I am disappointed but not hugely surprised that the biggest piece of positive news since I can't remember, the fall of Assad and the freeing of Syria, is not being widely celebrated by leftists. A few words on why, and why this is sooooooooooo messed up. 🧵 1/ bsky.app/profile/amer... - ThreadSky

jksteinberger.bsky.social • 82 days ago

I am disappointed but not hugely surprised that the biggest piece of positive news since I can't remember, the fall of Assad and the freeing of Syria, is not being widely celebrated by leftists. A few words on why, and why this is sooooooooooo messed up.
🧵
1/
https://bsky.app/profile/amermatar.bsky.social/post/3lcqrrxqqwk2d

Reposted from Amer matar عامر مطر

A video showing detainees being freed from Homs Central Prison. Historic moments for Syria. Congratulations to Syria!

Comments

tamerelbawab.bsky.social•48 days ago

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amari.bsky.social•81 days ago

You likely have a broader net cast than me rn, but here on bluesky I’ve only seen overwhelming support for it.

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elenaadaal.bsky.social•61 days ago

I don’t know where your sources are from, but my ‘leftish’ sources are just as happy as anyone else with the fall of Assad.

You sure you are not putting up strawman?

hughjaeger.bsky.social•60 days ago

Take Max Blumenthal, Claire Daly, George Galloway, Kit Klarenberg, Aaron Maté, & Mick Wallace for a start.

The Left is weighed down with supposed "anti-fascists" who never criticised Ba'athism.

"Anti-imperialists" who oppose US & UK imperialism, but make excuses for Chinese & Russian imperialism.

elenaadaal.bsky.social•60 days ago

I assume than that you refer only to the batshit crazy far-left fringe people who also support Russia.

hughjaeger.bsky.social•59 days ago

Spewing mental health slurs at influential voices of the Western Left says more about you than about them.

Much of the Western "anti-war" movement is mute on Putin's war crimes & Xi's human rights abuses. But they are perfectly sane.

Add Lindsay German & Caitlin Johnstone to the list I gave above.

elenaadaal.bsky.social•59 days ago

I would say that ‘crazy’ is the benevolent option: the alternative is that they are well-aware, and thus evil.

My point is that these people are not representative of ‘the left’ but of a radical fringe.

wennifer.bsky.social•62 days ago

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help-diana-family.bsky.social•58 days ago

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seanfernyhough.bsky.social•82 days ago

The level of suffering under Assad is not a function of the rapidity of this change - otherwise it would have happened under his father. So leftists needs to pause and analyse. Particularly after Libya and Iraq. Are we seeing the age old power politics in the region taking affect again? 1/2

seanfernyhough.bsky.social•82 days ago

Why has Russia agreed to this happening? The reached for answer is that it is so weakened by the war in Ukraine. Should we readily accept that? We should also be concerned for what this means for Lebanon and Palestine. It could mean that Israel acts with even more impunity in these areas. 2/2

jksteinberger.bsky.social•82 days ago

How. About. Asking. Syrians. What. They. Think. Feel. Want.

Syria is not just your little geopolitical wonderings. It is about Syrians first and foremost.

andre-sobolewski.bsky.social•81 days ago

Syrians who have suffered unspeakable cruelty and are finally freeing themselves from the entire apparatus that inflicted it upon them.

seanfernyhough.bsky.social•82 days ago

Oh so that's the level of engagement. Fine. Nothing is my little geopolitical wonderings. It's something that is happening thousands of miles away but my country's likely to be involved as it was in Libya and Iraq. But you have your street party, I'll see how this unfolds for Syrians, Kurds et al.

ccbaxter1968.bsky.social•81 days ago

You can actually figure this out. Its well known information. No the US had nothing to do with it. All the states backing the opposition pulled out years ago except Turkey, and neither HTS or the southern rebels entered Damascus are proxies of Turkey directly. What’s going on in the streets is

ccbaxter1968.bsky.social•81 days ago

what’s happening to Syrians. If your so worried about US policy then take a look. It’s mainly freak out cause they were semi normalizing with Assad.

otternaut.bsky.social•62 days ago

💯

dasbradley.bsky.social•82 days ago

It's a pretty great day. May they have a generation of peaceful rebuilding, is my thought and wish

larougeabeille.bsky.social•82 days ago

📌

electrification.bsky.social•82 days ago

I agree it is important to celebrate the downfall of Assad!

But what do you think of the part of the left who support Rojava? Last week there were expulsions from Tal Rifat and Kurdish parts of Aleppo and attacks on Manbij. Isn't there an increased risk of a new war against the SDF?

glaurent06.bsky.social•20 days ago

Same feeling here in France. The left (LFI party mostly) very much discredited themselves by their blind support of Assad just because he was the US' enemy. Really doing Putin's work here (doing Kremlin's bidding has been a long tradition of the French left).

synth-ethics.bsky.social•82 days ago

Speaking as a "leftist", I don't feel knowledgeable enough to write anything on this complicated subject.
The pictures of families being released from prison seem pretty positive though.

dangerouscorner.bsky.social•82 days ago

I'm not a massive fan of 'arguments from silence'. They have a lot in common with 'will you condemnathons'. And they imply a model of 'the left' and of 'left activism' which centres making statements rather than, say, dropping a tenner off at the local Kurdish cultural centre.

jksteinberger.bsky.social•82 days ago

did you read thread tho

jksteinberger.bsky.social•82 days ago

Because I am not "tone policing", I am making arguments against real, existing, widespread political positions.

dangerouscorner.bsky.social•82 days ago

I don't think you are tone policing and chances are I am in 100% agreement with your position on this issue as with others. But you demand 'widespread celebration'. I don't think my task is to take time out to celebrate, or even to arrive at the correct level of caveats.

dangerouscorner.bsky.social•82 days ago

I used to be into the whole 'having the correct position on every issue' thing, then I got involved in Workers Aid For Kosova and came to the conclusion that sending a van of food to a trade union was a better use of my finite time.

jksteinberger.bsky.social•82 days ago

This I can be in sympathy of. I think the revolution in Syria will require a lot of practical support. That's what I am advocating as well (further down in the thread).

jksteinberger.bsky.social•82 days ago

I think celebration of successful revolutionary overthrowing of a brutal authoritarian dictatorship, based largely in a massive but repressed pro-democracy movement, should be a core goal of leftism. If we don't support this, we suck, basically. I stand by my statement.

dangerouscorner.bsky.social•82 days ago

Fair enough, but as far as I'm concerned it's the overthrow that's the core goal, not the correct response to it. Maybe you were spared being on the UK left 1985-2015, where a ridiculous amount of energy went on 'correct response' compared to 'actual solidarity'? I wasn't: am trying to make amends.

patrickcanning.bsky.social•75 days ago

I've encountered these positions on FB from so called left people, so it sits with me, and I appreciate the clear and useful rebuttals.

jksteinberger.bsky.social•82 days ago

Basically, leftism *should* be about political, social and economic emancipation. The possibility for people to live their lives, socialise, make decisions and plans, free from exploitation and coercion. This is exactly what Syrians around the world are celebrating right NOW.
2/

jksteinberger.bsky.social•82 days ago

Why aren't leftists celebrating and mobilising to help them out? 2 answers, as far as I can tell.
On the centre-left side, there is the concern about who the rebels are, and what their agenda is. This concern is legitimate: worries of more radical Islamist or Turkish-backed factions are founded.
3/

jksteinberger.bsky.social•82 days ago

However, there is no denying that the rebels are in great part Syrian, not foreigners, so far stating positions of protection for all faiths, and behaving in ways to minimise violence. Also, they are being welcomed with open arms and jubilation by the Syrian cities they have freed.
4/

jksteinberger.bsky.social•82 days ago

So while the concerns of rebel agenda are legitimate, this should be reason for a note of caution: it should not refute the overwhelming evidence that what we are witnessing is the long awaited victory of the Syrian revolution, for Syrians, by Syrians, welcomed by Syrians.
5/

jksteinberger.bsky.social•82 days ago

On the left-left side, the concern seems to be, to put it bluntly, the "anti-imperialism of idiots" (credit @leilashami.bsky.social ). Here the concern is with geopolitics capable of resisting the US empire ...
6/
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/leila-al-shami-the-anti-imperialism-of-idiots

midgetviking.bsky.social•81 days ago

‘Right wing’ and ‘left wing’ has lost all meaning - along with communist, conservative, radical, anarchist — all these political markers are void of content in the current climate.
Glad to see Assad gone. Next: Putin? Kim?

jksteinberger.bsky.social•82 days ago

... and somehow, mega-tyrant Bashar Al Assad, propped up by Iran and Hezbollah on the ground, and Russia in the air, was supposed to be a posterchild for left resistance to US empire. 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️😠😠😠
To say I have zero sympathy for this position would be a wild overstatement.
7/

thelastfarm.bsky.social•82 days ago

Why not apply this same logic to the Houthis or Hamas

thelastfarm.bsky.social•81 days ago

Hoping for a response here. You smeared the Houthis w/ debunked Saudi propaganda for the exact opposite reasons as you are now cheering on an Al Qaeda-affiliated militia. You’ve attacked Hamas even though they’re the democratically elected gov’t of Gaza. Why not “listen to” Gazans?

hazematallah.bsky.social•54 days ago

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hazematallah.bsky.social•57 days ago

spectreserf.bsky.social•81 days ago

it's incoherent to condemn “the left” (“disappointed but not surprised” at the lack of “celebration”) and then 3 posts later concede “legitimate concerns” about the rebel agendas which justify caution. which is it? seems like a mix of feelings is appropriate here

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smiledaydream.bsky.social•80 days ago

It is great that Assad is gone. I think it’s fair to be concerned who will fill the power void.

otternaut.bsky.social•62 days ago

Short answer : we know Europe and America are going to stick their 🍆s in the situation and generate a war 5x more intense, OR produce a caliphate that make Saudi Arabia look like Norway.

otternaut.bsky.social•62 days ago

I mean, they have excellent form in this regard when they created modern Iran, modern Afghanistan, and 1980s Iraq.

What ruthless scumbag will they find to prop up this time in exchange for mineral rights?

Syria needs to be left for Syrians to heal.

otternaut.bsky.social•62 days ago

People need to leave well enough alone and not try to profit from the situation, let Syrians organise themselves and lend them financial and logistical support while they repair the economy.

The US will deliberately cripple any free democratic or vaguely socialist Syria >

otternaut.bsky.social•62 days ago

>because Israel will tell them to.

jonaskampus.bsky.social•82 days ago

Hmm, most people I know are quite in a celebratory mood, especially due to the central role of the SDF/AANES/Rojava as the main democratic opposition in Syria. I know that this tankie position exists but I have honestly never met someone in real life who supported it ...

jksteinberger.bsky.social•82 days ago

Also hi Jonas!!! Lovely to see you here.

jonaskampus.bsky.social•82 days ago

likewise, it is very pleasant to have the old Twitter back haha

andrewmfischer.bsky.social•82 days ago

Indeed, you can find lots of it back on Twitter, eg:

ccbaxter1968.bsky.social•81 days ago

Wow Ajl has been bad on this stuff for a while but I thought he was a professional scholar enough of the region to not be THIS bad.

jksteinberger.bsky.social•82 days ago

That's lucky! It's not a pleasant experience. At least from my experience in the UK, it's quite a strong faction.

jonaskampus.bsky.social•82 days ago

Yeah I think there is a certain divide along language regions. In German-speaking leftist circles, the support for the Kurdish struggle and Rojava have always been strong. This has shaped the left's opinion - mine included - on the situation in Syria qiite strongly.

diffuseazure.bsky.social•61 days ago

It's complicated.
The left has supported and placed hope in Rojava as a model for a progressive, secular Syria where women have been key. What happens next is unclear especially the role of Turkey in the North East.

hamos1977.bsky.social•82 days ago

Thanks.

Let me bookmark it

📌

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