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SZANUJEMY TWOJĄ PRYWATNOŚĆ

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Featured Post


POST-ASSAD, THINK SMALL 

Now is the time to erase the colonial boundaries Sykes and Picot drew that
defined the region for a century
Dec 9, 2024, 2:58 PM
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Please note that the posts on The Blogs are contributed by third parties. The
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responsibility for them. Please contact us in case of abuse. In case of abuse,
Report this post.
Iraqi Kurds fly an Israeli flag and Kurdish flags during an event to urge people
to vote in the upcoming independence referendum in Erbil, the capital of the
autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on September 16, 2017. (AFP/Safin
Hamed)


The West made many, many mistakes after the lightning-fast fall of Sadaam
Hussein’s dictatorial regime in Iraq. The biggest one, I would argue, is that it
imagined there is such a thing as Iraq. Meaning, Iraq as a territory delineated
with a fat marker on an early 20th century map by the Englishman Sir Mark Sykes
and the Frenchman François Georges-Picot. Iraq, an entity including Sunni and
Shia Arabs, Kurds, Yazidis, Assyrians, Marsh Arabs, and others, without regards
to their history or preference, all smashed together by imperial logic and
beaten into submission by its iron fist.

Now, twenty years later, we have a chance to learn from our mistakes. Instead of
thinking big and seeking to preserve Syria in the hope that it will evolve into
a multiethnic democracy, we have the opportunity to think small: to support
those peoples oppressed by colonial masters who seek self-determination in
smaller states and enclaves defined by their community allegiances, reflecting
their values, customs, and traditions.

Thinking small on Syria begins with recognizing the lie that is the Arab/Muslim
Middle East. Sure, all nations and political communities are one way or another
made up, or, in the words of Benedict Anderson, ‘imagined.’ The difference
between what moral people should support and what they shouldn’t lies in the
source of the imagination. When a community shares a self-image as a sovereign
nation, moral people should support their self-determination. When a power seeks
to imagine for others how they should live, such imposition should be rejected
as either direct or indirect imperialism.

Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, to name a few colonially determined countries in our
region, were all imagined by others and imposed on those living on the land.
They remained together because minorities in power – such as Syria’s Allawites –
imposed their will on diverse peoples who would have preferred not to be ruled
by others. Distinct cultural groups who were put down brutally when they sought
to express their collective desire for independence.

Attempts to maintain Syria, or Lebanon, or Iraq, should be understood as the
blatant support for imperialist violence that they are. Attempts to keep down
the Kurds living within borders imagined by Ankara or Damascus are genocidal, if
we are to use the phrase as defined by Amnesty International and its vocal
supporters across international institutions. Moral people should oppose such
collective oppression at every turn.

Unlike Israel, born when the Jewish community living in the land of its
ancestors fought off invading armies who sought to impose their vision of
colonial boundaries upon them. Unlike Israel, where a distinct community seeks
to maintain its independence within a political entity that reflects its
history, its culture, its traditions. Unlike Israel, which has a lot to fix with
its own minorities who deserve their own self-determination, and yet is the only
expression in the region of an ancient people’s rebirth post-conquest.

Which is why, as the dust settles from the haboob sweeping the Levant, we have
an opportunity to put an end to imperialism in the region, one independent
people at a time. We have a chance to think small: small, independent political
entities who work together in federation to protect their independence from
Iranian and Turkish imperial ambitions. We have a chance to check our
assumptions at the door opened by Assad’s departure and stop imagining that the
land formerly known as Syria needs to exist as a single entity. Or Lebanon. Or
Iraq.

Those of us far from the front lines and outside the circles of power have a job
to do in these liminal days: to think and speak of the small, of the minority
groups and their needs. By challenging the discourse to justify why it
prioritizes a solution for ‘Syria’ or ‘Lebanon’ as opposed to the distinct
peoples living within those colonial boundaries who have sought for so long to
govern their own affairs. By recognizing that loyalty to past boundaries is a
perpetuation of the oppression of those groups whose voices deserve to be heard.
By answering the Kurdish call for help, for supporting the Assyrians and Yazidis
in need. By taking their case to the nations.

By thinking and speaking small, we can open a window of opportunity for
policymakers to make different choices than they did twenty years ago. We can
support efforts to aid the Kurds to finally build their State, to aid the
Maronites to determine their own destiny without asking the Sunni and Shia for
permission. We can support the Assyrians and Yazidi as they seek to define their
own destiny. We can urge the world to take advantage of Assad’s cowardly retreat
into the Russian empire to finally end imperialism in the Middle East.

About the Author
Ariel Beery is a strategist and institution builder dedicated to building a
better future for Israel, the Jewish People, and humanity. His geopolitical
writings - with deeper dives into the topics addressed in singular columns - can
be found on his substack, A Lighthouse.
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