Nidal Binni was up all night on his Twitter account relaying news of the Libyan rebel advance into Tripoli, but as he shared the Libyan people’s joy for overthrowing Muammar Gaddafi his thoughts were also elsewhere.
“It’s your turn now Syria: freedom,” he tweeted just after midnight yesterday when it was clear the rebels had secured most of Tripoli and captured two of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s sons.
The Syrian-born businessman, 47, who closely follows Arab and Middle Eastern affairs, does not doubt that Syria’s dictator Bashar al-Assad will be the next one to go and the only question pending is the price the Syrian people will have to pay to remove him.
The violent military crackdown in Syria has continued despite Mr Assad on Sunday saying that parliamentary elections will be held in February. It was a speech that hit out at Western leaders, who last week asked him to step down. And while warning the West that military action against Syria will backfire, Mr Assad also spoke of reforms.
Mr Binni carries a heavy heart over the atrocities being perpetrated against the Syrian people but smiles at the mention of the word reform.
“You cannot reform a dictatorship. You carry out reforms in a democracy,” he says, adding that Syrians wanted their dignity back.
Having left Syria 25 years ago to flee the oppressive regime, he says that the football grounds where he used to play as a child have been turned into prison camps for dissenters and protesters.
“Syrians are fed up,” he says, sitting at a table in front of St John’s Co-Cathedral, Valletta, while fiddling with his mobile phone to make sure he does not miss out on any information relayed via Twitter.
“My dream has always been to see this happen. I thank God for allowing me to witness this event. I am happy because freedom is just around the corner but I am also sad because many are suffering torture and oppression.”
With the Nato mission in Libya nearing its end, Mr Binni insists the international community has to do more to help the Syrian people. He says Syria has been an active member of the international community by participating in various UN missions, including the first Gulf War when Iraq invaded Kuwait.
“Now the Syrian people expect the international community to help them,” he says, comparing the fall of Arab dictators to the collapse of Communism in the early 1990s. “Assad will go, like many other dictators before him.”
Mr Binni says Mr Assad is blaming the unrest on terrorists and extremists. It is the same excuse Col Gaddafi used.
“These are excuses of a dictator whose time is up and people today have greater access to information, which makes them less prone to being fooled,” Mr Binni says. He shakes the hand of a Libyan man who happens to pass by and greets him with a smile. But as he shares the joy of seeing Col Gaddafi go, Mr Binni also yearns for that moment when change will reach his homeland too.