A Salute to the Heroes of the Syrian War

2,558 words

On Saturday, October 7, the Europe-based 6 May Committee, the name of which commemorates the Syrian Day of the Martyrs for Arab nationalist revolutionaries, held a march and rally in Breda, The Netherlands. Right-wing activists from Belgium (Flanders), Germany, Hungary, The Netherlands, Serbia, Spain, and the United States attended the event, along with members of some of the local Iraqi and Syrian nationalist organizations. The event was held to honor those heroes, not only from Syria itself but also from other nations, who have been fighting, and in many cases have made the ultimate sacrifice, to defend the Syrian people and the world against ISIS (otherwise known as Daesh) and the other “rebel” groups over the past seven years. I was asked to be one of the speakers at this event, and Counter-Currents Webmaster Michael Polignano was also in attendance. The event was covered by the official Syrian television news service. Unfortunately, persistent rain made the delivery of the speeches at the rally itself impossible, but the following address was made at a meeting of the Euros-Rus organization, a Flemish group dedicated to improving ties between Russia and Europe, that evening, where many of the same people were in attendance. I would like to thank both Ruben Rosiers and the 6 May Committee, as well as Euro-Rus Chairman Kris Roman, for inviting me to participate and for being such gracious hosts.

What follows is the text of my speech.

I’m very pleased to be with you today, although I also have to admit to feeling a bit out of place, given that I’m an American, and America has certainly been the main instigator of Syria’s troubles over the past seven years. But that’s also why it’s my privilege to represent my country here, since unfortunately, often the only view of America that outsiders get to know is what our mass media and our government project to the world.

So I am here to tell you that most Americans, the average American in the street, most definitely does not support America’s imperialistic designs on the Middle East. It’s true that in the hysteria following the September 11 attacks, Americans allowed themselves to be motivated by fear into supporting a number of unfortunate military adventures in the region, but years of fruitless bloodshed and expense with no positive results to show for them gradually caused the wool to fall away from the eyes of many Americans. Even many of the American veterans I know who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq are today staunch opponents of America’s interventions in Syria, Libya, and elsewhere. Therefore, on behalf of mainstream America – not the America of the wealthy and powerful elites – please allow me to congratulate those heroes of the Syrian War who sacrificed themselves to stop the onslaught not just of the Salafists, but of the globalists who stand behind them. These heroes came from many different religious and ethnic backgrounds, and unlike those they were fighting, they were not seeking to impose their ideas on others, and not even for the Assad regime, but rather to protect their own families, homes, and way of life. This is something that the average American looking at the situation objectively can understand and respect.

The most visible manifestation of this change in the American consciousness was the election of Donald Trump last year. While the Trump administration certainly has flaws – and believe me, there are many, but that would require a much longer speech to detail – the interesting thing about the Trump phenomenon is not the man or his administration itself, but rather the grassroots movement that manifested behind him during the campaign. One of the aspects of Trump’s campaign rhetoric that appealed the most to Americans was his non-interventionist stance, which included his critical remarks on the Obama administration’s policies undermining the Syrian government. Americans greeted these sentiments with great enthusiasm, and it was certainly one of the primary factors that got him elected. Unfortunately, he has not been living up to the promises that he made – although at the very least we can credit him with ending the CIA’s funding to the so-called Syrian “freedom fighters” in July. While this may be a case of too little, too late, we can still say, perhaps, that it is better late than never.

In any case, it is my sincere hope that the emergence of a new type of American populism that takes a more rational position in regard to the rest of the world than we have seen in Washington over the past century will eventually materialize in something much better and more permanent than Trump. Certainly, as American power continues to wane and the problems she has at home continue to grow, it is in the interests of the American people to give up on neoconservative and neo-Trotskyist notions of world domination, so I believe that the development of such a movement in American politics is inevitable, although it will of course be opposed by very powerful forces at home. Still, I remain confident that this will be the case – my only hope is that it’s not already too late.

In any event, I do not come before you today solely to talk about America. My main activities are as a publisher and a writer in connection with the European New Right, the school of thought that began in France with Alain de Benoist and other thinkers in 1968 and which has since been taken up in many other countries. One thing that I became acutely aware of as an American is that there is a huge lack of new and genuinely Right-wing ideas there. Fortunately, in Europe you have the New Right, which is the most serious and interesting intellectual movement today that is dedicated to the regeneration and revival of European civilization and its traditions. The New Right’s interest, however, is not only in the fate of Europe, but it also stands for the right of all the peoples of the world to their own distinct identity and political autonomy. As such, the Syrian War is something that is of the utmost concern to them.

Although this is an oversimplification, we could generally say that the way the New Right views the world today is in terms of an enormous conflict between the forces of neoliberalist globalism on the one hand and the forces of tradition, identity, and dissent on the other. While this is a war that has battles ongoing in every region of the world, nations such as Syria, Iran, and Russia are particularly troublesome to the designs of the globalists since they refuse to submit to their demands. The world they envision is ultimately one in which all peoples are cut off from their history, their identity, even their gender, as well as any higher values, and are nothing more than malleable consumers eager to submit to the latest fashionable trends in both products and ideas, all of them prepared and prepackaged by multinational corporations offering identities to their customers as interchangeable and ever-changing as the latest shoe styles.

Countries, regions, groups, and even individuals who refuse to submit to these plans can expect to be targeted and labelled as “Nazis,” “extremists,” and in the case of political regimes, “dictators.” The new global elite, which recognizes no god other than themselves, believes that, like God, they can destroy a thing merely by naming it. When name-calling fails, they resort to economic or military violence, allegedly to protect the innocent against the forces of evil – presumably because they don’t want any competition. We see this pattern repeatedly, both on the international and domestic scale – dissidents of the non-liberal Left and Right in Europe and America are treated the same as a foreign power that questions their right to rule over all they survey. This is in spite of the fact that it is rather the New World Order led by America and its allies which most closely resembles the power-hungry dictatorship that they constantly accuse others of being. In the type of civilization brought about by Anglo-American neoliberalism, which was first imposed on Europe by force and is now being gradually foisted upon the rest of the world, the ideal they propose is one in which everyone is free to do anything he or she wants – apart from questioning the values of neoliberalism, of course.

And indeed, as we are all well aware, the advocates of American-style democracy and the free market constantly tout the alleged fact that, at least in their minds, they stand for “freedom.” But in fact, the world they are creating is one in which the only choices that will be available to make are the ones they offer. And this is no doubt the real reason why the Syrian government and its people were targeted. Anyone who has looked at the truth behind the origins of the so-called “Arab spring” in Syria can see that it was no legitimate uprising of the Syrian people, but rather was ignited by small groups of radicals bolstered by foreigners who invaded the country at the behest of the United States, NATO, and their Zionist allies, their many tentacles slithering out towards the country like an octopus toward its prey. The resulting death and destruction that was wrought upon Syria when its people refused to submit, and which affected some of the world’s most priceless cultural heritage, was certainly a war crime, but the responsibility for it does not lie solely with Daesh but with those in Washington and elsewhere who supported and trained them. And the murderous carnage was not limited to Syria and Iraq, but even to this day stalks us here in our own towns and cities in both Europe and the United States – unfortunate “collateral damage,” to be sure, but probably acceptable losses to the globalists, especially since it offers a convenient distraction from the increasing failures of their policies at home. This is not even to mention another offshoot of the war, namely the migrant crisis, which threatens Europe’s existence in yet another way.

While Syria fought valiantly for true freedom – in this case, freedom from being terrorized by the agents of democracy – the forces arrayed against it were too strong for it to defeat all on its own. Fortunately, Russia and Iran came to her aid, and while we should never forget that it was the Syrian people who had to bear the brunt of the suffering, we should also recognize those heroes who left their homes and families to stand beside their Syrian allies. Indeed, Russia and Iran’s participation in the conflict alongside Syria’s own military should be seen as a successful demonstration of a genuine anti-neoliberal coalition, proving that the new global dictatorship is not invincible when several dissenting powers work together. We can hope that perhaps this is one of the first achievements of what might become a new anti-globalist alliance.

Indeed, one of the tenets of the New Right’s worldview is that what we have been witnessing in world events in recent years is the slow birth of a truly multipolar world order. The Cold War was defined by a world more or less dominated by the United States and the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States became the only power left possessing true superpower status. But America’s decline was already far advanced by then, and since the 1990s we have been seeing the rise of a number of powers which will have to share authority, learn to define new friends and enemies, act as guardians and shepherds of the regions they inhabit, and keep the other great powers in check. The superpowers of the future will not only be the United States but will also include nations such as Russia, China, Iran, Brazil, and perhaps even the European Union, if it can ever wrest itself free from the clutches of American domination. So again, what we saw in Syria was not just about the fate of one country, but also a case of several powers opposed to neoliberalism working together to prevent it from having its way with yet another hapless victim of coca-colonialism.

We cannot expect the globalists to simply take this sitting down, however. They will continue to try to exploit weaknesses and undermine their enemies wherever they can. We can already see this in the support of the United States and Israel for Kurdish independence, which is clearly aimed at further weakening Syria and Iraq. While there are certainly situations in which regional secessionism is valid, and the New Right is very much in favor of autonomy for small ethnic communities and regions under ideal circumstances, as this is a vital factor in the building of a just multipolar world, we also have to bear in mind the parties involved in such movements and the role they are playing in the larger conflict with neoliberalism. When we look at the situation objectively, we can perhaps understand why the Kurds want their independence, but it’s also the case that the powers backing the referendum are doing so only because they see it as an opportunity, with the military collapse of Daesh, to find a new way to restrict their enemies’ ability to protect their own interests.

Regardless of the outcome of this referendum, however, it is certainly only the first effort in what is doubtless to be an entirely new strategy designed to secure American hegemony and further the globalists’ designs in the region. And of course, as the fight continues in the Middle East, it likewise continues in various forms in every other corner of the globe – including in the towns and cities here in Europe, and most importantly, within the hearts and minds of every individual who has chosen to dissent from the world of neoliberalism that surrounds us.

The fight against Daesh and globalization in Syria is just as vitally important as the battle you wage in your own life against those same forces every day of your life, in both thought and deed. It is easy to lose hope in the face of the overwhelming odds we face. This is why it is important that all the dissident forces of the world – all nationalists, traditionalists, regionalists, true socialists, and others – must organize themselves, put aside their differences, and join forces in order to defeat our common enemy. The stakes in this fight are not merely some set of political goals, but rather the cause of human existence as we now know it. And we have to be just as unified as our enemies are in dealing with the attacks that we are experiencing at every level and every facet of life. But in the end, all we are facing is a worldview – a rather psychotic worldview, but in the end, it is nothing more than a threadbare tissue of lies trying to cover the aging prostitute of the multinational marketplace. And our own worldview will ultimately triumph, because our ideas happen to correspond to the world as it actually exists.

So as we continue to wage our own struggles in our own lives, both large and small, let us bear in mind the sacrifices of the heroes of Syria, who struck a blow not just for their own people but for the cause of freedom – true freedom – for all peoples.

Thank you.