De-railing of Geneva II from the Basic Tracks I received several letters from friends of the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change – NCB expressing surprise about the NCB’s boycott of the Geneva II Conference in the context of the arrangements, the formula and the conditions in which it is being held. We were particularly the brave defenders of this conference, and we were accused of all manner of sins after our defense of it even from some people who mounted the platform of the delegation of the Coalition on behalf of the Syrian opposition in Montreux. I wrote in my first notes about “Geneva I”/Geneva Communiqué on 10th July 2012: The Conference has been organised without the Syrians like a meeting of the Security Council, but this negative point has certainly … [read more]

Among its main victims there are the democratic rights of the Syrian people, who originally tried to claim these rights by launching a peaceful popular mass protest movement. However their efforts have gradually been thwarted by an increasing influence of sectarian tendencies as well as a growing regional and global involvement. Together with many people inside Syria and across the world our initiative for Peace in Syria continues to insist (see initial call www.peaceinsyria.org/mission.html) that the only viable solution is a political settlement with a ceasefire paving the way to a transitional government, based on a power sharing agreement between the socio-political, confessional and ethnical blocs maintaining a common State. We are conscious that this is not the ideal solution for … [read more]

In the poorest countries of the world, where hundreds of thousands of people die of hunger and diseases, many have celebrated the massacre of New York. Among those peoples who in the last decades have been suffering from all kinds of humiliations, aggressions, massacres and injustice, many have cheered in occasion of the twin tower collapse. They see the evil where the rich see the good. Only priests with fully stuffed stomachs could condemn these extreme sentiments of the damned of earth. In fact, the poor and miserable consider the USA and their allies as those responsible for their inhuman conditions of life, for the hopeless barbarism they have to suffer from. Are they wrong? The hypocrite governors of the US and the NATO states are threatening, cursing and crying that peace … [read more]

Responding to the contribution of Anton Holberg: While it is obvious that Sunni Islamism is exclusivist, the regime’s secularist narrative constitutes a hidden, more covered de facto communalism. It is true that it does not refer to religion in the same way as Islamism does. It is fair enough to notice this difference but politically it does not matter much. We know that even the French role model behind the formal façade of egalitarism is de facto very exclusivist and elitist. In Syria everybody starts from the assumption that loyalty to the leading group is not based on ideology or whatever criteria but on communalist group solidarity provoking counter-reactions by the excluded, exploited and oppressed. Unfortunately under the given conditions the popular rebellion was susceptible … [read more]

Discussing: Hassan al Hachimi, Political Secretary of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood Zuhat Kobani, European Spokesman Kurdish PYD (Party of Democratic Union, member of the National Co-ordination Body for Democratic Change – NCB) Samir Aita, Co-founder of the Syrian Democratic Forum Salah-Aldin Siedo, author and Islamic scholar from Syria Huda Zein, docent university Cologne, Democratic and Women’s activist from Idlib Wilhelm Langthaler, co-founder Initiative for a political Solution in Syria www.peaceinsyria.org Leo Gabriel, social anthropologist and member of the international council of the World Social Forum Moderation: Erhard Crome, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Syria seems stuck in a never-ending civil war involving all regional and global players. … [read more]

Syria definitely is the focus of conflictivity within the world system. International, regional, political and social fault lines are crossing there producing a tremendous eruption which turned a democratic popular revolt into a sectarian civil war with massive foreign involvement. And the stakes are indeed high, very high. Though the origin and base of the events have been the democratic and social rights of the popular masses, it became also about the redesign of the regional and global order. Let us try to discern the recent tendencies emerging in this conflict against the background of the preparations for the Geneva talks scheduled for January 2014. 1. Why talks – military solution not sustainable for Washington The most obvious fact is that the main global power, the … [read more]

Second end: which is our idea about the future? What society we aim for? Which social and political forces may realise it? The third aim is directed towards the Left. As Left we consider a wide spectrum of political and social movements, trade-union forces, cultural and intellectual currents in their specific ways opposed to the destructive forces of globalisation who have been fighting against respective centre-right and centre-left governments. The antagonist Left has been marginalised especially by the systemic Left around the Democratic Party (PD). The PD milieu served as the main pillar of the Euro regime by which the ruling classes corrupted the social opposition. Two things are clear for us: First: If the antagonist Left continues to rot in its trenches the path is … [read more]

The demonstrations have started out on December 9 called for by autonomous organizations of the toiling masses (peasants, lorry drivers, small entrepreneurs, etc.) but included all sectors of the people hit by the crisis and especially by the sacrifices imposed by the European Union (EU). Main instrument of struggle are road blocks: In some cases the highway toll stations were occupied completely blocking the traffic. In most cases traffic was slowed down involving private and first of all professional drivers. The mobilization is working: Activists distribute leaflets, drivers stop and sound their horns – now for some two weeks in 135 Italian cities. In some towns protests were even stronger. In Turin commercial activities were paralyzed for three days. In Genoa and smaller towns … [read more]

Should this succeed - which is by no means certain - Tunisia might serve as a role model. This would strengthen the already-won democratic rights and the path to independent articulation and organization of the subaltern masses against the social elites would be paved. Let’s try to read the trends in Tunisian society and to draw wider conclusions reaching beyond the small country. 1. Islamists losing influence Following the overthrow of Ben Ali, the Islamist Ennahda party, a force including several tendencies, emerged as the central power of the new government enjoying a strong relative electoral majority. Although it is true that the popular movement against Ben Ali was influenced by the Left while the Islamists had played only a secondary role, the leading governmental … [read more]

The conflict’s background The base of the antagonism between the West and Iran remains the revolution of 1979 which had a strong anti-imperialist momentum and remains until now one of the most important popular revolutions of the regions or even the world. The Islamic Republic is, however, not a direct, linear, immediate expression of the popular and anti-imperialist tendencies but rather its mediation broken by clerical rule. We just have to remember the Iraq-Iran war. With its approach of dual containment Washington carefully balanced its proxy support to both sides. The war served the Mullahs as a formidable tool to bend the power of the popular movement having emerged during the revolution. Take as further evidence the unequal couple of Rafsanjani and Khatami during the … [read more]

For decades Austria has been ruled by what is called “Big Coalition” between the Social Democrats (SPOe) and the Christian Democrat People’s Party (OeVP) with only few exceptions. Both regime components attempted to claim Merkel’s sweeping electoral victory for themselves. In a certain sense both were right – and nonetheless failed to achieve the same victory. The SPOe, for two generations the strongest party, is the anchor of (alleged) stability. Regarding culture, social composition as well as social policy they represent the centre. Though this implies to execute the neo-liberal dictates of the European oligarchy (save the bank capital, impose austerity), they try to do this in a way they call equilibrated. If one compares it to other European countries they are even … [read more]

He had anticipated the electoral clash in order to vote with the current voting system still in place. The reason is simple: ungovernability had persisted and the “Berluscones”, given that the M5S (Five Star Movement) is not ready to make any accord with the ruling pro-euro clique, still held the key in hands for the formation of a new government. As a matter of fact president Napolitano, in name of the dominant European and Italian classes, has done and will do everything in order to avoid elections on the basis of the current electoral law. For the time being they won the game – but for how long is another question. Their bloc is economically dominant, but no more politically, because it doesn’t enjoy the necessary social consent to govern undisturbed. Following the … [read more]

Appalling victory From a social revolutionary point of view, Merkel’s sweeping electoral success is abominable. It follows, however, a political-cultural pattern of the German middle classes whose culture dominates the broad masses and therefore also the electorate. It was all about to continue the alleged German Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) contrasting with the catastrophe the south is suffering of. The middle classes seek stability and want to avoid taking risk for the weaker eurozone states. But ultimately they do accept measures to prevent the euro crisis from erupting again. Further haircuts for Greece will be unpopular but they trust Merkel to do what is necessary and nothing more. On the surface the petty bourgeois has reason to believe what Merkel has been claiming: … [read more]

The Bagram prison established in 2002 under US in Afghanistan is known as world most dreadful prison where systematically and openly the basic rights of human rights and prisoners rights are violated by US authorities from military forces to diplomats and judicial authorities. The prisoners are deprived of having contact with their families and friends and outside prisons world. Lack of access to defender lawyer, court trial and other legal assistance, keeping detainees even after expiring their sentence period are some samples of US authorities commitment to human rights .There is no access of “Human rights defender” organizations to the detentions site under US in Afghanistan. Those “Human Rights” organizations that succeeded to visit a small and well decorated site of the … [read more]

From the very beginning of the conflict we have been strongly opposing any foreign meddling let alone military intervention. As anti-systemic opposition in the west we regard it as our main task to fight imperialism and neo-colonialism disguised as humanitarianism, export of democracy, responsibility to protect or similar camouflages. This is an issue of principle which proved valid in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and many other places. In Syria foreign interference has been crucial in transforming the civil democratic and social movement of the popular masses into a sectarian civil war destroying the hope for victory for the people as subaltern classed opposed to the elite. At the origin of this tragic metamorphosis is certainly the refusal of the Assad leadership to grant … [read more]

Following emergency meeting to take place in Brussels on September 12, 2013, has been convened by the “Alliance of Civil and Political Forces against Dictatorship and Foreign Intervention”. It invites Syrians, Arabs and Europeans to stand together against the military aggression, to support the democratic rights for the people and to search for a political solution. Requests for participation will be forwarded by us to the organisers. Against Dictatorship and Foreign Military Intervention in Syria On 18 March 2011 the Syrian genie exploded in the face of dictatorship demanding freedom, justice and dignity, and aspiring to a civil democratic Syria, and the fall of tyranny and the system of corruption in all its symbols and foundations in political life. As is the case of … [read more]

The catastrophe of the Palestinian people has continued for over a century. This catastrophe began with the Balfour Declaration, issued on November 2, 1917 by the British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Baron Walter Rothschild, a leader of British Jewry for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. The Balfour Declaration was followed by the imposed British Mandate for Palestine of 16 September 1922, which denied the Palestinian people their natural right to self-determination and the establishment of their independent state on their national land. This catastrophe was aggravated by the disaster of the Nakba of 1948, which resulted in the seizure by Israel of most of the Palestinian territory, the displacement of almost 750 thousand Palestinians, … [read more]

When we, representatives of different sectors of civil societies from all continents, started the www.peaceinsyria.org initiative under the slogan YES TO DEMOCRACY – NO TO MILITARY INTERVENTION we could no t foresee that the nightmare of millions of Syrians could degenerate into a humanitarian catastrophe which not only shakes the whole Middle East, but also threatens world peace on a global level. It is now more than ever facing the danger of an open military intervention on both sides of the conflict that we want to call on the international public opinion to exercise its influence in order to prevent that the daily figures of hundreds of killed victims turn into the worst hecatomb since World War II. And we also want to repeat to the Syrian political and military actors on the … [read more]

That poison gas was used appears undeniable. But who did so, remains unclear. We do not have the forensic means to establish the facts and it is unlikely that it will become possible in the future either – too high are the political stakes from both sides. Nor do we want to add another piece of futile conspiracy theory. The only applicable criteria for us is the political logic behind the event – and this remains difficult to understand. Is it plausible that the regime wanted to deliberately provoke foreign intervention? Does it want to gain anti-imperialist credentials, given the limited military gains the use of combat gas could yield? Are they that much under pressure to resort to such means? Or did the chain of command get out of hands and unleash the nihilistic drive of a … [read more]

The world looks to a new round of negotiations under US Secretary of State Kerry – where is Gaza in those talks? Gaza is diverse and I cannot speak for Gaza as one, but clearly most here are opposed to negotiations. Hamas laid out its official position on Tuesday with officials expressing their dismay at the resumption of talks. Most organizations within the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) – among them the Popular as well as the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP and DFLP) – oppose the talks. Only some members of Fatah have fallen for the lie that negotiations might bring a viable solution. Speaking for myself, as an advocate for one democratic state of Palestine, I oppose the talks, which aim at a two-state solution. We believe that creating two … [read more]