Solidarity and support were replaced by attempts to justify the unjustifiable by upholding whatever geopolitical ‘positions’ happen to suit us, and prioritizing our immediate concerns rather than the concerns of those on the ground.
During the course of the revolution against Assad that began in Syria in 2011, land was liberated to the extent that by 2013 the regime had lost control over some four-fifths of the country. As the state began to disintegrate, communities needed to build alternative structures to keep life functioning in the newly created autonomous zones.
Before helping Syrians or showing solidarity with Syrians, the mainstream Western left needs to help themselves. Their views are totally misguided, and the Syrian cause was only a litmus test of their reactionary and decadent perspectives.
The general thinking of the left is conservative, outdated, if not reactionary. The majority are satisfied with the positions against the US, with monsters like Putin in Russia, Assad in Syria, the regime of the ayatollahs in Tehran.
But most people outside Syria have not heard about this flowering of democratic self-organization. This exposes not only a huge failure in the mainstream media, but also in the Western left. That's one of the reasons that Leila and I wrote our book--to educate people about the heroic and democratic achievements of the revolution.
