[Midden-Oosten] Indefensible: Idlib and the left

[Jeff]

Indefensible: Idlib and the left
September 14, 2018 by Leila Al Shami
Originally published by Freedom.
https://leilashami.wordpress.com/2018/09/14/indefensible-idlib-and-the-left/

On Saturday regime and Russian airstrikes intensified on Idlib in what 
appears to be a prelude to the long anticipated campaign to regain 
control of the province.

Only a day before, thousands of Syrian men, women and children took the 
streets in over 120 cities towns and villages across the remaining 
liberated areas under the slogan ‘resistance is our choice’.

They were demonstrating for their lives. Idlib is now home to three 
million people, a third of whom are children. Of the current population, 
over half have been displaced, or forcibly evacuated, to the province 
from elsewhere. Their options for fleeing the assault are limited. 
Borders are closed and there are no safe-zones left. They don’t want to 
be forcibly displaced from their homes. At the protests many held signs 
rejecting recent calls by UN envoy Staffan de Mistura to evacuate 
civilians to regime-controlled areas, where they could disappear into 
torture chambers or face forced conscription, as has happened to others 
before them. ‘Reconciliation’ in the Syrian context means a return to 
subjugation, humiliation and tyranny.

Through signs and chants, the aim of the protests was clear: to prevent 
an assault by the regime and its backers, to show the world that there 
are civilians in Idlib whose lives are now under threat, and to affirm 
that they continue to refuse Assad’s rule. As-shaab yurid isqat al nizam 
(the people want the downfall of the regime) rang through the crowds, 
reminiscent of the early days of the uprising. They were not only 
protesting domestic fascism, but foreign imperialisms too – those of 
Russia and Iran – which have backed the dictator in his campaign to wipe 
out domestic opposition.

Yet once again the calls of Syrian anti-war protesters were largely 
ignored by the western ‘anti-war left’. Instead of calling for an end to 
the bombing or supporting the victims of war, many have instead chosen 
to buy into the regime’s ‘War on Terror’ narrative that the aim of the 
assault is to wipe out militant jihadists. Such illusions should have 
been shattered on Saturday. Sham hospital in Has village, southern 
Idlib, was targeted by barrel bombs and missiles, taking it out of 
service. The hospital had been located underground, in a cave, in an 
ultimately futile attempt to protect it from aerial bombardment. 
According to the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations, three 
hospitals, two Civil Defence Centers and an ambulance system were 
attacked on 6 and 7 September in Idlib and northern Hama, leaving 
thousands without access to medical care.

Extremist groups have a presence in Idlib – some have been sent by the 
regime itself following evacuation from elsewhere. Hayaat Tahrir Al Sham 
(HTS) with former links to Al Qaeda dominates much of the province with 
its 10,000 fighters. Yet far from being an ‘Al Qaeda stronghold’ HTS has 
failed to win support from much of the population which has continually 
resisted the group’s presence and hard-line ideology. At last Friday’s 
protests in Idlib city, HTS fired live ammunition to break up the 
demonstration. The crowd quickly turned on the militants calling them 
shabiha (an insult once reserved for regime thugs) and chanting “Jolani 
get out” – in reference to the group’s leader.

Many on the ‘left’ claim that out of a population of three million 
individuals there are ‘no good guys left’ to support. Or believe the 
presence of a few thousand extremists is justification enough for razing 
Idlib to the ground and collectively punishing its residents. The 
invisible majority of Syrians who don’t use guns to wield power are 
dismissed as irrelevant. They choose to ignore those who have been 
resisting all forms of authoritarianism and are committed to creating a 
better future for their families, communities and society at large. They 
present a grotesquely simplified binary in which the choice is between 
Assad and Al Qaeda, as if the conflict and deep-rooted social struggle 
were a football match between two sides. The side they back is a fascist 
regime – because at least it is ‘secular’ – a regime which gasses 
children to death in their sleep, operates death camps in which 
dissidents are tortured to death and which has been accused by the UN of 
‘the crime of extermination’. Anyone who resists a return to regime 
control is presented as an enemy and a legitimate target for attack. 
Freedom, democracy, social justice, dignity – they are goals to which 
only westerners should aspire. The rest should just shut up and make do.

In this sinister and racist world view, everyone is either an Al Qaeda 
member or sympathizer. The fact that there are women in these 
conservative, rural communities that don’t dress like them, or have to 
courageously overcome numerous obstacles and threats to their safety in 
order to participate in the public sphere (as they did at last Friday’s 
protests) is presented as evidence of terrorist leanings, justification 
in itself for their annihilation. Instead of standing in solidarity with 
the courageous women in Idlib who are resisting both the regime and 
other extremist armed groups and fighting to overcome deeply entrenched 
traditional and patriarchal social mores, they would rather support a 
state which sent militia to carry out mass-rape campaigns in dissident 
communities, which inserts rats into the vaginas of female detainees. 
The dehumanization of Syrians has been so thorough that many struggle to 
believe that amongst the chaos and war-lords there may actually be 
ordinary human beings worthy of support – people like ‘us’.

It is hard to understand how devastating bombing campaigns carried out 
by the Syrian state and Russia on densely populated residential areas, 
which have killed hundreds of thousands, can be ignored by anyone who 
claims to be ‘anti-war’. It seems Syrian lives are only meaningful if 
they’re destroyed by western bombs. Today’s ‘anti-imperialism’ is often 
used as a cover in support of totalitarian regimes, by people privileged 
enough to never have experienced what it’s like to live under them. Not 
content to ignore war crimes and other mass atrocities, attempts are 
also made to absolve the perpetrators from blame and deny that 
atrocities have occurred. Conspiracy theories, often originating in 
Russian state or far-right media, are circulated about chemical attack 
‘false flags’ to white-wash regime crimes and justify the targeting of 
civilians and humanitarian workers. Syria has become a talking point to 
score political points without a second thought given to the real-life 
danger such false accusations place people in, or the deep pain and 
offence caused to the victims.

In her recent book, Indefensible: Democracy, Counter-Revolution and the 
Rhetoric of Anti-imperialism, Rohini Hensman asks; ‘How has the rhetoric 
of anti-imperialism come to be used in support of anti-democratic 
counterrevolutions around the world?’ She argues that there are three 
kinds of ‘pseudo-anti-imperialists’. The first are those who believe 
that “‘the West’ has to be the only oppressor in all situations”, a 
“Western-centrism which makes them oblivious to the fact that people in 
other parts of the world have agency too, and that they can exercise it 
both to oppress others and to fight against oppression”. The second 
category consists of “neo-Stalinists” who “will support any regime that 
is supported by Russia, no matter how right wing it may be”. The third 
“consists of tyrants and imperialists, perpetrators of war crimes, 
crimes against humanity, genocide and aggression, who, as soon as they 
face a hint of criticism from the West, immediately claim that they are 
being criticised because they are anti-imperialists.”

In support of her argument, Hensman gives a detailed overview of genuine 
anti-imperialism as opposed to ‘pseudo-anti-imperialism’ through case 
studies from Russia and Ukraine, Bosnia and Kosovo, Iran, Iraq and 
Syria. She shows how self-declared ‘leftists’ have repeatedly supported 
authoritarian regimes over people’s democratic struggles, spread 
anti-Muslim bigotry, built tactical alliances with fascists, spread 
conspiracy theories and Kremlin/state propaganda, and engaged in 
genocide/atrocity denial and victim blaming. Her excellent book, which 
deserves to be widely read, is a timely reminder that the narratives 
propagated around Syria, in which the far-left echoes the talking points 
of the far-right and places geo-politics over people’s struggles and 
lives, are emblematic of a much broader malaise.

As bombs rain down on Idlib, few Syrians expect to see mass protests 
around the world in support of their cause or in defence of their lives. 
Those who claim a politics of ‘internationalism’ have abandoned them and 
retreated into isolationism or, worse, into apologia for fascism. 
Without addressing these issues the prospect of building an 
international movement against authoritarianism, imperialism, war and 
capitalism seems unlikely. In the meantime, we can expect the horrors 
which led the world to declare ‘never again’ to happen again, and again 
and again.