IT’S ONLY WORDS: SYRIA AND THE LEFT

We now live, famously, in the age of the political sound-bite, that little package of words intended, as succinctly as possible, to send a ‘message.’

These messages can be complex and subliminal. To listen to any politician being interviewed is to subject yourself to a bombardment of these messages. The more difficult, complex, or indeed disreputable the argument the more subtle the methods employed. Words become loaded, sentences are coded leading to the ultimate dishonesty of so called ‘dog whistle’ politics. e.g. “I am not racist but we must start ensuring jobs for British workers and the primacy of British values,” clearly audible as ‘too many foreigners are living in this country, particularly non whites, vote for me and we can start kicking them out.

Dog whistle politics is the exact opposite of seeking open discussion and debate, on the contrary requiring obfuscation, vagueness, flexibility and imprecision in language.

This phenomenon has been particularly highlighted by the question of responding to the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime and, though now widely conflated, intervention in the struggle between the Syrian regime and the overwhelming majority of its people. When listening to politicians sounding off on these subjects it is essential to have a code book at hand.

In this essay I am concentrating here on the argument of those who see themselves as being on the left, to those familiar with politics in the UK, that is individuals such as Jeremy Corbyn, Ken Livingstone, Dianne Abbot, and Tony Benn, and political parties such as Respect or The Green Party.

To assist I provide the following short glossary:

Statement	Meaning
1. We shouldn't be intervening in a civil war. The situation is complex.	Both sides are equally bad. The war is being fought by foreigners and is riddled with tribalism that we in ‘the west’ cannot hope to comprehend
2. The conflict is sectarian or tribal.	As above, this war is being fought by Arabs who by nature violent and disputatious
3. We need to go through the UN	I know the UN has proved impotent and there is no chance that it will act. However by saying this and you nodding in agreement both of us can feel better.
4. We have enough problems of our own without becoming involved in other people’s wars.	It’s none of our business,” a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing". They are foreigners and by nature violent and disputatious
5. Let’s not make the mistakes of Afghanistan and Iraq	It would have been better to have left the Taliban and Saddam Hussein in power
6. America cannot be the policeman of the world with us riding shotgun.	All the problems in the world are caused by Western, particularly American imperialism. Blair was Bush’s poodle

Now honestly stated these arguments can be confronted but first the real meaning behind the statements needs to be exposed. Let me take each, one by one.

We shouldn’t be intervening in a civil war. The situation is complex. Civil war simply means an internal struggle within a country fought for competing beliefs and goals. The subliminal message that both combatants are consequently equally at fault and share an equality of wickedness is a new one. Nobody, certainly on the left, would have ventured such a view about the Spanish Civil War. Does that mean the Republican cause was fought by blameless saints? Of course it does not. A reading of Homage to Catalonia would disabuse anyone of such a view; the Republic cause was infected by the virus of Stalinist communism. Does this mean it that it was wrong to support the Spanish Republicans, that there was equivalence between the Fascists and The Republicans? Again the answer has to be of course not. 

The same is true of the war in Syria; it originated with spontaneous protests by unarmed demonstrators simply demanding the right to breathe free air and enjoy democratic rights and civil liberties, things the left once held sacred. As these protests were met with phenomenal levels of violence the Free Syrian Army was created to fight back. Poorly armed and ill trained and without support from any ‘comrades’ in Western Europe.* Later Islamist elements, supported by reactionary regimes like Saudi Arabia, joined the fight. As I say, who else was supporting them, not the ‘socialists and leftists’ of Western Europe and the US? Despite this I hold the possibly sentimental view that we should be supporting the free Syrian Army who are fighting for basic rights we simply take for granted.

 There is often a fundamental dishonesty operating when people throw in the argument that the situation is ‘complex.’ This is obscurantism masquerading as sophistication. Sure, I doubt that I will ever grasp all the finer nuances of Syrian society, but I have a reasonable grasp of right and wrong and hold to universal values of freedom of assembly, free speech and the requirement that government be accountable to the people.

The conflict is sectarian or tribal. This is often  very little more than poorly disguised racism. Actually few on the left now openly use the word tribal, though I have heard it used on a radio phone-in by someone who sounded like he thought he was being terribly left wing.

 Again obscurantism is at play here, it is also essential for proponents of this line to play up the religious divisions amongst the opposition and play down the undoubted fact that Shia and Sunni, Christian and even Alawites are fighting against Assad.  Are there then no religious and sectarian factors at play, is not the presence of Islamacist and even Al Qaeda fighters dangerous, of course. This however is all the more reason to provide active support for those fighting for a non sectarian government in Syria, especially those struggling to create a secular democratic state.

I would add that as someone born in Belfast I would be very wary of suggesting that sectarianism and religious conflict are exclusive preserves of the Muslim world.

We need to go through the UN.This is profoundly dishonest and contemptible and there is not much to say about it. Of course the UN was designed for such situations, but the presence of Russia and China on the Security Council, as those who advance the argument know, rules out effective action.

To watch someone make this pitch, indeed to observe the kind of the tricky thinking I am talking about here it is worth watching Dianne Abbot on Newsnight. Speaking in that smug, superior and over refined accent, which always feels to me like sitting next to someone reeking of sickly perfume, she is confronted by someone who has seen Assad’s handiwork at first hand, a doctor who has treated children napalmed by Assad. When Ms Abbot tries the three card trick of introducing the UN into the argument she is correctly told that the suggestion is “laughable.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b039h35z/Newsnight_30_08_2013/

4. We have enough problems of our own without becoming involved in other people’s wars. This is the most honest of the arguments put forward and, superficially at least, carries some weight. However at its core lies a moral black hole and it is corrupted by the kind of xenophobia encapsulated by the words of that moral invalid Neville Chamberlain quoted above. It is certainly never an argument that should be advanced by the left, socialism, anarchism, left libertarianism are  internationalist in outlook or they are nothing but parochial sects. Solidarity with ones comrades across the globe is what makes these beliefs stand out from all other ideologies.

Let’s not make the mistakes of Afghanistan and Iraq. This is said by people with little or no understanding of the realities of Saddam’s republic of fear or the grotesque medieval barbarism of the Taliban.

Removing both regimes was a gift to the people of Afghanistan and Iraq respectively and made the world a less dangerous place. The real problem in both instances was not the removal of the regime but the appalling lack of a thought out post invasion plan. This caused chaos and a bloody insurgency in Iraq and led to confusion, muddle and low intensity struggle by the remnants of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Both scenarios could have been avoided with proper foresight and if there should be a reckoning with Bush and Blair, particularly Bush, it should be over this crime. This however is not what is meant by those talking about ‘mistakes.’

What those who go on arguing about the legitimacy of Western intervention cannot bring themselves to acknowledge is that despite the tremendous problems faced by all three countries all are now considerably better off as a consequence of the removal of Saddam the Taliban and Gaddafi.

America cannot be the policeman of the world with us riding shotgun. As an argument this often congeals into little more than conspiracy theory, - a priceless example of this being a view I heard expressed that NATO had intervened in Kosovo to gain possession of a particularly valuable aerial, allowing it to monitor the wireless traffic in the region; if you believe this kind of thing you will believe anything. America is presented, if not the Great Satan then certainly the great Machiavelli.

I for one require no introductory lecture in American or British imperialism, particularly as it has manifested in the Middle East; from Sykes Piquet to the overthrow of Mossadegh the crimes of both states are well recorded should one care to look.

However I would think these very crimes places a much greater onus on us to do the right thing now in the region and support democratic forces.

On the Newsnight programme mentioned above I listened to Dianne Abbot parrot the old pottery store adage, ‘if you break it you own it.’  Well with Sykes Piquet we broke it all right. Though one wonders whether, if Ms Abbot is familiar with the history of the region she feels this is going back too far. Possibly it is, however such an observation would come ill from someone who, rightly in my opinion, constantly makes reference to the negative impact of the British Empire on people of colour around the globe.

Throughout this essay I have been confronting the problem of describing views held by people who describe themselves as being on the left, views inimical to internationalist solidarity and the values traditionally associated with being ‘left wing’; individuals or organisations, such as The Stop The War crowd, who defend thuggish theocracy and vicious autocrats and pour scorn on secular values and the idea of universal human rights. Can these people be described in any meaningful way as being ‘left wing?’ If not how do you describe the positions they hold? I offer a free slot on the blog for anyone who can provide an accurate term.

* Though many of the Syrian Diaspora went back to fight for the Free Syrian Army, young men of considerable courage.

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