President Al-Assad: The most dangerous thing that might face the Arab region is the loss of identity

DAMASCUS, Jul.28, (ST)-President Bashar Al-Assad received on Thursday the participants in the meetings of The Permanent Office of the General Union of Arab Writers and Intellectuals, which are being held in Damascus.

The president said that talking with intellectuals and writers means talking with the mind of the nation and the mind of the people, stressing keenness to meet with popular organizations and unions because this reflects the true image of the Arab people and expresses the pulse of the Arab street, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).

President al-Assad added that the most dangerous thing that might face the Arab region is the loss of identity, and what is taking place in Syria is not a war on it in the narrow meaning, but we have to look at this war in the largest meaning which is a war on belonging.

He also affirmed that part of the war that we are facing is related to the terms that are being circulated by the West, as there are intellectuals in our region who did not realize the danger of these terms and therefore could not analyze them. “It is necessary to reconnect these terms with the content that fit our thought, our belonging , and with Arabism in its general and comprehensive civilized sense.”

The president stressed the importance of dialogue between intellectuals since we must not separate thought from politics and society, and we must think about what is the universal personality that we are working on in order to build people and enhance belonging to the land and countries.

He went on to say: “More work must be done to support the intellectual, we must work on the issue of raising the level of  society from an intellectual point of view, so that the educated person will not in a place and the citizen is in other place.”

For their part, the Arab writers said that their presence in Syria is not only for holding a periodic meeting, but to talk about Arabism in the comprehensive and civilized sense that embraces all, and to discuss the Arab situation and the issues of the nation.

They added that the idea which is being circulated about the Arab peoples’ support for  normalization is misleading and incorrect because when the heads and members of the Arab Writers Unions came from 12 Arab countries to Syria to take part in meetings  under the title “Writers for Arabism,” this proves that the conscience of the nation is still fine, considering that the victory of Syria is a victory for the entire nation, because Syria is Syria of thought, Syria of resistance and Syria of history.

Basma Qaddour