Four governments and a half...and more to come

Announcements of a transitional government in Syria have increased, spreading like fever in the body. The Syrian National Council has formed a special committee to form its government after its last meeting in Doha. The Free Syrian Army anticiapted this move by announcing the formation of a government led by Melhem Droubi, in which Burhan Ghalioun - the most prominent Syrian opposition figure, known accademic and chronic expatriate – was given the portfolio of expatriate affairs. Haitham Maleh, the old (snippy) opposition figure, was falling apart with a group of friends and company to form a third govenment led by himself. At the same time the Hollywood rising star (a brigadier, and son of a brigadier) Manaf Tlas was travelling between Riyadh, Paris and Ankara in a feverish attempt to convince those capitals of his elgibility to form a transitional government under his leadership, as if he were saying your leaders in Jaahiliyyah (pre-islamic ignorance) are your leaders in Islam,  even if illiterate (obviously mocking the original saying “your leaders in Jaahiliyyah are your leaders in Islam,  if literate”), and whoever is born with a "golden spoon" in his mouth bought by the money stolen and looted by his father, can’t settle for less than leadership, even if he joined the opposition for just one day! Besides all this, it was natural that Syrian Kurds move in their own way; so they formed committees and boards to manage areas where they had a heavy presence, announcing the formation a semi-autonomous government of "West Kurdistan", where Iraqi Kurdistan leader Massoud Barzani supports a group of them. The Kurdistani Workers Party (PKK) meawhile has influence over the other group...and most probably the Syrian Kurds will form in the next phase more than one government, as other less organised and supported minorities will do. Of course, these governments and half governments didn’t satisfy the oppositions of Syria, which united their efforts in organisations, committees, public and local authorities and independent figures to "withhold confidence" from all of them; setting impossible conditions for those who will bear this task. Perhaps the most important of them is that he should be resident in Syria,meaning that whoever should take this responsibility shouldn’t be a part of the external opposition. Soon more governments will unfold, which will have names and addresses that are parallel to the dozens of blocks and aggregates of Syrian opposition, the oppositions which couldn’t meet under one roof in era of the revolution, will not succeed in doing that while crawling towards power, or at least that’s how it looks like. As history taught us that revolution unites people, power divides them, but the Syrian experience refuses to be an exception. So, it breaks the general rule where division is the master of the situation in case of either revolution or power.  The division and fragmentation will both worsen and become more complex as will the difference in the interests and calculations of the regional and international players who have in hand the taps of financial and military support. We know as you my dear readers know that who pays for the piper, decides the melody, and the time of playing, that’s where many of the Syrian opposition groups ended. The struggle has turned into a business, envied by even the intelligent and skilled merchants of Aleppo. The truth is that the frequent news about the "breeding" of transitional governments in "wholesale" took me back 10 years, when a friend of mine called me congratulating my appointment as Minister of Information in a Palestinian Government in exile, whose formation was announced by the Jordanian doctor of Palestinian origins, Dr Jihad Barghouti. On this day, I couldn’t find words to respond to the abovementioned friend, because I was really lost in the differentiation between the congratulations and the insult in his morning call. There will be a transitional government for Syria, but we don’t know when, how, who will form it and who it will be formed of... where you want take Syria from and to where. Many of their excellencies, the "rebels" who drooled and raced after the glamour of positions and privileges will probably not its members...as Syria deserves better. --- The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.