Crooked Bough News Round-up

— The Combat Organization of Anarcho-Communists - Three Years of Resistance to Imperialism and the Struggle for Autonomy

 

at 3/16/25 1:27am

Author: The Combat Organization of Anarcho-CommunistsTitle: Three Years of Resistance to Imperialism and the Struggle for AutonomySubtitle: The View of the BOAC MilitantDate: 2025/02/25Notes: Note: I am not the author, I simply translated this text—Alexander HarrisSource: https://boakmirror.noblogs.org/post/2025/02/25/%d1%82%d1%80%d0%b8-%d0%b3%d0%be%d0%b4%d0%b0-%d1%81%d0%be%d0%bf%d1%80%d0%be%d1%82%d0%b8%d0%b2%d0%bb%d0%b5%d0%bd%d0%b8%d1%8f-%d0%b8%d0%bc%d0%bf%d0%b5%d1%80%d0%b8%d0%b0%d0%bb%d0%b8%d0%b7%d0%bc%d1%83/#more-2 Three years ago, a full-scale invasion of the troops of the fascist Russian state into Ukraine began. For the entire modern anarchist and revolutionary left movement in the post-Soviet region, including the Combat Organization of Anarchist Communists, this may have been the most serious test of our existence. We took up the challenge of history and joined the battle. Unfortunately, it is already possible to see how the struggle of the anarchist region in these difficult three years is beginning to be forgotten. This should not be the case. We must remember the martyrdom and critically analyze the experience gained in the struggle – this is the only way to achieve our revolutionary goals. Socio-political Situation What did we have to face on February 24, 2022, what was the socio-political situation? In previous years, the Russian state, through repressions, almost completely crushed all the sprouts of independent public self-organization in the territory under its control. As part of this policy of state terror, the anarchist movement was dealt a serious blow. We also remember the young hero and martyr Mikhail Zhlobitsky, who embarked on the path of selfless struggle against the state repressive machine. Despite Misha’s heroic deed and other attempts to resist, state control over society was extremely strong and only tightened every day. We also saw how Putin, after some cooling in relations between the two dictators, nevertheless at a critical moment provided political support to the Lukashenko regime. This played an important role in suppressing the popular uprising that began in August 2020 in Belarus. The defeat of Ukraine, its occupation or the installation of a puppet pro-Russian government in Kiev would inevitably lead to a regime of state terror in this country as well. We had no illusions about the Ukrainian neoliberal state, and we saw the repression it carried out – this repression was also directed directly against us. Nevertheless, the level of independence of society from the state and opportunities for public self-organization were significantly higher in Ukraine at the beginning of 2022 than in Russia and Belarus. Therefore, for us, as anarchists and revolutionaries, it was obvious that it was necessary to stand up for society when it faced fascist imperial aggression. It was also clear that Russia’s war against Ukraine was genocidal in nature. This was embodied not only in the mass murder of civilians, although in Mariupol and elsewhere the Russian army was very “successful” in such atrocities. The genocidal policy was also expressed in the desire to subordinate Ukrainian society, which had historically already been subjected to Russian colonization, to the imperial narrative and imperial hegemony (including cultural hegemony), to paralyze any collective actions through state terror, and to eradicate the very collective memory of resistance. The Russian regime not only wants to conquer new lands, it also seeks to deprive the surviving Ukrainians of their will, dignity and any sense of community, mentally impose on them the role of disenfranchised slaves of the imperial metropolis. This makes the Russian invasion of Ukraine similar to the genocidal policy of the Turkish state in Kurdistan and to the genocide carried out by the state of Israel in Palestine. Partisan Struggle in Russia In the first six months of the full-scale war, the guerrilla actions of the BOAC received a huge resonance both in Russia and Ukraine, and outside the post-Soviet region. Our attacks were so loud because they were carried out by a revolutionary organization. It is also important to note that the guerrilla resistance of the BOAC was accompanied by a deep ideological analysis of our actions and propaganda work. This served to achieve revolutionary goals and prevented the instrumentalization of our struggle by any statist forces. Our partisan resistance was not only effective and loud, it was and remains autonomous, independent of any state actors. Attempts were also made to expand the partisan resistance and draw new friends into it. One of the methods we used for this was the creation of the Revolutionary Anarchist Fund. Interaction with the new comrades is carried out on the principles of maximum transparency in the conditions of brutal state repressions, if necessary, the necessary skills of conspiracy are trained. We consider deception and consumer attitude towards friends unacceptable. On this foundation, we will continue to work to create an organized anarchist partisan movement on the territory of the Russian Federation. Struggle for autonomy in the face of war From the very beginning of the full-scale war, one of the founders of our organization, Dmytro Petrov, and our other comrades have been working to create a separate anti-authoritarian combat unit in Ukraine. Such a unit could become a platform for organized revolutionary activity in the post-Soviet space and an autonomous military-political subject, an alternative to statist, reactionary and capitalist forces. The leitmotif of our struggle was not the preservation of the “territorial integrity” of the Ukrainian state or the defense of post-Soviet neoliberal “democracy” from the post-Soviet fascist empire. As noted earlier, we saw the relative independence of Ukrainian society, its potential for public self-organization – something that was suppressed by the dictatorial regimes in Russia and Belarus. And we stood up to defend society from the statist force that came to Ukraine with fire and sword to eradicate any manifestations of independence. ...

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— Logan Marie Glitterbomb - Demystifying Left Minarchism

 

at 3/15/25 5:33pm

Author: Logan Marie GlitterbombTitle: Demystifying Left MinarchismDate: June 3rd, 2020Source: Retrieved on March 15, 2025 from https://c4ss.org/content/52937 When talking about right libertarianism, many associated with those circles are quick to point out the varying factions of the libertarian movement. The simplest and most well known division is that between the anarchists and minarchists. On the anarchist side, you have your natural rights ancaps, consequentialist ancaps, agorists, individualist anarchists, free market anarchists, geo-anarchists, synthesis anarchists, and a myriad of other variations. On the minarchist side you have classical liberals, constitutionalists, paleolibertarians, Republican-lights, etc. With the ground gained by the #BottomUnity campaign, a lot more right libertarians are getting exposed to left libertarianism and yet not understanding that there are just as many variations. While historically, libertarianism, especially in leftist circles, has been synonymous with anarchism, that isn’t always the case. Most are familiar with the anarchist variations such as anarcho-communism, anarcho-socialism, anarcho-collectivism, anarcho-syndicalism, mutualism, anarcho-primitivism, individualist anarchism, and free market anarchism, but few are familiar with the traditions of left minarchism. Yes, left minarchism is a thing and it can take many forms including democratic confederalism, Luxembourgism, council communism, communalism, libertarian ecosocialism, democratic socialism, liberaltarianism, etc. While council communism and Luxembourgism largely remain obscure and irrelevant tendencies in modern political organizing, especially in the so-called united states, we can look towards the autonomous territory of Rojava and groups in the so-called united states such as the Green Party, Democratic Socialists of America, Our Revolution, Justice Democrats, and the Democratic Freedom Caucus for examples of left minarchism in action. The Green Party has been the staple leftist third party for a long time now. It was co-founded by many anarchists, including current GP presidential candidate Howie Hawkins, a self-proclaimed libertarian municipalist and anarcho-communist known for drafting the original Green New Deal and for his work with Murray Bookchin. The Green Party continues to boost anarchist voices to this day. Similarly to the Libertarian Party, however, not all party members or founders are anarchists. While the Green Party has always identified as libertarian, some veer on the more minarchist side, but instead of seeing the only function of the state as being those laid out in the constitution or even more minimally, the nightwatchman state (i.e. police, courts, prisons, and militaries), they often see the main function of the state to be welfare functions while usually advocating the abolition of police, prisons, and sometimes even the military. The DSA is in a very similar boat to the Green Party in that it is a mixture of anarchists and minarchists on the libertarian end. They have more minarchist-leaning demsocs, Greens, and Berniecrats among their ranks while also having an explicitly anarchist Libertarian Socialist Caucus. The difference is that the DSA also has some decidedly non-libertarian members as well, including the old guard liberals who kept the organization going between its Socialist Party origins and its current incarnation. Many of these came from the Bernie movement after it began falling in line with the Democratic Party and endorsing every corporate candidate they put up while continuously bashing third parties. Thankfully most of them are being pushed out post-Bernie. Now the threats tend to be younger liberal-apologists and tankies. Despite their inclusion, the DSA still currently leans predominantly libertarian and has endorsed prison abolition, fossil fuel divestment, and drug and sex work decriminalization among other platform planks. They also have many amazing direct action campaigns, most famously their Gimme a Brake (Light) clinics they hold nationwide where they replace peoples’ brake lights for free since broken brake lights are one of the number one reasons for people being harassed by the police while driving. Our Revolution and the Berniecrat movement more generally is very similar in makeup to the DSA. You have everyone from more left-leaning liberal statists who believe voting and reform is enough to left anarchists focused towards harm reduction and outreach. While Bernie’s policies themselves largely publicly lean social democrat rather than democratic socialist, many left minarchist types latched onto his campaign anyway due to his higher possibility of winning and position as the supposed harm reduction vote. In spite of his campaign being merely a watered down version of the Green Party or even true democratic socialist politics, he still has been a strong advocate against corporate welfare, mass incarceration, the drug war, mass surveillance, student debt, and environmental destruction, and has inspired others to run for office on even more radical platforms such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) who has called explicitly for prison abolition and the abolition of ICE. ...

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— George Orwell - The Freedom of the Press

 

at 3/15/25 2:35pm

Author: George OrwellTitle: The Freedom of the PressSubtitle: Orwell’s Proposed Preface to Animal FarmDate: 1945Source: Retrieved on March 15, 2025 from https://www.marxists.org/archive/orwell/1945/preface.htm This book was first thought of, so far as the central idea goes, in 1937, but was not written down until about the end of 1943. By the time when it came to be written it was obvious that there would be great difficulty in getting it published (in spite of the present book shortage which ensures that anything describable as a book will ʻsellʼ), and in the event it was refused by four publishers. Only one of these had any ideological motive. Two had been publishing anti-Russian books for years, and the other had no noticeable political colour. One publisher actually started by accepting the book, but after making the preliminary arrangements he decided to consult the Ministry of Information, who appear to have warned him, or at any rate strongly advised him, against publishing it. Here is an extract from his letter: “I mentioned the reaction I had had from an important official in the Ministry of Information with regard to Animal Farm. I must confess that this expression of opinion has given me seriously to think... I can see now that it might be regarded as something which it was highly ill-advised to publish at the present time. If the fable were addressed generally to dictators and dictatorships at large then publication would be all right, but the fable does follow, as I see now, so completely the progress of the Russian Soviets and their two dictators, that it can apply only to Russia, to the exclusion of the other dictatorships. Another thing: it would be less offensive if the predominant caste in the fable were not pigs. I think the choice of pigs as the ruling caste will no doubt give offence to many people, and particularly to anyone who is a bit touchy, as undoubtedly the Russians are.” This kind of thing is not a good symptom. Obviously it is not desirable that a government department should have any power of censorship (except security censorship, which no one objects to in war time) over books which are not officially sponsored. But the chief danger to freedom of thought and speech at this moment is not the direct interference of the MOI or any official body. If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves. Any fair-minded person with journalistic experience will admit that during this war official censorship has not been particularly irksome. We have not been subjected to the kind of totalitarian ʻco-ordinationʼ that it might have been reasonable to expect. The press has some justified grievances, but on the whole the Government has behaved well and has been surprisingly tolerant of minority opinions. The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news – things which on their own merits would get the big headlines – being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that ʻit wouldn’t doʼ to mention that particular fact. So far as the daily newspapers go, this is easy to understand. The British press is extremely centralised, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics. But the same kind of veiled censorship also operates in books and periodicals, as well as in plays, films and radio. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ʻnot doneʼ to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was ʻnot doneʼ to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals. At this moment what is demanded by the prevailing orthodoxy is an uncritical admiration of Soviet Russia. Everyone knows this, nearly everyone acts on it. Any serious criticism of the Soviet régime, any disclosure of facts which the Soviet government would prefer to keep hidden, is next door to unprintable. And this nation-wide conspiracy to flatter our ally takes place, curiously enough, against a background of genuine intellectual tolerance. For though you are not allowed to criticise the Soviet government, at least you are reasonably free to criticise our own. Hardly anyone will print an attack on Stalin, but it is quite safe to attack Churchill, at any rate in books and periodicals. And throughout five years of war, during two or three of which we were fighting for national survival, countless books, pamphlets and articles advocating a compromise peace have been published without interference. More, they have been published without exciting much disapproval. So long as the prestige of the USSR is not involved, the principle of free speech has been reasonably well upheld. There are other forbidden topics, and I shall mention some of them presently, but the prevailing attitude towards the USSR is much the most serious symptom. It is, as it were, spontaneous, and is not due to the action of any pressure group. ...

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— Dorothy Day - Distributism Is Not Dead

 

at 3/15/25 1:27pm

Author: Dorothy DayTitle: Distributism Is Not DeadDate: 1956Source: Retrieved on March 15, 2025 from https://catholicworker.org/244-html/ The very fact that people are always burying distributism is evidence of the fact that it is not dead as a solution. John Stanley buried it last year in the Commonweal and Social Justice of the Central Verein in St. Louis some months ago buried it. But it is an issue that won’t be buried, because distributism is a system conformable to the needs of man and his nature. We write of farming communes as an ideal form of institution towards which we should aim, and for which we should plan and we will continue to write about those which are in existence today in a continuing attempt as a way of living. We feel that there are ways of combating the servile state, and working towards a restoration of property. During those months there was an exchange of visits between Soviet farmers to this country and some of our farmers to the U.S.S.R. there were some very interesting newspaper accounts. One of our Iowa farmers visited some large scale collective farms where 5,000 or so Russians were employed by the State in spite of the fact that they were using modern machinery. This was a collective farm, but each family was allotted anywhere from half an acre to two acres, and on this small plot they had their own cow and chickens and pigs, and raised such an amount of vegetables, that it was due to their efforts that so much foodstuffs were able to go on the market. The cities would be hard put to find the foods they needed, were it not for these smaller plots. At the same time one would feel that communal farming of such vast acreage as there is in the Soviet Union and the United States would not be out of place in the raising of wheat and flax and cotton and fruits and other such stuffs that demand large acreage and in some cases many men employed. Here in the U.S. we have our migrant laborers, millions of them, to harvest the crops, and they live ill-fed, ill-clad, ill-housed and are definitely a problem in our economy. In Russia they seem to be stabilized. The very mention of such numbers would indicate that there could be no speed up, though planting and harvest time necessarily mean long hours, from dawn to dark, with corresponding shorter hours and lighter toil in winter. I’ve been told on farms I have visited in my trips around the country that winter is just as hard as summer for the individual farmer, since the animals have to be fed more often (not having the grazing they do in the summer) and the work is done under the difficult conditions of the cold and dark, with fewer laborers. Governor Harriman talked of poverty being a national problem and he was doubtless thinking of migrants, and Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Negroes and our city and country slums. Labor leaders have talked of pockets of unemployment. Where industry has moved south, or to another town there is great fanfare over enterprising real estate men who buy up the factories and invite other diversified industries to take over. With all our prosperity there is still the specter of unemployment. But on the land, as Peter Maurin always said, there is no unemployment. There is food, clothing, shelter, and fuel and work to do. Proof of this is in spite of our poverty and pockets of unemployment, is the fact that in all the 23 years of the Catholic Worker, only one farmer has come to us, and that was John Filliger, who was a seaman during the 1936 strike, who seeing our need, stayed with us. There is the saying, “Scratch a seaman and you will find a farmer.” In the New World Chesterton series published by Sheed and Ward, the volume Tremendous Trifles has an essay called The Dickensian. Our readers will remember that G. K.’s Weekly championed Distributism and his two books, What’s Wrong with the World and Outline of Sanity are basic Volumes to read on Distributism, together with The Sun of Justice, by Harold Robbins, his friend. In this essay, The Dickensian, Chesterton and a stranger meet on a little pleasure boat crawling up Yarmouth Harbor. The stranger is mourning the passing of good old things like the wooden figureheads on ships and he prowls around the old parts of the town looking for traces of Dickens in Yarmouth. During the course of the afternoon they visit a church and there is a stained glass window which was flaming “with all the passionate heraldry of the most fierce and ecstatic of Christian Arts,” there was the angel of the resurrection. Chesterton dashed out of the church, dragging his friend after him, to buy as he said, ginger beer, postal cards, to listen to the concertinas, to ride on a donkey. And when the Dickens enthusiast all but decided Chesterton needed to be committed to a mental hospital, the latter explains: “There are certain writers to whom humanity owes much, whose talent is yet of so shy or retrospective a type that we do well to link it with certain quaint places, or certain perishing associations.” And he went on to say that were Dickens living today, he would not be harking back to the past, but dealing with things just as he found them. So that he, Chesterton, was being particularly Dickensian by enjoying his surroundings as they were, and beginning from there. ...

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— Revoluciana - What is Rent?

 

at 3/14/25 8:54am

Author: RevolucianaTitle: What is Rent?Date: 13 March 2025Source: Retrieved on 14 March 2025 from revoluciana.net This post is part of a series that deals with basic leftist concepts and terminology. It is also a living document and subject to change on revoluciana.net. Rent is an economic concept with a broad set of applications. The existence of rent and rent-seeking behavior is a key sticking point between capitalist and anti-capitalist economic frameworks. Rent is an expansive term that can be applied much further than real estate; however, this is a good framework to begin conceptualizing the leftist critique, especially as it serves as a familiar touchstone for most people. Conceptualizing rent You may have noticed a lot of leftists complain about rent and for some reason they really don’t like landlords as a concept. Sure, most people don’t like giving up their hard-earned wages (wages — let’s tag that word for some later discussion) every month just to afford a place to live, but that’s just the way the world works, right? And sure, some people have some pretty mean landlords, but maybe yours is really nice and does their best to make sure you have a great experience where you live. Maybe you scoffed at that last sentence. How most people probably view rent We live in a society. You need a place to live. As a responsible citizen, you pay for the privilege to live somewhere. Someone else owns a place, and for this service you pay them to live there. They own it, but you reside there. You don’t have responsibility for upkeep, because it’s not yours, which you feel is a fair tradeoff (in relative terms). For the service the landlord provides, you think it only fit that of course they should be paid, even if you don’t agree with the price. How leftists tend to view rent We live in a society. You need a place to live. As a human being, you deserve the right to exist, and to live somewhere. Human beings are the only animals on the planet that are required to pay rent to exist, and for whom it is illegal to be homeless. Someone has taken land and hoarded more of it than they need in order to charge you admission to access it, on their terms, extorting your need to exist in the world in order to exploit financial gain. In return for this admission fee, the landlord performs no labor and no service. They are not paid for working, they are paid for owning. In fact, they often just hire someone else to do the labor for them (someone you could have hired if you owned the place), often at exploitative rates, as well. Yes, of course, some landlords may do the labor themselves, but that’s beside the point, because the existence of their own labor or not has no bearing on the rent– that’s just a matter of profit margins, or increased rent to make up the difference in cost. Insofar as they perform their own repairs, that’s not in their capacity as a landlord, that’s in their capacity as a laborer– you can be both things, and these can be distinguished from each other. The landlord does nothing in their capacity as a landlord. So, while you labor 40+ hours a week, earning barely enough to get by, you pay for what capitalist society deems a privilege to stay in a house owned by someone else, while you pay their bills. You not only pay enough for the mortgage, the property taxes, the utilities (you pay for these in your rent, even if they’re included), and the fixes & upkeep, you are also paying additional money on top of this simply from which the landlord is able to collect a profit, for doing absolutely nothing. Meanwhile, while your rent payments are busy paying that mortgage so that the landlord is able to increase their own equity, you haven’t gained ownership of even the tiniest bit of equity throughout this entire process. Some people say, “Well, the landlord takes the risk!” What risk? The financial loss of money? The renter loses this money every month, guaranteed. The renter risks being homeless at the whim of the landlord. The landlord risks the financial loss of money? The renter risks the long-term effects of a life without building ownership and financial value in the first place– in a society that demands it, and punishes those who haven’t built up stores of money and capital. The landlord “risks” what is utterly denied of the renter. The renter, who labors hours upon hours, week after week, pays the mortgage, and sees no return. Yet the renter is expected to be grateful when the landlord gives them an extra day or two extension on their rent payment. Eventually, then, the landlord has received enough profit and equity from your labor, that they leverage the ownership of the property to get a loan for another property, and they recycle the process with a new location and a new tenant, multiplying the profit with each cycle. Meanwhile, again, the landlord has performed no labor, and yet they receive the fruits of your labor and the labor of every renter in each of their properties. The only thing that the landlord has done is to exploit your labor to receive the dividends of profit and capital that you have performed the work to earn. ...

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— Anonymous, Albert Meltzer - Question and answer on Anarchism [Anti-Imperialism]

 

at 3/13/25 8:57pm

Author: Anonymous, Albert MeltzerTitle: Question and answer on Anarchism [Anti-Imperialism]Date: 1987Notes: Anonymous but we believe written by Albert Meltzer.Source: https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/k0p4ff | Black Flag no. 170 (11/5/1987) Q. What do you understand by anti-imperialism? A. This is a word that is undergoing a sea-change. When Imperialism was understood as powerful Nation-States building up by colonial expansion, the meaning of anti-imperialism was clear. Its support came from Anarchists and Nationalists (of small oppressed nations). Socialists were divided: many, following Marx, thought that the industrial nations were ‘progressive’ and they supported colonial expansion especially in America and Germany though regarding Russian expansion as reactionary since Tsarist Russia was ‘barbaric’. Rural life was to them ‘idiotic’. Other Socialists, with a natural regard for colonial or nationally oppressed countries, or for Socialist Parties existing there, were inevitably anti-imperialist. Anarchists worked alongside anti-Imperialists for instance in struggles against the French, Belgian and British empires. When Tsardom was overthrown and Russia became the Marxist homeland, Communist Parties moved in on the anti-Imperialist struggle. The Leninists cited nations like Finland, whose Socialists had become anti-Imperialists, and during Tsardom been accepted by Lenin, to show that Marxists were anti-Imperialists too, guaranteed by Lenin himself, though Finnish nationalism had since decayed into fascism. America was as regarded as democratic and anti-imperialist by Marxists; indeed the supreme example of progressive capitalism. After World War I the American capitalists went into a panic over Russia and radicalism (perhaps it was really American workers they were frightened of) and Americanism became the symbol of anti-Communism. The US backwoods Christians set the tone for anti-communism, but America became wooed once more as the great democratic power when it suited the interests of the Soviet Union to have a counterbalance against revived German Imperialism. In the years of the Popular Front anti-Imperialism became a dirty word among the Left. With the nationalists (of small nations) and a few left socialist groupings (like the ILP in this country) Anarchists stood by the colonial struggle, though as their numbers had been reduced by the inter-war decline in confidence of workers, this was mostly individual actionism. Nevertheless, as a by-product of years of agitation, the circumstances of World War II brought overwhelming victory to anti-Imperialism. Sooner or later every vestige of empire was swept away which was as much as anyone expected of anti-imperialism. Anarchists had always gloomily predicted that when the Nationalists took over they would speedily prove as oppressive as the former States, and so it was. Most notoriously in South Africa where the end of British imperialism meant domination by the ruling white tribe, most ironically in India where mystic pacifism became a militarism power by genocide; most pathetically in Nigeria where people who had been libertarians in adversity became authoritarians in triumph. Today the empires that seemed so great lost all their influence during the war. Those succeeded to empire were the Nation-States never described as ‘imperialists’ and which do not give their emperors crowned eagles – America and the Soviet Union. The new phrases Soviet Imperialism, American Imperialism, would have sounded strangely once, though they were always justified. If all this is understood, then we are anti-imperialists in the same way as ever. We find however that this all this is not always understood even among some Anarchists (especially in Germany). Since the term ‘anti-imperialism’ has become a weasel word in the Left, and a synonym for anti-Americanism, it glosses over the crimes of the Russian Empire (the wheel has come full circle). Whenever we see the word ‘anti-imperialism’ nowadays we sniff at it carefully before opening the package, not as one would for explosives, but to see if the milk has gone sour.

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— Luigi Fabbri - The revolutionary method

 

at 3/13/25 3:13pm

Author: Luigi FabbriTitle: The revolutionary methodDate: 1923Source: Retrieved on March 13, 2025 from https://es.anarchistlibraries.net/library/luigi-fabbri-el-metodo-revolucionario Many fall into the error of believing that there is no other way to be revolutionary, to prepare for the revolution, other than to prepare materially for the upheaval of the foundations of bourgeois society, or to stubbornly and deliberately clash with individual or collective acts of revolt against the current legal order—believing that this is the only practical mode of agitation and struggle. It is quite true that the one should not be neglected and the other can be usefully implemented in more than one circumstance; but these are exceptional forms of activity, limited in scope, and cannot constitute a lasting rule of conduct that is equal in time and space, nor a normal program of action. The material preparation for the struggle can be nothing more than the occupation of limited groups of individuals; and this task, exhaustible in a relatively short time, can only be initiated at special moments, when there is a serious and feasible intention to engage in the struggle or the possibility of revolutionary situations is glimpsed in the near future. To resort to it out of time or in a way that requires a very long-term outcome would be useless, too costly, and dangerous at the same time. As for acts of revolt, individual or collective, which for a time were called “propaganda by deed,” they depend solely on the will of the person carrying them out; they erupt in an instant and suddenly exhaust their function without specific and precise ties to organized and mass movements. In short, they fall outside the realm of normality, which only encompasses collective and permanent action, such as that of the trade union movement. But can we therefore say that it is impossible to be revolutionary in the practical life of agitation and struggle, even in normal times, within large organizations and the broadest mass movements? Certainly not. While it is true that, for the time being, the largest, most solid, and oldest organizations have less revolutionary and more accommodating and reformist tendencies, it is also true that it is always possible to act within them, to exert influence in a revolutionary sense. And this is the task of those organized and those who are animated by a faith in an idea of the future. They, even in practical, everyday life, in times of peace, can develop revolutionary activity and give revolutionary content even to the most outwardly peaceful struggles of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. There are acts, forms of activity that, even without leaving the legal orbit, can be revolutionary. Publishing a newspaper, organizing and sustaining a strike, promoting popular meetings, street demonstrations, etc., all of this can be contained in the most orthodox forms. Such demonstrations, even if organized by revolutionaries and anarchists, do not cross the boundaries of legality; they only become illegal in exceptional cases. And even in such cases, these are minor infractions that add little or nothing concrete to the desired results. And yet, there are acts of this kind that, without violating the formal law sanctioned in the codes for the benefit of the ruling classes, deeply impress the spirit; and are therefore revolutionary. This is so true that the ruling classes themselves feel the need from time to time to violate their own laws: “to restore balance,” they say; that is, to consolidate their domination, with the slow, though legal, infiltration of revolutionary activity already shaking them to the core. This organization is not enough, of course—and ultimately, the decisive blow of the true revolution is indispensable—but it is necessary and retains all its revolutionary value in the preceding, more or less long, period of evolution. It is necessary, however, not to fall into the simplistic error of attributing a revolutionary value to every form of class or party activity, solely because of the label it may take or simply because of the revolutionary affirmation of the final objective. There are also many reformists who do not deny that the solution to the social problem ultimately requires the violent overthrow of the last obstacles to the complete emancipation of the working class; but then, in practical, everyday life, they act in ways that distance the revolution and consolidate rather than weaken the pillars of capitalism and the state. The proletariat, or rather its revolutionary fractions, are not strong enough to move and act outside the laws, which they nevertheless do not recognize. Consequently, they are forced to suffer them. But even in this sphere, the proletariat could give its activity an effectively revolutionary orientation, that is, in radical opposition; it is intransigent toward all institutions considered evil and unjust. It cannot, it is true, free itself from capitalist exploitation; but in its struggle against it, it is always possible to give it an irreducible character of negation, even when what it proposes to wrest from it is too little in comparison to its comprehensive emancipation. ...

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— Errico Malatesta - Love and anarchy

 

at 3/13/25 12:49pm

Author: Errico MalatestaTitle: Love and anarchySource: Retrieved on March 13, 2025 from https://es.anarchistlibraries.net/library/errico-malatesta-amor-y-anarquia At first, it may seem strange that the question of love and all its related issues are of great concern to a large number of men and women, while there are other, more urgent, if not more important, problems that should command the full attention and activity of those seeking ways to remedy the ills that plague humanity. Every day we encounter people crushed under the weight of current institutions; people forced to eat poorly and threatened at every moment with falling into the deepest misery due to lack of work or illness; people who find themselves unable to raise their children properly, who often die without the necessary care; people condemned to spend their lives without being masters of themselves for a single day, always at the mercy of employers or the police. People for whom the right to have a family and the right to love is a bloody irony, yet they do not accept the means we propose to them to escape political and economic slavery unless we first explain to them how, in a libertarian society, the need for love will be satisfied and how we understand the organization of the family. And naturally, this concern is magnified and leads to neglect and even disdain for other problems in people who have resolved, particularly the problem of hunger and who are in a normal position to satisfy their most pressing needs because they live in an environment of relative well-being. This fact is explained by the immense place that love occupies in the moral and material life of man, since it is in the home, in the family, that man spends the greatest and best part of his life. And it is also explained by a tendency toward the ideal that seizes the human spirit as soon as it opens to consciousness. As long as man unconsciously endures suffering, without seeking a remedy or rebelling, he lives like beasts, accepting life as he finds it. But as soon as he begins to think and understand that his ills are not due to insurmountable natural disasters, but to human causes that men can destroy, he immediately experiences a need for perfection and desires, ideally at least, to enjoy a society in which absolute harmony reigns and in which pain has completely and forever disappeared. This tendency is very useful, since it drives us forward, but it also becomes harmful if, under the pretext that perfection cannot be achieved and that it is impossible to eliminate all dangers and defects, it advises us to neglect possible achievements in order to continue in the current state. Now, and let us say this immediately, we have no solution to remedy the evils that come from love, for they cannot be destroyed by social reforms, not even by a change of morals. They are determined by deep, we might say physiological, human feelings, and are not modifiable, when they are, except through a slow evolution and in a way we cannot foresee. We want freedom; we want men and women to be able to love and unite freely for no other reason than love, without any legal, economic, or physical violence. But freedom, even though it is the only solution we can and should offer, does not radically resolve the problem, given that love, to be satisfied, requires two freedoms that agree and often do not agree at all; and given also that the freedom to do what one wants is a meaningless phrase when one does not know how to want something. It is very easy to say: "When a man and a woman love each other, they unite, and when they cease to love each other, they separate." But it would be necessary, for this principle to become a general and sure rule of happiness, that both love and cease to love each other at the same time. What if one loves and is not loved? What if one still loves and the other no longer loves them and tries to satisfy a new passion? What if one loves several people at the same time who cannot adapt to this promiscuity? "I'm ugly," a friend once told us. "What will I do if no one wants to love me?" The question is laughable, but it also gives us a glimpse of true tragedies. And another, concerned with the same problem, told us: "Nowadays, if I can't find love, I buy it, even if I have to economize my bread. What will I do when there are no women for sale?" The question is horrible, for it reveals the desire of human beings forced by hunger to prostitute themselves; but it is also terrible... and terribly human. Some say that the remedy could be found in the radical abolition of the family; the abolition of the more or less stable sexual partnership, reducing love to a mere physical act, or better yet, transforming it, with sexual union in tow, into a feeling similar to friendship, one that recognizes the multiplicity, the variety, the contemporaneity of affections. And children?... Children of all. Can the family be abolished? Is it desirable that it be? Let us observe first of all that, despite the regime of oppression and lies that has prevailed and still prevails in the family, the family has been and continues to be the greatest factor of human development, for it is in the family that the normal human being sacrifices himself for humanity and does good for the sake of good, desiring no compensation other than the love of his partner and children. ...

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— Alex Louwsiewkee - Counterculture communes

 

at 3/13/25 12:29pm

Author: Alex LouwsiewkeeTitle: Counterculture communesDate: 1972Notes: Article published by a member of The Diggers (a community anarchist movement that emerged in California in the 1960s) in the English fanzine OZ under the name “The Digger thing is your thing... if you are really turned on.”Source: El amor libre. Eros y anarquía, Osvaldo Baigorria. Page 91–92. Points on Freedom and Participation in Communes Based on Love: The commune based on love is an anarchic organization free from authoritarian complications. This means that there is no room for megalomaniacal impostors, bosses, masters, or charlatans pretending to be gurus. Within the limits of what is possible, all work is distributed among everyone. There is no trap like that permanent “division of labor” that inevitably leads to the division of people into different classes. All knowledge and revelations are common heritage, available and free to all. This means that there is no monopolistic professionalism. This also means that Diggers can become (and will become) versatile and even universal boys and girls with their splendid potentialities fully realized, and in this way they will be the progenitors of the fully conscious and enlightened beings of the coming Age of Aquarius. And every Digger will contribute to the commune based on love to the extent of their own ability. All material goods of the commune are distributed among the Diggers according to each person’s needs, or, when goods are abundant, they will be freely available to all. All heavy labor will be automated so that everyone has sufficient free time to pursue their own particular activities. Everyone is free to do whatever they want, provided that this does not entail the emasculation of others’ freedom. To ensure effective personal freedom, no one is treated or considered as someone else’s property; this applies to both children and adults. No one has “rights” over others, and parents have no “rights” over their children. The freedom, well-being, education, and enlightenment of children are the responsibility of the entire commune. To ensure effective sexual freedom, sexual relations within a couple, which may be brief or prolonged, according to the parties’ needs, are considered a freely stipulated reciprocal agreement. It can be freely broken at any time by either party, and both parties can enter into agreements with new partners: a normal agreement that automatically cancels the previous one. The sexual agreement is considered a matter that concerns exclusively the couple in question and is not subject to interference from a third party. All sexual problems are freely discussed and openly discussed. There are no restrictions such as laws, clauses, and regulations, nor presumptions such as respectability, self-righteous morality, and “I’m-better-than-you” attitudes. The Diggers’ way of life is always a matter of love and understanding. If all the points mentioned above are fully fulfilled, they will elevate the practice of freedom and participation to a new level in human society.

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— René Chaughi - Marriage is immoral

 

at 3/13/25 12:19pm

Author: René ChaughiTitle: Marriage is immoralDate: 1898Source: El amor libre. Eros y anarquía, Osvaldo Baigorria. Page 19–24. Two people, a man and a woman, love each other. Do we think they’ll be discreet enough not to announce from house to house the day and hour when...? We think wrong. These people won’t stop until they’ve informed everyone of their plans: relatives, friends, suppliers, and neighbors will be told. Until then, they won’t believe the “thing” is permissible. And I’m not talking about marriages of convenience, in which immorality is flagrant from the outset; I deal with love, and I see that, far from purifying it and giving it a sanction it doesn’t need, marriage debases and debases it. The future husband approaches the father and mother and asks permission to sleep with their daughter. This is already in dubious taste. What do the parents respond? Eager to assimilate their daughter to these ladies as foolish, ridiculous, and distinguished as they are rich, they want to know the contents of her purse, her position in the world, her future— In a word, to find out if he’s a serious fool. There’s no better expression to describe this dealer. Let’s look at our accepted young man. Let’s not think the series of immoralities is over: it’s only just beginning. Of course, each goes to his notary, and long and bitter merchant-like arguments begin between the two parties, in which each wants to receive much more than he gives; in other words, in which each tries to make his own deal. Whatever little affection the two young men may have for each other, their parents seem determined to dispel, tainting and drowning it under sordid concerns for profit. Then come the warnings in which it is announced, with the sound of trumpets, that on such a date, Mr. “X” will fornicate, for the first time, with Miss “Y.” Thinking about these things, one wonders how a reputable and modest girl can endure all this without dying of shame. But it is, above all, the wedding day, with its absurd ceremonies and customs, that I find profoundly immoral and, let’s put it bluntly, obscene. The bride appears dressed up—as the ancients adorned victims before immolating them on the altar—in ridiculous attire; those white garments and those orange blossoms form a completely out-of-place symbol: they draw attention to the act about to take place and become shamefully insistent. Shall I talk about the guests? About their pretentiously foolish way of dressing, their trappings as laughable as they are emphatic, their pompous and silly manners, their extraordinarily uglinessy games? Shall I enumerate all these people, stretched, plumped, groomed, pinned, squeezed, curled, stuffed into their clothes, their feet bruised in tight boots, their hands compressed by gloves, their necks crushed by false collars; this whole world worried about soiling itself, eager to devour, “hungry,” as the poet calls them, come hoping to procure one of those meals that mark the epoch in the life of a freeloading man? How can two young people resolve, without repugnance, to begin their bliss in front of such an abominably grotesque decoration, to make their love amidst these masks and amidst such disgusting caricatures? In the street, people run to see them: they are completely comical; gossips appear at the doors, children scream and run. Everyone tries to catch a glimpse of the bride: the men with greedy eyes, the women with degrading glances; And, all around, we hear vulgar allusions to the wedding night, double-meanings that imply—oh, so discreetly!—that the husband will not have a bad time. And she, poor girl, the sweet lamb, cause and end of such stupid jokes, three-quarters of which undoubtedly reach her ears, is hiding in a corner of the carriage, behind the favorable obesity of her parents? Oh no! She, shamelessly enthroned in her carriage, leans out of the window smiling to attract the attention of the crowd. And what makes her radiant with joy, much more than the love of her fiancé and legitimate physiological satisfaction, is considering herself looked at and envied; it is being able to outshine—even if only for a day—the worst-dressed, to mock her old friends who remain single, to arouse jealousy and sadness around her, in short, to flaunt those immodest clothes that offer her to the laughter of the public and should fill her with shame. All in all, this is revoltingly cynical. Later, at the mayor’s office, where an ordinary gentleman officiates, with no other prestige than the display of a blue, white, and red sash. After the desolate reading of a few articles of an idiotic code, humiliating and insulting to the dignity of the two beings to whom it applies, the individual from the patriotic sash delivers a vulgar, pedestrian speech, and all is finished. Here are our two heroes definitively united. Without that preliminary hubbub, tonight’s fornication would have been an improper and criminal act; but thanks, no doubt, to the magic words of the man with the tricolor sash, that same act is a healthy and normal act... What am I saying! A social duty. Oh, mystery before which the Trinity is nothing more than child’s play! ...

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— Mikhail Bakunin - Letter to Pavel Bakunin

 

at 3/13/25 12:12pm

Author: Mikhail BakuninTitle: Letter to Pavel BakuninDate: 1845Notes: A letter from Bakunin to his younger brother Pavel about love.Source: El amor libre. Eros y anarquía, Osvaldo Baigorria. Page 25–26. March 29, 1845 Paris, France I am the same as before, a declared enemy of existing reality, with only this difference: that I have ceased to be a theorist, that I have finally conquered metaphysics and philosophy within myself, and that I have thrown myself entirely, with all my soul, into the practical world, the world of real fact. Believe me, friend, life is beautiful; I now have every right to say so, because I have long since ceased to view it through theoretical constructions and to know it only in fantasy, because I have actually experienced many of its bitternesses, I have suffered much, and I have often fallen into despair. I love, Pavel, I love passionately: I don’t know if I can be loved as I would like to be, but I don’t despair; I know at least that there is great sympathy for me; I must and want to deserve the love of the one I love, loving her religiously, that is, actively; She is subjected to the most terrible and infamous slavery, and I must free her by fighting her oppressors and kindling in her heart a sense of her own dignity, arousing in her the love and need for freedom, the instincts of rebellion and independence, reminding her of the sense of her strength and her rights. To love is to desire freedom, the complete independence of another; the first act of true love is the complete emancipation of the object of one’s love; one can truly love only a being who is perfectly free, independent, not only of all others, but even and above all of the one from whom one is loved and whom one loves. This is my profession of political, social, and religious faith; this is the intimate meaning not only of my actions and political tendencies, but also, as far as I can, of my particular and individual existence; because the time in which these two kinds of action could be separated is far behind us; now, man desires freedom in all the meanings and applications of that word, or he does not desire it at all; to desire dependence on the one one loves is to love a thing and not a human being, because the human being is distinguished from the thing only by freedom; and if love also implied dependence, it would be the most dangerous and infamous thing in the world, because it would then be an inexhaustible source of slavery and brutalization for humanity. Everything that emancipates men, everything that, by bringing them back to themselves, awakens in them the principle of their own life, of their original and truly independent activity, everything that gives them the strength to be themselves, is true; everything else is false, liberticidal, absurd. To emancipate man, that is the only legitimate and beneficial influence. Down with all religious and philosophical dogmas—they are nothing but lies; truth is not a theory, but a fact; life itself is the community of free and independent men, it is the holy unity of love that springs from the mysterious and infinite depths of individual freedom.

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— Solidarity Collectives - Fuck empires, support local resistances

 

at 3/13/25 9:27am

Author: Solidarity CollectivesTitle: Fuck empires, support local resistancesDate: 13 March 2025Source: Retrieved on 13th March 2025 from www.solidaritycollectives.org We, the Solidarity Collectives, call on you to fight for mutual aid against imperialist and reactionary state or para-state policies. Today, we see the US administration implementing far-right policies and using Ukraine as a bargaining chip in domestic games. The freezing of military aid is not an anti-war move or a promise of peace for Ukrainians but a threat by a wannabe dictator to use our country as a bargaining chip that plays into the hands of those who seek the defeat of the Ukrainian resistance. Let’s be clear: blocking arms supplies to regimes committing war crimes is an essential tool of our movement. But stopping support for those who resist genocide and imperialist aggression is not anti-war—it is participation in destruction. For Ukrainians, every frozen shipment means fewer defenses, more civilian deaths, more cities reduced to rubble by Russian missiles. If you want to act against war profiteering, target the companies and institutions feeding the Russian war machine, not those defending themselves from annihilation. Trump and his allies are not anti-war—they oppose struggles for liberation and self-determination while strengthening authoritarian regimes. They continue to support authoritarian regimes, reinforce racist and xenophobic narratives, and fuel Neo-fascist movements. This is not a peacemaking position—it is a rejection of international solidarity and a signal to all reactionaries of the world that oppression and repression will be tolerated. We have no illusions about the role of the United States as an imperialist power. We know NATO is not an alliance of liberation but of interest. But isolationism is not the answer. Isolationism is a trap. It is sold as strength but only makes space for greater oppression. It is the illusion of control while the world burns. You do not win a race by running alone—you only run alone like an idiot. Strength comes from connection, from solidarity, from collective struggles. Solidarity with the peoples who resist is a political gesture which we can’t let be manipulated into a threat to gain benefits. We call on anti-authoritarian and left-wing communities not to succumb to pseudo-anti-war rhetoric, which in reality only plays along with imperialism, and to continue to support those who are fighting for their own existence. Anti-fascism is not contemplation, but action. We want to share the analysis and proposals of our comrade Tom Nomad about the current situation in the US: www.rupturepress.org We have spent three years building networks of resistance—and we will not stop. But to win, we need to grow. More hands, more voices, more action. Support your local anti-fascist and anarchist groups. Build new ones if they do not yet exist. Find comrades, analyze the situation together, learn from past and present struggles, and organize. Organizing our movement together should be a priority in the face of counter-revolutionary isolationism, together we are stronger. If you want to contact a group with whom we work internationally, you can find the list at the end of a video we made for 24 February 2025. You can contact any of them to then understand how to effectively work in solidarity with our struggle, but also other struggles that happen internationally. And you can be in touch with us anytime: www.solidaritycollectives.org Solidarity beyond borders. Fight where you stand. Build internationalism together.

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— Leila Al Shami - United, Not Homogenous

 

at 3/13/25 9:24am

Author: Leila Al ShamiTitle: United, Not HomogenousSubtitle: Democracy and Secularism in Syria’s RevolutionDate: 2 January 2025Source: Retrieved on 13th March 2025 from aljumhuriya.net On 19 December, photos circulated on social media of a protest in Umayyad Square in Damascus calling for a secular, civil and democratic state. The photos stood out immediately because, unlike other mass gatherings in Syria in recent days, very few revolutionary flags could be seen in the crowd. As the day went on, it transpired that many of those participating in the demonstration had in fact been regime partisans, those who had previously expressed their support for Assad’s militias, barrel bombs and chemical attacks. Revolutionary Syrians were understandably outraged to see such people exercising the rights they had long denied to others. Yet I also took some hope from this protest. The demonstration was permitted by the new transitional government, no-one was arrested, no-one was shot. An armed fighter from the HTS-led Military Operations Administration spoke at the demonstration. Amongst the crowd’s chants of “secularism, secularism” – a goal he clearly didn’t share – he eloquently expressed the need to stand united against sectarianism. Impassioned debates erupted over social media and in Syrian chat groups between supporters of secularism and supporters of a state utilizing an Islamic framework. A feeling of unease swept over me as revolutionaries argued amongst themselves. It’s much easier to be united when you are standing against something than when you must articulate what you are standing for. But then I realized that this was precisely the Syria that revolutionaries had been fighting for: a country where debates could be had together in the public sphere, sharing differing opinions, and listening to each other respectfully. The hard work of political co-construction has just begun. The debates, however, largely missed the point. The dividing line in Syria was never between religion and secularism, but between authoritarianism and democracy. Syria has a large Sunni majority, comprising some 70 percent of the population. It is understandable that religious Muslims want to organize their societies and politics in accordance with their own culture, values and traditions. In the West, Islamism is seen as a monolith of reaction – associated with enforced gender segregation and severe punishments for transgression – but to most Muslims it means a just government and a clean social space free of corruption. Islamism can have many faces: it can be liberation theology, bourgeois democracy, dictatorship, or apocalyptic nihilism. It should not be assumed that democracy in the Middle East will resemble liberal Western democracy, which – following the full backing many Western states have given to Israel’s genocide in Gaza – has lost what little credibility it still had. As a result of the former regime enforcing its own vision of ‘secularism’ on the population – as a means of social control up to and including genocide – many Syrians cannot help but feel antipathy towards the concept. The regime played on sectarian divisions and pitted communities against each other – divisions which revolutionary Syrians worked hard to overcome. On Twitter, a young woman posted a photo of herself, her bright blue hair tied up in a ponytail, wearing a leather bomber jacket emblazoned with the free Syria flag. “I’m a young, unveiled, free Syrian woman,” she wrote, “and I’d rather be ruled by conservative God-fearing Muslims than by Assad’s genocidal militias.” Someone else commented in a chat group, “Seriously, whether Syria is Muslim or secular, I just want a country with electricity, food, reasonable prices, no corruption, unity, safety; a country I can actually be proud of and call home.” Today, a large part of the secular, democratic opposition are either outside the country or were slaughtered in Assad’s gulags, and the organized opposition in exile has limited popular legitimacy on the ground. The divide also has a clear class dimension: the Sunni majority were among those who suffered most under the rule of both Hafez and Bashar Al Assad, as minority groups rose to positions of power. The Syrian revolution started on the peripheries, including amongst more socially and religiously conservative communities. Those who took up arms and sacrificed their lives played a key role in liberating Syria from a tyrant, and they rightfully want to participate in the future direction of the country. The question is to what extent they will allow others to participate too, support the transition to civilian rule, and not divide power between various warlords. Anyone who claims to represent Syrians must prove it at the ballot box. The West, meanwhile, has been displaying its Islamophobia. In a BBC interview with Ahmed al-Sharaa (al-Jolani) one of Jeremy Bowen’s first questions was whether the new Syria includes “tolerance for people who drink alcohol.” Meanwhile, mass graves are still being unearthed around the country, Syrian mothers are still frantically trying to search for news of their detained loved ones, and Israel occupies more territory on Syria’s southern borders. Likewise, white feminists began expressing concern over women’s clothing – some of whom had never said a word about the regime’s organized rape campaigns targeting dissident communities, or the women whose bodies were abused and slaughtered in prison. Assad’s supporters in the West expressed their concern about minorities – the same people who remained silent as Assad systematically exterminated those who opposed his rule. ...

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— Leila Al Shami - Riad al-Turk’s Lifelong Struggle for a Free and Democratic Syria

 

at 3/13/25 9:22am

Author: Leila Al ShamiTitle: Riad al-Turk’s Lifelong Struggle for a Free and Democratic SyriaSubtitle: A writer and human rights activist who worked alongside the recently deceased ‘Syrian Mandela’ in Damascus reflects on the rich legacy he left behindDate: 10 January 2024Source: Retrieved on 13th March 2025 from newlinesmag.com If I were granted paradise I would not wish to have it alone May no clouds rain on me and my land That do not cover the whole country When Riad al-Turk, the veteran dissident known affectionately as “the old man of the Syrian opposition,” died on New Year’s Day 2024 in exile in France at the age of 93, his family took the unusual step of starting his death notice not with a religious quote but with the above lines by the 11th-century Syrian poet, philosopher and freethinker Abu al-Alaa al-Maarri. The egalitarian spirit of the verse captures much of the essence of Riad, who lived a life of great personal sacrifice in the struggle for a free and democratic Syria. He suffered immensely but was not broken. He leaves behind a rich legacy. When I first met Riad, I had recently arrived in Damascus from Britain. It was the year 2000. It was a mild autumn, but all the talk was of a “Damascus Spring.” Hafez al-Assad had just died, after three decades of totalitarian dictatorship, and his son Bashar had inherited the presidency. The new president seemed to be an outward-looking modernizer. Many Syrians at home and abroad believed his presidency would usher in a new democratic age. My father was one of many political dissidents who seized the moment to return from exile. He took me with him. Riad al-Turk was a close friend and former comrade of my father’s. He used to visit our house in Tiliani, behind the Italian Hospital from which the district takes its name. I saw my father truly come alive on those evenings when they sat with other friends in a smoke-filled room, a glass of arak or whisky in hand, voices raised, hands gesturing. During those visits my father relived the escapades of his youth. He could also engage in the animated political discussions he’d missed so much in exile. I was young, and my interest in Syrian politics was limited. I had come to Damascus to spend time with family. I had recently graduated with a master’s degree in human rights and had dreams of working in South Asia. Did I want to work on human rights in Syria? Riad asked me. A short while later, I found myself attending a meeting of a human rights monitoring center, one of the newly formed independent civil society organizations that had sprung up following Hafez al-Assad’s death. The meeting was held in an old stone building in Damascus’ Baramkeh neighborhood. I was introduced that day to a young lawyer called Razan Zaitouneh. We were the same age, both of us were passionate about human rights and social justice, and we quickly developed a strong friendship. At the time, I was largely oblivious to the risks such work entailed. I never made it to South Asia, and I saw a great deal more of Riad. Riad al-Turk was born in Homs in 1930. He grew up in an orphanage. Maybe it was his early childhood experience that imbued him with the strong sense of injustice and the determination to resist it that would define his life. He became politically active while in law school, and in 1952 he joined the Syrian Communist Party (SCP). His first short stint in prison was the same year. This was punishment for opposing the military coup led by Adib al-Shishakli, one of a series of coups that followed Syria’s formal independence from France. Then he was imprisoned again in 1958 and held for 16 months for opposing the short-lived United Arab Republic, which brought the Syrian and Egyptian states together under Gamal Abdel Nasser’s rule. Both the Shishakli coup and the Nasserist dictatorship significantly eroded Syrian democracy, giving the military and security services a central role in political life. It was this assault on democracy — and, specifically, Nasser’s banning of the Syrian Communist Party — that provoked the opposition of Riad and his comrades. He was a democrat to his core. And by now he had suffered grievous torture, which didn’t subdue his fervor for justice — on the contrary, it deepened and made it more visceral. He refused to back down. He served as secretary general of the Syrian Communist Party (Political Bureau) from its foundation in 1973 until 2005. The party was formed following a split in the SCP over several key disagreements. The breakaway Political Bureau wanted the Arabs to play a role independent of the Soviet Union and opposed the SCP’s authoritarian leadership under Khaled Bakdash. In 1972, they rejected the SCP’s decision to join the pro-regime National Progressive Front, which provided a facade of political pluralism while the reality was absolute subservience to the ruling Baath Party and the Hafez al-Assad cult. The Political Bureau was able to operate at first, although with restrictions. But the regime cracked down on the party after it strongly condemned Syria’s intervention in Lebanon in 1976, in which Assad supported pro-Israel Falangist militias against the Palestinian-leftist alliance. All party activity was severely repressed. In October 1980, Riad was arrested. On this occasion, he was imprisoned for almost 18 years, spending the whole time in solitary confinement. For the first 10 years he didn’t have a bed to sleep on. As well as the psychological torment, he was subjected to extreme physical torture. He refused repeated attempts to co-opt him in return for his release. ...

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— Leila Al Shami and Shon Meckfessel - Why the US Far Right Loves Bashar al-Assad

 

at 3/13/25 9:20am

Author: Leila Al Shami and Shon MeckfesselTitle: Why the US Far Right Loves Bashar al-AssadSubtitle: Ideological affinities and a long intellectual history lie behind the curious reverence for the Syrian dictator among fascists and white nationalistsDate: 1 August 2023Source: Retrieved on 13th March 2025 from newlinesmag.com On April 1, 2023, a conference was held in Lyon, France, under the title “Syria and Its Allies on the March Towards a Multipolar World.” It was held by Egalite et Reconciliation (Equality and Reconciliation), a think tank founded by Alain Soral, a former member of France’s right-wing National Front party (rebranded in 2018 as the “National Rally”). Soral was imprisoned in 2019 for racism, antisemitism and Holocaust denial. The syncretic think tank he founded, whose motto is “left-wing on labor, right-wing on values,” combines social and economic ideas from the left with values around family and nation traditionally associated with the right. The conference brought together members of the far right to update them on the current situation in Syria and thank the country for “its war on terrorism.” At first sight, it may seem strange that European fascists are organizing to stand in solidarity with an Arab dictator. But in fact, President Bashar al-Assad’s war on the Syrian people who rose up against him appeals to fascist sensibilities across the globe. James Alex Fields Jr. was 20 years old when he drove his car into a crowd in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Aug. 12, 2017, killing the 32-year-old protester Heather Heyer and injuring numerous others. Fields had long been public with his far-right views, and efforts by his alleged colleagues in the fascist group Vanguard America to disavow his allegiance were unconvincing. In seeking to understand Fields’ motives, the many journalists and others who checked his Facebook account were greeted by an image of Assad with the word “Undefeated.” Why, they found themselves asking, would an American white nationalist celebrate an Arab leader from a majority-Muslim country, and what might this say about the movement from which he emerged? Fields is not the only far-right activist to display admiration for Assad. A number of other attendees of the “Unite the Right” rally expressed similar sympathies. One protester boasted a T-shirt emblazoned with the words, “Bashar’s Barrel Delivery Co.,” in reference to the improvised bombs that have caused thousands of civilian deaths and turned whole Syrian cities into rubble. Another declared, “Support the Syrian Arab Army … fight against the globalists!” to which the alt-right YouTuber Baked Alaska responded, “Assad did nothing wrong, right?” Far-right figures expressing common cause with the Syrian dictator long predates this rally. As far back as 2005, the Klansman-cum-state legislator David Duke visited Damascus and declared in a speech aired on Syrian state television that “part of my country is occupied by Zionists, just as part of your country, the Golan Heights, is occupied by Zionists. The Zionists occupy most of the American media and now control much of the American government.” Assad’s regime has only increased in popularity with the far right since. Adoration of Assad is, indeed, widespread among the far right. Some of this support mirrors more commonly held notions about Assad: that he is the only force effectively fighting the Islamic State group, that he is somehow holding the country and region together or that he is protecting Christians and other religious minorities. (This is the basis on which one far-right Christian nongovernmental organization, known as SOS Chretiens d’Orient, has supported the Syrian dictator. It is now under investigation in France, where it is based, after New Lines published an expose of its activities.) Many other groups, however, demonstrate clearly fascist motives. On March 3, 2018, Justin Burger, a “major” in the now-defunct Traditionalist Worker Party in Georgia, and “Rock,” one of his comrades, had a conversation on the #tradworker Discord channel, subsequently leaked by Unicorn Riot (a non-profit media collective that reports on far-right organizations). In the conversation, Burger takes offense at a meme showing a swastika among other symbols opposed to Assad: JUSTIN BURGER: Assad is a Ba’athist, the closest still living incarnation to NATSOC. … Cyprian Blamires claims that “Ba’athism may have been a Middle Eastern variant of fascism.” According to him, the Ba’ath movement shared several characteristics with the European fascist movements such as “the attempt to synthesize radical, illiberal nationalism and non-Marxist socialism, a romantic, mythopoetic, and elitist ‘revolutionary’ vision, the desire both to create a ‘new man’ and to restore past greatness, a centralised authoritarian party divided into ‘Right Wing’ and ‘left-wing’ factions and so forth; several close associates later admitted that Aflaq had been directly inspired by certain fascist and Nazi theorists.” ROCK: Can we just admit that Assad is our guy Hecc they even get sworn in by doing the Roman salute I believe. Burger’s claim that the Baath Party manifests a historical continuity with National Socialism contains a kernel of truth. The Syrian regime’s authoritarianism and cult of personality around the president reflect in many ways the totalitarian regimes (both fascist and communist) of the 20th century. This, coupled with the Syrian regime’s strong nationalist identity, holds appeal for many on the contemporary far right. ...

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— Leila Al Shami - Revolution Reborn

 

at 3/13/25 9:17am

Author: Leila Al ShamiTitle: Revolution RebornDate: 26 August 2023Source: Retrieved on 13th March 2025 from leilashami.wordpress.com Yesterday, 25 August, the revolution flag flew high in villages, towns and cities across Syria. In Sweida, Dera’a, Aleppo, Idlib, Raqqa, Hasakeh and Deir Al Zour, thousands were on the streets reviving the chants of the revolution. Protests erupted in the south of the country a few days ago, in regime-held Sweida and Dera’a. They were triggered by the cost-of-living crisis, especially the recent increase in fuel prices as subsidies were cut. People are struggling to meet their basic needs – one of the reasons many are still fleeing the country. More than 90 percent of the population lives below the poverty line and half of the population are food insecure. A Syrian state employee currently earns around $10 per month, no where near enough to provide for a family as basic food items spiral in price. It is the regime which has brought the country to ruin. Protests triggered by socio-economic demands soon escalated to renewed calls for Assad’s downfall. In Druze-majority Sweida the clerical establishment has voiced support for the protests, signaling a shift in a region which has previously maintained a position of neutrality through the revolution. Druze protesters sang revolutionary songs “Syria is ours, not Assad’s”, they chanted. They also chanted the anti-sectarian slogan “one, one, one, the Syrian people are one” and Bedouin Sunni tribesmen joined them sending a clear message of unity in spite of the regime’s ongoing attempt to ferment sectarian division. One symbolic demonstration raised a revolution flag at the tomb of Sultan Prasha Al Atrash, a Druze hero of the anti-colonial struggle against the French. Syrians are once again struggling for national liberation – from a criminal regime which has no popular legitimacy. Since 16 August more than 52 locations in the south have witnessed protests and other acts of civil disobedience. On 20August a general strike led by public transport drivers, which also saw shops and businesses close, was widely observed. A number of regime buildings have been attacked. On Wednesday, angry protestors ransacked the local offices of the Baath Party in Sweida. In addition to deteriorating living conditions protesters also voiced their rage against rampant corruption and called for a crackdown on the drugs trade. Warlords and regime cronies have been amassing wealth and power through smuggling the amphetamine-like Captagon, which has led to a deteriorating security situation in the south. On Friday, protests spread around the country with people taking to the streets under the banner “Friday of Accountability for Assad”. In scenes reminiscent of the early days of the revolution, women and men from all different social backgrounds were calling for the fall of the regime. Many chants and banners also demanded Assad’s imperial backers – Russia and Iran – leave. Protestors in the north chanted in solidarity with their compatriots in the south. In Idlib, and Atarib in the Aleppo countryside, the flags of the Druze and Kurdish communities were raised alongside the revolution flag. And there were numerous displays of solidarity with the Ukrainian resistance. In the camp of Mashhad Ruhin in Idlib where people displaced by Assad’s terror now live, the crowds gathered and chanted “the people want the fall of the regime”. Children, who were not even born when Syria’s revolution began, knew the words to every revolutionary song. Even members of the Alawite community, Assad’s loyalist base, have been taking to social media in recent days voicing their anger at the regime which has destroyed the country. In Sweida women led protests calling for the release of political prisoners – a key demand of all Free Syrians. More than 130,000 individuals have been detained or forcibly disappeared by the regime since 2011. Posters demanded the release of Ayman Fares, a son of Lattakia, who released a video which went viral a few days ago criticizing the regime and was arrested whilst trying to flee to Sweida. The regime deals with dissent in the only way it knows – with severe repression. In both Aleppo and Dera’a there have been reports of security forces firing on protestors with two civilians reported killed in Al-Fardous neighborhood of Aleppo city. The Syrian Network for Human Rights reports that 57 civilians have been arrested in connection with the protests over the last few days. And the bombing has not stopped. Just this morning regime and Russian warplanes targeted two schools in Idlib province – continuing their relentless campaign against civilians safe in the knowledge that the international community will fail to meaningfully respond to ongoing war crimes. In recent days coordinated campaigns have appeared on social media with a list of demands and calls to protest. One is the 10 August Movement which, amongst other things, calls for the establishment of a transitional government in line with UN Security Council resolution 2254 (2015), an end to sectarian division, an end to foreign occupation and external intervention, the release of all detainees and the prosecution of war criminals. ...

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— Leila Al Shami - Bashar al-Assad Has a Syria He’d Like the World to See

 

at 3/13/25 9:16am

Author: Leila Al ShamiTitle: Bashar al-Assad Has a Syria He’d Like the World to SeeDate: 31 August 2022Source: Retrieved on 13th March 2025 from www.nytimes.com At first the image didn’t make much sense: tanks bunched together, red flags flying and a line of soldiers in Yemeni-style red berets. The scene was set in the shadows of bombed-out apartment buildings that, confusingly, didn’t look much like Yemen. The scene was fake, a photo of the set of “Home Operation,” a film produced by Jackie Chan and inspired by a Chinese mission to evacuate Chinese and foreign nationals from Yemen in 2015. The apartment buildings were real, but not in Yemen. Filming started last month in Hajar al-Aswad, a southern suburb of Damascus, Syria, that used to be home to thousands of people. In the photo Hajar al-Aswad looks like an old ruin from an old conflict, repurposed as background for the heroics of Chinese film stars. But when the Syrian revolution began, in 2011, Hajar al-Aswad was an opposition stronghold. It was captured by the Islamic State around 2015 and then retaken in 2018 by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. The bombardment almost completely leveled it. Now it is the longed-for neighborhood of the inhabitants who were forced to abandon it. Filming a Chinese blockbuster in an area destroyed by Mr. al-Assad is a cinematic looting that, we can assume, benefits the man who bombed it in the first place — who can film in the suburbs of Damascus without the permission of the regime? Mr. al-Assad would like to paint a picture of a post-conflict Syria and even hopes the world will buy it. The trouble is, it’s not the real one. Rebels still hold much of the northwest of Syria, where many of the internally displaced live in camps, and the regime and Russia bomb the area regularly. The regime is also still battling an insurgency in Dara’a, the southern city where the anti-government uprising began in 2011. Elsewhere in the country, life is far from normal. The U.N. estimates that over 300,000 civilians have been killed in Syria since 2011, around 1.5 percent of the population and most likely an underestimate. Mr. al-Assad’s scorched-earth policy has driven millions from their homes; most are internally displaced but many have fled abroad. The country’s infrastructure and economy are destroyed, and the price of basic foods is estimated to have risen by 800 percent since 2011. This is Syria in 2022, but you might be forgiven for thinking otherwise. “Home Operation” is just the latest iteration of the regime’s campaign to get the world to see the country in a different light. As the setting for Ahmad Ghossein’s 2019 film “All This Victory,” for example, about the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war in Lebanon. Some scenes for “All This Victory” were filmed in Zabadani, a city in southwestern Syria that was besieged and occupied by Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia allied with Mr. al-Assad. The dark irony of depicting Hezbollah resisting Israeli aggression on these sites was apparently lost on some; the film scooped three awards, including best film, at Venice Critics’ Week, an offshoot of the Venice Film Festival. The regime’s other attempts at image overhaul have been a little scrappier: It has relied on travel video bloggers, or vloggers, and influencers to portray a safe, sanitized Syria and to discuss the war in — at best — ambiguous terms. Consider the Japanese vlogger who visited Saidnaya, a city north of Damascus, in 2019 and toured its famous monastery but failed to mention its famous prison, a regime facility that Amnesty International has called a “human slaughterhouse” and that is still in operation even now. In June an anonymous defector and former gravedigger told U.S. senators that he received the bodies of victims of torture in Saidnaya twice a week. Or the Irish vlogger who toured a food market in Aleppo and sampled bread and pastries, then walked through a vast demolished neighborhood to visit a soap factory. The footage that makes it to social media suggests that the influencers who are allowed to enter the country are those who reliably parrot what they are told by their assigned guides. Their videos may reach thousands of people, but “Home Operation” is a little different. It is evidence, maybe, that Mr. al-Assad’s attempts to improve his image abroad are starting to bear real fruit. “Home Operation” is produced by SYX Pictures, a Chinese company in the United Arab Emirates. China’s outgoing ambassador to Syria, Feng Biao, was photographed on the film set — near a red banner hanging from a Chinese tank that read “love and peace.” China is one of the few countries that has maintained diplomatic ties with Syria, but the U.A.E. has recently taken steps to normalize relations. Mr. al-Assad visited the Emirates in March — his first official visit to anywhere other than Russia and Iran since 2011 — and met with its president, Shaikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Ostensibly the Western consensus is still that relations with Mr. al-Assad cannot be resumed. But some international bodies are welcoming his government back into the fold, and each accreditation seems more ludicrous than the last. In June last year the World Health Organization appointed Syria to its executive board, even though the regime has repeatedly targeted health care facilities; UNESCO recently invited Syria to its Transforming Education Summit, despite the fact that the U.N. itself has documented almost 700 attacks on education facilities in Syria in the past decade; and in June, Interpol invited representatives of the regime to a conference on regional efforts to combat the drug trade. Syria has a thriving illegal drug industry, run by friends and relatives of the president. ...

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— Leila Al Shami - Assad’s Pyrrhic Victory

 

at 3/13/25 9:14am

Author: Leila Al ShamiTitle: Assad’s Pyrrhic VictoryDate: Summer 2021Source: Retrieved on 13th March 2025 from newpol.org It’s difficult to recollect the euphoria of the early days of the 2011 uprising in Syria against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Reflecting on that time, Syrians speak of the breaking of the “fear barrier”—the suffocating authoritarianism and repression that had silenced them for decades. At the protests calling for freedom that sprung up across the country that spring, there was a carnivalesque atmosphere replete with dance and song. Over time, as land was liberated from state control, Syrians collectively built a creative and vibrant revolutionary culture and planted the seeds for a new democratic society. Syrians both at home and abroad were optimistic for the future. We believed the regime would fall. We thought our just struggle would win. A decade later, pain, trauma, and despair define the Syrian experience. Much of the territory has returned to regime control. The country lies in ruins. Over half the population no longer live in their own homes, and over six million have fled the country. Many of those who remain live in dire conditions, without housing, livelihoods, or access to basic services. The “kingdom of fear” has been reinstated, not only in the form of continuing state repression, and in some areas continuing conflict, but also as a result of the power struggle between various warlords. Yet, while the revolutionary movement appears subject to savage defeat, at least for now, it is by no means clear that “Assad has won.” Assad’s tenuous grip on power is maintained by foreign forces. Since the start of the conflict, Russia has provided military aid to the regime, and it was Russia’s direct military involvement in 2015 that profoundly altered the dynamics on the ground, at a time when the regime was close to collapse. While Moscow initially claimed to be targeting terrorist groups such as the Islamic State, Russian air strikes prioritized opposition-held areas and repeatedly targeted civilian infrastructure, including hospitals. This intervention, which turned the liberated areas into death zones, saw large swaths of the country return to regime control. Russia has also been Assad’s key political ally, providing the diplomatic weight needed to protect the regime from international accountability. Today, Russian power vastly eclipses that of the United States in relation to Syria, and Moscow has established itself as a dominant player in the region. The economic cost to Russia has been great, but it has been rewarded with lucrative contracts for gas and oil. The Russian company Stroytransgaz, owned by a Kremlin-linked oligarch, has been granted 70 percent of all revenues from phosphate production for the next fifty years, probably amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars or more. (Syria is estimated to have one of the world’s largest reserves of phosphates, used for making fertilizers.) The company has also been granted control over the commercial port in Tartus, necessary for its export. However, it is Iran that poses the greatest threat to any hope of Syrian self-determination. In parts of the country, Syrians are now effectively living under Iranian occupation. Tehran, which has backed the Assad regime from the outset, sees Syria as a key part of the so-called “axis of resistance” against the United States and Israel, and as a strategically important link in the Shia bloc that connects Iran and Iraq with Lebanon and the Mediterranean. Tehran has supported large numbers of fighters in Syria, arranging for sectarian Shia militias from Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and has established numerous military bases in Syria (some of which are prime targets for air strikes by Israel, which fears an entrenched Iranian presence on its northern border). Iran has been the main backer of the regime financially and economically. Since 2013, Tehran has provided Syria with credit lines to import fuel and other goods and is a major trading partner. Business forums have been established to improve bilateral economic relations and trade. Just as Russia’s reward for its loyalty is Syria’s natural resources, Iran’s is real estate, which it is buying up in Damascus, Homs, Deir al-Zour, and Aleppo. Iranian companies, often with links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, have been awarded lucrative contracts for reconstruction and infrastructure projects. By cementing its presence economically, Iran ensures that it will maintain influence in the event of a peace deal that calls upon foreign militias to leave. In these ways, Iran is expanding its presence in Syria and seeks to embed itself in Syrian society in a way that Russia does not. In an attempt to build a local constituency, it purchases loyalty by paying Syrian youth high salaries (up to $700 per month) to join Iranian militias, and has established cultural and education centers and mosques to spread Iranian culture and Shiism. In Damascus, people report a noticeable change in demographics in neighborhoods such as Bab Touma and Bab Sharqi, which were previously home to a large Christian community and are now populated by members of Iranian-backed militia. Properties belonging to Syrians displaced by the conflict are now inhabited by militia members and their families. In Hama and southern Idlib, agricultural land seized by the regime has been auctioned off at symbolic prices, and the main buyers are militia members. Shop signs and adverts are often written in Farsi. While many Syrians cannot return to their home country, the regime has fast-tracked naturalization of foreigners to ensure that Iranians and others can become citizens. The forced displacement of communities supportive of the opposition and the re-population of those areas with communities perceived as loyal is part of a deliberate strategy by the regime to change demographics to ensure an obedient constituency in areas it controls. As Assad himself said in a speech in 2015, “Syria is not for those who hold its passport or reside in it; Syria is for those who defend it.” One reason why a political solution has not yet been reached may be that the regime is stalling while it creates “facts on the ground” that will strengthen its hand in negotiations. ...

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— Leila Al Shami - The erasure of Yarmouk

 

at 3/13/25 9:12am

Author: Leila Al ShamiTitle: The erasure of YarmoukSubtitle: How the Assad regime is dismantling Syria’s hub of Palestinian lifeDate: 14 August 2020Source: Retrieved on 13th March 2025 from www.newarab.com Yarmouk refugee camp, on the southern outskirts of Damascus, was once known as the ‘capital of the Palestinian diaspora’. Ravaged by Syria’s counter-revolutionary war, more than two years after the cessation of local fighting the camp still lies in ruins. Residents who were forcibly displaced are yet to return, and a new reconstruction plan threatens to make their displacement permanent. Yarmouk is one of several formally oppositional communities in which a series of housing, land and property laws and re-development plans are being used to expropriate the property of the original inhabitants and change demographics. Yarmouk Camp was established in 1957 to accommodate Palestinian refugees who had fled the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe) and ethnic cleansing of Palestine. While not officially recognised as a camp, it was home to the largest concentration of Palestinian refugees outside their native land, and was a cultural, political and intellectual hub for Palestinian life in exile. Over time it grew into a densely populated residential neighbourhood which, prior to the Syrian revolution, housed some 160,000 Palestinians and tens of thousands of Syrians. A bustling commercial centre, people from across Damascus would visit Yarmouk’s vibrant markets. Due to their precarious status as refugees, Palestinian civil society and political factions in Yarmouk decided to maintain a position of neutrality when the revolution broke out. The camp remained relatively calm and provided safe haven for Syrians fleeing regime repression elsewhere. The turning point came on 15 May 2011. The Syrian regime had encouraged Palestinian youths to demonstrate on the border of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to commemorate the Nakba. Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and live bullets at demonstrators resulting in hundreds of injuries and 17 deaths as Syrian soldiers stood by without intervening and prevented ambulances from reaching the wounded. Many believed that the regime had used them to deflect attention from the uprising. Funerals for the dead turned into the first of many anti-regime demonstrations. In December 2012, MiG war planes shelled the Abdel Qadir Al-Husseini mosque in the heart of the camp, where internally displaced people were sheltering. Dozens were killed. This resulted in the entry of opposition militia fighting the regime. Palestinian factions joined both sides. Some 80 percent of the population fled and a partial siege was imposed by the regime and the loyalist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. The humanitarian situation dramatically worsened in July 2013 as a full siege was enforced by the regime, preventing the entry of food and humanitarian aid for the 18,000 civilians trapped inside. Fatwas (religious edicts) were issued permitting the consumption of cats and dogs (prohibited in Islam) to fend off starvation. A lack of medical supplies and the regime’s destruction of medical facilities meant that those injured by the constant shelling, or those with chronic illnesses, faced a death sentence. In order to survive, people planted rooftop gardens. When the regime finally permitted UNRWA to enter in January 2014, photos of emaciated residents queuing for food amongst an apocalyptic wasteland of bombed-out buildings shocked the world. The Syrian regime has portrayed itself as defender of the Palestinian cause. Yet no mercy was shown to the people of Yarmouk who were collectively punished for the ‘crime’ of providing shelter to the displaced and later joining Syria’s struggle for freedom and social justice. The Action Group for Palestinians of Syria (AGPS) documents 1,458 Palestinians from Yarmouk killed since 2011. This includes 496 who died due to shelling of the camp, 208 who died from starvation or medical neglect due to the siege and 215 tortured to death in the regime’s detention centres. Despite the regime’s control of entry points to the camp, in April 2015 the Islamic State (IS) captured over 60 percent of Yarmouk. It brought with it a new reign of terror, clamping down on civil society activists and independent voices and carrying out floggings and executions. At this point 3,000 civilians remained under IS occupation. The regime and its allies launched an all-out assault on the camp to oust IS in April 2018. A month of intensive bombing left some 80 percent of the camp’s buildings and infrastructure destroyed. A Russian sponsored deal saw IS members and their families evacuated to the desert east of Suweida and the remaining civilian population was forcibly displaced as the regime re-took control. Just two months later, IS carried out a string of attacks in Suweida targeting the Druze minority population. Many believed the regime facilitated the assault – a cynical ploy to re-impose control over the province. Following the ceasefire many families attempted to return to Yarmouk but were prevented. Some were permitted brief entry to inspect their homes after receiving security clearance and paying bribes. In the following days photos circulated on social media of regime-affiliated militia looting the property of former residents. ...

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— Leila Al Shami - On the Turkish offensive on north-eastern Syria

 

at 3/13/25 9:09am

Author: Leila Al ShamiTitle: On the Turkish offensive on north-eastern SyriaDate: 14 October 2019Source: Retrieved on 13th March 2025 from leilashami.wordpress.com The recent Turkish offensive on north-eastern Syria and US withdrawal of troops from the region is unleashing yet another humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions. In the past few days over 130,000 Syrians have fled for their lives, in desperate search of safety. Dozens of civilians have been killed by Turkish bombs and assassinations by Turkish allied militias. Among the chaos ISIS prisoners have broken out of detention camps and are now running free – many of them foreigners, including children, whose respective states have refused to take responsibility for their nationals. The Turkish invasion was green lighted by Trump (and likely Russia too) and has seen the US abandon its allies, the Syrian Democratic Forces (dominated by Kurdish militia), which it partnered with in the war to destroy the Islamic State. It is not the first time the US has abandoned allies in Syria, and it’s unlikely this betrayal will easily be forgotten by those who will suffer the consequences. Turkey’s operation has two aims. It hopes to crush Kurdish autonomy in the north, much of which has been under the control of the Kurdish PYD since 2012, a group linked to the PKK, long seen by the Turkish state as a domestic enemy, and to establish a buffer zone in which to return Syrian refugees facing increasing hostility and xenophobia in Turkey. As many of the refugees are Arabs and would be returned to an area where many minorities – Kurdish and others – reside, such a move would likely lead to further demographic change, now a key feature of the Syrian tragedy. Syrian opposition groups allied with Turkey therefore fight for a Turkish agenda, and one that bears no resemblance to the Syrian revolution for freedom and dignity which began eight years ago. Inhabitants of the region have good reason to fear a Turkish occupation. The Kurdish-majority city of Afrin, which fell to Turkey and allied forces last year, sets a terrifying precedent. Many civilians were displaced from their homes and prevented from returning, and there was widespread looting of abandoned property, as well as arrests, rape and assassinations. Given the fears Syrian Kurds hold of ethnic cleansing by Turkish forces, and no allies willing to defend them, the PYD has been left with little option but to negotiate a return of regime control, ending an experiment in Kurdish autonomy which has led to significant gains for the population in the realization of many of their rights long denied by the Arabist regime. This was likely only a matter of time. When the regime handed power to the PYD it probably calculated three factors: that this transfer of power would stop the Kurds fighting the regime, allowing the regime to concentrate military resources elsewhere; that it would fragment and thus weaken the Syrian opposition to Assad along sectarian divisions; and that if the PYD became too powerful, Turkey would intervene to prevent them from expanding, allowing the regime to retake control. Reportedly the deal brokered between the regime and the PYD-dominated SDF includes a guarantee of full Kurdish rights and autonomy. Yet it’s unlikely the regime will ever accept Kurdish autonomy, as it’s repeatedly made clear in public statements. Elsewhere in Syria all promises given by the regime in ‘reconciliation’ deals were not worth the paper they were written on. Anti-regime activists, both Arabs and Kurds, are now at risk of being rounded up and detained for possible death by torture. SDF fighters are also not safe. Just days ago Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Maqdad declared that they had “betrayed their country and committed crimes against it.” Whilst many Kurds, abandoned by the US, may feel safer under Assad than Turkey, some Arab civilians living in SDF controlled areas such as Deir Al Zour and Raqqa fear a reconquest by the regime and Iranian militias above all else, and feel safer under Turkish protection. Syrians are rendered desperate, and dependent on foreign powers for survival. Foreign journalists also under threat by the regime have fled Syria leaving atrocities to unfold out of sight of the international media. The decisions being made today are the machinations of foreign powers, and it is Syrian civilians who will pay the price. The current power struggles between states are manipulating ethnic divisions leading to increased sectarianism which will plague Syria for the foreseeable future. The refusal of Assad to step down when Syrians demanded it is what has led to this bloodbath along with the repeated failure of the international community to protect Syrians from slaughter and the failures of both Arab and Kurdish opposition leaders to put their own interests aside and promote unity among those who wish to be rid of authoritarian rule. One by one, around the country, the regime has crushed any democratic experiment in community autonomy, and the international community seems willing to normalize relations with a regime that has held on to power through unleashing slaughter on a massive scale. What is happening today is a disaster not only for Kurds but for all Free Syrians. ...

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— Leila Al Shami - Syria, refugees, and solidarity

 

at 3/13/25 9:07am

Author: Leila Al ShamiTitle: Syria, refugees, and solidarityDate: 1 October 2019Source: Retrieved on 13th March 2025 from crisismag.net As current international pushes for Syrian refugee returns take hold, European solidarity efforts must understand that the danger of return is not simply war but corrupt and brutal state repression. no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark Warsan Shire ‘Home’ Crossing the Mediterranean Sea is fraught with danger. During 2018, an estimated 2,277 people died in their attempts to enter Europe. They were among the 141,500 refugees and migrants who reached Europe’s shores via the Mediterranean route that year. Some 10,400 of those migrants were Syrians arriving to Italy, Greece, Spain and Cyprus. Those who survived the journey received a mixed response. On the one hand, the influx of refugees and migrants to Europe (and other countries around the globe) has provided a scapegoat for those in power to blame for their countries’ problems, and has therefore contributed to a climate of increasing xenophobia and nationalist sentiment. On the other, there’s been an outpouring of solidarity on the grassroots level, from organizing practical support in host communities, to protests that declare ‘refugees welcome’. While such efforts are vital and should be built upon, there’s a fundamental problem with solidarity that only starts at Europe’s borders and doesn’t address the reasons why asylum seekers arrive in the first place. Since 2011, when the Syrian state began its war against a pro-democracy uprising, over half the population has been driven from their homes. While both extremist interlopers and opposition forces have caused displacement, the main cause is the violence of the state and its foreign backers. Their actions include the relentless aerial bombardment of population centers and mass arrests of dissidents. Many monitors cite the figure of half a million killed (a figure over two years old). The country lies in ruins, with 27 percent of housing and two thirds of educational and medical facilities damaged or destroyed. The breakdown of public services and destruction of the economy and livelihoods, which has thrown some 80 percent of the population into poverty, are further drivers of displacement. Despite an increasing global consensus that the war is winding down, Syrians are still fleeing for their lives. The UN estimates that between the end of April and August of this year, more than 570,000 were displaced by the regime and Russia’s bombardment of north-western Syria. Many of these are likely to have already been displaced multiple times. Most remain trapped inside Idlib province, sleeping out in the open, under trees, as there’s no more room in the sprawling camps. Others are amassed on the closed Syrian-Turkish border, where border guards have regularly shot, and killed, those who tried to cross. Activists organized largely symbolic protests, declaring that Syrians would storm the border and flee to Europe, and on 30 August hundreds did manage to break across. They hoped that the threat of thousands of brown bodies reaching Europe’s shores would spur the international community into action to stop the continuing slaughter; something which daily images of children trapped under the rubble of their destroyed homes and the sounds of their parents’ anguished screams had failed to achieve. Despite talk of a ‘refugee crisis’, only 11.6 percent of the global Syrian refugee population has made it to Europe. Most remain in the region, initially welcomed by neighboring countries, but now increasingly seen as a problem. In Turkey, which hosts over 3.6 million Syrian refugees, more than any other country, incitement against refugees formed a key part of recent electoral campaigns. On social media, disinformation campaigns spread hatred and division, sparking anti-Syrian protests and attacks on Syrian-owned businesses. In July, thousands of both registered and unregistered Syrian refugees, including children, were detained across the country, primarily in Istanbul, pressured into signing ‘voluntary’ repatriation forms and deported to northern Syria. Hostility is also growing in Lebanon, where a third of the national population are refugees – the vast majority of them in a precarious situation without legal residency. A recent government decree prioritizes employment for Lebanese workers over foreigners, with reports of Syrians being dismissed from their jobs. There has been increasing racist incitement with leading politicians depicting refugees as an existential threat to Lebanon’s stability and prosperity and calling for their return to Syria, arguing the country is now ‘safe.’ Refugee encampments have been subjected to raids and evictions. More than 5,600 structures housing Syrian refugees were destroyed in Arsal by the military in June. Such hostile measures are designed to coerce Syrians to return home. In Lebanon, too, ‘voluntary’ repatriation forms have been used as a tool of forced deportation. The idea that the war is nearing an end and Syria is now ‘safe’ for refugee return is gaining in popularity among those whose sympathy for Syrians’ continued suffering is wearing thin. One of the main promoters of this narrative is the regime itself. In September 2018, the Deputy Prime Minster Walid Al-Moualem, reported to the United Nations General Assembly that the regime’s “war on terror is almost over”, Syria has “become more secure and stable” and that “doors are open for all Syrians abroad to return voluntarily and safely.” It uses the issue of refugee return as leverage with which it hopes to secure funding for reconstruction, money which Human Rights Watch warns will be co-opted by the regime and used to “fund its atrocities, advance its own interests, punish those perceived as opponents and benefit those loyal to it.” Far-right groups in Europe also seized upon the narrative of a safe, post-war return. Following visits to Damascus, German politicians from AfD and activists from Generation Identity called for the repatriation of Syrian refugees. ...

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— Leila Al Shami - The Death Blow Is Coming for Syrian Democracy

 

at 3/13/25 9:01am

Author: Leila Al ShamiTitle: The Death Blow Is Coming for Syrian DemocracySubtitle: The Assad regime’s imminent assault on Idlib will empower jihadists and crush the last of the revolution’s democrats. Why is the world standing by?Date: 2 September 2018Source: Retrieved on 13th March 2025 from www.nytimes.com The Syrian regime is determined to reconquer all of the territory it has lost. Aided by Russian bombers and Iranian troops, and emboldened by its success in terrorizing the populations of Ghouta and Daraa into submission, President Bashar al-Assad’s government is now preparing to attack Idlib, the last remaining province outside of his control. Idlib is home to some three million people, about half of them displaced, or forcibly evacuated, to the province from elsewhere. Many are crowded into unsanitary camps or sleeping in the open. In recent days, regime troops have massed on Idlib’s border and leaflets have been dropped on residential areas calling on Syrians to accept “reconciliation” or face the consequences. Meanwhile, Russia has been sending reinforcements to its naval base in Tartus. The Syrian troika — Russia, Iran and Turkey — designated Idlib a “de-escalation zone” last year. But what happens there next could potentially undermine the so-far mutually beneficial agreement among the three countries. De-escalation in Idlib genuinely serves Turkey’s interests: It keeps both the Syrian Kurds and the Assad regime away from the border, it preserves Turkey’s relevance to a long-term settlement, and it houses Syrians who would otherwise try to join the 3.5 million refugees already in Turkey. Turkey has shown its commitment by setting up observation posts around the province and by establishing the National Liberation Front, an amalgam of Free Army and Islamist militias that follow Turkish orders. Russia and Iran, on the other hand, have always seen the de-escalation zones as tactical and temporary. Just as Daraa and Ghouta were abandoned, so (they hope) Idlib will be returned to Mr. Assad’s control. The Syrian regime and its allies justify their coming attack on Idlib by saying that they want to root out jihadists. Hay’at Tahrir Al Sham, which is led by the Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, dominates some 60 percent of the province and has an estimated 10,000 fighters, according to the United Nations special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura. The repeated descriptions of Idlib as a “terrorist hotbed” support the regime’s narrative that all opposition to its rule consists of terrorist groups; it also absolves the international community of any responsibility to protect civilians. But this characterization of the province is inaccurate. The people of Idlib have been at the forefront of the struggle against Hay’at Tahrir Al Sham, or H.T.S. Since Idlib’s liberation from the regime — partially in 2012 and then fully in 2015 — many of its citizens worked to build a free society that reflected the values of the revolution. According to researchers, more than 150 local councils have been established to administer basic services in the province; many held the first free elections in decades. Long-repressed civil society witnessed a rebirth. Independent news media, like the popular Radio Fresh, were set up to challenge the regime’s monopoly on information. Women’s centers grew, empowering women to participate in politics and the economy. H.T.S. has threatened these hard-won achievements. The group has tried to embed itself within the local population. Since the fall of Aleppo in 2016, it has intensified its attempts to impose its ideology by taking over local institutions and establishing Shariah courts. It’s been ruthless with its perceived opponents. In December, it arrested four prominent activists displaced to Idlib from Madaya, ostensibly on charges of “media work against H.T.S.” Raed Fares, one of the founders of Radio Fresh, survived an assassination attempt, as did Ghalya Rahal, who established the Mazaya Organization, which runs eight women’s centers. Fighting between H.T.S. and other rebel groups has left many civilians dead, and a spate of assassinations and kidnappings for ransom has left the local population fearful and angry. Syrians did not risk their lives and rise up against Mr. Assad’s dictatorship to replace it with another. Many local councils issued statements rejecting H.T.S.’s authority in local governance or declaring their neutrality in fighting between rebel groups. Hundreds of local activists coordinated opposition to H.T.S.’s control and called for demilitarization of their communities through media campaigns and public demonstrations. Courageously, they replaced the black jihadist flag with the flag of the revolution. In April, medical workers held protests against infighting and kidnapping. Women organized against H.T.S.’s discriminatory edicts, such as the imposition of strict dress codes and requiring widows to live with a close male relative. The regime’s reconquest of Ghouta, Daraa and other areas has been accompanied by gross human rights violations. There have been waves of arrests of perceived dissidents. Men have been forcibly conscripted into the regime’s army. Many have been made to sign documents that they would not engage in protests or anti-regime activity and have been pressured to submit information about rebel groups. Journalists, humanitarian workers and opposition activists live in fear of being targeted. ...

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