Syria divides the Arab left

[FarCenter]

The violence deepens and spreads. Yet unlike Egypt and Tunisia, the Syrian revolt has not had unanimous support from the Arab left. There is a split between those who sympathise with the protestors’ demands and those who fear foreign interference, both political and military

by Nicolas Dot-Pouillard


Last August the Lebanese leftwing nationalist daily, Al-Akhbar, went through its first crisis since its launch in the summer of 2006 (1). Managing editor Khaled Saghieh left the paper he had helped set up, because of its coverage of the Syrian crisis. Saghieh denounced the paper’s lack of support for the popular uprising that began in March 2011. Al-Akhbar has never denied its political sympathies with Hizbullah, one of Bashar al-Assad’s chief allies in the region, or hidden the fact that it prefers dialogue between the Damascus government and a section of the opposition to the fall of Assad’s regime. The paper has given a voice to certain members of the Syrian opposition, including Salameh Kaileh, a Syrian-Palestinian Marxist intellectual who was arrested this April by the security services.

In June an article by Amal Saad-Ghorayeb (2) provoked dissension within the paper’s English online version. The Lebanese commentator placed herself firmly behind the Damascus regime, and criticised supporters of a “third way” — those who denounce the regime while warning against western military intervention on the Libyan model. The same month another Al-Akhbar English journalist, Max Blumenthal, announced he was leaving in an article criticising “Assad apologists” within the editorial staff (3).

Al-Akhbar’s crisis is symptomatic of the debate dividing the Arab left, ideologically and strategically. Some continue to support the Syrian regime in the name of the struggle against Israel and resistance to imperialism. Others stand staunchly with the opposition, in the name of revolution and the defence of democratic rights. Still others support a middle way between showing solidarity (from a distance) with the protestors’ demands for freedom, and rejecting foreign interference: they advocate some kind of national reconciliation. The Syrian crisis is making the Arab left — whether strictly Communist, tending towards Marxist, leftwing nationalist, radical or moderate — seem in disarray.

http://mondediplo.com/2012/08/04syrialeft

[pampango]

1. Not surprising I suppose. It has divided the American left as well. Great article.

"Part of the radical left, though denouncing the Assad regime and calling for its fall, is wary of the support the Gulf monarchies are giving to the Syrian revolutionaries; equally, it dares not subscribe fully to the anti-Assad discourse of the “international community”, especially the US. But this anti-imperialist reflex does not take precedence over support for revolution: what counts is the internal situation in Syria, and the principle of popular uprising, as it did in Tunisia and Egypt.

But the majority of the Arab left are maintaining a prudent distance from the Syrian uprising. They condemn its militarisation, which they say only benefits radical Islamist groups and the foreign fighters flocking to Syria. They criticise the sectarianism of the conflict, pitting first Alawite then Christian minorities against a Sunni majority radicalised by repression, which they fear will lead to unending civil war."