A Few Views On Syria

Let's get one thing clear. Nobody is coming to help the Syrian people because they are getting killed.

Much of the media is simplistically categorising the Syrian people into militarised loyalist or rebel camps. The actions and ideas of Syrians cannot be delineated so easily. 2012 will be remembered by many as the year in which a popular uprising decidedly shifted from peaceful to violent: what began as street protests inspired by the Arab Spring calling for more democracy transformed into a militarised movement backed by foreign powers seeking to topple Bashar Al-Assad at all costs. The calls for a non-violent revolution against the Assad regime felt increasingly untenable to many Syrians facing fierce repression on a daily basis. As the fight pitting Assad forces against the Free Syrian Army spiraled into violence, the peaceful movement found it increasingly difficult to make its voice heard and the country fell deeper into civil strife.

Generally speaking, the peaceful movement is still accused of being detached from reality on the ground. For many, the campaign has lost its relevance. Others argue that the peaceful movement’s role is undergoing a fundamental change: its goal has now evolved from toppling the regime through peaceful means to monitoring the revolution and defining the right path it should follow. By denouncing the human rights violations committed by the regime and the rebels, peaceful activists are keeping the revolution on the agenda. For now, it seems that peaceful activism continues to be clobbered by militancy on all sides, with the regime continuing its harsh repression of legitimate peaceful protest, while some rebel factions have not shied away from brutally disciplining and punishing dissent within. The clash between members of Jabhat al Nusra and civil activists last January in Saraqeb in the northern province of Idleb does not bode well for the future of a pluralistic and diverse opposition.

Nader Atassi is a Syrian political researcher and writer originally from Homs, currently living between the United States and Beirut and he argues that “the principles of self-governance, autonomy, mutual aid and cooperation are present in a lot of the organizations within the uprising.” and that the  reactionary elements, sectarian elements, imperialist elements don't comprise the totality of the uprising.  He offers the example of Yabroud, a city halfway between Damascus and Homs, as “the Syrian uprising's commune” and as a “ model of sectarian coexistence, with a large Christian population living in the city..." and “a model of autonomy and self-governance in Syria. After the regime security forces withdrew from Yabroud in order for Assad to concentrate elsewhere, residents stepped in to fill the vacuum, declaring "we are now organizing all the aspects of the city life by ourselves. From decorating the city to renaming the school ‘Freedom School’ Yabroud is certainly what many Syrians, myself included, hope life after Assad will look like." Atassi., nevertheless, adds  “Other areas controlled by reactionary jihadis paint a potentially grimmer picture of the future”

On 17 February 2013, Omar Aziz, a prominent Syrian intellectual, economist, and long-time anarchist dissident, died of a heart attack in the central Adra prison. He had been held incommunicado by the government since 20 November 2012. Aziz did not wear a V for Vendetta mask, nor did he form black blocs. He was not obsessed with giving interviews to the press, nor did he make the headlines of mainstream media upon his arrest. Aziz was striving for unconditional freedom from all forms of despotism and state hegemony.
Aziz and his comrades created the first local council in Barzeh, Damascus. The local councils, an idea proposed and crystallised by Aziz at the end of 2011, are voluntary, horizontal associations inspired by the writings of Rosa Luxemburg. This idea was later adopted in most liberated areas in Syria. Omar Aziz’s vision of the local council was founded on the premise that revolutions are exceptional events in which human beings live in two parallel time zones: the time of authority and the time of revolution. For the revolution to emerge victorious, it must break free from the domination of the authorities and become involved in every aspect of people’s lives, not just in demonstrations and political activism. Aziz hoped that local councils would become an alternative for the state, but he knew that forming them in areas under tight security strongholds would be tougher. He also predicted that it would take time and effort to convince people that they can govern themselves and manage their affairs independently from the state and its bureaucracy. Aziz believed that the councils should work to provide people with a space for collective expression, where each individual can be politically involved in decision-making. For that to work, a network of solidarity and mutual aid among local councils in different areas must be formed.  When many activists chose to flee, he chose to relinquish his safety to participate in the popular uprising that has swept through the country.

 Mohammad Al Bardan of the Syrian Nonviolent Movement says “What I believe now and what many other nonviolent activists believe as well is that the armed movement is not going to stop, so trying to halt it doesn't make sense anymore. The best way for us to be efficient is to work on the civil movement as a basis for a future Syria. For us, it is more important to liberate minds than liberate lands.”

The West wants "Assadism without Assad." They want the regime without the figure of Assad, just like what they got in Egypt, when Mubarak stepped down but the military remained untouched; or in Yemen where the US negotiated for the president to step down but for everything to remain largely the same. There is consensus from US to Russia to Iran, that no matter what happens in Syria, regime institutions should remain intact. The same institutions that were built by the dictatorship and the same institutions that plundered Syria and provoked the popular discontent that started this uprising. The same institutions that are merely the remnants of French colonialism. The West’s preferred candidates for leadership roles in any future Syria are those Syrians who were part of the regime and then defected, the Ba'athist bureaucrats. These are the people the US would have rule Syria.  Syrians deserves better than a bunch of ragtag opportunists and the continuance of the bureaucracy built by dictators who wished to keep the Syrian people under control and pacified.

 Atassi concludes “What I’d ask people to do is to help set that record straight and show that there are elements of the Syrian uprising that are worth supporting. Help break that harmful binary that the decision is between Assad or Al Qaeda, or Assad and US imperialism.”

This reflects the Socialist Party position that no war is worth the shedding of a single drop of working-class blood and a plague on both houses. Our position is clear. Regardless of which side  used chemical weapons. The manner of death is irrelevant.  Neither regime-change nor defending Syrian "sovereignty" is worth dying for.