Having dwelled at first on “imperialist”
schemes and conspiracies targeting the
"recalcitrance" (Moumana'a), countered concern over the Syrian question
with one over Saudi Arabia's, opposed the horrors of Damascus prisons to
Guantanamo, and compared republican dynasty
to monarchy, they moved on to apprehensions
about Islamists and Salafists, building on the widely anticipated outcome of
Tunisian and Egyptian elections to project a similar path for Syria.
Not to pick on the over-simplistic world
affairs' perspective of such leftists, or deconstruct the justifications they built on lurid analogies and their reflection on
their character, and not to remind them of
the evident distinction between the devolution of power inherent to republican systems and it's counterpart in a
monarchy (be it democratic or otherwise), it helps to review the three paradoxes that underpin their assertions.
The first paradox -the ethical factor-
exposes their implicit acknowledgement of the Syrian regime's barbarity, and
the invocation of allegedly similar conduct to justify it. In this fashion, deploring the killing of
Syrian children becomes uncalled for, as long as other children perish in Ghaza,
Iraq or Afghanistan. The campaign for the release of someone like
Mazen Darwish, journalist and legal activist, is likewise denounced on the
grounds that political prisoners are held by Israel too, as if one campaign negated
the other. Thus, so called leftists
wander away from the realm of politics and lose their moral compass, as they
fail to respect human freedom and dignity in all places and instances.
The second paradox -the cultural factor-
holds democracy, freedom and human rights as suspect and without merit, tainted
as they are by their "western" nature and their association with the
"colonial" west (pursuing nefarious
interests). It comes therefore as no surprise that these leftists look up to
regimes such as the Chinese, North Korean, Russian, Iranian and Sudanese ones,
since they all share a deep-seated contempt for "liberal"
values, while these regimes either renounced
the socialist economic model (China and Russia), disparaged it since their
inception (Iran and Sudan), or would not fit any ideology known to mankind
(north Korea.)
The third paradox,-the psychological one-
or rather a subliminally sectarian one- lies mainly in Sunni-phobia, directed
against a perceived threat from the majority group. It is disingenuously expressed as
apprehension of salafism and obscurantism, at a time where "recalcitrant"
leftists exhibit no such apprehensions towards the overbearing Iranian Islamic
Republic. They fail to convince too,
when claiming that support for Tehran is confined to it's hostility towards the
US and Israel, when one recalls that Jihadi Sunni Salafism fought the US in
Iraq far more vigorously in the span of a few years than did Iran and its
allies over decades. Last but not least,
Iran's ally in Lebanon, Hizbollah, is by no means less fundamentalist than the shades
of Muslim brotherhood they revile. It is
therefore all too clear that Leftists' motives have little to do with
"secularism" and "resistance" and draw mostly on sectarian
minority impulses.
The preceding paradoxes demonstrate that duplicity and
sectarianism are the defining characteristics of many leftist defenders of
Assad's dictatorship and its cruelty. An
aversion towards freedoms and addiction to totalitarianism define their
approach to events and makes for common grounds between them and certain religious
movements and tyrannical regimes.
So-called leftists have hence scored a dark
and ignominious record, siding with murderers against victims engaged in a courageous
struggle for freedom and just societies.
Ziad Majed
Thanks to my friend Omar who translated the original text from Arabic
