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This message sent to Rabble.ca and to Eva Bartlett last week.
ken h
When Ali Mustafa was killed in Syria in March of this year, Rabble.ca carried
articles in remembrance of him, as well as linking to an interview with him on
Syria.
http://rabble.ca/babble/media/progressive-toronto-photojournalist-ali-mustafa-killed-syria
http://rabble.ca/news/2014/03/remembering-peoples-journalist-ali-mustafa
What are some of the points of the major media coverage on the war in Syria
that you feel are inaccurate and should be looked at critically?
AM I think the first rule of the Western mainstream media has been to frame
what is happening in Syria in overly simplified sectarian terms, portraying it
as a war between Syrian president Bashar al Assad’s Alawite sect on one hand,
and radical Sunni rebels on the other.
Although sectarianism is definitely one of the key factors at play in Syria and
should not be overlooked, it’s also a problematic way of trying to understand
the reality on the ground for two basic reasons. First, the origins of the
conflict – the real, deep-rooted grievances against the Assad regime that led
Syrians to revolt in the first place – are completely ignored in this
narrative. Second, it mistakes the effect for the cause, reducing the
complexity of the conflict to its simplest, lowest common denominator. As a
result, the war in Syria is framed as something primordial, ahistorical, and
perpetual – it is without end because it has always existed.
http://frombeyondthemargins.blogspot.ca/2013/10/reporting-from-inside-interview-with.html
AM The Syrian revolution first began when a few youth in Daraa, in southern
Syria, spray-painted some anti-government graffiti on the walls of a building.
They were arrested, beaten, and badly tortured. This sparked major protests in
Daraa and that spread across the country. The protests were brutally crushed by
the regime, which dispatched armed thugs known as shabiha to arrest, beat, and
kill many protesters.
The Syrian revolution began very much in the same spirit as the uprisings
against dictatorship in Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere in the region as part of
the so-called Arab Spring. Yet the level of regime brutality in Syria was, and
continues to be, without parallel. It is important to remember that the first
six or seven months of the uprising was peaceful. The movement used tactics
like mass protests, sit-ins, and other types of creative actions. At that
stage, the protests were not even calling for the overthrow of the regime but
basic political reform, like fair elections, freedom of speech, and other
rights taken for granted here in the West.
It was the Assad regime that decided to militarize the uprising, turning it
into a bloody war. The Assad regime forced the crisis to a point of no return.
Once the level of brutality escalated, many ordinary civilians felt that they
were forced to take up arms in defence.
* * * * * *
In April of this year Eva Bartlett went to Syria. She has her own blog
http://ingaza.wordpress.com/ As well some of her blog entries appear as a
Rabble blog http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/eva-bartlett-gaza
April 8
For the next undetermined period I'll be blogging and re-posting publishings on
Syria, again with the sole intent of shedding light on what is and is not a
complex issue: Syria is in the crosshairs of the same powers that ravaged Iraq
and Libya, to name but two, in the name of "human rights" and "democracy." The
complexities lie in the media misinformation on who is at fault or not and the
obfuscation of influence and involvement of external powers (U.S., Saudi,
Turkey, Qatar, Israel, to name a few) who wish to see yet another strong Arab
nation torn apart.
May 14
Syria, in its fourth year of a devastating foreign-backed and armed attempt to
overthrow the government, is somehow still pulsing with life and hope....
"We have a leader, Dr. Bashar Al-Assad. We love him so much, we don't want
anything else. We want him, we want Syria back."
The narrative presented by Ali Mustafa and that presented by Eva Bartlett are
irreconcilably opposed to each other.
We can no longer ask Mustafa how he would respond to Bartlett's blog, but we
can ask Bartlett what she thinks of Mustafa's writings. And we can ask the
editorial team at Rabble what they make of these two narratives.
Ken Hiebert
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