Wed Mar 27, 2024
March 27, 2024

Five years of the Syrian Revolution: “The people demand the fall of the regime”

 Five years ago, on March 2011, a group of children painted in their school’s wall the word “Freedom”, and “The people demand the fall of the regime”, encouraged by the protests in Tahrir Square, in Egypt. A few hours later, all of them were detained, to be released only a few days later, with clear signs of torture over their bodies. This small gester was the drop that filled the glass, giving origin to one of the most dramatic, profound revolutions of the last decades: the Syrian Revolution.

Five years later, we see once again the Syrian streets full of people raising the green flag of the revolution, singing the very same slogans painted on Daraa’s wall: “Syria wants freedom”, “The people demand the fall of the regime”. The scene where the protests occur, however, is drastically changed. The protests that used to take place in blooming cities like Damasco, Homs and Aleppo, now take place amidst rubble and ruins. Syrian cities are practically unrecognizable.

What started as a pacific revolution turned into a bloodthirsty civil war which already killed more than 400.000 people, besides leaving 4 million refugees, 10 million displaced persons internally, dozens of thousands detained and missing, half a million people under siege, and 4.6 million people located in areas of difficult access. The confrontation between revolution and counter-revolution could not have taken a more brutal face than the one it took in Syria. This is the sign of our times.

The main responsible for this humanitarian catastrophe is Bashar Al-Assad and his allies: Hezbollah Lebanese militas, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, and more recently also the Russian aviation, which started a campaing of indiscriminated airstrikes, mainly over the areas controlled by the opposition, aiming to strengthen the Syrian regime militarily. Assad lost all legitimacy to govern, and his lack of scruples becomes more evident each day. He has repressed pacific protests in a extremely gory way, with snipers, tanks, chemical weapons and explosive drum pumps. He is killing his own people to remain in power.

The so called “international community” acted cowardly and with complicity in face of Assad’s and his allies’ brutallities. The United States embraced a speech of opposition to the regime after the Syrian revolution was at such level it had no turning back, and always with the goal of keeping the “stability” over the region, its own stability, and the international balance of power. Obama watched, inert, the use of chemical weapons against unarmed civilians, the torture practiced in prisions, the cold-blood murders during day light, and the criminal siege of entire populations which lived months and months without receiving food or medicines, being forced to eat domestic animals and plants to not starve to death.

Imperialist powers, aiming to keep strategic control of Middle East for their own economic and commercial interests, have allowed a true genocide, have accepted all conditions imposed by Russia. They have chosen the nuclear agreements with Iran, the political pacts with Israel, the petroleum commerce with Saudi Arabia, over thousands and thousands of human lives. This is the logic of the globally hegemonic capitalist system.

Regional powers, like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Iran have taken action in the conflict, supporting one or the other side, but always looking to keep the regional forces’ balance. Saudi Arabia tries to stop the expansion of Iran’s influence; Turkey aims to rule a part of Syria and avoid the Kurds to conquer national self-determination; Qatar pretends to expand its domain; and Iran is not willing to lose one single ally around the region. Israel is afraid an independent Syrian government might change its attitude regarding the control over Golan Heights, and of course regarding the “domestication” of the Palestinian movements, so it prefers for everything to contiunue as it is.

A group of counter-revolutionaries of Salafist ideology, based in a completely dogmatic interpretation of the Koran, are also taking action in the conflict, like Al-Nusra, and the self-called Islamic State. Groups that, independently from their militar orientation in a given moment of the conflict, do not represent the true goals of freedom, justice and social equality of the Syrian people. Those are groups that could only grow and expland with the help of the regime, on one hand, and the imperialist powers’ actions, specially the USA, on the other. Those are groups that have nothing to do with the organizational and democratic formulations of the begining of the revolution, the Local Coordination Committees.

Friday, March the 4th, signed the resurgence of pacific protests on the streets of more than 100 neighborhoods all around the country. Protests which, as we said above, once again chainted the slogans emerged during the first months of the revolution. Protests which, for sure, silenced the uncountable voices, even inside the “left”, who signed the revolution’s death and burial. Protests which continue to fill our hearts with the hope it is possible to end this putrid regime, which stand only because of the support of its external allies.

The Syrian revolution is one of the deepest processes of last years. Massive protests, local committees that played the role of dual-power organisms, crisis and division of the army, civil war. A revolution that is showing capitalism does not offer any alternative for the masses fighting for their emancipation.

One of the tragic aspects of the Syrian revolution was the role of the Castro-chavist left tendencies, pro Assad. They call themselves anti-imperialists, left-winged, but they are non of this. Since the begining, they were on the side of the dictator who was slaughtering the civil population, a population which had rose against tyranny. They called the Syrian activists terrorists, agents of the imperialism, Islamists, and many other adjectives. This false left will pay for its treason.

The Syrian revolution is in the frame of a revolutionary situation over Middle East and North Africa. It is related to the protests in Tunis, the strikes in Egypt and Palestine, the demonstrations in Irak, Lebanon and Turkey. Despite the violence of the counter-revolution, they resist and have not been defeated. The problems in the base of these uprisings still exist, and sometimes even worsened: poverty, unemployment, lack of public service, Zionist occupation, abominables dictatorships, etc.

The fire stop signed between USA and Russia is given in the frame of a situation that becomes more and more complex in Middle East, and the “refugees’ crisis” in Europe. The EU shows its real face with the policy of building walls, strengthening the borders, discriminating the refugees and, more recently, voting a law wich forsees the return of the refugees who arrive from now on to their countries. They want to turn Greece into a great open sky concentration camp. Tspiras and Syriza will become the main agents to implement this policy, very much like what the Nazis did during WW2. Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia have started implementing border restrictions pointing the effective clousure of the Balkan route for refugees.

From the International Workers’ League, we continue to support the upraise of the Syrian People against the oppressive regime of Bashar Al-Assad. We still believe the main task of the revolution is to overthrow the regime. We remain together with the Syrian people against the foreigner interventions of Russia, USA, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran. The Arab Revolution continues its course, with highs and lows, and we will support it all the way.

Long Live the Syrian Revolution!

For the overthrown of Bashar Al-Assad!

Agains the Islamic State and foreigner interventions!

Open the borders of the EU!

Release the political prisioners!

 

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