I have seen no end of Muslims, almost exclusively Sunni, online and in real life, celebrating the fall of the Syrian Arab Republic. Even where I live, there are Syrians celebrating it. I don’t know if it’s just sectarianism, brainwashing, or ignorance, or some combination of it, but almost all of them I have seen are celebrating this.
Be it in comment sections, social media posts, cheering in the streets of European cities, etc. How have so many of these people consistently sided with Gaza from the start, but celebrate an Israeli backed terrorist takeover of Syria?
The reaction to stories from Al Jazeera revealing the reality in Palestine were unanimously celebrated by these same people as standing up for the truth, meanwhile, when the same Al Jazeera peddles anti-Syrian propaganda, they are happy to welcome it as equally good news.
I don’t want to lose faith in the Muslims and Arabs of the world, but if they’re so mixed up in sectarianism and willing to lap up the propaganda in support of a Jihadist regime, I can’t see how we’ll ever know peace or stability in the Middle east.
The war in Syria has gone on for about 13 years now and a lot of people see this as a possible end to a conflict that killed roughly half a million people and made refugees of about 14 million more. That, and Assad is not a particularly well-liked figure. The geopolitical implications are a little grim to say the least and it is likely that the formation of the new Syrian government will lead to an entirely new set of nightmares but right now the average person probably doesn’t see that.
It’s literally the same emotional reaction that critics of the Iraq War were receiving. If you were against the Iraq War that meant you apparently loved Saddam Hussein and “weren’t listening to Iraqis.” Apparently only Syrians are allowed to have an opinion on Syria because they’re Syrians – irregardless of their ideology.
Bad faith actors on social media are using this as an opportunity to divide the anti-imperialist movement by, once again, appealing to identity politics.
It’s like watching people fail an open book test