Tomorrow or the next day I will be posting a journal of the panels I attended at last weekend’s Left Forum in NY, including an audio archive (with mixed success since about half of the panels involved Powerpoint slides or other visual material). But today I want to single out a particularly interesting panel discussion that did not allow recordings for security reasons. It was held yesterday morning at ten under the title “Prospects for Syria’s Revolution” under the auspices of Haymarket Books, the imprint of the ISO. The first speaker was from the http://syriafreedomforever.wordpress.com/ blog, an indispensable resource for understanding Syria from a Marxist standpoint. Even though he is presently not based in Syria, the blogger had to have his identity concealed during a Skype video call since it is entirely conceivable that the Baathist goons might want to track him down. The second speaker was Anand Gopal, who quite simply is the most informed person on the American left about Syria, both theoretically and as a journalist who has taken great risks to tell the true story of the revolutionary struggle
To give you an idea of what the “Syrian Freedom Forever” blogger stands for, here’s an excerpt from his latest blog entry “Syria or elsewhere, there are no pure revolutions, just revolutions…”: "The role of the revolutionary is to be on the side and struggle with these popular organizations struggling for freedom and dignity and to radicalize as much as possible the popular movement towards progressive objectives, while fighting against opportunists and reactionary forces opposing popular class interests. "A banner in Homs expressed very well this feeling: The revolution is permanent against the regime and the cheap lackey opposition." My feeling that if there is one Syrian expressing such a view and arrayed against him are revolutionary governments in Venezuela and Cuba, as well as dozens of leftist websites, and groups like the Stop the War Coalition in Britain, I will stand with him against al-Assad. http://louisproyect.org/2013/06/10/prospects-for-the-syrian-revolution/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
