To: Detroit/Seattle Workers' Voice mailing list
RE: An open letter from activists around the world denounces the denigration of the struggle against the Assad dictatorship in Syria
March 30, 2021



- About the Open Letter
- Erasing People through Disinformation: Syria and the “Anti-Imperialism” of Fools (The Open Letter of March 27)
- Past articles about non-class anti-imperialism and its opposition to the struggle against the Syrian dictatorship
- 347 signers of the Open Letter


About the Open Letter

By Joseph Green

This issue of the Detroit/Seattle Workers Voice list contains the important Open Letter* of March 27 that denounces the stream of  lies that keeps pouring out against the anti-dictatorship struggle in Syria. The Open Letter points out that a number of writers,  journalists, and groups in the left have betrayed the true purpose of the left, which is to organize and support the struggle of the oppressed, and instead they have prettified the Assad dictatorship in Syria. They use the name of anti-imperialism, but true anti-imperialism means supporting the masses against the oppressive regimes around the world.  Instead the apologists of dictatorship aim to prevent solidarity with the difficult, protracted, and self-sacrificing struggle of millions upon millions of people fighting against dictatorship.

Some of the journalists who now prettify the Syrian dictatorship were at one time crusaders against the actual crimes of imperialism, and are remembered fondly for this. Some of these groups support the struggles in at least some countries. And they may speak in the name of the anti-war struggle or socialism or Marxism as well as anti-imperialism. These things give them credibility, but they have misused this credibility in order to denounce major struggles around the world. They have learned how to discredit and denounce struggles against dictatorial governments, and they use the same methods to denounce one struggle after another. This is a type sickness which the left must rid itself of.

The Open Letter calls this sickness “the anti-imperialism of fools”, as it surely is. As well, we have talked about this sickness for years, and called it “non-class anti-imperialism”, because it ignores the struggles of the oppressed classes and instead prettifies the squabbles between oppressive governments as anti-imperialism.

The Open Letter deserves to be read and reread, and should be circulated as widely as possible. It is signed by individuals some of whom are representatives of a number of different trends in the left, and, on behalf of the Communist Voice Organization, I too signed it.  I agree with almost everything in the letter, except for one phrase at the end about the United Nations: it would have been better if it had identified the UN as another agency of world imperialism, albeit one that seeks unity between as many of the big powers as possible, rather than simply referring to the “dysfunctional international gridlock exhibited in the UN Security Council”.  But everything else in the letter is a cry from the heart that shows the truth about the present situation in the left and the dishonorable, horrific stands of those who close their eyes to the agony and sacrifices of millions of people who are fighting against tyranny.  <>


Erasing People through Disinformation: Syria and the “Anti-Imperialism” of Fools

By Multiple Signers, March 27, 2021

Introduction by New Politics:

The following Open Letter was a collaborative effort of a group of Syrian writers and intellectuals and others who stand in solidarity with them. It is signed by activists, writers, artists, and academics from Syria and 34 other countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North America, Oceania, and South America, and appears in multiple languages: English, Arabic, French, Spanish, Greek, and Italian.

Text of the letter:

Disreputable writers and outlets, often operating under the aegis of “independent journalism” with purportedly “leftwing” views, are spreading corrosive propaganda and disinformation that aims to strip Syrians of political agency

Since the beginning of the Syrian uprising ten years ago, and especially since Russia intervened in Syria on behalf of Bashar al-Assad, there has been a curious and malign development: the emergence of pro-Assad allegiances in the name of “anti-imperialism” among some who otherwise generally identify as progressive or “left,” and the consequent spread of manipulative disinformation that routinely deflects attention away from the well-documented abuses of Assad and his allies. Portraying themselves as “opponents” of imperialism, they routinely exhibit a highly selective attention to matters of “intervention” and human rights violations that often aligns with the governments of Russia and China; those who disagree with their highly-policed views are frequently (and falsely) branded as “regime change enthusiasts” or dupes of western political interests.

The divisive and sectarianizing role played by this group is unmistakable: in their simplistic view, all pro-democracy and pro-dignity movements that go against Russian or Chinese state interests are routinely portrayed as the top-down work of Western interference: none are autochthonous, none are of a piece with decades of independent domestic struggle against brutal dictatorship (as in Syria), and none truly represent the desires of people demanding the right to lives of dignity rather than oppression and abuse. What unites them is a refusal to contend with the crimes of the Assad regime, or even to acknowledge that a brutally repressed popular uprising against Assad took place.

These writers and outlets have mushroomed in recent years, and have often positioned Syria at the forefront of their criticisms of imperialism and interventionism, which they characteristically restrict to the west; Russian and Iranian involvement is generally ignored. In doing so, they have sought to align themselves with a long and venerable tradition of internal domestic opposition to the abuses of imperial power abroad, not only but quite often issuing from the left.

But they do not rightfully belong in that company. No one who explicitly or implicitly aligns themselves with the malignant Assad government does. No one who selectively and opportunistically deploys charges of “imperialism” for reasons of their particular version of “left” politics rather than opposing it consistently in principle across the globe — thereby acknowledging the imperialist interventionism of Russia, Iran, and China — does.

Often under the guise of practicing “independent journalism,” these various writers and outlets have functioned as chief sources of misinformation and propaganda about the ongoing global disaster that Syria has become. Their reactionary, inverted Realpolitik is as fixated on top-down, anti-democratic “power politics” as that of Henry Kissinger or Samuel Huntington, just with the valence reversed. But this maddeningly oversimplifying rhetorical move (“flipping the script” as one of them once put it), as appealing as it might be to those eager to identify who the “good guys” and “bad guys” are at any given place on the planet, is really an instrument of tailored flattery for their audiences about the “true workings of power” that serves to reinforce a dysfunctional status quo and impede the development of a truly progressive and international approach to global politics, one that we so desperately need, given the planetary challenges of responding to global warming.

The evidence that US power has itself been appallingly destructive, especially during the Cold War, is overwhelming: all across the globe, from Vietnam to Indonesia to Iran to Congo to South and Central America and beyond, the record of massive human rights abuses accumulated in the name of fighting Communism is clear. And in the post-Cold War period of the so-called “War on Terror,” American interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq have done nothing to suggest a fundamental national change of heart.

But, America is not central to what has happened in Syria, despite what these people claim. The idea that it somehow is, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, is a by-product of a provincial political culture which insists on both the centrality of US power globally as well as the imperialist right to identify who the “good guys” and the “bad guys” are in any given context.

The ideological alignment of rightwing admirers of Assad with this kind of authoritarian-friendly “leftism” is symptomatic of this, and indicates that the very real and very serious problem lies elsewhere: what to do when a people is as abused by their government as the Syrian people have been, held captive by those who think nothing of torturing, disappearing, and murdering people for even the slightest hint of political opposition to their authority? As many countries move closer and closer to authoritarianism and away from democracy, this seems to us a profoundly urgent political question to which there is yet no answer; and because there is no answer, all across the globe there is growing impunity on the part of the powerful, and growing vulnerability for the powerless.

About this, these “anti-imperialists” have no helpful words. About the profound political violence visited upon the Syrian people by the Assads, the Iranians, the Russians? No words. Forgive us for pointing out that such erasure of Syrian lives and experiences embodies the very essence of imperialist (and racist) privilege. These writers and bloggers have shown no awareness of the Syrians, including signatories to this letter, who risked their lives opposing the regime, who have been incarcerated in the Assads’ torture prisons (some for many years), lost loved ones, had friends and family forcibly disappeared, fled their country – even though many Syrians have been writing and speaking about these experiences for many years.

Collectively, Syrian experiences from the Revolution to the present pose a fundamental challenge to the world as it appears to these people. Syrians who directly opposed the Assad regime, often at great cost, did not do so because of some Western imperialist plot, but because decades of abuse, brutality, and corruption were and remain intolerable. To insist otherwise, and support Assad, is to attempt to strip Syrians of all political agency and endorse the Assads’ longstanding policy of domestic politicide, which has deprived Syrians of any meaningful say in their government and circumstances.

We Syrians and supporters of the Syrian people’s struggle for democracy and human rights take these attempts to “disappear” Syrians from the world of politics, solidarity, and partnership as quite consistent with the character of the regimes these people so evidently admire. This is the “anti-imperialism” and “leftism” of the unprincipled, of the lazy, and of fools, and only reinforces the dysfunctional international gridlock exhibited in the UN Security Council. We hope that readers of this piece will join us in opposing it. <>

Past articles about non-class anti-imperialism and its opposition to the struggle against the Syrian dictatorship

Following are links to articles from the Detroit/Seattle Workers’ Voice list:

* Assad’s offensive into Idlib and the continuing agony of the Syrian democrats, December 26, 2019:

“…much of the left has washed its hands of what's going on in Syria, or even supported the Assad dictatorship. This reached the point where part of the left even declares that unarmed medical workers in rebel-held areas in Syria are imperialist agents, and have denounced the White Helmets that heroically provide some medical relief for the Syrian people. Last month, when James Le Mesurier, a co-founder of the White Helmets, was found dead in Turkey last month on November 11, it was the occasion for another round of bile from Assad's apologists.”

* Anti-Trump Should be Anti-Assad, January 21, 2017:

“The leaderships of the ANSWER Coalition, UNAC and other remnants of the broad Anti-War Movement built in opposition to Bush and Clinton's criminal war against the Iraqi people, propose to ANSWER US wars abroad and repression at home by supporting Russian imperialism and Assad's repression! These organisations have stood resolutely in defence of the Assad dictatorship, and support the intervention in Syria by Russia, Iran and its proxy militias, including Hezbollah."

* Solidarity vs Pro-Assad lies, December 22, 2016:

Eva Bartlett and the politics of lying.

* A Palestinian response to pro-Assad leftists: “On the allies we’re not proud of”, October 12, 2016:

“it is our position that any discussion of Syria that neglects the central role of Bashar Al-Assad and his regime in the destruction of Syria directly contradicts the principles of solidarity by which we abide.”

* Terry Burke declares “U.S. peace activists should start listening to progressive Syrian voices”, August 27, 2016:

“The March 13 [2016] United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) anti-war protest in New York City included people carrying the flag of the brutal Assad régime, some even wearing T‑shirts with Assad’s image. …  Many ‘anti-imperialists’ rightly condemn the U.S. but say nothing on Assad’s crimes or the rampant bombing by Putin’s Russia, which Amnesty International has accused of deliberately targeting civilians and aid workers.”

* The betrayal by would-be ‘anti-imperialists’ of the Syrian democratic struggle is analyzed in the book “Khiyana: Daesh, the Left, and the Unmaking of the Syrian Revolution”, July 5, 2016.

* The Syrian uprising and the American left, August 2014:

“Meanwhile those forces on the left who have for years supported dictatorships in the name of “anti-imperialism” have vilified the Syrian uprising. They are dragging the noble name of anti-imperialism through the mud. They are in effect saying that the defeat of the Arab Spring would be an anti-imperialist victory, and they are pretending that one can support the people in some of the countries of the Arab Spring, while supporting the dictatorships in the others.”

* Links to theoretical articles contrasting Leninist anti-imperialism to non-class anti-imperialism (the anti-imperialism of fools). <>

Signers of the Open Letter

Below are signers as of March 29 as listed in New Politics:

Signatories [Affiliations for identification purposes only]

Syrians

Others

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 March 31, 2021
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