http://kasamaproject.org/2011/05/18/the-revolt-in-syria-its-roots-and-prospects
The revolt in Syria: Its roots and prospects Posted by Mike E on May 18, 2011 The following is taken from interviews A World to Win News Service. conducted with Hassan Khaled Chatila, a Syrian born in Damascus in 1944. Chatila holds a doctorate in political philosophy from the University of Paris , a city where he has lived as a refugee for many years. He is a member of the Syrian Communist Action Party founded in 1975. AWTWNS condensed and edited this material while trying to faithfully represent his views, which are his own. by Hassan Khaled Chatila The movement that began 15 March in Syria is spontaneous. It is a reflexive reaction to all the suffering felt by the masses of people, physically, spiritually and in daily life. Those conditions created a spontaneous consciousness that can’t go higher without the intervention of a political party that represents the working class and brings the masses a materialist understanding of the situation as translated into a political programme. I accuse the entire Syrian left of having consciously or unconsciously become an integral part of the power structure. Their position is to seek an end to the crisis through a dialogue with the regime, which is also the position of the regime itself. They have lived a twilight existence for eight years, paralysed and isolated from the masses of people. Now they put out leaflets expressing solidarity with the movement, but they still advocate political dialogue with the regime to achieve gradual and peaceful reform. The movement, which I’d call a popular movement for a Syrian revolution, has sought the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad since it first began in the southern city of Daraa when [two teenagers were arrested for painting a slogan on the walls] that has been the main one at every demonstration ever since: “The people want to topple the regime!”]. This movement is like the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt in that it is spontaneous, with the difference that in Tunisia , for example, an organized political elite and the trade unions took part from the beginning, and human rights and other civil society organizations with international connections were involved in both countries. In Syria , the trade unions are part of the state apparatus (the left and other organizations are forbidden to work in them), and the repression has been much more fierce. Any Syrian contacting organizations abroad on the Net risks a trial before a special tribunal for “communicating with the enemy”and years in prison. The kinds of political currents like the “We’ve had enough!” movement that influenced Egyptian intellectuals and even workers have not existed in Syria . Intellectuals with any revolutionary inclinations have spent at least 15 years in prison. The revolt is not generalized across the country and society. It is more like a series of neighbourhood uprisings than a centralized revolution. The main actors so far have been educated youth and unemployed youth seeking access to modernity. Industrial workers take part as individuals, but many of the people in the streets are what I would call lumpen proletariat, people who are unemployed or without regular jobs, who have to live as best they can. They work a few days here and there, mainly in services for the bourgeoisie, as maids, porters, doormen, etc. They have no social security or other benefits. The other component of this movement comes from the lower middle class, especially young unemployed university graduates. About 20 percent of young graduates are unemployed. They can’t get married because they have to live with their parents, due to both unemployment and the severe housing shortage. (clip) _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
