The era of Arab Spring euphoria is long ended, having devolved into doubt, confusion or wholesale rejection. Libya and Syria put an abrupt end to the Arab Spring celebrations, with the current situation in Egypt adding to the frustration.<\/p>\n
Part of the problem in deciding whether a particular side in these conflicts deserves support or rejection is a lack of a basic set of criteria that can help to clearly define what is happening.\u00a0Thus, different analysts describe the same events as a coup, revolution, or civil war. These definitions are totally different perspectives as to what is happening, and imply that the situations should include different levels of political support or rejection.<\/p>\n
In Syria the question remains: is the situation a revolution or a civil war? What should be the basis for judging whether or not a situation in general is \u201crevolutionary,\u201d and why does it matter?<\/p>\n
Below is an attempt to put forth a common sense definition of revolution and apply it to the events in Syria.\u00a0When such a basic criterion is applied to Syria, it becomes clear that the ongoing events in Syria should not be labeled a revolution.<\/p>\n
The label \u201crevolution\u201d is critically important because it implies that the overwhelming majority of people have decided and are dedicated to a specific path for society.\u00a0This means that the \u201cmasses\u201d are passionately\u00a0intervening to change society, overcoming fear and repression until their objectives are met.<\/p>\n
In this sense revolution is the highest form of democracy,\u00a0since it\u2019s the clearest expression of\u00a0the People\u2019s will, expressed through ongoing massive deliberate action, as opposed to the non-participatory form of democracy that is the western hallmark.\u00a0The label \u201crevolution\u201d is especially important because a movement that has earned a clear revolutionary mandate should be supported without condition, albeit not without criticism.<\/p>\n
In order to judge whether a revolution is afoot the evidence should be examined.\u00a0Clues must be unearthed to decipher the attitudes, feelings, and energy of the social movement in question.\u00a0Studying revolution is an attempt to gauge mass consciousness \u2014 not an exact science but a politically crucial one. All politicians do this as they attempt electoral campaigns, and all dictatorships gauge revolutionary consciousness to see if they have the power to crush it.<\/p>\n
What are ways to gather evidence into revolutionary mass consciousness?\u00a0In some ways the old adage, \u201cyou\u2019ll know it when you see it,\u201d is helpful in describing revolution, since\u00a0revolutions produce floods of people all expressing pent up emotions, fighting in a united cause, which creates new forms of social solidarity that\u2019s impossible to form during non-revolutionary situations.\u00a0These surreal scenes made nobody question whether the toppling of the dictator Mubarak was a \u201crevolution.\u201d\u00a0It was simply obvious.<\/p>\n
More specific evidence of revolutionary mass consciousness may include:\u00a0gigantic demonstrations with united demands, mass civil disobedience, mass labor and student actions and strikes,\u00a0occupations of public buildings, new forms of direct democracy (which may include new labor unions, new political parties, neighborhood committees, etc.) and other bold actions taken by masses of people who otherwise would take no such actions,\u00a0such as confronting police and\/or military, fighting off right-wing attacks,\u00a0civil disobedience, ignoring military curfew rules, etc. Through these types of extraordinary experiences the majority of the population undergoes a personal transformation during the course of revolution.<\/p>\n
The ultimate sign that a situation has entered a revolutionary period is that the masses have directly intervened into social life as an independent, powerful force, through ongoing collective action.\u00a0The people seek to actualize their power, creating a dynamic that shifts the balance of power away from the elites and their institutions.\u00a0Governments becomes \u201cdestabilized,\u201d elite authority is lost, and enforcement of laws becomes difficult or impossible. Even martial law is easily defeated by a strong revolution of the majority.\u00a0Governments melt away.<\/p>\n
Whether or not the social power can be fully and permanently shifted depends on the success or failure of the revolution; but the path of revolution has been entered when social equilibrium has tilted \u2014 the elites cannot rule in the same way. The people have invested in ongoing, mass actions to change society.\u00a0The targeted regime thus becomes unbalanced and splits, unable to act collectively to suppress the revolution or neutralize it through concessions; every step the regime takes to resolve the situation only pushes the revolutionary movement forward.\u00a0The surest sign of a revolution is its effect on the targeted regime, which becomes splintered\u00a0and ineffective, its power made powerless.<\/p>\n
Revolution is a display of power by working and poor people, who collectively choose to assert themselves into public life in order to change it. In non-revolutionary times working\u00a0people do not actualize their power;\u00a0they aren\u2019t even aware that they have any, as they passively ignore any role in social life as individuals, silently delegating their political power to corporate-bought politicians.<\/p>\n
There is no other social power equal to a revolutionary movement in modern society, since revolutions are famous for exposing the weakness of the elite and the elite-run state: armies crumble under revolutionary pressure as soldiers refuse to fire on peaceful protestors; police repression motivates the people to repress the police;\u00a0secretive \u201csecurity\u201d agencies are shown powerless,\u00a0and long-standing elite political parties are smashed.\u00a0If successful in the long term, a revolutionary movement can fundamentally change society.<\/p>\n
Let us now apply these basic criteria of revolution to Syria<\/strong><\/p>\n The first essential threshold of revolution was not crossed in Syria: the movement was not able to intervene in a way that was powerful enough to alter the power dynamic of society.\u00a0The revolutionary movement did not grow large enough to truly challenge the Syrian government, and very soon the \u201crevolutionaries\u201d took the path of a guerrilla war \u2014 led not by the Syrian people, but a minority of religious extremists.<\/p>\n The evidence of this is plain to see: the only two social forces currently exercising their power in Syria are completely outside the control of working people \u2014 the Syrian government and the Islamist extremist militias.\u00a0There is no third option for victory here, because the masses have not been powerful enough to assert themselves in an independent way \u2014 a basic precondition of revolution.<\/p>\n The two largest cities in Syria \u2014 Damascus and Aleppo \u2014 never experienced the mass demonstrations that you see in Cairo, Egypt.\u00a0In fact, there have been several enormous pro-Assad demonstrations in Syria\u2019s two largest cities, a fact always ignored by those who argue that there is a revolution afoot in Syria.\u00a0A similar dynamic occurred in Libya, which showcased anti-government demonstrations in the eastern city of Benghazi, but never occurred in the Libyan capital in Tripoli.\u00a0Obama thus declared<\/a> that Libya as a whole was undergoing a \u201crevolution,\u201d so that the United States could militarily intervene.<\/p>\n The rebellion in Syria also never found soil in the other religious and ethnic minorities, who\u00a0remain either passive or dedicated to the Syrian government for fear of ethnic-religious cleansing from the Sunni extremist rebels. The one exception is the Kurds<\/a>, who have used the conflict to set up an autonomous zone that they are vigorously defending against the Islamist extremist \u201crebels.\u201d<\/p>\n The uprising remains a largely Sunni Islam uprising that is mostly confined to the countryside, dominated by Sunni extremists who are armed and funded from the heartland of religious extremism, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and their paymaster the United States (a true axis of evil in regards to Middle East policy).\u00a0This is a fact that many on the left refuse to see, or dangerously minimize in order to maintain their pro-rebel support.<\/p>\n Most Syrian analysts, however, admit that the most effective fighting force among the Syrian rebels is Jabhat al-Nursa<\/a>, religious extremists that use terrorist tactics and are directly affiliated with al-Qaeda. But now this group\u2019s dominance is being threatened by another Islamist extremist terror group, Ahrar al-Sham, which is funded and populated by Qatar and which is thought to have 10,000-20,000 fighters in Syria.<\/p>\n A list of the top ten powerful militias in Syria \u2014 with the exception of the Kurds \u2014 are fighting predominantly for an Islamic state, i.e., they are religious extremists who want nothing to do with democracy, equality or freedom.\u00a0The Muslim Brotherhood cannot be characterized as a \u201cmoderate<\/a>\u201d group in Syria.<\/p>\n This is a crucial fact. The Islamist extremists are not mere \u201cplayers\u201d under an umbrella of rebel groupings.\u00a0The extremists are the motor force of the rebels,\u00a0who do the vast majority of the fighting, who dominate the \u201cliberated\u201d areas of Syria where fundamentalist Sharia law has been implemented, and who will rule the rest of the country if the Syrian government falls.\u00a0In essence, they have become what claims to be the \u201crevolution.\u201d<\/p>\n By defining the extremists as mere \u201cplayers\u201d in\u00a0the anti-Assad \u201ccoalition,\u201d the true nature of the rebels is distorted:\u00a0a political movement is defined by who leads it, who exercises power, and by the pursuit of specific political goals.\u00a0By this more accurate definition the \u201crebels\u201d must be described as Islamic extremists, who receive support from other minor political players who seek to oust the Syrian government.<\/p>\n In the rebel-controlled regions of Syria one can be executed for \u201cblasphemy\u201d or adultery,\u00a0lose a limb for minor theft and other misdemeanors, and if you\u2019re a woman you\u2019ll be relegated to a permanent state of house arrest, except for the moments where a close male relative chooses to escort you out of the house, assuming the woman is completely hidden behind clothing.<\/p>\n To focus only on the \u201cmoderate\u201d rebels and \u201crevolutionary\u201d minority is to purposely blind oneself to the lead actors in this drama, thus giving\u00a0invaluable political cover to the most reactionary groups in existence, who make the current Syrian government look like liberals.<\/p>\n These facts are crucially important, and must be considered when comparing the current Syrian government \u2014 where women have many freedoms similar to American women \u2014 to its alternative, which places women as property of men without any semblance of civil rights.\u00a0If the rebels of Syria are to be called \u201crevolutionaries,\u201d\u00a0they are of the reactionary type.<\/p>\n It is true that there are smaller, non-extremist militias amongst the rebels, or those that function to protect neighborhoods, etc., but these militias do not constitute a powerful social force.\u00a0They are essentially non-entities in this conflict amongst giants, and focusing almost exclusively on these groups ignores the fundamental reality of the conflict\u00a0and purposely distorts what is actually happening.<\/p>\n The local \u201cdemocratic\u201d militias cannot be used as a justification for further militarizing a conflict that will inevitably bring western-backed religious zealots to power, to the detriment of all Syrians.\u00a0To demand that these rebels be armed is to demand that Syria be fragmented and destroyed in an Iraqi-like fashion.<\/p>\n While glorifying the smaller militias, pro-rebel analysts also overstate the number of Syrian soldiers who\u2019ve defected to the rebels.\u00a0The exact number is impossible to know at this time.\u00a0There are, of course, defectors in all wars, especially civil wars, but\u00a0the myth that the Syrian rebels are densely populated by defecting soldiers of the Syrian army is best exposed by the fact \u2014 recognized by nearly all observers \u2014 that the Syrian army has remained very cohesive.\u00a0A true \u201cflood\u201d of defectors is blatantly inconsistent with this fact, though always ignored by the pro-rebel groups<\/a>.<\/p>\n Revolutions are notorious for cracking armies like eggs, especially in a prolonged revolutionary upheaval.\u00a0The firmness and stability of the Syrian army offers yet more damning evidence against labeling the conflict a \u201crevolution.\u201d<\/p>\n This fact is rationalized away by pro-rebel analysts who argue that the Syrian military\u2019s cohesiveness is due to the army\u2019s dominance by Shia Muslims, specifically President Assad\u2019s Alawite sect \u2014 and are therefore unquestionably loyal to the government, making them an especially unique sectarian army.<\/p>\n In reality, the Syrian military is composed overwhelmingly of Sunni Muslims, who constitute the majority of Syrians.\u00a0It\u2019s true that the Alawites have an over-representation in the military\u2019s upper echelons, but the rank-and-file solider is predominantly Sunni, many from Syria\u2019s countryside.\u00a0A majority of these stereotypical Syrian soldiers would not mindlessly mow down their countrymen as the western media claims they have done.<\/p>\n The Syrian defectors\u2019 story was mostly a useful propaganda piece for western countries \u2014 the U.S. specifically \u2014 to push people\u2019s attention away from the Islamist extremists who make up the overwhelming majority of the armed struggle.\u00a0Although there have been a couple of high-level defectors from the Syrian government, they\u2019ve never expanded beyond token amounts, as the unity of the Syrian government continues to testify.\u00a0The regime as a whole remains united and stable, which would be impossible if it were confronted by an ongoing nationwide powerful revolution.<\/p>\n More proof that Syria has not entered a revolutionary phase is the non-participation of the Syrian labor movement.\u00a0All revolutions attract the attention and powerfully affect the nation\u2019s labor movement. But Syria\u2019s labor movement has either been passive or pro-Assad.\u00a0The pro-rebel groups blame this fact on the labor movement\u2019s blatant subservience to the Syrian government, but this explanation lacks obvious merit.<\/p>\n For example, before Egypt\u2019s revolution the Egyptian labor movement\u00a0was deeply connected to the Egyptian government,\u00a0as was the Venezuelan labor movement\u2019s connection to its government in pre-revolutionary Venezuela.\u00a0But revolutions transform labor movements in the same way they splinter armies.\u00a0Syria\u2019s labor movement would have bent under the pressure of a real revolutionary movement, as all labor movements do when faced with the force of a real revolution.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also untrue that Syria\u2019s labor movement<\/a> has been totally subservient to the Syrian government.\u00a0Syria\u2019s labor movement has directly confronted the government several times over the years, after the Assad government began adopting a privatization agenda and other neoliberal reforms in the country, which has put negative pressure on working class Syrians.\u00a0Syrian unions are perfectly capable of acting independently and would have done so if they believed a revolution existed in their country that would have benefited working class Syrians.<\/p>\n More proof that Syria is not undergoing a revolution can be found by asking a simple question:\u00a0how can the \u201crevolutionary\u201d\u00a0movement in Syria realize its goals?<\/p>\n For example,\u00a0if we accept the false premise that the revolutionary movement was \u201cforced to take up arms,\u201d and then accept the fact that Islamic extremists completely dominate the rebel battlefield, then we must conclude that the \u201crevolution\u201d\u00a0has ended, since any prospect for a truly revolutionary conclusion is excluded from the basic math of the conflict.<\/p>\n Initially, the pro-democracy revolutionaries were united with other rebels that operated under the umbrella demand to oust President Assad; but now\u00a0the \u201crevolutionary\u201d demand of the Islamists \u2014 who control the rebels \u2014 is the demand for an Islamic state.<\/p>\n The demand for an Islamic\u00a0state should have instantly shattered any alliance between pro-democracy revolutionaries and the Islamists, but the pro-democracy rebels have largely refused to do this.\u00a0They haven\u2019t rejected the Islamists because without them they would be completely powerless.\u00a0Zero evidence of a revolution would exist.\u00a0If there are revolutionaries fighting under the Islamic black flag in extremist militias, they are doing a disservice to themselves and the future of their country.<\/p>\n The revolution thus finds itself without a way forward, since there is no independent demand that can currently be realized by the Syrian pro-democracy revolutionaries, who are currently unable to assert their power against the Islamic extremists or the Assad government.\u00a0This \u201crevolution\u201d is a car without an engine or gas, stalled.\u00a0A precondition of revolution is the ability for the masses to powerfully assert themselves into social life. A revolution without a revolutionary movement is no revolution.<\/p>\n It is thus highly irresponsible to demand that the Syrian rebels be armed, while at the same time insisting that Syria be protected from \u201cwestern intervention.\u201d\u00a0In fact, supplying arms to the rebels is a strategic form of U.S. intervention; arming, funding, and training rebels doesn\u2019t happen without strings attached, loyalties and alliances created, promises made, and pro-western geo-political goals pursued.<\/p>\n To insist that the NATO or Gulf monarchies <\/a>supply arms to the rebels is, in essence, to invite the United States to directly participate in the Syrian conflict on a deeper level (the Obama administration is already neck-deep involved,\u00a0supplying thousands of tons of arms to the Syrian rebels covertly through the CIA).<\/p>\n The U.S. is already buying and trafficking arms, training and funding rebel fighters, all of which are considered U.S. investments in the future of the conflict, which, at any time, can be paid with interest via a direct U.S. military invasion \u2014 starting with a \u201cno fly zone.\u201d\u00a0In fact, without the massive rebel support from the U.S. and its allies this conflict would have ended long ago and thousands of lives would have been spared. Demanding that this bloodletting continue \u2014 especially\u00a0without ANY prospect for a successful end \u2014 is to demand the destruction of Syria.<\/p>\n The last refuge of the pro-rebel analysis argues that, because there are \u201crevolutionary democratic structures\u201d that have been created in rebel-held areas, then we have indisputable evidence of revolution, and thus the rebel cause must be supported.\u00a0Often cited as proof is the Local Coordinating Committees (LCC) in rebel areas, which are credited with food distribution and other forms of local administration.<\/p>\n But in a conflict covered in depth by cell phone videos and other means of communication, evidence of mass-based local coordinating committees \u2014 i.e. a revolutionary democratic structures \u2014 is scant.\u00a0The LCCs have a snazzy website<\/a> that puts forth the occasional pro-rebel statement \u2014 and YouTube videos of rebel military assaults \u2014 but it\u2019s otherwise difficult to find any convincing evidence of a powerful revolutionary organization, nor is any ever offered by pro-rebel writers who champion the righteous cause of the LCC\u2019s.<\/p>\n This is not to say that LCC\u2019s do not exist, but like the neighborhood militias, their relevance has been greatly exaggerated in an attempt to define the Syrian situation as revolutionary and thus grant it a status of \u201cunconditional support.\u201d<\/p>\n In reality, all semi-objective media observers have noted that local administration and food distribution in rebel-held areas is dominated by the ruling political and military groups of the Islamic extremists.\u00a0This fact relegates the LCC\u2019s to a minor role at best, if they can even be considered politically relevant at all.<\/p>\n