The people of the Gulf made up their mind with regards to Syria’s crisis, despite their relative insignificance, and decided to send an open message of concern and protest. This was followed by a stronger and clearer message from Saudi Arabia as the country’s leader, King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, sent a decisive message to the Syrians, holding Syria’s regime directly accountable for the massacres being committed over there. His Majesty crowned his message with the recall of the Saudi Ambassador in Damascus for consultation.

This stance boosted the morale of the Syrian revolutionaries, and sapped that of the Syrian regime.

However, this is not the crux of the matter. Saudi Arabia’s stance has become common knowledge to everyone. The response from the Syrian regime’s followers is not the issue either, nor is the media discourse of the regime. Direct and indirect attempts have been made by the regime’s supporters and followers to attack the Gulf States in general, and Saudi Arabia in particular. This is normal and expected; there is nothing surprising about it.

What’s worthy of notice in the responses of the regime and its followers, whether they were Syrians or from other Arab nationalities, are the implicit threats of blackmailing the Gulf people through raising the Gulf Shiite issue and stirring up the sectarian question, especially in Bahrain which has already gone through the worst on that account.

In other words, the Syrian regime’s discourse wants to say: Keep silent about our massacres in Hama, Homs, Deir ez-Zor, Daraa, Rif Dimashq and Latakia, among other Syrian cities, and don’t utter a word of protest, and in return we will trade your silence with our silence on the Gulf Shiite issue. This is an immoral twist of the arm.

The political and moral stance we have been calling upon the Gulf States to take on the Syrian crisis is not a barter trade, but rather a moral obligation. To an equal degree, it is also a practical political necessity. By condemning the massacres being committed in Syria, the people of the Gulf are also protecting themselves.

The blackmail threat embedded in the authoritarian Syrian media discourse, manipulating the Shiite issue in the Gulf States, is nothing but cheap blackmail. In brief, all of us, or most of us, working in the media, have called for and will continue to defend rights of equality and citizenship for all components of the Gulf people. We have called for combating religious sectarian discourse, and what happened in Bahrain was never welcomed by anyone. The situation there is radically different from that in Syria; the problem is not the same. The way Bashar al-Assad rose to power in Syria is not similar to the way the rulers of Bahrain have ascended the throne. Tanks have been knocking down buildings full of people, and besieging cities for weeks in Syria; this did not happen in Bahrain. Nevertheless, the Bahraini ruling authority was criticized by many Gulf intellectuals, and was only spared further action when it opened a national dialogue and formed a fact-finding committee. The strong connection between Iran’s guidance and a broad segment, but not all, of Shiite opposition in Bahrain is crystal clear. It is suffice here to mention Hassan Mushema as an example. In spite of all that, there is no excuse for making mistakes. No matter how much we talk about mistakes being made in this or that Gulf State, there is just no comparison between those mistakes and the misdeeds and crimes of the killing machine operating violently and ferociously in Syria, through the security battalions of Maher al-Assad and those like him.

It is so low and unethical for the followers of the Syrian regime’s dictatorial discourse to barter the massacres they are committing against their own people with the Shiite minority issue in the Gulf States. It is cheap political and immoral blackmail which degrades the Gulf citizens’ demands and undermines the Syrian people’s blood in a market trade-off. This is the simplest way to describe it.