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.
I know all about Al-Jazeera, I am well aware that Qatar have funded Syrian rebels, what I cannot wrap my head around is how many Muslims and Arabs have the total lack of political awareness to take what they say at face value. How much of the Palestinian solidarity from them is equally thin and motivated by sectarianism rather than genuine humanitarian outrage? It’s deeply disappointing and reveals that we have all failed as supporters of Palestinian freedom to educate enough people as to why the cause matters.
Divide and conquer. The Qatari comprador capitalist hegemone have their own interest. The Saudi-UAE-led Khaleej too. The Turks too. Which all align with the interests of the Western American-European clique, in regards to Syria.
Using the cudgel of fighting for Syrian Democracy against Syrian Baathist ‘authoritarianism’, then later “Iranian influence” and Political Shia’ism, they reason and condition with their local populations that they have a stake to behold in such endeavors, and thus in funding them, sending in foreign fighters and guns, sanctioning them and so forth
After all, the Shia and Baathist ideologies are often anti-western imperialism, socialist-oriented, and all revolutionary, threatening the spoils of empire for the following Sunni hegemones.
As you can see, in ‘The Assassination of Julius Caesar, A People’s History of Rome, by Michael Parenti’
This is a great summary of the forces at play in the gulf states.