To: Detroit/Seattle Workers' Voice mailing list
March 1, 2018
RE: More demonstrations about eastern Ghouta

1. Demonstrate on Saturday to save Ghouta!

2. The Open Letter on Syria

Demonstrate on Saturday to Save Ghouta!

More demonstrations and appeals are taking place against the slaughter in eastern Ghouta. The Feb. 24 item of the D/SWV mailing list reported on the Seattle demonstration of Feb. 23 (http://www.communistvoice.org/DSWV-180224.html).  Another demonstration will take place in Seattle Saturday, this time organized by  Americans for Refugees and Immigrants. The Seattle Workers' Voice has revised its leaflet for the earlier demonstration to include a call for work in support of this Saturday's action (see www.communistvoice.org/SWV-180227.pdf).


Meanwhile demonstrations in Europe in support of eastern Ghouta have continued. It's notable that slogans are beginning to appear that combine demands for listing the siege of Ghouta with demands for Turkey to get out of Afrin. The demonstrations are of modest size: one in Copenhagen had over 100 people, and one in Berlin had 450.  The small size is because there is a silence in much of the left about the massacre in Ghouta, or even worse, there is sympathy for the perpetrators of this massacre. This is because of a sickness in many groups that call themselves leftist or anti-war, which results in their sympathizing with bloody dictators like Bashar Assad. It goes so far that there is a vilification campaign against the While Helmets, an unarmed group that provides emergency medical care to people in areas. In effect, there is a certain division of labor between the Assad regime and its foreign apologists: the Assad regime bombs hospitals and doctors, and various groups denounce the doctors and emergency workers. We in CVO have fought this sickness for years; from the time of the struggle against the once widespread "three worlds theory"  to the present, we have opposed those who regarded oppressors as antimperialists; we have stood for  building a genuine left that stands for freedom, and has solidarity with the oppressed around the world.

At present the Syrian dictatorship is seeking to pacify the country with the silence of the dead. It is the responsibility of all those who stand for working class solidarity to do our best to stop this tragedy.
Demonstrate!
Lift the siege of Ghouta!
Saturday, March 3, 2018
Victor Steinbrueck Park 2001 Western Ave. (north end of the Pike Place Market)
Seattle
Called by Americans for Refugees and Immigrants

The world washes its hands
while the Syrian people burn: 
About the Open Letter on Syria

An open letter was issued a few days ago to the present-day world leaders appealing for them to do something to stop the massacres in Syria that are taking place as the Assad regime seeks to pacify the entire country.  It strikes at the hypocrisy under which these leader hide their cold-blooded indifference. It was carried in Pulse under the title "Stop pretending that you can’t do anything to save Syrians".

It is, however, written in a way to allow liberals to sign it:  it says nothing about the real interests of the present-day world powers, but appeals to the imperialist world in the name of "the ethics and the moral codes" of "democracy and international law", whereas these powers actually  care for money and power, not democracy and justice. It says nothing about  why so much of the left  leadership sympathizers with the Assad dictatorship. It says nothing about the need for the masses to organize in their own interests if any pressure is to be put on the present imperialist world powers to relent. But nevertheless, it reflects the urgency of the present situation. It gives a picture of the great tragedy which is upon us.  


The text, and a list of some of the signers, follows:

The UN says it has run out of words on Syria, but we, the undersigned, still have some for the governments, parliamentarians, electorates and opinion leaders of the powers on whom the international legal order has hitherto depended.

The world is a bystander to the carnage that has ravaged the lives of Syrians. All has happened in full view of a global audience that sees everything but refuses to act.

Through Russian obstruction and western irresolution, the UN Security Council has failed to protect Syrians. To the extent that it has been able to pass resolutions, they have proved ineffectual. All they have done is provide a fig leaf to an institution that appears moribund. Perhaps conscious of the stain this might leave on its legacy, the UN has even stopped counting Syria’s dead. After seven years, these nations appear united only in their apathy.

It will be redundant to list the nature and magnitude of all the crimes that the Assad regime has committed against Syrians, aided by local and foreign militias, by Iranian strategic and financial aid, by Russian airpower and mercenaries—and by international indifference. The world that watched and averted its eyes is its passive enabler.

Syrians were shot and killed in broad daylight for protesting injustice. They were imprisoned, tortured and executed. They were bombed and shelled. They were besieged, raped and humiliated. They were gassed. They were displaced and dispossessed.

Those with the power to act have been generous with expressions of sympathy but have offered nothing beyond the wish that this war on civilians—which they grotesquely call a “civil war”—would end. They call on “all parties” to show restraint, even though one side alone has a virtual monopoly on violence; they encourage all parties to negotiate, even though the opposition is entirely without leverage. They say there is “no military solution” though the regime has given no indication that it believes in a solution of any other kind.  Meanwhile, pleas from aid agencies and endangered Syrians fall on deaf ears.

Refugees—the only Syrians to have received some assistance—have seen their plight depoliticized, isolated from the terror that forced them to flee.

Today, as Idlib and Afrin burn, the inevitable is unfolding in Ghouta, the huge open air concentration camp about to enter its fifth year under siege. What happens next is predictable because the same formula has been applied repeatedly over the past seven years. After holding a civilian population hostage, blocking food, medicine and aid of any kind, the regime bombs the area relentlessly, in particular its medical facilities, until it capitulates. Those that survive are then forced from their homes that are then expropriated for demographic engineering with the aim of creating politically homogeneous geographies.

While there are no longer any illusions about the role of the Security Council, every member state has nevertheless adopted and pledged to uphold the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine under the UN’s Office on Genocide Prevention. The destruction of Syria was preventable, and can now only be ended by the elected and appointed members of democratic bodies if they fulfill their obligations under R2P to protect Syria’s endangered population from war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and what UN war crimes investigators have themselves labeled the “crime of extermination”.

For the agony of the people of Syria to come to an end, it must be forcibly stopped. The perpetrators of these colossal crimes against humanity must be halted once and for all. There are myriad geopolitical reasons why this is an imperative, but none as immediate and important as the sanctity of life and the exercise of free will. Inaction would reduce these principles to the status of platitudes devoid of all meaning. To their misfortune, Syrians dared to believe in these principles; they dared to believe that while their struggle for dignity was theirs alone, they wouldn’t be abandoned to such a fate in the 21st century.

Today, appealing once more to the ethics and the codes of moral conduct on which democracy and international law are built, we ask you to act now to stop the Syrian genocide: demand an immediate ceasefire, an immediate lifting of all sieges, immediate access for relief aid agencies, release of political detainees, and immediate protection for all Syrian lives.

Yassin Al-Haj Saleh, writer, Berlin
Robin Yassin-Kassab, writer, Scotland
Rime Allaf, writer
Leila Al Shami, Syrian writer and human rights activist, UK
Mohammad Al Attar, Syrian playwright, Berlin
Michel Kilo, Syrian writer and politician, Paris
Moncef Marzouki, Former President of Tunisia
Burhan Ghalioun, academician and thinker, Paris
Karam Nachar, Syrian writer and academic, Istanbul
Mohammad Ali Atassi, journalist and filmmaker, Beirut
Ossama Mohammed, filmmaker, Paris
Yasmin Fedda, filmmaker, UK
Fadel Abdul Ghany, Chairperson of the Syrian Network for Human Rights
Ebrahim Alyousef, President of Human Rights Association in Syria, Germany
Nisrin Al Zahre, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris
Nadia Aissaoui, sociologist, Paris
Leila Nachawati Rego, writer, Spain
Hala Mohammad, Syrian poet, Paris
Afra Jalabi, Syrian writer, Canada
Mohja Kahf, Syrian writer
Rula Jebreal, writer and journalist
Yasser Munif, Emerson College, Boston
Mohammed Hanif, writer and journalist, Polish Academy of Sciences
Samih Choukaer, Syrian musician, Paris
Professor Martti Koskenniemi, University of Helsinki
Professor Gilbert Achcar, SOAS, University of London
Professor Nader Hashemi, University of Denver
Professor François Burgat, Institut de Recherches et d’Etudes sur le Monde Arabe et Musulman (IREMAM), Aix-en-Provence, France
Professor Fawaz A. Gerges, London School of Economics (LSE)
Professor Mutaz Al Khatib, writer, Syria
Professor Joseph Bahout, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Professor James Simpson, Harvard University
Professor Michael Nagler, Metta Center for Nonviolence, California
Professor Ziad Majed, political scientist, Paris
Professor Wendy Pearlman, Northwestern University
Professor Steven Heydeman, Smith College
Professor Joe Schwartzberg, University of Minnesota
Professor Murhaf Jouejati
Professor Lars Chittka
Professor Amr Al-Azm, Shawnee State University
Professor Ghassan Hage, Melbourne University
Professor Ahmed Barqawi, Palestinian-Syrian
Professor H.A. Hellyer, Atlantic Council
Professor Jamie Mayerfeld, University of Washington
Professor Stephen Zunes, University of San Francisco
Professor Anna Kathrin Bleuler, University of Salzburg
Professor Carola Lentz, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany
Professor Dr. Love Ekenberg, UNESCO Chair, Stockholm University, Sweden
Professor Dr. Annie Sparrow, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Professor Dr. Andreas Diekmann, ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Professor Dr. Marion Albers, Fakultät für Rechtswissenschaft, Universität Hamburg
Professor Scott Lucas, University of Birmingham, UK
Professor Barbara Hobson, Stockholm University, Sweden
Professor Jairo Lugo-Ocando, University of Leeds, UK
Christoph Reuter, journalist, Germany
Janine di Giovanni, author
Haid Haid, Syrian researcher, Chatham House, London
Yassin Swehat, Syrian journalist, Istanbul
Charles Lister, Middle East Institute
Loubna Mrie, Syrian journalist, New York
Rafat Alzakout, theater director and documentary filmmaker, Berlin
Khaldoun al Nabwani, writer and academician, Paris
Abdul Wahab Badrakhan, journalist, UK
Ghayath Almadhoun, poet, Palestine, Syria – Sweden
Subhi Hadidi, writer, Syria – France
Stephen R. Shalom, New Politics
Barry Finger, New Politics
Jason Schulman, New Politics
Omar Kaddor, writer, France
Najati Tayara, intellectual, Syria – Paris
Hazami Zhour, intellectual, Syria
Marcelle Shehwaro, Syrian activist, Istanbul
Kenan Rahmani, Syrian campaigner
Muhammad Idrees Ahmed, University of Stirling, Scotland
Lydia Wilson, University of Oxford
Thomas Pierret, Researcher, CNRS, France
Kelly Grotke, writer/academic, Visiting Scholar at Cornell University
Danny Postel, Northwestern University
Ruslan Trad, Bulgarian-Syrian author of The Murder of A Revolution, Sofia
Stephen Hastings-King, writer/researcher, Massachusetts
Anna Nolan, human rights campaigner
Rafif Jouejati, FREE-Syria
Rami Al-Jarrah, journalist, Turkey
CJ Werleman, Middle East Eye
Shiyam Galyon, Books Not Bombs
Miream Salameh, Syrian refugee & visual artist, Melbourne
Molly Crabapple, artist, author of Drawing Blood
Ammar Abdulhamid, Syrian-American author and activist
Jasmin Mujanovic, political scientist, Durham, North Carolina
Senay Ozden, researcher, Istanbul
Nadim Shehadi, Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies, Tufts University
Faraj Bairakdar, poet, Stockholm
Hanna Himo, Syrian poet, Stockholm
Theo Horesh, author and journalist, Colorado
Fares Helou, Syrian actor, Paris
Vladimir Tarnopolsky, musician, Russia
Sarah Hunaidi, writer, Chicago
Véronique Nahoum-Grappe, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, France
Husam Alkatlaby, human rights activist, The Netherlands
Assem Al Basha, Syrian sculptor, Spain
Maen Al-bayari, journalist, Jordan
Michael Karadjis, Western Sydney University
Stefan Tarnowski, translator
Mutasem Syoufi, The Day After
Najib Ghadbian, academic and activist
Ammar Abd Rabbo, journalist
Laila Alodaat, lawyer, UK
Sarah Kay, human rights lawyer, UK
Fares Albahra, Syrian poet and psychiatrist, Berlin
Pawel Machcewicz, Polish Academy of Sciences
Sarah Kilani, doctor, France
Ibrahim Al-Jabeen, Al-Arab, Germany
Charles Davis, writer, Los Angeles
Marie-Thérèse Kiriaky, activist
Pastor David Tatgenhorst, Philadelphia
Necati Sönmez, filmmaker, Turkey
Francesca Scalinci, independent scholar, Italy

(For a longer list, see https://pulsemedia.org/2018/02/27/stop-pretending-that-you-cant-do-anything-to-save-syrians/) <>


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Posted on June 5, 2018
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