04.04.2012

Support the Syrian fight for freedom

Tarabut-Hithabrut, the Tel Aviv-based "Arab-Jewish movement for social and political change", takes on leftwing objectors to the Syrian uprising

We, the Tarabut-Hithabrut movement, support unequivocally the Syrian people in their struggle for their liberty and their rights.

There are those who say that the situation in Syrian and the wider regional reality is complex, and they are right. However, we want to directly address the various objections raised against taking a position in favour of the democratic uprising of the Syrian people.

There are those who say that the Syrian regime is anti-imperialist and comprises the last barrier to western domination in our region.

The Ba’ath Party in Syria is a corrupt regime of a small group of super-wealthy and powerful people who control enormous amounts of capital, which was stolen directly out of the pockets of the Syrian people. This ruling junta is not motivated by anti-imperialist ideals and can serve neither as a model for these ideas nor as a defender of socialism. Although this regime is in a confrontation with Israel and the United States, a series of events such as the Gulf War show that the regime’s positions on international affairs are not consistent or principled, but opportunistic. In addition, the cold war is long over and the regime has since become friendly to Putin’s Russia, which is, it must be emphasised, a capitalist, authoritarian government with its own imperialist ambitions. In addition the regime is supported by the new empire, China, which is equally devoid of scruples or constraints.

Protestors against the regime are pawns in an imperialist plot

The uprising in Syria started in Dar’a when a group of parents protested when the security forces jailed and tortured their children for daring to write “The people demand the overthrow of Bashar” on their school building’s wall. Insults and humiliations directed towards the children’s parents and local leaders triggered the mass protests. The protests that spread throughout the country were inspired by the successful democratic uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. We cannot forget this.

There are also foreign forces that are trying to take advantage of the situation and ride the wave of Syrian protestors, but this does not turn the protestors themselves into pawns or agents of imperialism. The source of the protest is in the Syrian situation itself. Syria has no official statistics and no trustworthy data, but Syrians are well aware that even before the protests the unemployment rate was incredibly high and since then it has only worsened. Many people could only make a livelihood by joining the oppression and investigation apparatus of the regime or by supplementing their income by collaborating with them.

Most of the population can only survive their day-to-day lives through bribery, where they must receive and take bribes in order to live and get a hold of basic goods and services. Syrian voices demanding fundamental change have grown steadily louder and the masses have started to shake themselves free of their fear. The Syrian people are the source of the present protest and any consideration of this issue must begin with them: their rights, their suffering and their legitimate demands.

The Syrian regime defends the Palestinian resistance

The Syrian regime has a special security force whose purpose is to monitor and oppress the political activism of the Palestinian refugees who live there. The regime does not allow any political activity that does not conform to the regime. Regime dissidents are ‘disappeared’ and murdered. Syria has 19 different security forces who have one goal: to eliminate any threat to the regime.

From a historical point of view, the Assad family’s support for Palestinian organisations always came with preconditions. The Syrian army massacred Palestinians several times during its wars in Lebanon (Tel Al Zaatar, Tripoli) and of course, the regime acted again and again to divide the Palestinian national movement (its support for Abu Musa in Lebanon and encouragement of the war between Hamas and Fatah are only two of the most obvious cases) and by doing this they blocked the Palestinian national movement’s ability to make decisions independently.

The social protest is primarily a struggle between ethnic groups. The regime defends ethnic minorities and especially the Alawi population, which might suffer from a Sunni takeover.

There are inter-ethnic tensions in Syria, which sometimes result in hate crimes and revenge attacks. But the current regime is not an Alawi regime. The security force, known as ‘Al Shabiha’ (literally ‘ghosts’ - thugs that drive Mercedes cars that the regime pays for), is a security force established by the Ba’ath party whose goal is to suppress resistance and political activity among the Alawis.

Because Assad finds it problematic to use the standing army and the official security forces against his own community, he established an additional security force which is above the law. Many Alawi opposition leaders have been murdered by the regime and its agents, and many Alawis are in the opposition’s ranks today. Al Shabiha has been trying to exacerbate inter-ethnic tensions in recent months, and this is also the purpose of the recent attacks in Christian neighbourhoods, whose perpetrators are not known. This has no connection to the protests against the regime, in which members of all ethnic groups have taken part.

A large part of the Syrian people supports the regime - as many as oppose it, if not more.

In a dictatorial regime, there is not much meaning attached to citizens demonstrating in favour of the regime. Decades of dictatorial rule break down the social structure and prevent the emergence of local leadership. Every citizen who shows signs of leadership is in danger of being eliminated by the government. Other citizens know this and live in fear.

The same TV networks that publicised the ‘support protests’ also broadcast citizens kissing Bashar Al Assad’s photograph and declaring, “There is no god but Bashar”, while soldiers are standing on their back with a gun pointed at their head. If we examine our own history, we will remember that, before the first Palestinian intifada, Israeli TV would film Palestinian merchants and passers-by in the West Bank answering “yes” to a question by an Israeli journalist about whether they are happy, and a firm “no” when asked if they had any political problems. To see these expressions of support as something authentic is to be blind to the deep fear and oppression in Syrian society in light of these forced expressions of support by frightened citizens.

It is important to emphasise how paralysed the political system is, even though it is dependent on the regime: until now, after a whole year of protests, there has not been a single statement of support for the regime published by any local branch of the Ba’ath party or the artificial parties affiliated to it under the ‘National Progressive Front’.

Opposition to the Assad regime is armed and therefore not popular and not legitimate

Among the protestors there are those that use weapons. However, the strongest and clearest voice that has emerged from the protests in Syria from their very beginning is one that speaks of non-violent revolution and resistance. There is evidence that armed groups of rebels have also committed war crimes and murdered civilians - we condemn such crimes to the same degree that we condemn the regime’s crimes. Behind these crimes there may be different interests, but their background is a decades-long oppression that has prevented the establishment of a democratic political culture.

Concerning the question of the legitimacy of the armed resistance movement, let us not forget that Syria, like the countries that support it, arms and supports other armed organisations in other countries. Those who oppose the Syrian resistance because it is armed and support other armed resistance movements unconditionally are operating under a double standard.

It is not our purpose in this article to pass moral or ideological judgment as to whether the use of violence in order to rebel against an even more violent regime is justified or not, but history has proven to us numerous times that the weapons of the resistance have eventually been turned onto civilians, whether after the victory or on the way to it.

What about international intervention?

Today, after months of widespread protest and economic crisis, the current regime is being kept alive today only through the fulsome assistance of other states, such as China, Russia and Iran. This is also a form of international intervention in the affairs of the Syrian people.

We oppose international military intervention. Wherever such intervention has taken place, the consequences have been dire. The powers that intervene militarily do not do this out of their dedication to the well-being of the world’s freedom-seeking people, but rather in pursuit of their own economic and strategic interests. There are numerous examples in both space and time, not least Iraq and Libya. Nothing good comes to the world’s people from imperial military intervention, and there has never been a ‘Robin Hood’ armed with combat jets that will faithfully prevent massacres without massacring and plundering himself. This has been true especially for the US and Nato, but not only them. Obviously, any Turkish intervention would also not be on behalf of the Syrian people, but rather for the suppression of the Kurds and in the interest of the Turkish establishment. Different competing local organisations can invite foreign imperialist intervention - that is the way that it has always been. Every foreign military intervention is always carried out under the cover of a local organisation that invites it.

The question is not who is more cruel in bombing civilians - the western powers or the local dictators. From a humanitarian point of view, all bombings are equal. But from the point of view of the long-term consequences of military intervention, the consequences of the initiation by local and foreign powers of pseudo-legitimate military activity in the region are totally different. It is a terrible blow to a people fighting for their freedom. Since at least the 19th century, western powers have been invading different countries to save the poor indigenous peoples from themselves. The argument about the cruel locals who slaughter each other is not new. This is how it was done in Africa, in Asia - and even Israel has tried it. We must not fall into the trap of foreign military intervention in the name of the ‘humanitarian ideals’ of an enlightened elite.

What will happen when the regime falls? A worse regime will rise in its place.

It is not for us to decide in the place of the Syrian people. The masses have flooded the streets and they are demanding the end of the current regime. There is no way of knowing what will happen the day after the regime falls. It is very likely that there will be additional, painful struggles.

We too are concerned by a potential rise of an Islamic, intolerant regime or a puppet regime ruled by the US, or perhaps a regime that will continue the current state of affairs under a different cover. There is a big chance that this is exactly what will happen. However, it is the Syrian people’s prerogative to create the alternative and to judge its merit.

There have been many examples of revolutions erupting in order to promote certain ideas, where after the revolution a regime totally opposed to its ideas has arisen. For example, the Algerian revolution ended with the establishment of an oppressive and dictatorial regime, and the revolution in Iran, which promoted freedom for Iranians, ended up being an oppressive and murderous regime. The final result does not undermine the justice of the struggle against colonial France in Algeria or the shah’s rule in Iran.

In Syria, more than 10,000 civilians have already been murdered by the regime. This fact on its own is enough to call for this regime’s immediate end. Even if certain aspects of the current regime are better than some possible alternatives, that does not mean that the continued existence of this regime has any legitimacy.

Of course, we would prefer a civilian, democratic, non-ethnic regime to be formed in Syria: one that respects the lives of its citizens and their social rights; a regime that expresses the will of the people; an independent regime free of external influence of the US, China, Russia, Turkey, Iran or others, which would express the Syrian people’s goal of freeing the Golan Heights from Israeli occupation and which will be friendly to the peoples of the region. But, as we have said, this is the Syrian people’s decision, and only they have the authority to decide which regime and what government to have.

We are sure that a people that has bravely opposed a murderous regime will never again accept oppression and dictatorship from any new regime that arises. The Syrian people have begun a path to freedom from which there is no going back, and they will continue to struggle until they achieve their demands.