Ep 187. - How Did Syria Move From Torture To Triumph? With Robin Yassin-Kassab
Syria has finally been liberated after 13 years of struggle. We mourn the lives of all that have fallen and celebrate with Syrians. But the horrors of Assad’s gulags are coming to light for the world to see. The scenes from Seydnaya, the slaughterhouse, have shocked many of us. Reflecting on the horrors and looking at some of the challenges, I am honoured today to have a Syrian who has been at the heart of this struggle. Robin Yassin-Kassab is the author of the novel The Road from Damascus. He is co-author with Leila al-Shami of the Rathbone-Folio prize-shortlisted book Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War. And he is the chief English editor of the ISIS prisons museum – which may soon become the Syria Prisons Museum
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Transcript: This is an AI generated transcript and may not reflect the actual conversation
Introduction
0:00
this is one of the worst torture States in history I had reconciled myself to never
0:05
seeing Syria again one Rebel f are pushed over a Christmas tree Iraq or Libya awaits Syria these
0:12
are people who have been murdered in the most appalling conditions this is a moment which is
0:17
fraught with danger Israel is bombing the hell out of Syria so that it can't defend itself Syria has finally been liberated after 13 years of Str struggle we mourn the lives of all
0:32
those that have fallen and celebrate with syrians for world over but the horrors of
0:37
Assad's gulags are coming to light for the world to see the scenes from s NAA the slaughter house
0:44
have shocked many of us reflecting on the horrors and looking at some of the challenges Syria faces
0:50
today I'm honored today to have a Syrian who has been at the heart of this struggle Robin
0:56
Yasin kasab is the author of the novel The Ro from Damascus he's also co-author with Lea
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ashami of the RAF bone folio prize shortlisted book burning country syrians in Revolution and
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War and he is the chief English editor of the Isis prisons Museum which inshallah may soon become the
1:17
Syria prisons Museum uh Robin Asam and welcome to the thinking Muslim thank you for having me I just
1:26
have to say straight away I'm slightly embarrassed when you say that been at the heart of the Syrian
1:32
Revolution um and when I compare myself to the all the martys and the activists on the ground
1:39
and the people who've had the courage to risk everything um I have to say that throughout the Syrian Revolution I've been living fairly comfortably in Scotland um I've paid a couple of
1:49
very quick visits to idlib and so on and I've been in touch with people and I've been writing about
1:54
it but I wouldn't do myself the honor of saying that I've been at the heart of it the people
1:59
so many of the people at the heart ofice are now dead and inshallah they're aware of what's of the
2:05
victory that we've got now insha tala well I mean let's start there I mean it's been a a
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couple of weeks less than a couple of weeks of of um of turmoil but hallow we've now got uh what is
Reflections
2:18
a liberation of of Syria what's your what's your Reflections on just what you've seen over the last
2:24
few days I don't know where to start really I mean it's incredible and amazing you know two weeks ago
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I didn't expect any of this I had um reconciled myself to never seeing Syria again or certainly
2:38
never seeing Damascus or Latakia again where my family is from I actually said to you I think
2:43
when we had a phone conversation don't talk about my family don't say that my family is in Latakia
2:49
don't ask me where my family comes from because I was very scared that Latakia would be the last
2:55
hold out of the regime and that things would be very bad for um the non-loyal communities or the
3:03
Sunni Muslims in that City but alhamdulillah um Latakia is free Tartus is free even Assad's
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Hometown K the the um statue of H Assad has been toppled so this is amazing it's been a
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blessed days historical days um a convergence of a happy convergence of events um the you know the
3:30
Assad regime Was Defeated years ago um in its original form it was defeated by 2013 and then
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Hezbollah and Iranian militias from all over the world were brought in to prop It Up by late 2015
3:47
even that hadn't worked and kasim sumani had to go to Russia to Moscow to ask Putin to intervene
3:54
and then the superpower Russia's Air Force came in and acted as Assad's Air Force and bombed the
4:00
hell out of Syrian cities and Syrian civilians um and it said it was going in to fight Isis but over
4:07
80% of its bombs landed in territories where there was no Isis um so um the Revolution was supposedly
4:17
crushed ased was held in power by ISIS which captured Land from the revolution land which
4:25
the revolution had liberated at a vast expense Isis then took from it um it was held in place
4:32
by Russia and it was held in place by Iran and all of those um actors have been given terrible
4:39
hard blows so Isis was defeated in the end mainly by America although for a long time it suited the
4:45
Isis presence seemed to suit many of the powers that be in the region and internationally and they let it grow but in the end America got rid of it doesn't mean that America's on the side of
4:56
the Syrian Revolution but they got rid of Isis um Russia is preoccupied in Ukraine for reasons that
5:03
had nothing to do with the Syrian Revolution because they chose to invade Ukraine and Iran
5:09
has just been the Iranian militia system not Iran itself but the Iranian militia system in the Arab
5:15
world um which I believe its main function was to colonize and dominate the Arab world and the Sunni
5:23
Arab world in particular and it wasn't actually to fight Israel it it used that as kind of propaganda
5:30
um well its Bluff was called for other reasons which had nothing to do with the syrians andah
5:37
in particular has been given a a hefty blow so as a result the um fundamental unsustainability
5:45
of the sessed regime came to the four when you add to that the remarkable discipline
5:52
and intelligence shown quite surprisingly it surprised me by in particular but also
6:00
and the and J and the other groups in the Coalition led by HTS um when you know when
6:07
they went into Aleppo on day one the inhabitants of Western Aleppo not so much Eastern Aleppo which
6:14
had been in the hands of the Revolution before but Western lepo where there's a lot of Bourgeois people who were more aligned with the regime and also many um Christians and Armenians and
6:25
other minority groups I think a lot of them were terrified on day one by day two they weren't you
6:32
know by day three they were really quite happy and had a sense of relief and that's remarkable there
6:37
was there was one guy pushed over a Christmas tree one Rebel fter pushed over a Christmas tree and
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this photo went viral and everybody was saying look at the terrible jihadist horror which has descended upon Multicultural Aleppo that guy was arrested he was disciplined the Christmas tree
6:54
was put back up and restored the Christians were assured that the churches would be open
7:00
um everybody was assured that they could wear what they liked there would be no um authoritarian
7:05
police force telling people how to behave and when people elsewhere in the country saw that
7:12
that's what really helped I think that was the fundamental final ingredient that allowed all
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the dominoes to fall that's in the following days you had tens of thousands of loyalist previously
7:23
loyalist troops taking off their uniforms giving up their guns defecting or just going home
7:30
um loyalist communities supposedly loyalist communities communities minority communities that
7:37
we'd been told were loyalist and in some cases they were in many cases they weren't but some of
7:43
those had believed the propaganda before and maybe it wasn't propaganda at an earlier stage that the
7:49
when the regime fell there would be Revenge attacks and there would be an oppression of the minorities and the people that had fought for essed would be made to pay for that when they saw
7:59
that that wasn't necessarily the case that only the top level criminals will be held accountable
8:05
um then there were all of these defections and towns and Villages opening their doors to the
8:10
rebels and everything happened very quickly you see that I mean that's fascinating and I want to
Syria another Libya?
8:15
pick up on some of those strands because of course uh you know we know that the internet is a wash
8:21
with conspiracy theories and people who want to who who feel that uh the revolution uh is a
8:30
a wrong move or have actually got very negative perceptions about the Revolution and a lot of
8:35
it comes from the as we know the Anti-Imperialist left and and the Iranians and the Russians and and
8:41
there's there's a lot uh being suggested that um anytime you have a militant transition like this
8:50
or transition through militant groups uh it's going to open up the country to a power vacuum
8:58
and of course you've heard it often on you know on on social media that uh Iraq or Libya awaits
9:05
uh await Syria I mean in your mind uh from what you've just said there about the groups do you
9:12
feel that um such a scenario is is likely and and possible or are you more hopeful and optimistic
9:19
well I'm remarkably cautious I must say but let's just refer return to those ideas that
9:25
when people say oh it'll be another Libya um Libya actually it's a great shame that after
9:33
the Libyan Revolution and it was a revolution it wasn't simply a NATO exercise as people say it was
9:38
a Grassroots Revolution that the Army had split before Britain and France came got involved um it
9:46
was a revolution against a horrible Tyrant it's a great shame that until now Libya is still terribly
9:54
destabilized there are at least two governments there are Warlords militias the place is in chaos
10:00
having said that Libya has been a paradise over the last years in comparison to Syria people who
10:08
say oh maybe Syria is going to turn into Libya it's just they're people who are clearly ignorant
10:13
of the situation in both libia and Syria I don't think they understand that 650,000 people as a as
10:21
a minimum have been murdered Mo over 90% of them by Assad and his allies in the last years that 13
10:29
million people more than half the population have been driven from their homes that millions
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of people were living in tents until yesterday um you know that that we can talk about this in
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a in a moment but that hundreds of thousands of people have disappeared into Assad's Gulag
10:47
into Assad's death camps so the the and that the economy is totally cred there is no economy left
10:55
that the civilian infrastructure has been totally destroyed that all of the Cities except one have
11:01
been destroyed um so you know this idea it will become Libya there are Syrian refugees living in
11:10
Libya they've run away from Syria to Libya because Libya is so much better even in chaos even in the
11:17
post-revolutionary chaos yeah um with regard to Iraq um Iraq was a foreign Invasion it was the
11:26
Americans invaded and occupied the country there was also a tyrant there Saddam Hussein was also
11:33
a terrible Tyrant and he was very unpopular amongst most of his people but there was a
11:39
foreign Invasion and they didn't invade to help a revolution either it wasn't at a time when there
11:44
was an uprising they in fact at the time when there was an uprising after the Kuwait War in
11:49
1991 there was an uprising in the Shia South and in the Kurdish North and um that would have been
11:57
the time when if they wanted to get rid of him easily without causing a lot of trouble they could
12:02
have done but they chose not to they chose to give Saddam Hussein permission to use helicopter gunships to kill people to put down the uprising and they kept him in power for 12 more years
12:13
with total sanctions so that the country's kind of society was hollowed out and then they invaded and
12:20
then there was a terrible Civil War so um that's again a very different situation in Syria there
12:26
has been a popular revolution which is what left s are supposed to like but um when it comes to
12:32
Arab and Muslim countries they generally don't for some reason um so it's a very different situation
12:38
having said all of that at the moment I am relatively optimistic because of the intelligence
12:46
and discipline of and other rebel groups um and because minorities are at the moment welcoming
12:56
them and there's been no Revenge attacks because as I said Latakia has been liberated there's no
13:02
last stand for the assists in that respect having said that of course this is a moment
13:07
which is fraught with danger the um the country is in chaos um we you know syrians are trying to form
13:16
a new government and to develop a new system and and and to find a way forward together but there's a lot that could go wrong there there's a hell of a lot that could go wrong most of the east
13:25
of the country is still under the control of the SDF the Syrian Democratic forces soall the most
13:32
the dominant force in the SDF is the pkk a Turkish Kurdish left Marxist leninist organization with a
13:40
cult of personality around the leader um a lot of the SDF troops are not Kurds they're Arabs
13:48
there are hundreds of thousands of Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan who've run away from Syrian Kurdistan
13:53
to get away from the pkk the Syrian National Army which is the remnants of free Syrian Army militias
14:01
which are now under Turkish control um are very indisciplined in many cases and have been found
14:08
guilty of abuses and um attacking people abusing Kurds for being Kurds looting um they in the
14:16
SDF are fighting in parts of the North and the Northeast so there's a lot that could go wrong
14:21
there's a hell of a lot that could go wrong um zolani or as he's now using his own name Ahmed
14:28
um Jani May some people say he's just behaving in this nice disciplined polite civilized way
14:34
until he gets taken off terrorist lists by Western States and then we'll see him trying to establish
14:40
a dictatorship which may be the case I don't think it is I I I I think the evolution of HTS has been
14:46
much more profound and long lasting I don't think this is just an act but we don't know um there
14:52
could be all kinds of trouble and of course as we can talk about in a moment maybe externally
14:59
forces are trying to weaken Syria and to provoke as much trouble as they possibly can because
15:06
external forces do not want democracy in the Arab and Muslim World particularly in that part that
15:13
Heartland part of the Arab and Muslim world next to Israel I do want to talk about Israel and I do
15:19
want to talk about HTS and its um transition or its transformation over the last few years but
Prisons – Torture state
15:26
um I've primarily asked you on to my podcast to to talk about uh prisons um prisoners in in in Syria
15:35
in particular sedia prison which has been a focal point of much of of the uh of the conversation and
15:44
uh uh over the last few days I mean it's it's horrific actually what we've seen uh coming out
15:49
of of sedai can you you've worked with the Isis prisons Museum which you've said that you want
15:57
to roll out to to be a project to discover what went on in in all prisons in in Syria especially
16:05
the Assad prisons but just shed some light on uh on the extent to which Assad incarcerated
16:13
and tortured his population well it was it was a torture state it was a a a deten a surveillance
16:20
detention and torture state prisons were absolutely Central to Assad regime Rule and also
16:27
to Isis rule because remember Isis I would say is an amalgam of alqa type ideology with bism you
16:37
know alqa plus the bath party equals Isis and add in some apocalypticism and and some some hip-hop
16:44
culture and some you know gangster movie culture and computer game culture too and you end up with
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Isis so they learned a hell of a lot from Assad and from the Saddam Hussein regime from the bists
16:57
um and the idea of all of these regimes was to rule through Terror um it's Ed made all of Syria
17:07
a prison by terrifying people people knew and they spoke in whispers about what happened in prisons
17:16
they knew that if people opposed the regime in any way at all not even just not even opposing the
17:22
regime if people took any kind of initiative of their own anything including you know if a group
17:29
of friends got together and decided that they were going to clean the streets where they lived that
17:35
would be enough to for them to be arrested and disappear in one of these torture holes um you
17:42
know it was it's it's um the there's an estimate that at least 130,000 is a bare minimum 130,000
17:53
people are in Assad prisons and yesterday um f ABD um of the Syrian Network for human rights
18:02
broke down during an interview on television um into tears and said I'm sorry but I have to tell
18:08
the families that we now think that the vast majority of those people are dead and um and
18:16
we see the conditions in which I was just talking to my sister about this you know inshallah I hope that when I die or when my sister dies when you die Jal inshallah we will be surrounded inshallah
18:27
by our loved ones talking to us in a gentle way and we will have an opportunity to pray and to
18:34
think and to do whatever we want to do you know what according to our listen to music if that's what we want to do we have an opportunity to do it in our own way in a good environment with Medical
18:44
Care um to to to look after our pain and so on but these are people who have been murdered in the
18:49
most appalling conditions surrounded by insults in agony being in filth being tortured to death
18:59
um we saw yesterday pictures of corpses we saw um there's a room in harasta Military Hospital
19:07
piled full of corpses that had been brought from Sida um in Sida they found a a mass grave um with
19:16
bodies partially dissolved in acid they found a a press for I mean I'm sorry to say these things
19:22
on your program but you know a press for pressing corpses to turn them into a thin sheet um with a
19:30
room full of nooses for for for hanging people I saw a video yesterday of a man who had been
19:37
in Sida for seven years he said every day every single day people were taken and executed um and
19:44
he was then reciting the names he'd remembered the names of the person their father's name their mother's name their place of birth and he was reciting them so that people can find
19:54
out and this has kind of destroyed the Euphoria of Victory to some extent we knew it was bad but when
20:00
you actually see it when you see people who have survived but have lost their minds people who are
20:07
no longer able to speak people who no longer know what their name is people who are just shivering
20:13
and flinching people there are people in there who believe that half Al Assad who died in 1970
20:20
the father of Bashar Al Assad they believe that he was still in power people who've been in there for
20:26
40 50 years or longer and have no idea they've not seen the sun children that have either been
20:34
young children that have been arrested and taken and tortured in these dungeons in these hell on
20:40
Earth environments and children that have been born in there to mothers who have been raped
20:47
children who have never been outside I mean this is horror on an enormous scale this is one of the
20:53
worst torture States in history that the Syrian people have been subjected to and any of those
20:59
Anti-Imperialist leftist types out there who are still making excuses for this should really
21:05
think about it because this is no longer just a political issue it's a moral issue it's a human issue it's a religious issue on at the most basic level I mean when you know the the total lack of
21:17
respect for the human being that's been shown here is a horror in its own right you don't need to go
21:22
deeper into the politics to know that I let me just grab this I recommend that people read this
21:28
book Ian Gulag um which came out recently which is a a comprehensive study of this stuff um and
21:36
I hope that people will look at the Isis prisons Museum Isis prisons. museum look it up online um
21:44
now that is called the Isis prisons Museum simply because we got access to the buildings which Isis
21:50
had confiscated and turned into prisons um we got access because Isis Was Defeated and it ran away
21:58
and immediately um our people on the ground in raqa and elsewhere in Syria and Iraq went
22:05
down into these buildings and they found names scratched on the walls thousands of those um they
22:12
found evidence of you know torture um they found Guantanamo style orange execution suits that they
22:19
used to make people wear um so all of this and they've interviewed hundreds and hundreds of um
22:26
people who'd passed through these prison prisons to get as much detail as possible and if you go online you can see 3D tours of these prisons and you can read special investigations and at the
22:38
moment we have people on the ground in Damascus and hamah and hamus and Aleppo and other cities
22:44
in Syria going into prisons interviewing people taking photographs filming 360 Degrees um in order
22:52
to document the crimes that have been committed in the Ed prison system too me how disciplined
Information accessing
22:59
are the militant groups or the Rebel Rebel groups in maintaining these sources so that
23:06
uh experts from your team can actually access that information in a in a comprehensive way um in many
23:13
cases more discipline than one would expect I mean you've seen film of especially in Sida of
23:19
frantic people rushing in there and in the in the chaos and the the panic and and the desire to find
23:27
people um there's a great big press of people and it doesn't seem very organized but I've but still
23:33
there is quite a lot of organization the the Rebels the white helmets the civil defense and
23:40
other Specialists and I've seen journalists there too you know citizen journalists and and Syrian
23:46
journalists on the ground are saying constantly we have to document all of this nothing must be lost
23:52
um so they are aware of that and it's better now than it was because you know when I Isis left it
23:59
was a freefor all anybody who wanted was running down into into prisons and taking what they wanted
24:05
including our guys who got over 70,000 documents which is part of our archive that we're working on
24:12
um but in this case when Aleppo was liberated our people immediately went to prisons thinking that
24:20
it would be the same situation and it actually wasn't there were Rebels Rebel soldiers standing
24:25
at the gate saying wait a minute who are you you have to go through official channels nobody is
24:31
going in randomly we have to know who you are and what you're doing if you have a good reason to if the leadership accepts that you have a good reason to go in and document stuff then
24:41
we'll let you in and that's very good that's very positive that's part of the general good behavior
24:47
of the rebels in which there's been absolutely minimal looting um it's not a situation like
24:53
Bagdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein when the Americans came in when there was absolute chaos
24:59
um there's been minimal looting the public buildings are being guarded people are aware that these belong to the Syrian people um not to whichever lther wants to go in so that's a
25:09
good thing I mean what lay behind this or what lies behind this um discipline that
HTS discipline
25:15
we're we're observing of HDs because of course uh unfortunately you know my my attention had
25:22
moved away from Syria in the last few years but I I remember when groups like HTS and and others uh
25:29
started that began the government in in idlib many years ago uh it wasn't so disciplined and uh we
25:38
heard stories of people being arbitrarily arrested and we did hear stories of uh of uh the overhand
25:46
the over uh zealous hand of the state when it come when it comes to uh personal issues so what has
25:53
changed do you feel in in the the makeup of these groups that um they seem to show a remarkable
26:01
as you said you know um efficiency in in in organization and bureaucracy at this time around
26:07
um I mean the first I'll say something negative before I say something positive the negative thing is that it hasn't changed completely no because there are still um prisoners in jails in HTS jails
26:19
in idlib political prisoners people that they disagree with um who are being tortured and B
26:28
Kim who you probably know and and others have reported quite quite a lot on that and
26:34
certainly until this offensive there were daily demonstrations against HTS in the towns of idlib
26:41
um concerning this issue this was the Prime issue that you know what we had a revolution to stop having political prisoners and to stop having torture in prisons and you're doing the
26:51
same thing um the positive thing is of course if it was in ID territory those demonstrators there
26:58
would have only been one demonstration and it would have been shot on and the survivors of the shooting would have been arrested and tortured to death so um it's good that they've tolerated these
27:10
demonstrations and now I'll go to the positive um there needs to be more positive but I'll go
27:16
to the positive now HTS began as alqa in Iraq you know it was the Syrian part the origins of
27:25
HTS are in alqaeda and particularly alqaeda in Iraq and zolani um you know left Syria to
27:33
go and join alqaeda in Iraq to fight the um Americans and the Shia government um then it
27:43
he came back into Syria at the beginning of the Syrian Revolution as and and his new organization
27:48
was called n um in 2013 that movement split definitively into on the one hand Isis and on
27:59
the other hand NRA and those two ended up fighting each other quite fiercely um now of course Isis
28:08
went in One Direction nusra went in the opposite direction Isis Direction was hyper authoritarian
28:14
it was let's not try and win hearts and Minds let's rule by fear as the bsts do and it was
28:20
completely um you know full of EX um military and exse Security Guys from Saddam Hussein's regime
28:28
and we know that they had relations with Kristoff reuter the German journalist proved um the the
28:34
relations between Isis and the essad regime and it was a totalitarian state um and it ruled by fear
28:43
and Terror and and violence um nusra went in the other direction and I think it learned a lot from
28:50
the failures of Isis because Isis in the end was not only defeated by America and turkey and the p
28:58
KK and Ed to an extent and all of the others when they finally agreed let's let's get rid of it it
29:04
was also defeated by the people it didn't have a popular base nobody in the areas that it ruled
29:11
over actually liked it um and you know one reason for that was it's very authoritarian hper Dewan
29:18
it's religious police so-called which would arrest people for smoking cigarettes or for wearing
29:24
tight trousers and then would would whip them and torture them and and abuse them um nusra chose not
29:31
to in its early days it did have such a thing and then it said no we're not going to do that we're
29:37
going to leave the Muslim Society to run itself we are going to be a rebel force and we're going to
29:45
try to provide an umbrella framework under which there can be good governance um and they really
29:53
did develop and over the last years in idlib when it seemed like nothing was happening because the
29:58
battle lines remained static and the syrians or the the revolution if you like including HTS was
30:06
pushed into a narrow strip of land on the Turkish border but during that time they were organizing
30:12
themselves and rethinking Things Not only was there a split with Isis but then they split definitively with alqaeda and then they purged alqaeda they purged extremists from their ranks
30:25
and other people too they they purged opposition to um jeani um they made Outreach to religious
30:33
minorities there are du communities in um idlib there are Christian communities living in idlib
30:40
and they you know came to an accommodation with them and I'm I'm sure it's this kind of understanding learning how to do diplomacy learning how to do politics learning how to build
30:51
good social um relationships this is what has set them in such good stead for their behavior
30:58
in Aleppo and now um inshah in the rest of Syria the the provisional government um you know there
31:05
was the Salvation government so-called in in in idlib and the actually the the prime minister
31:12
of the the guy who was the mhammad Basher who was the Prime Minister of that salvation government in
31:18
idlib has now been appointed as the prime minister of the transitional government for all of Syria
31:25
and that's largely been it's under HTS the HTS umbrella it's HTS aligned in that sense but it's a
31:34
civilian government and it's largely technocratic and if we have a similar kind of thing for the
31:40
whole of Syria to start with as we draft a new Constitution and arrange elections I think that
31:46
would be a good thing and how important do you believe um syrians whove lived outside of Syria
Syrians re-migrating
31:52
for the last decade or so how important are those syrians to the story of the future Syria seems to
31:58
me that uh there is a hunger now to return in fact large numbers tens of thousands are returning back
32:03
to Syria at this moment in time I me H how do you see uh that uh incoming um uh inward migration or
32:12
remigration back to Syria uh as a as a uh is it a positive for the future sort of Civilian makeup of
32:20
his country yeah that's really really important remember that for Mo for a lot for the in the
32:28
the great although very difficult years of the Syrian Revolution there was a nent democracy at
32:35
work on the ground in Syria this wasn't imported from outside you know it didn't come with American
32:41
tanks this is what Syrian people did themselves naturally when they needed to do so um and I'm
32:49
talking here about the local councils at one point there were over 800 local councils in
32:55
the liberated areas of Syria and um they were run um most of those were run on a quazi democratic
33:03
and in some cases fully Democratic basis um and each community did it in a slightly different
33:10
way according to the makeup of the community the needs and the wants of the community so in
33:16
some places it was a an election in the way that we would recognize where everybody went on the
33:22
same day and elected um Representatives who'd put themselves forward in other cases would be
33:28
the heads of tribes or the heads of families who got together and selected people usually
33:33
based on Merit on their technocratic abilities um and the you know the system worked um the the the
33:42
Syrian communities which were under attack which were being bombed where the electricity was being
33:48
bombed the bakeries were being bombed where the um the agricultural Fields were being bombed the
33:54
schools and the hospitals were being bombed yet many these communities managed to survive and that
33:59
was down to the self-organization of Syrian people so um as well as destruction and death and Terror
34:06
over the last years since 2011 in Syria there's been incredible political work and cultural work
34:13
and social work done by syrians now a lot of that was crushed it was crushed by authoritarian actors
34:21
you know when Isis gobbled up territory they eliminated the local councils and arrested and
34:26
killed or tortured the people people that are the members of the councils when Assad and Russia and
34:31
Iran captured land they did the same um so those people are coming A lot of people are coming back
34:37
and when people come back they will be able to build again and the Civil Society will return
34:43
and that will be able to hold people like jolani to account if they need to be held to account so
34:49
that's very positive I I'm just hoping that inshallah we don't you know it doesn't turn back to violence fast so that these people can get back and the and a critical mass of syrians
34:59
can develop the future together can we turn to um uh Israel's bombing of um of Syria over the
Israelis in Syria
35:06
last couple of days so Israeli forces have carried out large-scale Military attacks across Syria uh I
35:13
think yesterday they targeted a number of airports as well as strategic military infrastructure uh
35:20
including in the capital Damascus in fact I read this morning that residents were saying uh even
35:27
during the morning hours there were nine uh uh bombing raids on Damascus uh so Israel is using
35:34
this opportunity to gut uh out or to to destroy uh syrians defenses um how existential do you believe
35:44
that external threat is at the moment I don't know yet how I mean answer the question how existential
35:51
I don't yet know but it's very serious and it's very worrying um you know it's not just weapons
35:58
sites let's go back to weapons what what Israel used to do was bomb Iranian and Iranian militia
36:06
weapons Syria Hezbollah in particular anything which possibly could be transported to Lebanon and
36:13
then used against them they destroyed it as soon as they could anything that was being transported
36:18
through the country or was being kept in a store in Syria for passage to hisbah was bombed but they
36:25
didn't hit Assad's weapons they didn't hit the Syrian Army in general because they knew that the
36:32
Syrian Army was not to be used against them they knew that the Syrian Army was designed to be used
36:38
against the Syrian people um so they were quite happy with that it's also interesting to see when
36:43
they started bombing the Iranians if we go back to you know some you know bit less than a decade
36:51
ago it was when the Revolution was finally driven out of the Damascus suburbs when Duma and other
37:01
harasta and other towns like that in the gut um were um cleaned of the Revolution that's the point
37:10
at which there was a dramatic uptick in Israeli bombing of um the Iranians when the Iranians were
37:17
necessary to make sure that Assad stayed in power then they kind of left them alone a bit unless
37:24
there was actually some kind of weapons actually going into Lebanon um but as soon as it became
37:30
clear that no the guy is now safe in his Palace in Damascus then they upped their bombing of Iran
37:37
now of course the Iranians have left Syria now they've been driven out the revolution has got rid of them alhamdulillah we've been Victorious and we've cleaned our territory from the Iranian
37:47
militias and um as we have from the Russians and what happens the amount of bombing has
37:54
vastly increased um yesterday I believe there were 150 strikes on Syrian targets and they're
38:03
not on Iranian targets because there are no more Iranian targets they're they're on the Syrian Army
38:08
overnight I believe the Syrian Navy was completely destroyed um they're not just hitting um army and
38:15
Military sites they're also hitting documents hijaz the passport office in Damascus and the
38:23
customs office have been bombed now what is that about I I documentation documents buildings full
38:31
of documents have been burnt by Israeli bombs now I don't well I don't I really get annoyed
38:37
by conspiracy theorists and people speculating so I'm not going to speculate too much except one can presume therefore that there is there is documentation um which somehow implicates Israel
38:52
perhaps the United States the Israel's backer um probably showing collaboration with the sad regime
39:02
and I'm not going to go further into that into it than that because I just don't know and I'm not going to speculate but people should be aware of that that they are bombing the Syrian Army the
39:11
Syrian Navy the Syrian Air Force all of Syria's planes and helicopters are being hit um in order
39:18
to leave the country defenseless now that it's achieving self-determination now that there may
39:24
be inshah an independent government that repres present the people there um and they're also
39:30
getting rid of documentary evidence of something um it's also notable that the West has as far as
39:40
I'm aware no Western country has condemned this Savage unprovoked assault um on on Syria also a
39:49
further Advance on the goolan heights we we know that weeks ago um they actually already
39:55
began advancing on the Goan and Asad ordered his soldiers to withdraw so as to not get in their
40:04
way so that was already happening but it's now increased and they're gone they've gone public
40:09
about it they're talking about it they're proud of it and there's been no condemnation whatsoever of
40:15
this this is once again I presume the assumption is that this is Israel defending itself just like
40:22
the theft of Palestine and the genocide of the Palestinians and the destruction of leban
40:28
and now the terror bombing of independent Syria on day one all of this is self-defense for the
40:35
Zionist State and this is a very ugly message for not just Israel we expect it from Israel
40:43
um but Israel's Western backers they're doing this with weapons from the United States and the United
40:49
Kingdom and Germany and France and Canada and others um so these the West is bombing um Syria on
40:58
the very first hours and days of its independence Syria is is crawling out from under the corpse of
41:05
this horrific fascist regime it's trying to dig people out of dungeons it's trying to reconcile
41:12
and trying to build from the ruins and what we would expect what we would hope for if we lived in
41:18
a decent world would be some solidarity some basic human solidarity before we get down to politics
41:26
you know well done congrat ulations we're going to help you find out what happened in sah we're
41:31
going to help you bring Bashar Al Assad to trial we're going to help you rebuild but no that's not
41:37
what's happening what's happening is the so-called liberal Democratic world is supplying weapons to its Israeli Ally and Israel is bombing the hell out of Syria so that it can't defend itself and
International community crippling revolution
41:48
it's an interesting point you make there that this is not some sort of unilateral Israeli
41:53
action you believe that uh there is a broader uh communication and acceptance of the International
42:00
Community so-called International Community of the West uh to [ __ ] or to uh this Revolution
42:06
and to and to make it uh to make sure that it does not pose any form of threat to theist entity I I
42:14
mean I must assume that because they're using you know the American it's the same as when you get
42:20
the the Kia starm saying oh it's terrible what's happening in Gaza you know but the Australians
42:25
have a right he does obviously he doesn't think it's terrible what's happening in Gaza because if he did he would say I'm sorry you know you can't have any more British weapons yeah we won't give
42:35
you any more political support we won't continue to lie on your behalf so one must presume that he
42:41
is um 100% behind the there are British spy planes as as on on your podcast as um you know you've had
42:48
a guest on talking about this there are British spy planes going over Gaza every day giving
42:53
information to the Israelis to help them kill more children so we don't believe what they say and in
42:59
the case of of Syria they haven't even tried to say they feel bad about it they're just being quiet that the bombing is happening with their weapons I know and this goes back you know quite
43:12
the the authoritarian leftist so-called leftist story is that the Syrian Revolution was always a
43:19
Zionist CIA plot but I know syrians who and Syrian Americans who were lobbying in America to try to
43:29
get decent weapons for the free Syrian Army so that they could defend themselves not offensive
43:35
weapons to go to Damascus or to go to Assad's Palace but defensive weapons to guard the cities
43:43
which were being destroyed the liberated areas and to stop the outflow of millions of people
43:50
which caused a refugee crisis to stop the groups like Isis coming in and being able to take over
43:57
these things that you would have thought would be in the West's interests and the answer was always
44:03
I'm sorry you can't have that because it worries the Israelis can we have man pads so that we can
44:09
sh sh shoot down the helicopters that are dropping Barrel bombs on marketplaces um I'm sorry no the
44:18
Israelis don't like that the Israelis don't want that that's what they were constantly told it's
44:24
true that occasionally the Americans did either send some light weapons or they allowed before
44:30
2015 they allowed Gulf States to sometimes send in some anti-tank weapons um but this was always
44:38
done in a you know in a way to send a message a political message to the Iranians or to the
44:44
Russians and then it was stopped again and what we see throughout the Muslim world and certainly
44:49
the Arab world next to Israel is that if the dictatorship um agrees to guard Israel security
44:58
if it agrees to police its own people to stop them attacking Israel um nowadays the new Factor if it
45:06
agrees to um stop migrants coming to Europe um I mean even the Libyan militias are being paid
45:14
to torture and in some cases kill Africans who are coming through Libya trying to get to Europe those
45:19
are the priorities if you stop migrants if you make sure there's no resistance to Israel then
45:26
we will support you we'll give you weapons we'll give you money we'll lie on your behalf we'll pretend that you're moderate um if you don't it's a different question so this is this is
45:36
normal policy very sadly it's very shortsighted it's very stupid just at the moment when the West
45:41
is losing power globally um you know we there was this idea after the second world war that as well
45:49
as all the crimes committed by Western Powers as well as the history of colonialism and slavery and
45:55
the rest of it there was also countercurrent which was law international law equality of everybody
46:03
under international law human rights and it seemed for a while maybe you know we could hope that this
46:09
was going to develop and that was going to become the the most prominent part of of Western policy
46:16
and that made sense because the West was losing its power China and other powers are rising um
46:23
but no we've seen very clearly The Masks have come off since since October the 7th we've seen
46:28
very clearly that human rights and law just get thrown out of the window when it comes to Israel
46:35
and and attitudes in general to the Muslim and the Arab world they see us in terms of security
46:42
they don't see us as human beings with the same rights that real human beings have they're not
46:49
really concerned if Ed is um murdering people in the most horrific ways in his dungeons that's okay
46:57
so long as he's not moving on the Goan so long as he's not challenging them in any way at all
47:04
and that's very shortsighted it's very stupid it doesn't help relations between peoples between
47:10
Christians and Muslims between peoples in the west and people in the East and that's what all
47:15
of us should want is a world in which different people can coexist well you know Rob kasab I think
47:22
it's been a fantastic conversation you've added a lot of clarity I think to our convers about Syria
47:27
so thank you so much for your time today thank you for having me it's it's been an honor and a pleasure please remember to subscribe to our social media and YouTube channels and head
47:39
over to our website thinking muslim.com to sign up to my Weekly Newsletter ja
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