By New Worker correspondent
New Worker supporters and other peace activists joined
several hundred London-based Syrians outside their embassy in Belgravia Square
last Saturday to mark the first anniversary of the launch of the Nato-inspired
and funded rebellion against the Baathist-led popular front government of
Bashar al-Assad. They had come to celebrate the survival of the Assad
government in the face of all that the imperialists had been able to throw at
it.
But the rally started in a doleful
mood with the news of two car bombings in Damascus
that morning by western-back terrorists, which had killed at least 27 civilians
and injured many others.
A wreath in honour of the victims was
placed on the rostrum in front of where the speakers were about to address the
crowd.
Similar rallies were being held at
Syrian embassies around the world and of course in Damascus.
A very high proportion of those
attending were women, who would have most to lose if the Baathist government
fell to the right-wing extremists of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda-backed
“rebels”.
There were also a number of Syrian
Christians – men and women – who told the New
Worker that Syria
was one of the few places remaining in the Middle East
where peoples of different religions could live alongside each other in peace
and friendship.
Assad’s picture was everywhere at the rally
but there were even a number of people who had opposing political views but
wanted to resolve these peacefully. The last thing they wanted was a Nato
intervention with the bloodshed, death, destruction and loss of human rights
that these interventions have brought to Afghanistan,
Iraq and Libya.
They wanted peacefully negotiated
reforms and were content that Assad has put a process in place towards this
end. Their advice to those who opposed Assad was to use their vote against him
in elections.
They were outraged that the
Nato-backed terrorists had tried to hijack their political fight, ignoring what
the Syrian people really want in favour of what Nato wants to impose on them.
Some at the rally reported that a well-known
leading member of Al Qaeda who had played a role in toppling the Gaddafi
government in Libya
was now present – with the same Nato imperialist backing – to try to do the
same thing in Syria.
There are high hopes he will be arrested and put on trial.
And there were many in the rally who
identified Al Qaeda and the extremist members of the Muslim Brotherhood as the
stooges of American imperialism – paving the way for imperialist interventions
by fomenting internal civil wars in peaceful Middle Eastern countries – albeit
many of the rank and file were not aware this was the role they were playing.
There were a number of speeches, some in
Arabic, but one who spoke in English was Lizzie Phelan – a young
anti-imperialist journalist who last year reported directly from the Libyan
capital, Tripoli.
She began by noting that it was St
Patrick’s Day and reminded the crowd that her country had been fighting against
the same enemy, British imperialism, for 800 years.
Lizzie then quoted from a speech
against colonialism and the colonialist mentality, made by Assad’s father, many
decades ago, that is very relevant today.
The old Syrian president had said
that their country would be “the rock that colonisation breaks on”, and warned
of the distorting media campaigns aimed to undermine Arab confidence in their
leaders.
“And today,” she added, “The greatest
enemies of democracy are trying to tell us that they are fighting for democracy
in the Middle East.”
She reported the bloodshed,
devastation and destruction that have been wreaked on Afghanistan,
Iraq and Libya
in the name of “democracy”.
And Lizzie paid tribute to the
anti-imperialist example set by Gamal Abdel Nasser, who led the Free Officer
Revolution in Egypt
and fought to bring about Arab unity in the fight against imperialism.
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