A facebook post copied onto a
thread on urban75 - I don't have a link for the original post. Incidentally some of the people posting on that thread (notably, but not only, 'Casually Red' and 'camouflage') exemplify the problems
Dilar Dirik is commenting on, with 'leftist' and 'anti-imperialist' positions on Syria that are increasingly hard to distinguish from fascism.
FB post from Dilar Dirik on some of the left's reactions in recent days...
"Truth is always the first casualty of the war they say. How true, especially looking at propaganda coming from all sides, following the fall of Aleppo, which is yet another episode of the ordeal that the war in Syria has been for years now.
I am disgusted by the simplicity of positions, dogmatism of ideas, and in some cases complete lack of moral decency in the analyses and pseudo-analyses of what is going on in Aleppo and in Syria, actually, the Middle East, in general. Admittedly, the entire war has been full of propaganda, lies, and fabricated truths, but what some people without any connection to the region are shouting out from their pseudo-revolutionary armchairs is mind-blowingly grotesque and despicable. Some are creating imperialistic interventionist fantasies, some are openly congratulating the bloodthirsty Assad regime and deny its war crimes, some act like the rebels are an army of angels who deserve enthusiastic mindless support, some just say nevermind and abandon all hope for the millions of civilians affected by this war. I am not talking about the mainstream, but leftists here!
Too many immoral claims have been made, but at this particular time, it is especially violent to see how so many “enlightened”, “progressive” people vehemently *DENY* the blood bath caused by Assad and the Syrian army and portray him as a lesser evil as if they were the ones who lost entire families to this fascist dictator. Similarly, where were all of the people who stand up for Aleppo now, when rebels were using internationally banned weapons on civilians in the pre-dominantly Kurdish Sheikh Maqsoud district? These people either live in a fantasy world or they have no respect for humanity.
What if someone told us that IT IS POSSIBLE to have a goddamn complex, morally tenable, realistic view on things, by being an open-minded, honest, genuine, concerned, and active person, whose objective is not “being right”, but justice and freedom for this war-town country and by actually respecting the dynamic voices coming from Syria itself? You don’t need to have a perfectly flawless position, because that is simply not a realistic choice in this war, unless you decide to never get your hands dirty, lean back, and enjoy the bloodshed.
This means that you can actually be anti-Assad without being an apologist for other forms of fascism, state or non-state. You can be pro-revolution without pretending like all the rebels are innocent human rights defenders. You can understand that the initial revolutionary atmosphere was hijacked later on by jihadists, regional powers and international dynamics without falling for Assad’s narrative that a true opposition never existed. You can recognize that anti-imperialism means to be against all imperialists, not just your most hated one.
You can support Rojava without hating on the Syrian revolutionaries and denying their existence. You can support the truly democratic Syrian revolutionaries even if they don’t have a systematized project like in Rojava or enough women or radical leftist ideas in their structures. You can sympathize with Arab scepticism of Rojava while being mindful of the historic legacy of systematic racism and chauvinism against Kurds in Syria. You can support refugees without ignoring socio-economic dimensions and conditions that enable some to leave, but not others. You can advocate against war, intervention and arms trade and still recognize that self-defense and armed struggle for survival are undeniable realities – see Kobane. You can hate ISIS’s guts without being a racist or Islamophobe. You can fight Islamophobia without silencing Middle Eastern people, especially non-Muslims, who critical of or even struggling against Islam. And so and so on.
But the very worst thing you can be is a messed up, clueless, self-righteous online commentator, who is not organized anywhere and has nothing to lose when fabricating crap to incite even more divisions and hostilities! Down with your political analyses that are deprived of ethics and human decency! People like you are the reason this world is turning into hell on earth!
Freedom for Rojava – Freedom for the free, democratic, multi-cultural Syria!"
Topic: Syria