OTW : Yassin Al-Haj Saleh just published this article in Al-Hayat about militarism, violence, and the revolution . Given that it falls right in our discussion, I have spent sometime to translate it to English using machine translation as a start and then performing very heavy editing. I think it is a good article coming from an intellectual who is not only on the inside, but also on the run.

Yassin Haj Saleh – Regarding militarism and violence and revolution

Little can be gained from discussing the growing military dimension of the Syrian revolution without placing it in the context of the 320 days of unconstrained and rampant violence practiced by the regime in its attempt to quell the revolt from the outset. Not much can be gained either by discussing intellectual, political, and psychological shifts that have occurred and are occurring in the society and within the revolution’s own environment throughout these bloody months. The outlines are known. The regime threw the army in to confront the foci of the Revolution and It killed many in the field who who refused to fire on their fellow citizens (Human Rights Watch report in December), leading some officers and soldiers to defect and out of these defections a loose umbrella was formed under the name «the Free Syrian Army FSA». The regime directed punitive and vengeful disciplinary campaigns akin to colonialist campaigns at cities and towns in and around Damascus, Homs, Hama, Idlib, and Deir Al-Zour , which resulted in civilians picking up arms here and there to face regime’s forces, albeit the regime has already pushed civilians in the conflict since the beginning and on a large scale: the Shabbeeha.

These circumstances, which are known to all, imply an authentic military component of the revolution that can’t be overlooked in the context of its intellectual or political planning considerations. This dimension is neither brought from the outside nor does it possess an ideological underpinning that may have preceded its emergence.

The emergence of this armed component does not undercut, today or since its beginning, the overarching peaceful character of the revolution. The peaceful nature of the revolution is rooted in its social composition, in the type of its demands, and in its primary protest tools (i.e., demonstrations), and not in any ideological preference or political tactics. It is now known that the juxtaposition of peaceful demonstrations flying banners and shouting chants and armed groups firing bullets does not say anything about what is happening in reality, but only covers the ignorance of those making such argument of the reality of what is happening with only figurative approximations.

In fact, it would not have been possible for the peaceful demonstrations to continue in most of their sites had it not been for the protection provided by the Free Syrian Army with both of its military and civilian component and had it not been for its relative deterrence of the striking arms of the regime.

Refusal to see this reality does not change it and hinders its understanding and more so the ability to influence it. And perseverance in reiterating argument against the arming of the revolution and against militarization without the slightest indication of a cessation of violence from the regime is akin to blaming the victims for their resistance to the aggressors. There are no nationalistic or humanitarian justifications for such an attitude.

There is no doubt that at abstract values level, peaceful resistance is preferable to armed resistance. However, we are not in a store shopping for this or that, but in macro-scale reality, which imposed on a substantial number of Syrians the need to defend themselves as they faced a regime whose precise composition is what breeds hatred and violence and not emergent exigencies, nor popular demands, as a massive Syrian minister had recently uttered.

What requires understanding and caution is that resorting to militarism can be associated, and today is actually becoming associated with anarchist and undisciplined practices. We can not deal with this reality with puritanical logic that refuses any armed resistance, or objects to the revolution itself under the pretext of the anarchist practices that may occur under its banners. This will not work as long as the regime persists in its own militarization. What could be useful is to work at the level of the revolution, not from outside or above, towards the direction of uniting the militant and civilians in a single concerted body and that the military component of the revolution be disciplined and directed by its general interest. This is not easy, and there is nothing that guarantees its accomplishment at the required level, but to continue singing about peaceful actions is a recipe that ensures it does not happen at all.

Notwithstanding the prospects for chaos, violence is formatively elitist and un-democratic, and expansively spread of its exercise, even if it is disciplined, may raise the threshold of identification with the revolution and weaken the participation of women and children and the elderly. Our choices, however, are not between militarization and the non-militarization, but between unchecked and undisciplined militarism, and that of a checked, and perhaps more disciplined militarization.

Furthermore, political change achieved by armed force may result in many social, political and security complexities, which is less favorable to democratic development than a peaceful transformation. But, again, our choices are not free, and the military component of the revolution is a byproduct of the intrinsic violence of the regime, not because of someone’s will or decision.

The key point in all this debate is that there remains no room to restore the original innocence that predated blood, or to leisurely talk about facing the regime’s violence with bare chests, especially when expressed by those who do not participate in the revolution, neither with their chests nor with their backs. What is needed instead of illusionary innocence are initiatives and work toward military, political, and moral discipline of force. We have a chaotic unchecked reality, and the intellectuals and politicians perform their duty when they work to make it rational and organized and not when they purify and distance themselves from it. This is weakness.

In fact, some of what is being said regarding militarism is driven by objection to the revolution itself and not by objection to the legitimacy of some of the practices under its banner. Revolution means the removal of the legitimacy of the regime and the denial of its national and public character, and, consequently, considering its violence a factional and unpatriotic, and the denial of any legitimacy and generality of any of its organs, which establishes the foundations for the new legitimate and popular, which is he revolution itself. While this does not confer an automatic legitimacy on all violence that may be exercised in its name or shadow, the only position that provides consistent objection to the uncontrolled violence is a position from within the revolution and with it, and not outside it or against it. Certainly, revolutionary violence is more legitimate than the violence of a regime murdering the people. It is a multiplier of legitimacy in that it is essentially forced and defensive even when it is offensive at the tactical level.

There is already a genuinely peaceful mood in the revolution that dislikes violence, even in self-defense. But the best defense of peaceful action is to participate in the revolution including on the ground, and to work hard to strengthen its civil nature. The worst defense is to sit on the sidelines and singing praise of the beauty of peaceful actions.

From the viewpoint of action, there is a need for legitimate public entity, that transcend the external embrace of the revolution’s cause and the standing beside it towards engagement in the revolution and the intellectual, political, and organizational morphing in manners responsive to its evolution and growing complexity. Such a public body would have coordinated between the components of the revolution and led it to achieving its national objective. Alas, this is not available. But one of the causes of optimism in Syrian Revolution is the multiplicity of the centers of thought and initiative, which proceed without the guidance of anyone, and never stop working in order to discipline the militarization and to develop the civil and popular character of the revolution.

————
Yassin Haj Saleh
Syrian dissident writer and
Dar Al Hayat
Sunday, 29/01/2012

29 January, 2012
Jahanzebjz.tumblr.com

I wonder how Europe and North America would react if the victims of 9/11, 7/7 and Madrid bombings were universally declared as nothing but “collateral damage”. It is simply unthinkable that victims who happen to be citizens of imperialist countries can be deprived of their humanity, the value of their life negated and their memories brushed under the rug. It would be totally wrong if we dismissed the lost lives as a mean to an end. Human life is an end in itself and its worth can never be diminished.

However, it is culturally accepted that when an innocent Iraqi, Palestinian, Afghan and a Pakistani dies they are not automatically accorded the same human right that Westerners and whites are. They are not viewed as valuable lives, but they are looked down upon as “collateral damage”. They are not human beings, but they are objects and chattel. They are subordinates and secondary. There are no memorials for them. There are no events for them to mark their death anniversaries. Nobody cares about them. Why should anyone as they are just sorry people who are getting in our way as we “light up” the world with “freedom” and “democracy”? After all they are just “terrorists” by our interpretation of the world, therefore all these people should not be deserving of the rights that North America and Europe take for granted. They are less human than us, so it doesn’t matter what they go through as they don’t feel and breathe. They can be killed and it’s all right as long as we keep deriving self-satisfaction out of it, because we are doing something “good” and “noble”.

Here is what will happen if tomorrow morning if there is a bomb attack in London or Paris or NY or any other European or North American city vs. a drone attack in Pakistan:

The citizens of imperialist nations will be remembered till the end of living days, their personal stories will be told a million times over, their pictures will be all over the media, tears of their families will be broadcasted, leaders around the world will pay visits to the attacked sites, there will be compensations to the families, there will be fierce rhetoric against the attackers and a promise of revenge. On the other hand, Pakistani women and children killed in a bomb attack will be a tool for an end, meaning their murder will be justified under the name of “fighting terrorism” and making the “world safe for democracy”. They will not be humans but tools and a means to some supposedly higher end. Moreover, the leaders and intellectuals of the “Free World” will preach to these barbarians that they actually don’t understand what a noble act America and her allies are undertaking. The immature children, as Pakistanis clearly are given the fact that they are Pakistanis, will be taught that they are incapable of seeing that what is being done is in reality good for them. American and her allies are angels who can’t commit sins and they will say to Pakistanis that they should be silent and let the masters carry on and not be ungrateful, and one day you will comprehend what an amazing service has been done to Pakistanis – or Iraqis, Afghans, and whoever else happens to be “benefiting” from Western “benevolence”.

According to the Western narrative, the lives lost of these people are not actually anything wrong, but a sacrifice. The divine European and North American men are busy in some grand project, which once completed, will reveal itself worthy of millions of lost lives of Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis and others.

This article was originally published on http://jahanzebjz.tumblr.com. Jahanzeb Hussain is the editor of Collateral Damage Magazine. He is a 22-year old student based in Vancouver, where he goes to Simon Fraser University. He also represents the Vancouver chapter of Afghans For Peace.

This article was also republished on http://passittotheleft.org and Afghansforpeace.org

Jahanzeb Hussain is the editor of Collateral Damage Magazine. He is a 22-year old student based in Vancouver, where he goes to Simon Fraser University. He also represents the Vancouver chapter of Afghans For Peace.

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On 25th November last year, a British foreign correspondent called Johnson Miller was taken, under armed secret police escort, to the southern Syrian city of Dera’a.  He was accompanied by four Syrian government minders – and a driver (who was a secret policeman too).

“Johnson” turned out to be me.

“Johnson Miller” in Syria, credit: SANA

It was the name by which the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) quoted me as saying that everything in Dera’a was “quite normal.”   (That’s one of my  minders, Monzer, by the way, sitting on my left in the photograph.)

Johnson’s “situation normal” quotation confused me as it was very clear to his alter ego, the foreign correspondent Jonathan Miller, that things in Dera’a were far from normal (as, I hope, was clear from the TV report we filed).

So surprising was my “situation normal” pronouncement that it prompted the Foreign Editor of Britain’s own state broadcaster, to tweet:  “Oh dear. Suspect C4N can do without official Syrian endorsement.”

Oh dear, indeed.  But since my visit, I’ve realised that the Syrian regime is so keen to convey to the world that “life is normal” in Dera’a that every hapless correspondent who bowls up there is asked by the local SANA reporter whether, in their opinion, um, life is normal.

Have a look:  It’s unbelievable!

(And, by the way, I would just like to state to the minders and their masters in the Syrian regime:  THIS BEHAVIOUR IS DEFINITELY NOT NORMAL!)

“Normal life in Daraa belies reports of misleading media” – SANA, 14 Dec 2011

“Life in Dara Normal, Reports of Biased Channels Contradict Reality” - SANA, 01 Jan 2012

“Spanish, Japanese and Italien Media Delegain Stress Normal Life in Daraa”- SANA, 11 Jan 2012

The reason they’re so keen to report that life is normal is that Dera’a has been chronically unstable ever since it emerged as the cradle of the Syrian revolution in March last year.

For weeks on end, its people were besieged by government tanks. Many of those who dared to openly defy the regime were shot dead in the streets by snipers.  Hundreds are thought to have been killed; thousands have been imprisoned.

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