Adonis about Syria

This is a very long letter addressed by Adonis to the Syrian opposition.  Adonis has a way of writing where he basically tells the reader in the preface something to the effect of: look, reader.  I have something very profound and deep that I am about to say.  And then you read what he wrote not to find what is deep and profound.  He basically is saying that toppling the Syrian regime does not do the job and does not solve the problems of Syria: Syrian opposition will be very disappointed in the letter because it may be interpreted as a recipe for the preservation of the regime, although he gives a blueprint for change in Syria which basically concentrates on one thing only: secularism and separation of religion and state.  He faults the Ba`th Party for not pushing secularism, but I think the Ba`th party failed in delivering on ALL of its slogan: unity? freedom?  socialism? Rami Makhluf is socialism, Ba`thist style.  But Adonis (as much as I like a hard-line stance on secularism and on taking on religion head on), seems to reduce all of the region's problems to the hod of religion.  He, for example, laments the power of the tribe/clan and fallaciously links that phenomenon with religion.  That has nothing to do with religion: if anything, tribes often resisted religion and clerics.  Tribes were about to be defeated in the post-independent eras (especially in Syria and Iraq) but you can't discount the role of foreign powers (look how much the US spent in Iraq to revive tribal powers) and the role of Saudi cash (look at Yemeni tribes) and look at the power of Syrian and Iraqi Ba`thist regimes which, having lost so much legitimacy, fell on supporting the tribes.  Look at the tribal elders sitting in the Syrian puppet parliament (personally, I so detest tribal elders and have an aversion to seeing them in any gathering (they were present in the Syrian opposition meeting in Antalia).  Tribal elders represent all that is rotten in our culture and they are regression, by definition.  The tribes were the elements that were used by foreign occupation (from Palestine to Afghanistan).  In sum, I appreciate the secular stance of Adonis but there is more to the story.  Gender equality is not guaranteed, for example, by secularism unless one considers the rule of Enver Hoxa to be ideal for women.