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Salih Muslim's statement that "many who were siding with the insurrection were coming from the mosques" was very unfortunate in its wording. But I think he was referring to the Islamist (and Sunni sectarian) politics of much of the rebel leadership. He said the goal of the PYD was a "democratic and secular state". The Islamists had a different goal, so they were not allies. When Salih Muslim talks of the "regime change project", he is not referring to the original uprising against Assad, but the attempt to use that uprising to instal a new government backed by Turkey and the West. He makes the point that such a government was likely to be repressive towards the Kurds. Chris Slee ________________________________________ From: Marxism <marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu> on behalf of mkaradjis . via Marxism <marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> Sent: Friday, 2 March 2018 1:24:02 PM To: Chris Slee Subject: Re: [Marxism] David Graeber: manufactured ignorance: the strange case of Juan Cole and the Kurdish freedom movement ******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. ***************************************************************** Sorry Nick, who wrote anything here to whitewash the Turkish state. Look, it is not a matter of one statement by Salih Muslim in 2013, repulsive as that one was. You need to deal with the fact that the PYD's decision to go its own entirely neutral "third way" from the very outset has been part of the problem, as well as the problems arising from Turkish pressure on the opposition and the opposition's own Arab nationalist background. PYD leader Salih Muslim admits that they effectively declared themselves neutral as early as mid-2011: “Regarding our position in the conflict, the Kurds in Syria had been fighting for our democratic rights in a country ruled by a dynastic and despotic regime. But a few months after the uprising we realized that many who were siding with the insurrection were coming from the mosques and we thought that those were not good travel companions for us.” http://kurdistantribune.com/2016/salih-muslim-time-has-proved-us-right/ Yes, thousands of Syrians were pouring out of mosques – one of the only safe places – and going to protest for democracy against Assad from the earliest days; it is immensely sectarian (in the political sense) to see all these people as your enemies “a few months” into the uprising, as if every worshipper protesting for democracy and freedom is a crazed jihadist. In an interview back in 2011, Salih Muslim (who was curiously allowed back into Syria by Assad, following years of exile), also used familiar Assadist tropes in defining the uprising as a western “regime change” operation: “As PYD, we believe that the international plan asking for a change in Syria is not in favor of the peoples … In return for assuming the leading role on Syria, Turkey received compromises by the West on suppressing the Syrian Kurds. One of the major reasons of the regime change project in Syria was to eliminate the Kurdish” (PYD Lideri Salih Müslim ile Röportaj, “Suriye’de Kürtler yol haritası çıkartıyor”, Firat News Agency, 12 September 2011, cited in http://www.todayszaman.com/todays-think-tanks_syrias-pkk-game_271361.html). Then there were the PYD attacks on Kurdish anti-Assad demonstrations, beginning in Afrin in February 2012. I quoted from Burning Country on this in a recent post. here is another report: “On February 3, 2012, organized attacks by sympathizers of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) injured at least 17 people in ʿAfrin. Armed PYD supporters surrounded approximately three hundred supporters of the Kurdish Patriotic Conference as they were gathering for a dissident demonstration. The PYD demanded that the demonstrators walk behind their flag. When the demonstrators refused and chanted “Azadî” (“Freedom”), they were attacked with billy clubs, knives, chains, and guns. … Syrian security forces did not intervene. Numerous demonstrators were brought to the hospital—however, some of them could not be treated as the PYD also continued its attacks there.” http://kurdwatch.org/en/interview8/html?aid=2449&z=en According to the same report, five demonstrations took place the same day in al-Qamishli. The regime arrested several people, but also “during the demonstration in al-Antariyah, PYD thugs attacked activists who were filming the protests with the explanation that only employees of the PKK stations Roj-TV and Ronahi-TV were allowed to make such recordings. Three activists suffered serious head injuries.” The rest of 2012 is a literal catalogue of PYD attacks on Kurdish anti-Assad demonstrations. Depending on the situation, the PYD sometimes organised its own anti-Assad demonstrations, while at other times it attempted to swap the anti-Assad slogans for demands that Ocalan be released and the like. Valid criticism is not "demonisation." Only blind romanticism leads to demonisation, which is why so many Rojava romantics often start spurning out the crudest Islamophobic nonsense about "head-choppers" as soon as any rebels out side Rojava are mentioned. Perhaps time for a more critical outlook. On Fri, Mar 2, 2018 at 1:06 PM, Nick Fredman via Marxism <marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > ******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > ***************************************************************** > > Ok then we pretty much know for sure that at least 6 people in Afrin or > about 0.001% of the current population held up placards of Assad, and that > their reasons for doing so might have been influenced by what the former > leader of the PYD said about one regime attack 5 years ago. I’m not sure > though this is the most important point with regard to an article about how > a well-known and avowedly leftist US academic is systematically demonizing > the PKK and PYD and systematically whitewashing the Turkish state. > > On Fri, 2 Mar 2018 at 9:08 am, Louis Proyect <l...@panix.com> wrote: > >> On 3/1/18 5:01 PM, Nick Fredman wrote: >> > >> > Louis uses “Kurds” for these placard holders when he does not know their >> > ethnicity, or, more to the point if we don’t want to ape lazy, ignorant >> > journalists in the bourgeois media, their political affiliations or >> views. >> >> Maybe that's because my views were shaped by PYD leader Salih Muslim >> calling the sarin gas attack in East Ghouta that cost the lives of more >> than a thousand people a "false flag". Any leader capable of making such >> a terrible statement is creating an atmosphere where it is entirely >> plausible that his followers would hold pictures of the killer of those >> people aloft. >> > _________________________________________________________ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/mkaradjis%40gmail.com _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/chris_w_slee%40hotmail.com _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
