The Street shouts its slogans, tears its garments and wails the loss of The Great Man. While in private, those who still hope for peace and freedom sigh a prudently concealed sigh of relief, and maybe even of hope. It's such a familiar, self-deluding scene. No matter how expected, no matter how long the dictator is described as ailing, no matter whether he is styled Stalin or Mao or the Maximum Leader or the Lion of Damascus, no matter how elaborate the official rites, or how long the official and only official days of mourning, the feeling is always the same when a tyrant is no more. It is as if a stone had been lifted.
Human mortality can be a saving thing.
There is mourning and there is only official mourning. And hope, however fragile, is born anew in the heart of those longing to be free. Despite what the pundits and politicos say about the dangers ahead. For now the talk is about the danger to stability that Hafez al-Assad's death may bring, as if the Mideast had ever been stable. But this being the Middle East, of course, things could get worse.