The bodies of ten Syrians, including a three-year-old child & an elderly man, were found frozen to death on the Syria-Lebanon border trying to escape Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians–most likely in eastern Ghouta which is closer to the Lebanese border than Idlib where Syria & Russia are also bombing civilians. Thousands of Syrians flee every day as a result of the Assad regime’s criminal actions against civilians–from carpet bombing them to employing a surrender or starve strategy.

It’s certain the families of the deceased will be jubilant they died martyrs to Assad’s national sovereignty & his right to maintain gulags, forcibly disappear dissidents, hang political prisoners, carpet bomb & gas hundreds of thousands of civilians, & starve them out of food & medical care.

The only principled demands are that Syria, Russia, & the US coalition stop the bombing of civilians & for the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces from Syria.

(Photo tweeted by several media sources)

Erdogan tries to play both sides of the street when it comes to Palestinians, Syrians, & the Rohingya but that is only performance politics to distract from the extreme & violent repression he imposes on Turks. When it comes to solidarity, he isn’t much more than hot air. Domestic policy is of a piece with foreign policy. This piece from Israeli Apartheid’s Facebook wall makes that eminently clear.

Solidarity with persecuted academics in Turkey and in Palestine!
#TurkeyPurge
#IsraeliApartheid
נשות ואנשי אקדמיה מישראל תומכים בעמיתיהם מטורקיה הנרדפים על ידי המשטר בשל הביקורת שהשמיעו על ההרג, הגירוש והדיכוי של המיעוטים בארצם. אנשי “אקדמיה לשוויון” לא מסתפקים בדיון על העוולות המתחוללים שם, ומוחים לנוכח מגמות דומות המתרחשות בישראל
Solidarity with persecuted academics in Turkey and in Palestine

By Yaara Benger Alaluf, Academy for Equality – Members’ organization for the democratization of academia and society in Israel – https://www.facebook.com/academiaforequality/

(summary of Hebrew article, link to original – below)

Hundreds of academics are on trial now for signing a peace petition denouncing the killing of civilians in the summer of 2015. 1200 Turkish academics have demanded an end to starvation, expulsion and massacre of Kurdish citizens and the renewal of the peace process for a just solution to the conflict. The signatories are under an attack which includes arrest, loss of their jibs, seizing of their passports and now a legal procedure.

The academics are not alone. After the failed coup attempt in the summer of 2016, the Turkish government has used a series of emergency regulations which make it possible to escalate its struggle against all its political opponents. More than 140,000 civil servants have been fired and are not eligible for unemployment pay or health coverage. One should note the hunger strike and trial of a Turkish university lecturer and a Turkish teacher – Nuriye Gulmen and Semih Ozakca. What is happening in Turkey is just an extreme example in a global process of silencing academia by governments. In Israel too, we have seen more and more cancellations of conferences and lectures due to political pressures and threats of firing. The Israeli authorities are violating Palestinian academic freedom, by detention and movement restrictions imposed on students and faculty, the denial of the right to travel abroad, military incursions into campuses, confiscation of equipment and more.

Turkey and Israel have a lot in common, as states founded under the ethos of Western, progressive, secular values, while choosing to ensure the superiority of the “founders” and trampling on other groups, labelled “primitive” or “fifth column”. The elites fear anyone who may bring up demons of discrimination, expulsion and killing of cultural, ethnic and religious minorities. In Israel these include the Nakba, the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians, the kidnapping of Yemenite Jewish babies from their families and the marginalization of Jewish immigrants from Muslim countries. In Turkey these include the Armenian genocide, the massacre of Kurds and Alawites, the murder and expulsion of the Greek population of Istanbul and now the renewed war on the Kurds in South East Turkey.

At a time when minorities, women and non-white people make themselves heard, create new alliances and challenge the status quo and its history, the elites certainly have something to fear. And academia is a main agent in exposing processes of oppression and structural discrimination by state institutions. It is not enough to demand academic freedom and use it for submission to the silencing interests of the powerful elites. Members of Israeli academia tend to turn a blind eye to violations of Palestinian academic colleagues and the direct involvement of Israeli universities in numerous mechanisms of exploitation and oppression: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1551835/a4e_complicit_academy_-___-__

And from an economic perspective, one should stress that the neoliberal policy implemented at universities has harmed workers, discriminated against students from a law social-economic status and submitted research institutions to public relations and profit considerations. While a publication of a critical article in a prestigious journal with limited access by a few thousand academics may boost the university’s ranking, criticism in the public sphere is perceived as something which may deter potential donors and students. It comes as no surprise that Haifa University has pushed out Dr. Dotan Leshem, who excels at circulating the findings of his research (of Israeli society and economics) onto the public at large.

Furthermore, when academic freedom is violated – in Haifa Tulkarem or Istanbul – we cannot settle for support of academics of condemnation of the silencing attempts. Alongside support for the signatories of the Turkish academics’ petition, we must make sure their silenced voice is heard: Their just criticism of the ongoing killing, the expulsion and the oppression of minorities in Turkey and the right to call for the exposure of wrongdoings and an end to the conflict. In addition, we must not settle for a discussion of events in Turkey while being silent as to similar trends in Israel.

Against the efforts to turn the higher education system into a tool in the hands of the security industries or an institute for the training of civil servants, we are committed to take a resolute stand against violence and the violation of human rights, action to disconnect academia from economic interests and to ensure independent research, plurality of opinions and free critique, which are vital for ensuring a vital thinking society. Without criticism, opposition and constant challenging of that which is taken for granted (also in academic institutions and practices, the call for academic freedom will remain devoid of content.

Hebrew source, Haoketz Magazine המקור

http://www.haokets.org/2018/01/18/

Let me just say it’s mighty tedious that so many male political writers write off women political figures as ignorant. Male socialists defended supporting Jill Stein, despite her Zionism, massive compromises on militarism, & inability to deal with class by claiming she didn’t know anything about those issues. But they campaigned for her to be president? Now Jacobin journal (socialists of some kind or another) publish an article claiming Suu Kyi is a flower child, albeit a well-meaning but elitist & racist one, who doesn’t understand politics. The only time writers waver on the flower child depictions of women politicians is when they can use them as objects of unbridled personal hatred. At the risk of infuriating, let me say frankly that this is misogyny–& that’s putting it kindly.

Jacobin journal has published an article about Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi, & the military junta titled “State Racism Meets Neoliberalism” by Spanish journalist Carlos Sardiña Galache who has written frequently about the Rohingya struggle since 2010. (https://jacobinmag.com/2018/01/burma-aung-san-suu-kyi-nld) The article has useful information about the history of the ongoing ethnic conflicts in Burma. Burma is a prison house of nations because of the supremacist views of the Buddhist Bamar majority whose xenophobia was influenced by Stalinist ideology & is orchestrated by the military which rules Burma.

Galache’s understanding of Burmese capitalism is especially problematic. He makes the remarkable, even preposterous, assertion that class is “conspicuously absent” in Burmese politics but then talks about the introduction of neoliberal economics which are class-based economics. Using the analytical criteria of socialist theoreticians & activists against German, Spanish, & Italian fascism, I characterize the Burmese military as fascist because of how they dominate & control the Burmese economy. The military, its minions or family members control banking, foreign investment, imports/exports, opium & illegal drug trafficking, the lumber industry, metal & gemstone mining, heavy industry, oil & gas exploration.

Under the dead weight of fascism, combined with US & European economic sanctions, the Burmese economy was stagnant so the junta was forced to open the doors to neoliberal economics/foreign investments. To survive under the sanctions, Burma had already relied on joint venture mining & oil & gas exploration projects with China & of course weapons from China. To overcome the economic & military sanctions, the junta began a political process to facilitate foreign investment, a sustained charade involving Suu Kyi from the outset that postured a civilian government in Burma forging a new democracy.

That’s where Galache’s political evaluation of Suu Kyi as a liberal failing to achieve democratic inroads fails so disastrously. He tries to turn Suu Kyi into a flower child, albeit an elitist & racist one. His assessment of her revolves around his assertion that she isn’t political, she doesn’t know anything, she’s an innocent bystander in the Rohingya genocide. This kind of mistake is common in evaluating women political figures. In fact, she sits on the central bodies governing Burma along with the generals & is involved up to her eyeballs in the political charade & in the genocide. The generals have known all along who they’re dealing with. She is of their class, of the military, & long before she was elected to the fake civilian government was defending joint venture projects between China & the junta against villagers protesting land grabs, environmental & cultural destruction.

There is no civilian government in Burma that is independent from the military. By their own admission, we know the so-called civilian government is involved in the genocide in every way, but currently by pressing for forcible repatriation of Rohingya refugees & building the concentration camps for warehousing them until they conclude the “final solution.” It’s not pedantry to insist that Suu Kyi & her NLD fake government be characterized accurately because such colossal misjudgments have led to supporting repressive & fascist regimes around the world. In the case of Suu Kyi, such a delusion allows the US & EU to refuse to impose economic sanctions & continue investments in Burma.

These are articles I’ve written for Pakistan Today which assess Suu Kyi & the NLD politically, not impressionistically, & don’t reduce her pernicious role to a lost flower child because she is a woman:

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2017/03/03/the-legend-of-aung-san-suu-kyi/

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2017/03/17/the-legend-of-aung-san-suu-kyi-part-2/

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2017/09/23/aung-san-suu-kyi-and-the-generals/