Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran’s foreign minister, writes: We humans often make the mistake of not learning from history, even when it is recent. Civil war in the Levant is not a thing of the distant past. With Syria descending into worsening violence, the 15-year Lebanese civil war should provide frightening lessons of what happens when the fabric of a society unravels.
When the Islamic Awakening — also known as the Arab Spring — began in December 2010, we all saw people rising up to claim their rights. We have witnessed the emergence of civic movements demanding freedom, democracy, dignity and self-determination.
We in Tehran have watched these developments with delight. After all, a civic movement demanding the same things that many Arabs want today is what led to the emergence of…
… the Green Movement and mass protests across Iran following presidential elections in June 2009 whose outcome appeared to have been rigged.
Even if the protests were eventually crushed, most of the movement’s leaders imprisoned and many tortured, the popular uprising which drew support from all quarters of Iranian society was at that time one of the most impressive demonstrations of people power that the region had ever experienced. While it’s influence might not often be cited in what has been labelled an ‘Arab’ spring, ordinary Iranians surely served as inspiring role models who made it clear that democracy is never a gift from enlightened or benign rulers — it is a demand which eventually cannot be refused.
Oh, and just to make it clear to readers who didn’t follow the link to the rest of Salehi’s commentary: he was not doing the political unthinkable for someone in his position — praising the 2009 protests; he was presenting the 1979 Islamic revolution as a precursor to the Arab Spring. That, in and of itself, does not reveal Iranian hypocrisy. It is in the following three sentences that Assad-backing Iran loses any credibility:
During the past three decades, Iran has consistently underlined that it is the duty of all governments to respect their people’s demands. We have maintained this position as the Islamic Awakening has unfolded, without any lopsided shifts depending on the location of these civic movements. We have been in favor of change to meet people’s demands, whether in Syria or Egypt or anywhere else.
Really? So has the only mistake made by Syrians been that they failed to rely on the appropriate channels for pressing their demands? Any what of the Iranian government’s duty to respect their own people’s demands?
What the last 30 years reveal is how easy it is for revolutionaries to turn into counter-revolutionaries.
With respect Paul, you write, “democracy is never a gift from enlightened or benign rulers — it is a demand which eventually cannot be refused.”
But we in the Western world ( and in its related areas of power influence ) do not enjoy anything like real democracy, and you know it. Alright, the state of consumer passivity we get to ‘enjoy’ has a degree of freedom which can be built on — but it is not democracy. If the people had real democracy, the world we live in Europe/USA/the Capitalist far East would look very very different. (For a start, if we had real democracy, it is highly likely that many of the wars the west starts or whips up, would never have happened. It is also highly likely that the mass uprootings of people and the mass emigrations/immigrations involving the alienation and disorientation of millions, and the forms that globalisation took would be very different too. Bankers would also be in jail.)
Secondly, the Arab Spring has been subverted , debased, and turned inside out in every place it occurred. And we don’t even know yet what most Arabs/Persians wanted from it anyway — vague ideas about ‘Western freedom’? More consumer power? ‘Democracy?’ A return to the Caliphate? Strict Islamic rule? Who knows? I haven’t read any authoritative reports yet that show real understandings of what the majority of Arabs wanted. From the Arabs and Persians I know personally, I get so many answers as to make conclusions meaningless. I know Iranians who want the return to Shah’s era of openness to the West, and embracing of Zoroastrian/anti Arab roots. I know Iranians who despise religion. I know Iranians who love rock n roll,Goth music, and Armani. I know Iranians who want a return to values of Medieval Shia and Islamic mysticism. I know Arabs who long for more consumer capitalist societies, and those who long for a Salafi society, and those who long for Islamic justice and the values of Jesus, and the freedom of Palestine. How can any of these diverse longings be realised in a unified movement?
And now we are left with Syria — who to back? The support the average Western man on the street can offer is pretty much meaningless anyway — how do our words make any difference whatsoever when confronted with the guns of NATO or the secret police of Assad –but who do we have to really believe in anyway, even if we could change things? If you support and speak out for Assad, that is meaningless since he is obviously corrupt and violent, but if you support the so called rebels, then that is a vote for William Hague, Obama and Cameron and the Saudis, and pretty much certain death of many Christians and smaller Shia sects — the Salafi hate these people with a passion.
Not much of a choice is it?
If Assad keeps his power — it means more years of his kleptocratic state terror. If the ‘rebels’ take power, that means open season looting for the Western powers and it means a hateful, corrupt , bloodthirsty and ignorant Wahabbi/Salafi barbarism.
Take your pick.
With respect — it all becomes pointless.
To the extent that we in the West lack ‘real democracy’ it has more to do with freedom squandered. People choose comfort first and even those who have the conceit of being politically aware generally wallow in what Michael Lerner aptly labelled ‘surplus powerlessness’ — content to rail against imperialism and corporate power and thereby console themselves in their own self-righteous impotence.
To people who glibly use this expression ‘so-called rebels’ I would simply ask: when was the last time you risked your life for anything whatsoever?
Paul, you know as well as I, that — broadly speaking — the word ‘rebel’ means two things in the case of Syria.
1. Those men and women in Syria that genuinely resist oppression and torture and cronyism of Assad. These are rebels it is clear deserve respect.
and — then there are
2. ‘Rebels’, who are a rag tag army of mercenaries, nut case Salafis and Wahabbi ignoramuses and narrow minded zealots, that would willingly behead Christians, Shia, Druze, Mandean, Sabbean and Zoroastrian, and they wouldn’t even consider these groups as worthy of any rights at all. These Salafis are repulsive and despicable.There are also ‘rebels’ streaming in from Iraq, made up of gangs of traumatised, radicalised youth, and opportunists. There are also NATO and Mossad ‘rebels.’ I see no reason on earth to respect any of these people, or to support their ‘plans’ for a new Syria. They represent a barbarism that is equal, or worse than Assad.
And the problem is, you cannot separate the two — you cannot know who are the real rebels, and who are the ‘rebels.’
Do you know how to differentiate? If you do support the rebels — do you really want to support a NATO/Saudi plundering force? If so, how can you justify that?
You wrote : “To the extent that we in the West lack ‘real democracy’ it has more to do with freedom squandered. People choose comfort first and even those who have the conceit of being politically aware generally wallow in what Michael Lerner aptly labelled ‘surplus powerlessness’ — content to rail against imperialism and corporate power and thereby console themselves in their own self-righteous impotence.”
Yes, I agree entirely — but it goes deeper doesn’t it. Again, you know as I do, that if British or Americans resisted, with the intention of striving for true democracy– they’d be derailed, smeared, attacked and undermined and possibly imprisoned by the state and its powers at every turn.
I agree that people are too lazy and hypnotised by comfort to exercise their opportunities for true democracy — you are undoubtedly right. But if Western populations did wake up and try — they would be blocked anyway.
Whatever revolutionary inclinations anyone has anywhere, their significance or insignificance flows from whether these inclinations resonate with a wider segment of the population. The Arab Spring occurred because in each country a critical mass of the population had had enough. That situation does not pertain in Britain or America. Moreover, since revolution is an act of desperation — it’s not a desirable process of political change — people need extreme things to revolt against before they resort to this step. Even though the mutterings of discontented anti-imperialists might suggest otherwise, we do not live under the forms of political oppression that have characterized countries like Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, etc.
So long as we don’t threaten to kill our political leaders, we are free to say whatever we want about them without a second thought — no knock on the door from the secret police; no need to sternly admonish our children that our neighbors must never hear that we are critical of the government; no tortuous editing of our political statements because we fear how they might be used if we end up being tried for political crimes. Simply put, we live in free societies, but since most of us have never actually experienced living in any other kind of society, we take these freedoms for granted.
Joe, you write:
This is an example of Islamophobia on the left.
How would one distinguish between rebels fighting for their freedom and nut cases running round chopping people’s heads off? First, try and find the trail of headless corpses.
The army of the type of rebels you describe is primarily a concoction of pro-Assad propagandists whose claims are readily accepted by those who are willing to propagate assertions, not because they believe they rest on solid evidence, but because they buttress a political perspective to which they are personally attached.
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad is one of the most fearless reporters of this generation and is driven by a quality sadly lacking among people who take refuge in ideological herds: investigative curiosity. He’s reported from Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, and most recently Syria and wherever he goes he seeks out the baddest of the bad and digs beneath the cartoon images through which they have been portrayed by those who wouldn’t dream or dare attempt to communicate with them. It’s worth reading his reporting on al Qaeda in Syria.
I wouldn’t dispute that those who transition to political extremism must be viewed warily, but to exaggerate their influence is to become a willful participant in the anti-terrorist fear-mongering that has characterized the last decade. I imagine that George Bush, Dick Cheney and the neocons get quite a chuckle from the fact that their worldview has proved so seductive that it is now being accepted by people who think of themselves as belonging to the radical left.
Are there extremists in Syria who have no interest in the political freedom of ordinary Syrians? Yes. Some are Syrian and some come from elsewhere.
Have these extremists become the driving force or even a major element in the revolution? No. And to those who disagree with this claim, show me the evidence that proves it wrong.
Paul, I do not in anyway, act as an apolgist for Assad.
But, there is substantial evidence even in the mainstream press that the ‘rebels’ are funded by Saudi, and the West. There is also substantial proof that salafi/wahhabi ‘rebels’ are a leading force in the ‘rebel’ groups. Hague has admitted it, and non mainstream thinkers like Tariq Ali, Glass, and Pepe Escobar have documented it very thoroughly.
I cannot support these people. There is no way I can support a Saudi funded ‘rebel’ force with Salafi theology. And yes, I loathe and despise the Saudi brand of Salafism. That is not Islamophobic or xenophobic — That is no more xenophobic than saying, for example, that I despise organised Catholicism, but support Catholic mysticism. It is no more prejudicial than saying I despise and fear Zionist Christianity — but support Quakerism.
( as a footnote, I add, I am not an Islamophobe — I have high respect for the centuries of Islamic mysticism, Tassawuf, Naqshabandi, Ismaeli, as represented by Ghazzali, Hafiz, Rumi, Shams, Ibn Arabi, and by contemporary Islamic thinkers like Seyyed Hosein Nasr, Martin Lings and William Chittick.)
Paul, it is all here — I am very surprised you have not covered these aspects — I can only conclude you are in denial, though I do not know why.
Tariq Ali —
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRkZIiJAiR4
Pepe Escobar —
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh7_z9nZsZQ
Syrian rebels to get £5m help from UK, says William Hague – video
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/aug/10/syrian-rebels-uk-hague-video?INTCMP=SRCH
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/aug/10/syrian-rebels-uk-hague-video?INTCMP=SRCH
You wrote — “we are free to say whatever we want about them without a second thought…Simply put, we live in free societies…”
I do not think people like Norman Finkelstein would agree with you, and neither would a number of British and American politicians and authors who have spoken out against Israel.
And what of David Kelly?
And what of anti nuclear activists and anti war activists in UK, who have directly campaigned against war planes loading bombs in UK, and found themselves hauled before the courts?
And what of the heavy handed police strategies against the OWS demos, and the demonisations of them in the mainstream press?
Our democracies are not as free as you make out. I agree that people are generally, free to express themselves — but , as Norman Finkselstein states, once those people actually get a following — then they are not so free. He points to the fact that being ‘anti Israel’ is very common among college professors these days, many of whom he says have far more radical views than he holds — but their views are only allowed if they keep it to the seminar rooms and to minor academic papers. His mistake, Finkelstein says, was that he was actually reaching people with his views. That is not allowed.
Our democracies do not allow freedom of speech once the speaker or writer becomes highly effective. Our governments can tolerate anything — as long as it doesn’t get in the way of them doing what they want to do — if it does prove to get in the way of their desires, it will be silenced one way or another, by smear or bellittling, or the law, or worse if required.
Paul, I should also add that you will be aware that a great number of African American Professors have been put under enormous pressure for their views in the last thirty or more years. Is their ‘democracy’ also free? I do not think so. I speak of Professor Tony Martin , Dr. John Henrik Clarke, aswell as a number of Islamic groups, and black consciousness sects. Whilst I surely do not always agree with the views of these men, that is not the point — the point is, their freedom to speak was curtailed enormously.
I said: show me the evidence. Polemicists like Tariq Ali make a living out of preaching to suckers who treat their words like the gospel. “I have seen evidence in the field…” Ali pompously declares in order to create the impression that he has more direct access to information about Syria than anyone who merely has access through the internet — when in truth, all he is doing is cruising the web and having conversations with people who share his political perspective. He, like others, latch on to Charles Glass because Glass has made his opposition to intervention well known. Yet Ali attributes to Glass things that he has not actually reported. Moreover, Glass is being cited as a peerless authority on recent events mostly on the basis of just ten days he spent in Damascus and Allepo at a time that both cities were relatively quiet. I don’t doubt Glass’s integrity or his wider knowledge of Syria, but I also suspect that he has misgivings about how he sees his reporting being used. Ali also cites as one of his unimpeachable sources, the comedian Charlie Skelton.
I repeat, I can only conclude you are in complete denial — there is so much evidence out there, for all to see in the mainstream press — it isn’t even being concealed. If you now support Obama, Hague, Clinton, the Saudis, and the most repressive schools of Islam going, and collaboration with the most exploitative groups in the Western establishment, well that’s fine, but just come out and say it — that is all you have been parading on your blog for weeks now anyway.