Developments in Syria
Anti-Minority Violence
Since our last update on the Latakia massacres, the trend of sectarian violence against Syria's non-Sunni and non-Arab minorities (Alawis, Armenians, Assyrians, Druze, Greek-Orthodox/Greek-Catholic Arab Christians (Rum), Kurds, and Yezidis) has continued.
The violence is most severe against Alawis, who the the Ottomanist-backed regime labels as "Assad regime remnants" and "non-Syrians." Alawi women are being kidnapped by regime affiliated forces, Alawi men are being shot dead in the street in summary executions. Alawi children are disappearing. Alawi businesses are being marked and destroyed by Sunni extremists. These extremists are incited by the regime, and many are not Syrians, but rather Central Asian (Uyghur, Uzbek, Tajik) Takifiris imported by Turkey to Syria during the civil war.
Syrian Christians (Armenian, Assyrian, and Rum) are some of the oldest inhabitants of the region, long before the rise of Islam, since the time of Christ. The regime has altered Syria's educational curriculum to include anti-Christian messages, and removing the portions on Syria's pre-Islamic (mostly Christian) history. Christians are referred to as "Nasara" and "Kafir" as opposed to "Masihi" (the self-identifier and non-discriminatory term). Additionally, the government has removed the atrocities committed by the Ottoman empire from curriculum, including the Armenian Genocide, the Seyfo, and the anti-Arab violence committed by the dying Ottoman state in the early 20th century. On June 22nd, a Daesh affiliated militant murdered 20+ Syrian Christians in a church in Damascus. During Lent and Easter, regime forces took down crosses in Christian villages, and replaced them with Islamic symbols. In many villages, the ringing of Church bells has been banned, so that only the sound of the Adhan is heard. These Sunni Takfiris are being supported and assisted by the regime forces, and incited into doing so. They are a continuation of the reactionary forces of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, which attempted similar anti-Alawi anti-Christian persecutions in the 20th century.
Syrian Druze are also being persecuted. Mostly inhabiting rural villages along the border with the Zionist occupied Hadbit El Jolan, the Druze are under constant bombardment from Zionist forces, as well as HTS regime forces. Druze are also being labeled as a "fifth column" within Syria, while the HTS regime continues to collaborate militarily with the Zionist entity. Documentation of these crimes can be found on Syria Justice Archive and Syrian Truth Project.
Background
Jolani and HTS are former members of the Al-Qaeda affiliated Jabhat Al Nusra, a terrorist organization that massacred thousands of Syrians, of all faiths. Jolani served as a leader of Daesh in Iraq as well. Syria was ruled by Daesh from 2014-2017. Numerous massacres and crimes against humanity were committed during this time against Syrians. The Yezidi people, a Kurmanji speaking Iranic ethnic group, inhabiting Iraq and Syria, were by far the most affected by Daesh. Yezidi men were tortured in the street, Yezidi children were beheaded, and Yezidi women were raped and sold as slaves to the terrorists. The Yezidi population of Syria before the war was seventy-thousand, down to less than 2,000 today.
Alawis, Druze, and Christians were forced to convert, often under threat of death. Like Yezidis, many Syrian Christian and Alawi women were kidnapped, raped, and sold as slaves by Daesh in Syria. Many of these crimes were overseen by Jolani, who is now the leader of Syria.
These sectarian crimes were also happening in the 20th century, primarily at the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria (Ikhwan). @SyrianComrade has a good post explaining the history of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria.
Developments In Iran The Zionist entity launched a missile barrage against the Islamic Republic of Iran, targeting Iranian scientists, generals, and leaders. Iran launched numerous counter-salvos against the Zionist entity in response. The government of Syria (Jolani HTS Regime) has assisted the entity in shooting down Iranian missiles and continues to allow the entity to use its airspace.
The so-called "United States" responded by bombing more Iranian nuclear facilities on 22 June.
The HTS regime has on numerous instances signaled their willingness to co-operate with the Zionist entity, like many other Arab comprador regimes, such as those of Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia. (Also cooperation with US empire, signing of the Abraham accords). The HTS regime has continuously assisted the Zionist entity (along with the Zionist collaborator state Jordan) with shooting down Iranian missiles. HTS has also expressed interest in signing the Abraham accords.
National PYM and NSJP
In response to all of these developments, PYM released a series of fence sitting statements, where the massacres against minorities are not condemned. Additionally, many members of leadership have referred to this sectarian takeover as "liberation".
NSJP has made no comments on the massacres or situation in Syria. NSJP's written resistance published an article written by a Turkish chauvinist (Sean Eren) where he labels Turkey's imperialism as a "sub-imperialism" in an attempt to dismiss it as a "lesser evil." Eren misinterprets and misquotes Turkish Maoist Kaypakkaya and produces a reactionary analysis that absolves the Turkish nation of its role in imperial violence.
SJP UTD and PYM DFW have maintained chauvinist lines and permeated anti-minority ideology within their spaces.
PYM DFW and SJP UTD
The president of UTD SJP from 2023-2024, is an Islamic Chauvinist. A public supporter of Sayyid Qutb, the father of modern Takifiri ideology, SJP's former president has repeatedly expressed support for the HTS regime. The former president has publicly referred to Alawi people as "regime remnants" and "Terrorists". He is now an active member of PYM DFW, and repeatedly brings FSA flags to PYM protests. This behavior is allowed and not challenged by any of PYM leadership.
A SJP UTD board member and PYM member referred to Alawis as "settlers" on their own land in an internal communication to an RRC member. He claimed that Syrian minorities are "not-Syrians", ironically, considering that HTS is comprised of many people who are ACTUALLY not Syrian, like Uyghurs.
A committee member of SJP UTD actively posted propaganda supporting Abdelbaset As-Sarout, an Daesh-affiliated Syrian Takfiri who helped massacre Assyrian Christians. (SJP leadership defended this by saying she saying can have her own "takes") When confronted over these issues, SJP UTD insisted these were "differing perspectives" "we can't alienate our base" "we don't support the massacres, but..." and "it's a bad take, but" SJP's refusal to rectify their problematic leadership creates an unsafe environment in SJP UTD, where sectarian hatred isn't just tolerated, it's encouraged.
PYM is a Palestinian organization, yet allows numerous non-Palestinian Arabs into leadership, while preventing non-Arab minorities from the region from participating. This line is reactionary and chauvinistic. ALL Levantine people are victims of Zionist colonial violence. Are Lebanese and Syrians not subject to bombardment and terror at the hands of the Zionists? None of these countries are monolithically Arab. Palestine has a sizeable and historic Armenian population. Lebanon is nearly 5% Armenian, and Syria has a large community as well. Kurdish people in Syria have faced bombings from the Zionist ally state Turkey for decades. Assyrians face persecution and bombing in Lebanon and Syria, like all Lebanese and Syrians do. These people are all non-Arab victims of Zionism. Why is it that a Khaleeji Arab (someone who benefits from Zionist violence) can join PYM leadership, but a Lebanese Armenian or Syrian Kurd cannot? This is chauvinism to the highest degree. SJP UTD has invited Neo-Ottomanists (Raja Abdulhaq) to speak at their events, who have actively supported the Greek Genocide of 1915 in Turkey. When confronted, they denied these claims as Neo-Ottomanist, and accused RRC of Islamophobia.
The Islamophobia Excuse
PYM and SJP have weaponized accusations of Islamophobia to deflect legitimate critiques made against them. These lines are extremely reactionary and grounded in falsehoods. It relies on the naiveté of the settler leftists who permeate organizing on occupied Turtle Island. Non-Sunni Muslims (Shia, Alawi) and non-Muslims (Christian, Druze, Yezidi) are actively oppressed, persecuted, and discriminated against by Sunni Muslims in West Asia, and have been for centuries. The Sunni Muslim in West Asia is the majority. They are the equivalent of the protestant Christian in the West. Society is centered around them, and their interests, their values, their traditions. Civil law systems are informed by their religious outlooks. Minorities in West Asia are Shia Muslims and non-Muslims, who are often excluded from at best, and murdered at worst, by the Sunni majority society.
Islamophobia as a political ideology is non-existent in West Asia, the sole exception being within the Zionist settler colony. MENA Christians, Druze, Alawis, and Yezidis cannot be Islamophobic, due to their innate relationship with Islam being one of violence. Much like how the indigenous peoples of Turtle Island cannot be "Christophobic" due to their relationship with Christianity also being one of violence. Settler leftist often take the side of reactionary trends and reactionary Muslims due to their own misconceptions, lack of education, and white/western guilt. They will accuse a MENA Christian whose church was bombed of Islamophobia. They will accuse a Assyrian of Islamophobia when she complains about being forced to veil.
West Asian minorities are spoken over and silenced by these accusations. Our persecutions and concerns are dismissed by settler leftists whose white guilt inclines them to side with Sunni Chauvinists. Shia Muslims have also been persecuted by Sunni states since the time of Imam Ali (AS). Their practices have been ridiculed and banned by the Sunni chauvinists, and they have been forced to convert under penalty of death.
Monolithizing "Muslim" into an innately "right" "correct" or "anti-imperialist" identity erases the countless instances of Muslim states and leaders siding with imperialism, both against non-Muslims (such as in the case of Turkey) or against their fellow Muslims (Qatar, Saudi, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, etc). Muslims, like people of any faith, can be anti-imperialists, or they can be imperialists. Such an understanding exists for most religions, yet is not applied in the Islamic context due to fear of "alienating" the "base."
Alienating "Our Base"
This brings us to the topic of frequent discussion. Organizations like PYM and NSJP insist that they do not support these reactionary tendencies, but cannot call them out without "alienating our base." Why is it that the base of these movements would be alienated by these call outs? Why is the base of our movement infiltrated by rightists who solely support the Palestinian struggle because of its religious relevance? Why are people who support other imperialist ventures (Pakistan's repression of Baluchis, Turkey's genocide against Armenians and Kurds, etc) being amplified within a self proclaimed anti-imperialist internationalist "joint struggle" movement?
Chairman Mao famously said "in order to have unity, you must engage in criticism" in a process he outlined as Unity, Criticism, Unity. PYM and NSJP skip the criticism part, and instead demand unity, when ideologically, there is none. We cannot have unity when their are people in organizing who are supporters of Qatar, of Turkish imperialism, of the Muslim Brotherhood. These "takes" are not acceptable. They are not "differing opinions" as NSJP and its defenders like to claim, but rather, outright support for imperialism. We would never accept liberal Zionists or Hindutva chauvinists or white supremacists within our spaces, yet we tolerate this kind of reactionary racism and chauvinism. This is unprincipled.
We frequently discuss not having "Leftists appropriate the struggle" or "Group X appropriating the struggle", but never do we discuss "Muslims appropriating the struggle". We frequent see messaging such as "you don't have to be Muslim to care about Palestine" which implies that Palestinians and Palestinian liberation are innately Islamic, a reactionary view that alienates one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. Why is a Pakistani Muslim given more consideration, more support, and more of a voice within a movement for liberation in the Levant than a Syrian or Lebanese Christian? Why are reactionary Imams who praise the erasure and genocide of Christians in the Ottoman empire invited to speak about "collective liberation" at our protests?
Regime Remnants
Many of these Sunni chauvinists argue that "Alawis are disproportionately supporters of Assad" or "the Syrian army was mostly Alawis" as a way of justifying these persecutions. Such a line is not only incorrect, but would be invalid even if it was true.
A repressed minority group siding with a political force that allows them to exist in their homeland without threat of persecution from their historical oppressors IS justified. The alternative to Assad in Syria, since the time of his father Hafez, has been the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda, or Daesh. The authoritarian regime of Bashar El Assad imprisoned dissidents and committed human rights abuses, but nothing that could hold a candle to the Salafist terror of the alternatives. Under Assad's regime, every Syrian was equal, under a civil constitution, with guaranteed secular rights to every citizen. Under Daesh rule, non-Sunnis were raped, murdered, and sold by the governing forces. It is quite evident which reality is better for Syrian minorities.
Moreover, we can look to what has happened in Libya, in Iraq, in any country where the US has overthrown the regime. Libya was one of the most powerful states in Afrika. Post-Gaddafi Libya was marked by ISIS massacring Coptic Christians and open air slave markets. Iraq was once home to a sizeable Christian population under Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist government, which today has been reduced to a sliver of itself.
Finally, Sunnis constituted the majority of people in the Assad governments cabinet offices and elected officers, the majority of enlisted men as well as officers in the army, and the majority of public safety officials, prison officials, and police officers. Sunnis make up nearly 80% of Syria, it's quite literally impossible the Alawi minority to "control the government" as is often stated by Sunni chauvinists.
Concluding Thoughts
The failure of PYM, NSJP, PYM DFW, and SJP UTD to adequate address and condemn the events that have unfolded over the past six months in Syria is disappointing and sides with empire. This post is not made as condemnation of Sunni Islam or of Sunni Muslims, but rather as an analysis of reactionary trends that have permeated within that group, comparable to Christian nationalism on occupied Turtle Island (among settlers) or Hindutva ideology in so-called India.