Is West genuinely trying to 'save' Syria?
- By Andre Vltchek
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E-mail People's Daily, February 21, 2012
This brutal approach is usually justified by the dogma of American and European exceptionalism, by the theory that the West is somehow unique and the only one qualified to determine what is right and what is wrong for itself and for the rest of the world.
Any country that crosses the West and its designs is immediately attacked by the most vicious but powerful propaganda apparatus. No matter how rational are its arguments.
It was announced by Zhai Jun that Beijing is calling for a referendum on the draft of a new Syrian constitution, early parliamentary elections and the establishment of a national unity government. “We call on the government of Syria to seriously heed the people’s legitimate desire for reform and development and call on the various political fractions to express their political aspirations non-violently under the rule of law,” he said. He also made it clear that China wanted this crises solved within the framework of the Arab League.
That’s all very rational and democratic.
But the West sees such rational approach as unacceptable. Not because Russian or Chinese approaches are morally wrong – they are clearly not. But because, in sync with the exceptionalist doctrine, the people and the referendum on the future of their own country could not be ‘trusted’. Decisions on the issues like ‘who runs the government’ in strategically located country, could not be left to the people. It is only the West – old and until now the only prevailing colonial power block – that can determine in what direction the world (and each particular country) could move.
While the Western press is manipulatively speaking only about Russia and China in connection to the resolution, it is essential to point out that there were other states that voted against it, including Iran, Zimbabwe, North Korea but more importantly, most of the countries in Latin America that stand at the vanguard of the struggle against Western imperialism: Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador and Nicaragua. All these countries that suffered terribly from the US interventionism now voted on the grounds of basic principal: the West has no moral mandate to decide the fate of the world.
And this ‘club’ of progressive nations appears to be much more legitimate than the ‘club of two’ – the US and Israel – that blocks almost all of the UN resolutions on Palestine while avoiding the fury of disciplined and self-censored mainstream media.
Based on its history, ancient and modern, Russia has no reasons to trust the West. And even if the latest commentaries of the Western mainstream media could actually be trusted and Russia is defensing its ally in Damascus for its own pragmatic reasons, it could still be understandable and justifiable given the fact that there are already missiles being pointed at Russia from all directions imaginable. In addition to it, if the present Syrian government collapses, the West would have suddenly almost total control of the area, definitely not very attractive prospect for both Russia and the world.
Habibe Ozdal, Turkish expert on Russia working with the Center for Eurasian Studies (USAK) commented at Today’s Zaman on February 16th, 2011:
“After the Iraq War, Russia has opposed the one-sided initiatives of the West. Moreover, Russia today, despite all its weaknesses, is very different than the Russia of the early 2000s. Moscow which now has something to say about the Middle East in general and Syria in particular, prefers to take up a position that is independent of, and at times even in opposition to, the West.”
Editors of the progressive National Channel in Istanbul are actually calling the Western game in the region an open aggression. A veteran documentary filmmaker Serkan Koc told me that he filmed in Syria and has clear evidence that the West was supporting violent and rough elements in the country, calling them ‘legitimate opposition’.
In Russia and among the opposition in the West there is no doubt that unless stopped, the situation may lead to the endgame in the region: total consolidation of Western power. On the 18th February, RT (Russia Today) was broadcasting analyses concluding that destruction of Syria would open the door for further invasion to Iran.
Recently, Alexander Cockburn published his powerful article “Hypocrisy and Syria” at prestigious CounterPunch, arguing that the US itself has never been tolerating separatist movements on its territory:
No one could doubt that determined separatist activity or armed challenges to the government of the United States are always met with immediate, overwhelming and lethal ferocity. For further historical illustration I recommend an interview with any moderately informed American Indian or black.
For a while it looked as though Obama’s government was being swept into yet another intervention, ranging itself shoulder-to-shoulder with the GCC coalition, stoking the fires in Syria. That momentum was certainly checked by the Russian and Chinese veto of the US-backed resolution presented to the UN Security Council.
Opposing the dictate of the West does not have to lead necessarily to the new Cold War (unless the West chooses to see it that way: ‘You do what we say, or else!’). It could actually lead to something really great – to something that the world has been missing for decades: it could lead to diversity and to the world where the countries would again dare to go their own way and express their stands loudly and proudly, without any risk of being bombed and shattered.
Andre Vltchek (http://andrevltchek.weebly.com/) is a novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He lives and works in East Asia and East Africa.
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