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"Socialist Alliance leaders". You do pull out the thunderous old Trot polemic lingo sometimes. Well I've just had a flick through the "Tony Iltis" tag on the GL site https://www.greenleft.org.au/glw-authors/tony-iltis. On my phone on the tram to work it's true but I think what I say here is pretty accurate. Up to the end of 2014 at least his articles included, as well as describing the universally noted sectarianisation of the conflict, statements like, "There are local revolutionary committees throughout Syria that reflect, to varying degrees, the democratic values of the 2011 uprising. But these committees are generally uncoordinated" https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/kurds-drive-back-amid-wests-shifting-alliances . From 2015 his articles note the range of ideological bases of armed groups but put the more or less democratic local organizing in the past tense. I think it's wrong not to acknowledge there's *something* left of this aspect, at the least for the pedagogical purposes of relating what ordinary people do in struggle. But how little is left of the local committees and "civil society" or how much of a national-democratic character to the armed struggle is left is unclear to me. Noting the importance of the "increasing marginalisation" as Leila Shami puts it of democratic and progressive aspects of the uprising, or the decisive shift in balance between FSA and Islamist groups — not just those with an Islamic name, but with reactionary, far right-wing, sectarian politics — in the armed struggle, is hardly unique to Tony Itlis. It's what Jonathon Littel observed starting in 2012 in Homs and has analysed since, it's what Theo Padnos found when purported FSA units and supporters twice handed him over to al Nusra to be tortured between 2012 and 2014, it's what Syrian journalists writing in Tahrir-ICN relayed by Tony have expressed. I note that the list of groups the Russian state apparatus have decided are "moderate", that you seemed to think had some significance, doesn't even include the FSA. We should be clear the war was caused by a dictatorship that's in terminal crisis one way or another, and is not a western conspiracy against a legitimate government, we should demand direct humanitarian aid to people affected by the war and a massive increase in Western refugee intake from Syria, we should support any democratic and progressive alternatives to Assad, which to my mind includes the effort at a multi-ethnic, non-sectarian, democratic zone run by working people in the Northern Syrian Federation. On Wednesday, January 11, 2017, Louis Proyect 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. > ***************************************************************** > > On 1/10/17 9:20 PM, Nick Fredman via Marxism wrote: > >> 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". >> > > > No, in fact it is the Socialist Alliance leaders that are cherry-picking. > I have no idea what has happened with Tony Iltis since I haven't heard much > from him lately along these lines lately but he set the tone for your group > when he characterized the FSA in 2014 as bandits and warlords a couple of > years ago. Shame on you. > _________________________________________________________ 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
