Book review
"War in Syria: Resolving a Global Conflict"
I think Ms Helberg, or the reviewer, is wrong in saying people "took to the streets without ideological blinkers" and among them was Yassin al-Haj Salah. It seems there is a lack of familiarity with Al-Haj Saleh's writings and positions. He is in fact a very ideological Syrian leftist who fought the regime, imprisoned, and he is still ideological leftist and anti-dictatorhsip and anti-imperialist. Dismissing ideology is a phantasy. The question is which ideology and whose interests? Is it progressive or reactionary, or "antiquated" as al-Haj Salah calls it:
"Overall, the fast-moving current of antiquation that is engulfing us all appears to be a result of three springs merging into one: the spring of religion, which offers legitimacy to existing and soon-to-exist despotic authorities; the spring of despotic states that receive assistance and legitimacy from a world system centered around stability; and the spring of this world-system itself, which acts as a pillar for different forms of discrimination, privilege and prejudice. The antiquated is a mixture of discrimination and prejudice protected by force, which in turn protects privilege. It is the face of rising reactionarism in today’s world.
I am referring to the interlacing of three factors. The US and the West more generally, including Israel, dominate the world system; it is Syria’s bad fortune that Russia too is a partner in this domination. I am inclined to consider the world system as the dynamic source of antiquation in our lives; the source of reactionary tendencies, including religious brutality and states’ despotism. That is because the strongest archaic is the archaic of the strongest. The democratic West is the patron of Israel and Saudi Arabia. It is largely thanks to the democratic West that al-Qaeda was established (which emerged from jihadi movement in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union in 1980s), and the West is the structural supporter of state despotism, even when it may make the political choice to not support some such states."
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