21
January 2013. A World to Win News Service. The following is a condensed version
of a discussion in which the Syrian revolutionary Hassan Khaled Chatila gave
his views on the current situation there. It is especially important because of
the light it sheds on the relationship between classes and class contradictions
on the one hand, and ideological factors on the other.
There
has been a vertiginous rise of Islamic fundamentalism over the last period, in
terms of both its ideological influence among various classes in what was once
considered the Middle East's secular society, as well as its organized military
strength. Some
reports say that since the Islamic fundamentalists have clearly come to
dominate the armed revolt, the regime has actually become somewhat less
isolated, with some people who were formerly pro-opposition or neutral now
seeing Assad as the best of bad alternatives. A few Western commentators have
begun saying things like, "The opposition is in fact helping to hold the
regime together" (Peter Harling, an analyst with the International Crisis
Group). Harling's comment reflects the fact that this development also poses
problems for the U.S. and its allies, who want to make Syria serve their
interests and defeat any challenge to their dominance in the Middle East.
Here
Chatila discusses some of the class contradictions that persist despite this
ideologically unfavourable situation, arguing that it did not have to take this
turn and that the class contradictions that brought into being a revolt against
the regime in March 2011 are still at work.
There is
a basis for a revolutionary strategy founded on the basic interests of the
great majority of the Syrian people in antagonism with the imperialists and the
big Syrian exploiters inside and outside the regime who are ultimately
dependent on the world imperialist system. The great difficulty in working out
such a strategy and making it into a material force among the people is
undeniable, but there is no other way out for the broad masses of people, and
no reactionary regime of any kind can make these contradictions disappear.
The
situation in Syria is now dominated by rival reactionary forces. The political
class [the traditional, once tolerated opposition, mainly operating from
abroad] seeks foreign intervention, while the Free Syrian Army is a
heterogeneous mix with no clear political and military strategy. They take
towns and neighbourhoods and occupy them, and then the regime destroys them.
This benefits the regime, and makes it possible for it to take full advantage
of its still superior military forces and arms. The FSA makes no attempt to
mobilise the masses of people or to lead them in establishing local
revolutionary political power.
The regime
is now using the entry of Islamist forces into the country to justify its
existence as a barrier against them.
What began
as a social movement against the regime has been smothered by pro-Western and
Islamist forces. In short, the revolt that began in Daraa on 15 March 2011 has
been turned into something else by the Free Syrian Army and the political
class. It is possible that the situation could
slide into a religious civil war; the armed fundamentalists are
certainly trying to provoke a Sunni-Alawite war. Many people who were previously
favourable to the opposition no longer see the fall of Assad as a good idea.
You asked
me about the role of regional inequalities and the growing gap between the
countryside and city, both in driving the revolt, and also in providing an
audience for fundamentalists.
I would
answer this way: During the last decade the regime used financial aid and other
incentives to encourage big landowners to eliminate the small peasants. In
this, it has been following the IMF strategy for developing
globally-competitive commercial agriculture and attracting foreign investment.
The now landless peasants immigrate to the big cities in hopes of accumulating
enough money to be able to return to their land. In addition, for a long time
many small peasants who still own land [and grow vegetables and so on for urban
markets] have lived on the outskirts of towns and cities. So there is a very
large peasant population ringing all the big towns and cities. Unemployment is
very high in both the cities and the countryside, and many people are hungry.
The Syrian
peasantry has been playing a big role in the revolt, both in the countryside
and the big-city suburbs. The middle classes in the provinces and the cities
have gone back and forth, although they have certainly played an important role
in the revolt, too. Some sections of the lower middle classes came over to the
revolt and some supported the regime, especially the better-off sections. The
Islamists draw many of their recruits from the lower classes, and better-off
sections as well, such as engineers, doctors, architects and businessmen,
including shopkeepers. In the past, the lower classes tended to be Arab
nationalists or supporters of parties that called themselves socialist and
communist, and anti-Israel and anti-imperialist. The Moslem Brotherhood has been
deeply rooted in the middle classes. I'm not sure who the members of the FSA
are, but I'm certain that many are from the middle classes.
The
chambers of commerce and industry, which group together the large number of
middle capitalists and the biggest, continue to support the regime, even though
the majority are Sunnis. The Sunni-Alawite fracture doesn't cancel out the
class fracture. There are divisions on both religious and class lines. There
are small, medium and big Sunni capitalists who have prospered in alliance with
the bureaucrat-capitalist regime. It's important to note that the souks [the
traditional markets that are the centre of both retail and wholesale commerce]
have never shut down in protest against the regime. There has been no generalized
civil insurrection even among Sunnis.
Industry
and commerce is mostly controlled by Sunnis, as well as Christians. The ethnic
and religious minorities like the Alawites tend to be peasants, and rise
socially by becoming government employees or military men. Alawites close to
the regime have gotten rich.
Among the
workers, including the Sunni majority, a large section has no steady work and
certainly not a regular work contract. They live week to week on the crumbs
their employers throw them. They work in close proximity with their bosses in
beauty salons, garages and other small service businesses. This can mean that
they are attracted to the bourgeoisie. But either way they play an important
role because they feel that they have nothing to lose. When their children
reach the age of 12, usually they have to quit school and look for work. They
are involved in both the popular movement and the Islamist movement.
To the
extent that it was organized, the popular revolt was based on the lower middle
classes and the desperately poor, as well as other sections of the masses. In
the provincial cities like Homs [an epicentre of the revolt], it is the poor
urban neighbourhoods and not the better-off quarters that have been destroyed
by the regime. In Damascus all the poor neighbourhoods have been destroyed.
The
villages were very much involved in the demonstrations and the general revolt
against the regime. A revolution would have tried to organize these peasants
into political committees to exercise political power in the countryside and
eliminate the regime's local political and administrative control. While the
country's topology makes a frontal confrontation with the state very difficult,
it would be possible to organize small groups of guerillas to mount effective
attacks on the power centres and then melt away. These peasants have played a
very important role in the popular revolt but not in an organized revolutionary
way, and they are susceptible to being organized by the fundamentalists, whose
sole form of organisation is military. The Islamists in the FSA make no attempt
to win civilians over to their side, [even though] the majority of the
population is Moslem. The social and political demands of the revolt have
receded into the background.
There has
arisen an embryonic mass movement demanding a stop to the violence. For
instance, there was a famous incident when a woman dressed in white
demonstrated all by herself in front of the parliament building in Damascus,
and got a lot of support. Calling for an end to all violence is not the
solution, but the growth of this sentiment shows the isolation of the FSA from
the people. The political and social mass movement against the regime has been
buried. With its demands for bread, dignity, freedom and justice, it had many
things in common with the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt. In my opinion, the Free
Syrian Army aborted that revolution before it could mature.
Because of
its hybrid nature, the FSA could disintegrate into rival clans waging war on
each other. That could happen if it doesn't succeed in overthrowing the regime,
or even if it does. It would be a mutual slaughter. There are real gangster
elements involved.
Syria is
sinking into chaos. The Western imperialists want to destroy the country
economically and see its army torn to shreds so that it can't oppose Israel.
When this political crisis is resolved, one way or the other, Syria will come
out of it completely destroyed. Its economy will become even more dependent on
the world market. But on the other hand, the objective basis for revolution
will continue to exist because the factors for this crisis are deeply rooted in
Syrian society. That was reflected in the revolt that began in March 2011. A
transition to a fully neo-liberal economy can't resolve that crisis and
certainly cannot develop an economy that would meet the needs of the people.
That can be done only by smashing both bureaucrat capitalism and big private
capital. So there will always be an objective basis for revolution, but then
there is the question of who will influence the people. The fundamentalists
will continue to attack the neo-liberals, including by an armed struggle whose
methods are often basically "terrorist".
Because of
the strength of the Islamists the Western powers are now somewhat more
favourable to leaving the regime intact and maybe even leaving Assad in place.
The U.S. is afraid of the FSA because it might go against American interests
and those of its regional allies.
This is the
position of Turkey and Iraq, as well as Iran, in terms of neighbouring
countries, and of Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Right now none of them is interested
in supplying the FSA with game-changing weapons. The FSA is receiving less
military aid than ever. Nobody wants to give them surface-to-air rockets.
Even though
the Saudis have been bankrolling the fundamentalists, as part of their policy
of developing a Sunni-Shia confrontation to oppose Iranian influence in the
region, they are worried about the rise of the jihadis. They know they can't
control these people. Their policy could backfire if fundamentalism in Syria
takes up the anti-U.S. banner.
The U.S. is
even softening its tone toward Assad a bit. Hillary Clinton has criticized the
traditional opposition, demanding that it unite and form a government [one acceptable to the U.S., which it hasn't
been able to do in any convincing way. There is some revived talk about a
"political solution" between the regime and the opposition in Western
policy circles].
In short,
no state cares about the Syrian people. They don't care about the 60,000 people
killed, the 300,000 people forced to seek refuge abroad or the internally
displaced people who number as many as a million. They don't care about the
fact that among a population where half the people already lived below the
UN-defined poverty line of 2 dollars a day, price speculation has brought about
real famine. Prices for bread, sugar and fuel oil for cooking have doubled and
tripled, if these things can be found at all. Forget about meat, which the poor
seldom ate anyway.
The fake
"solidarity with the Syrian people" that used to fill the Western
media is fading. Even many people who have genuinely wanted to express their
solidarity with the Syrian people have become discouraged because they don't
know who to support. This shows how serious the problems are.
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