What's behind Stop the War's aversion to Syria voices?

On 15 November 2015, Diane Abbott went on the BBC's 'Daily Politics' show to defend herself and the Stop the War (StW) coalition against a rather odd accusation: that they refuse to give a platform to Syrians when discussing Syria.

It followed a heated exchange just days prior, in which Syrian activists challenged StW's leadership on the matter during a talk on Syria. They were backed by Peter Tatchell, the veteran anti-war activist who had also been criticising StW for what many perceive as its intolerance towards left-wing, democratic and anti-Assad Syrian activists.

This was not a new accusation. StW has prevented Syrian activists from speaking at their rallies or from taking part in any "anti-war" campaign, while giving a platform to pro-Assad apologists and inviting Assad's own allies like the Ghouta massacre-denier Fadia Laham, also known as "Mother Agnes", for years.

This exposes two fundamental aspects of StW today: A de facto tolerance and acceptance of Assad's tyranny translated as the problem of people "over there" which "we" must not get involved in, regardless of the repercussions, and a hatred for subaltern voices, in this case Syrians, who do not fit the accepted narrative.

This, in turn, works hand in hand with an outdated cold war-era framework, still plaguing much of the western and Arab Left, which romanticises (read: whitewashes) the Kremlin's politics. 

Nineham forgot to ask a single Libyan about the effects of the no-fly zone in Libya

Fastforward to October 2016. Chris Nineham, the Vice Chair of StW, writes an article entitled "Don't Believe the Start the War Coalition - Ask Libyans About No-Fly Zones" (NFZ). On reading that article, filled with oversimplifications and vague warnings, one notices something fairly obvious: In an article asking "us" to ask Libyans, Nineham forgot to ask a single Libyan about the effects of the NFZ in Libya.

Indeed, the only six mentioned in that article are Andrew Mitchell, Boris Johnson, Hilary Clinton, Joseph Dunford, Emily Thornberry and Jeremy Corbyn (who was also recently heckled by a pro-Syrian activist). Had StW followed their own advice and asked Libyans about the NFZ, they might have found inconvenient answers which challenge their de facto isolationist politics.

Indeed, the NFZ was seen as the lesser of many evils by countless Libyans who rose up against Gaddafi. A 2012 Gallup poll interviewing approximately 1,000 Libyans showed that 77 percent "broadly support several forms of potential assistance from the West, particularly military support".

The idea of a NFZ seems far more contested among a group of privileged leftists who do not live under a tyranny, than among Libyans themselves

One Libyan activist, Rema Abdulaziz, even recently wrote in The Independent that she and many more are actually grateful for the NFZ. In other words, the idea of a NFZ seems far more contested among a group of privileged leftists who do not live under a tyranny, than among Libyans themselves.

Furthermore, what is often ignored about the NFZ in Libya is that not a single member state of the Security Council, including Russia, opposed it and that it was another Arab country, Lebanon, which officially proposed the NFZ to the Security Council.

To the isolationists, "they" needn't be asked what they think of their country's situation, for "we", as owners of great social capital, know best. To borrow from Bell Hooks, Libyans, like Syrians today, were and are told that "there is no need to hear your voice, when 'we' can talk about you better than you can speak about yourself.

No need to hear your voice. Only tell me about your pain. I want to know your story. And then I will tell it back to you in a new way. Tell it back to you in such a way that it has become mine, my own. Re-writing you, I write myself anew. I am still author, authority. I am still [the] colonizer, the speaking subject, and you are now at the center of my talk."

This is no mere detail in this story. In fact, it is the central one: If, as leftists, we wish to support revolutionary emancipation regardless of man-made borders, we must make sure we are being useful allies, not useful idiots.

The problem with StW is that it is fundamentally not anti-war, but simply anti-Western intervention regardless of the realities on the ground. This is why it is an isolationist movement, a deeply conservative one at that, and one which has dangerous repercussions in an age of increasing xenophobic nativist rhetoric.

'They' needn't be asked what they think of their country's situation, for 'we', as owners of great social capital, know best

As StW proudly wrote on their own website, they are accused “of having a doctrinaire rejection of western intervention in the Middle East” which, they add, "is correct - our doctrine has been fully vindicated by the consequences of such interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya."

Perhaps the StW is led by people who are not aware of the definition of doctrinaire, namely "one who attempts to put into effect an abstract doctrine or theory with little or no regard for practical difficulties".

The 'abstract doctrine' is anti-western imperialism (not anti-imperialism in itself) and anti-western intervention, of any kind. As for the 'practical difficulties', they are nothing less than the aspiration of Syrians who took to the streets in 2011 demanding justice, those same Syrians who were, and are, tortured in their tens of thousands in Assad's gulags and slaughtered in their hundreds of thousands.

We must make sure we are being useful allies, not useful idiots

As we've seen over the past few years, the slogan "Assad or we burn the country" of the Assad regime and its state-sponsored militias known as the Shabiha, is meant literally.

The fact that StW always refers to Iraq in particular as 'proof' speaks volumes, given the fact that there was no revolution in Iraq nor is there a western invasion and occupation in Syria remotely comparable to the 2003 US-led invasion and occupation.

To quote the Lebanese Marxist intellectual Gilbert Achcar, commenting on Corbyn being heckled, this reactionary isolationism represents "a national-selfish attitude that doesn't care about what happens to the rest of the world as long as 'we' are not directly concerned and our well-being is not affected - or (the leftwing version) as long as our 'anti-imperialist' conscience is not troubled by any of the complexities of the real world.

They'd rather see Benghazi or Aleppo razed to the ground and their inhabitants massacred, than see the UK or any Western government attempt to do something about it, let alone call on them to do something, even when there are no other forces capable of preventing the massacre.

In that balance, one Libyan or Syrian killed by 'our' government is more unbearable to our conscience than ten thousand killed by the local despots: this may be a form of 'anti-imperialism', but it is as far away from 'internationalism' (a leftwing value that seems to have completely vanished) as isolationism is."

By ignoring a fundamental principle, that "critiquing our own governments and their crimes is a necessary but not sufficient part of the fight for justice", we end up giving ammunition to a xenophobic rhetoric that is already gaining momentum.

This has been repeated so many times since the beginning of the Arab Spring that no honest observer can claim ignorance. Cynical indifference, however, is always available, and those who wish to adopt it should express no surprise at the continuing rise of nativism and xenophobia within Fortress Europe's borders and beyond.