******************** 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. *****************************************************************
Louis is exaggerating and cherry picking, whether wilfully or not. Salih Muslim whatever faults he may have (and the PKK current seems to have clearer and more radical spokespeople than him), has never said "there can be no solution to the conflict in Syria without Bashar al-Assad remaining in power". Louis might be misremembering this article http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2013/10/syria-kurds-assad-solution-salih-muslim.html, from more than 3 years ago, in which he was briefly paraphrased as saying there could be "no solution without Assad". That seems to be a call for a negotiated solution. Whether or not you think this was utopian at that point, it's not the same as insisting Assad had to stay in power. In the two more recent articles Chris posted, he's paraphrased as being "fully in favour of Mr Assad and his government being replaced by a more acceptable alternative" in the first and quoted as saying "we are ready to fight Assad under a secular, democratic and civilian umbrella...Assad is falling no matter how long it takes, and the era of the Baath (Party) is gone, never to return". Louis might find Muslim's antipathy to extreme right Islamism disgusting, but when for example he's seen Kurd and poor Arab civilians in the Sheikh Masoud district of Aleppo attacked by chemical weapons by Islamist rebels maybe we should cut the guy a little slack. If some spokespeople of the PKK-current and their allies present too homogenous a picture of the rebels, it's also deluded to deny the reactionary nature of some of them, and also quite "Orientalist" to deny that a whole lot of people in Syria and the region who oppose Assad don't want reactionary Islamism in power. I'm currently reading Jonathon Littel's Syrian Notebooks, which is a moving and sympathetic first-hand account account of the rebels in Homs in early 2012, but in which Littel is disturbed to notice a creeping sectarianisation, which he's convinced in his more recent introduction and epilogue to have marginalised the progressive aspect of the rebellion. He puts the main blame on the regime but summarises the process as "transforming a popular, broad-based proletarian and peasant uprising into a sectarian civil war". On Wed, Jan 11, 2017 at 12:40 PM, Chris Slee 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. > ***************************************************************** > > Louis Proyect may be referring to this article: > > http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria- > civil-war-kurdish-leader-says-collapse-of-assad-regime- > would-be-a-disaster-despite-its-10515922.html > > > > But see also this article: > > http://www.syrianobserver.com/EN/News/30898/Saleh_Muslim_We_ > Are_Ready_Fight_Assad_Regime_Establish_Secular_State > > > > > ________________________________ > From: Louis Proyect <l...@panix.com> > Sent: Wednesday, 11 January 2017 1:30 AM > To: Chris Slee; Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition > Subject: Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Syria and the Left | Jacobin > > On 1/10/17 8:19 PM, Chris Slee wrote: > > The interview with Yasser Munif is in some ways very good, but it is > > spoiled by his hostile attitude towards the PYD. > > Maybe he took exception to the PYD leader Salih Muslim saying that there > can be no solution to the conflict in Syria without Bashar al-Assad > remaining in power. As someone who supports Kurdish self-determination, > I found this utterance and others by this man utterly disgusting. > > -- > Support Louis Proyect biography project > https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/publish-the- > biography-of-socialist-louis-proyect#/ > _________________________________________________________ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/nick.j. > fredman%40gmail.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
