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-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Pollack via Marxism
The ICG earlier this year issued a report which basically called the
Kurdish PYD collaborators with the Syrian regime who are only able to
govern the "autonomous areas" thanks to physical regime withdrawal but
continued funding. ICG also claims that the self-governance structures
everyone is raving about are PYD-appointed fronts; and that PYD
repression
against opponents continues.
I put Arbour in the subject line because she was head of ICG at time
of
this report (May 2014)
http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/Middle%20East%20North%20Africa/Iraq%20Syria%20Lebanon/Syria/151-flight-of-icarus-the-pyd-s-precarious-rise-in-syria.pdf
I don't think the issue is Louise Arbour. The report is by the ICG,
which is a relatively level-headed group of pro-imperialist analysts.
They produce well-researched analysis which, however, is obviously
written from a particular point of view. I don't think they go out of
their way to doctor facts but of course their spin is there.
The fact that the PYD is "only able to govern the "autonomous areas"
thanks to physical regime withdrawal" is simply a statement of fact, but
whether it is also due to "continued funding" by the regime, let alone
low-level collaboration or even alliance, with the regime, as the report
suggests, enters seriously into the area of interpretation and spin.
As the report shows, it was the PYD that led the uprising in 2004, and
suffered fierce repression from the regime. When the uprising began in
2011, naturally they again tried to take over Kurdish regions. When the
regime withdrew in mid-2012, was this because the regime loved the PYD
or vice versa and they were entering into an alliance with each other?
No, the regime withdrew because it looked at a map, saw the Kurdish
regions were the furthest thing away, the jihadist-controlled regions
were the next furthest away, the FSA and other rebel controlled regions
were much closer, including right under their noses in the major cities.
By leaving the Kurds be, the regime could focus on the more immediate
dangers.
Was the PYD complicit with the regime by accepting the withdrawal and
trying to build its society, rather than sending its fighters to aid the
resistance elsewhere? I don't that criticism is valid, though part of
the bad blood between the FSA and PYD is due to that feeling. From the
point of view of self-determination, you can't blame the Kurds for
getting what they could in the circumstances. I guess you don't actively
invite barrel bombs when you can avoid them for a while. The PYD knew
very well they would come eventually, if Assad finished off everyone
else.
The report also says the regime continued to pay salaries in the PYD
controlled region. I know nothing about this, but I assume it is based
on research. In some instances where the FSA has signed truces with the
regime, the regime has agreed to pay salaries. What can we say about
this? It is desperation. It is a question of tactics.
The report also makes a number of concrete accusations against the PYD
for instances of collaboration with the regime, a more serious thing.
Some of this seems anecdotal, some more solidly based. It does not
appear to be of a systematic nature, but here and there, opportunistic.
Question: Is the PYD a perfect organisation that has NEVER DONE ANYTHING
WRONG? Were the Bolsheviks? Is there such a thing?
In a recent discussion on the GL list, I warned against the tendency to
suggest that the FSA were a huge (or tiny, whatever your fancy) morass
of smugglers, warlords, swindlers, jihadist, US puppets, bandits,
thieves etc, on account of the fact that the sheer anarchy of
revolutionary situations, combined with the extraordinary level of
counterrevolutionary regime violence, means that a significant number of
violations absolutely do happen. If you make those kinds of sweeping
generalisations then there has never been anyone worth supporting, ever.
I also made the opposite point: while we rightly look at the model of
the Rojava revolution (above and beyond the fact that we should defend
Kurdish self-determination even if they were run by Kurdish Black
Hundreds), we need to avoid romanticisation, the complete opposite
attitude to demonisation. The PYD has any number of skeletons in its
closet as do most organisations which consist of human beings.
It is thus possible that some of what is in the report is right; but
organisations in a revolutionary situation evolve based on realities on
the ground. It seems to me the current active collaboration between the
PYD/YPG and the FSA in Aleppo and Rojava represents a positive evolution
for both forces. The real fraternisation on the ground occurring may
hopefully break down some of the issues they previously had, including
the problem of the Syrian opposition leadership having a view on Kurdish
self-determination that is only barely better than that of the regime.
There is little doubt that at a political level the PYD is in advance of
other sections of the Syrian resistance. Our support for the Syrian
revolution has never depended on trying to find a perfect leftist
leadership. We are well aware of the political problems of much of the
leadership.
But that should not in any way affect solidarity with the people on the
ground. Kobane is in immediate danger of genocide and is thus the key
issue of this moment. However, Syrians are being barrel bombed into
oblivion, massacred with ballistic missiles, MiG fighters, napalm,
chlorine gas, besieged and starved, tortured to death in enormous
numbers, all at the same time, still, right now.
In such circumstances, the tendency to be overly critical, in some
leftist circles, of the FSA for various infringements on revolutionary
morality (and here I am not just talking about the red-brown outright
apologists for Assad), while overly romanticising the PYD/YPG, has the
obvious problem that until the latest ISIS siege, Rojava was largely
left alone and thus the levels of fascist violence imposed on it were
not remotely at the level of those imposed on the rest of Syria by the
regime; they thus had the space to build a new society and reduce
violations to a minimum.
We had countless examples of revolutionary councils around Syria, with a
great range of creative revolutionary activities and sometimes quite
transformative structures; but when you're bombed, rocketed, besieged,
starved, burnt, tortured every day and your entire society and town is
reduced to rubble, there's not much to build a society with, and plenty
of room for banditry etc.
Yet the decision of the FSA to join forces with the YPG to resist ISIS
shows a revolutionary spirit that we have no right o be critical of from
our comfort zones. Indeed, according to a couple of reports, a group of
FSA fighters from Aleppo - where they are jointly besieged by the regime
and ISIS while their allies are bombed by the US - managed to break
through to Kobane to to further aid the YPG (ie, on top of the local FSA
forces already on their side):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/revolutionarysyria/permalink/712281322184901/
If the PYD has had to play some games with the regime to survive over
time this is little different to the games the FSA has had to play with
Turkey, Qatar, KSA etc. If sometimes they went beyond what is
justifiable, then that is similar to various issues with the FSA etc.
For years the FSA has called for decent arms to help it defend its
people from massive regime violence, especially manpads (shoulder-held
anti-aircraft weapons) to prevent the regime's daily aerial massacre.
Nothing of much use was ever forthcoming, mainly regular arms from local
states and nothing at all from the US (until mid-2014, when it began to
distribute a handful of anti-tank weapons to a handful of groups in the
context of wanting to sue them against the jihadists).
For years the imperialist powers said they couldn't provide arms, using
the BS excuse that such arms might get to the jihadists; and for years,
a significant number of leftists parroted the same thing, except worse:
the fact that any arms at all were getting through to help people
fighting a genocidal tyranny was declared as evidence that the FSA were
US puppets and sell-outs to imperialism and other such filth-talk. Brave
western leftists love to try to "expose" that the FSA might have got a
few more guns than they were supposed to have (according to these
leftists' standards, presumably?). Meanwhile the FSA never called for
imperialist troops and very rarely did some unit or individual even call
for air-strikes; apart from weapons so they could fight themselves, the
only thing they sometimes called for was a no-fly zone to defend some
population centres against aerial slaughter. How safe and secure
leftists would howl about that.
Now the PYD/YPG, quite rightly, demands advanced weapons so they can
defend themselves against a heavily armed ISIS. Moreover, they
completely understandably call for US air strikes against the advancing
ISIS siege. Not that actual strikes have been of much help, though
probably they have been better than nothing.
Who could argue with them? Who could stand up and denounce them as
pro-imperialists or other such garbage as they fight to defend their
very lives? Very few, and rightly so. But how many have a double
standard as the FSA made similar calls for aid against 3 years of
massacre? For those who don't have this double standard, you understand
solidarity. For those who do - I simply can't imagine a greater degree
of hypocrisy.
FOR MASSIVE SUPPLIES OF ADVANCED WEAPONRY TO THE FSA AND THE PYD/YPG!
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