Case in point - Andre Vltcheck's impassioned screed in which the author extends a wobbly comparison between Syria and Stalingrad reprising Assad's Allawites as the brave Soviet defenders who held off the Nazi invaders. He speaks glowingly of the courage of the 'Syrian people' but it's obvious that to Vltcheck the Syrian people doesn't include the country's majority Sunni population. By 'majority' I mean 74% of all Syrians who are Sunni.
Vltcheck's tortured account sees the civil war as the doing of the West, Turkey, the Saudis. Consider this passage:
Eduardo Galeano told me: “People know when it’s time to fight. We have no right to tell them … but when they decide, it is our obligation to support them, even to lead them if they approach us.”
In this case, the Syrian people decided. No government, no political force could move an entire nation to such tremendous heroism and sacrifice. Russians did it during World War Two, and the Syrians are doing it now.
Vltcheck's references to "the Syrian people" and "an entire nation" are code for the small minority of Syrians who support Assad, not the massive majority he, for years, suppressed at gunpoint.
The Syrian uprising, in Vltcheck's narrative, was the work of outsiders - not the food shortages and anti-Sunni policies that caused the majority to rise up against their illegitimate government. In fact, Vltcheck surgically excises every fact that confounds his argument, such as Assad's forces raining barrel bombs on Sunni civilian neighbourhoods in towns such as Aleppo. Then again, by Vltcheck's logic, those are Sunni and therefore they don't exist.
Check the stories of blocking of completely legit comments...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cbc.ca/news/world/istanbul-bombing-tuesday-1.3399694
Lefties at work...
A..non
ReplyDeleteI have no means of knowing that a blocked comment is/was 'completely legit.'
I recently sent a commenter packing because he left his comments in the form of YouTube music video links. He complained they were perfectly legitimate. I found them a pain in the ass because I had to open the links if only to ensure there was nothing, beyond bad music taste,that could be considered inappropriate.
BTW - stop slagging Lefties. I consider myself one. There are, however, a significant group that go too far.
I kinda like Vltcheck.
ReplyDeleteI seem to violently disagree with him at times only to slide back to actually try and integrate his point - I have to really challenge my orthodoxies but eventually have to admit he's go a legit point of view. Siding with Assad at least follows International Law. The Baath party (also in Iraq) had socialist roots and Gaddafi's Libya was a bastion of stability and women's rights compared to today.
I spent a few ours once, listening to an old Estonian lament the loss of the Soviet Union: told me the opposite of much of what I believed. We are all victims of propaganda.
It's so funny you should discuss Andre Vitcheck's article today. The other day I was reading one of his articles , I think it was on Axis of Logic, which is pretty good site. Anyway this article was about how Russia has always gone into other countries for only humanitarian reasons and to liberate them. Apparently Russia did this in a number of countries who had been under western oppression.These countries welcomed Russia's liberation with open arms. According to Vitcheck everything Russia has done on the world stage throughout it's history has been only because Russian governments are noble humanitarians. I was going to comment to him and point out Russia's Soviet Union days, where, as an example Stalin killed more Russians through his purges than all of the Russian soldiers who died in WW2. Also I do not think when Russia invaded Hungary, Poland and most of Eastern Europe, that what they felt was liberation.I also think that the Soviet Dissenters, who risked their lives to speak out, Men like Vladimir Bukovsky,who may still be alive and living in England, would of course disagree with Vitcheck. Bukovsky spent 15yrs in concentration camps and mental hospitals for simply speaking publically about his opposition to Soviet Communism. Bukovsky became known in the west so the Soviets threw him out. Anyway I chose not to comment to him. I'm glad you took the time to do so. You're right that he goes to far. When it comes to Russia, including its past, he sounds like a true believer to me.
ReplyDelete"Vltcheck's tortured account sees the civil war as the doing of the West, Turkey, the Saudis."
ReplyDelete...is this not the appropriate way to see it? hyperbolic comparisons aside, i remember a nascent opposition/protest movement (which itself may have benefitted from u.s. support through NED and its ilk; just an opinion based on motive and precedent) which only after garnering open support from the u.s.-led west (from p.r. and propoganda to pledges for materiel) developed into a full-blown rebellion.
i see this as another of those instances where, yes, it would be nice for syria to be rid of assad and develop into a truly open, democratic state, but that needs to be their fight, to be fought when they're ready: by supporting a small incoherent opposition the outside actors have only created a force with little chance to win, but enough strength to avoid outright defeat, leaving the country stalemated in lethal chaos and destruction.
i also disagree with the idea that the civil war is a mass uprising on sunni/shia lines--the assads may have ruled with an iron fist a la saddam hussein, but, particularly after syrians had seen the experiences of other countries in the region, i doubt there was widespread appetite for upheaval, or the government would have fallen in short order.
@ NPov % Anon6:48 - you're, of course, free to imagine whatever you like. That can't change the fact that Assad's Allawite rule, just as his father's before him, has been brutal with the excluded group who make up three of four Syrians. And the only one dropping barrel bombs on the Syrian people has been Assad who, along with the Islamists, used chemical weapons on Syrian civilians.
ReplyDeleteVltchek also conveniently overlooks that this uprising began a good long time before anyone else got involved, particularly the United States. It suits his twisted narrative to truncate timelines. He'd have no fable without it.
I tend not to believe people who spin tales that don't comport with facts. You don't have to agree.