is doing for Syria. The Arab League nations of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman gave Syria a deadline of this Thursday to change up its illiberal, undemocratic government. The Arab League nations have a mission in Syria to stop violence against civilians, release political prisoners, seize weapons from the cities, and establish more open travelling for foreigners. They also hope to convince the current Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to transfer his political power to his vice president and form a national unity government. They have made a clear request on forming a new constitutional council and holding parliamentary and presidential elections. I can sense a slight glimpse of hope that the Arab League is being proactive in this matter – because someone had to step up and do something. If the U.N. is failing to do it, it had to be the Arab League.

The League sent a letter to the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon proposing a national unity government. To me, it looks like the Arab League is serious and diplomatic about transitioning Syria into a more liberal democratic country. The Arab nations do not want military intervention, but want to gather international support through the United Nations Security Council. Will this be possible? We know the speed and efficiency at which the United Nations Security Council works – with major veto powers that can stop coalitions and countries from taking action. My guess is that China and Russia may not fully cooperate in the Security Council on this issue of helping the Arab League.

Nonetheless, as it always is with spreading democratic principles, the issue of national sovereignty arises. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said that the Arab League is violating the national sovereignty of Syria by intruding on its domestic matters. We have to ask ourselves, how much is too much then? When there are serious harms inflicted upon the people and foreign relations, I think it is necessary for the international community to step in. Arab League is definitely not trying to decrease Syrian sovereignty, but sees that solving the unhealthy political conditions in Syria is more important than completely letting Syria to be. Ask the international world what is their top priority: sovereignty, or saving the lives of innocent civilians.

Hopefully, the United Nations and the rest of the world will join the Arab League in efforts to deal with the situation in Syria – sooner than later.