2254: No Longer Only a Tool to Overcome the Crisis, but also One of the Two Conditions to Achieve the “New Independence”

Today, Syria and Syrians are again at a historical crossroads, and at stake is Syria’s territorial integrity and its people’s unity. While some of the details might differ, there are many similarities, and certainly, the goal at its crux is the same: to get Syria and Syrians out of this crisis safely and united.

Syria in 1946: A Global Lens

Looking at Syria becoming fully independent from France in 1946, but with a wider geographical and temporal angle, we can get a better read of the conditions that led to that moment in Syria’s history. The April 17, 1946 evacuation of the last of the French troops came a coronation of a struggle that lasted throughout the presence of the French/British colonizers. This takes us back to WWI and its outcomes, especially the numerous revolutions going on at the time in different parts of the world, the most prominent of which was the October Revolution, following which the Soviet Union emerged and gradually became a global superpower, a character it definitively acquired during WWII.

It was then that it became clear that the existing world balance was being challenged, and a new one was inevitably going to form to replace it. That point of change, if we were to choose one, was WWII, after which the world was effectively divided into three groups of countries:

• The first group: the socialist/communist camp, led by the Soviet Union
• The second group: the capitalist/old colonialist camp, led by the US, and to a lesser extent, the UK and France
• The third group: the rest of the world, which at this point was for the most part under control or occupation of the second group

The third group became a critical factor in the conflict between the first group and the second group, where the third group included many countries that were either controlled by one of the countries in the second group or a colony thereof. This was the case for Syria. Thus, one of the battles between the first two groups was manifested in the first group, mainly the Soviet Union, supporting the independence of countries from the third group and getting them out of the shadows and control of the second group (that it the West), which was in turn seeking to perpetuate and continue occupying and plundering the resources of the occupied countries or colonies.

The Soviet Union played a huge role in many countries’ independence and provided significant support to that end with various economic and military means and tools, as well as legal and political support, like in international forums such as the UN. However, this is not to say that the third group’s countries’ peoples had no role in any of this. To the contrary, many of these countries, as we noted above with regards to Syria, were already witnessing some kind of widespread patriotic movement or even revolution, which when combined with the new world balance resulted in their independence from their colonizers.

Syria’s Independence

If we go back to Syria, with the new world balance emerging after WWII and following struggle that lasted from the moment the European occupier set foot on Syrian territory and until the moment it left, precisely due to this struggle that was stubborn, solid, and dedicated, Syria was a prime candidate to gain its independence before any other country, which is exactly what happened.

Syria had been placed under French mandate after WWI, which utilized the traditional colonization tools of having boots on the ground to directly control all aspects – militarily, economically, socially, culturally, politically, etc. Among other tools that the French and British used to weaken the state and the people, was to attempt partitioning the country into several states, and to attempt perpetuating sectarian and ethnic divisions among the people who share one country and one history. The repression and plundering were carried out directly by the occupation forces, and therefore, becoming independent meant expelling the occupation and taking control of all aspect of life in the country. This required a will and determination by Syrians to maintain Syria’s territorial integrity and cut off ties with the occupation, which fulfills the important criterion of the will of the people.

Additionally, within the new world balance coordinates, this required the support by the socialist/communist camp that was standing up to the second group – that is the imperialist/capitalist camp, which sought to continue controlling countries from the third group in order to continue feeding the Western plundering machine, and in the framework of competing with the socialist camp for international dominance.

On the other bank, the socialist/communist camp wanted to reduce the size of the third group and tip the balance more in its favor, which it could achieve by assisting countries to become independent and detached from imperialist/capitalist countries. This was the second important criterion of a new world balance.

Syria happens to be not only an example of having available the aforementioned two conditions or criteria, but a perfect example of that, as it was one of the first countries to gain independence from the old imperialist powers, and more importantly, without letting the old occupier have any privileges in Syria. It was a true independence and cutting off with the old occupier, followed by Syrians themselves taking control of their own country and overcoming all the conditions that France had created to weaken Syria and Syrians.

Interestingly, the first veto ever used in the UN Security Council, was by the Soviet Union on a resolution relating to the evacuation of the Anglo-French troop from Syria and Lebanon. This was discussed during meetings of the Security Council 14-16 February 1946. The Soviet veto was based on the refusal to make said evacuation subject to negotiations, and then-Soviet representative, Vyshinsky, stated that if “negotiations whether Anglo-French troops are to be withdrawn from Syria and Lebanon or not, then such a resolution is absolutely unacceptable.” Thus, making it clear that the withdrawal of troops from Syria and Lebanon must happen and cannot be conditioned on anything. He further added: “The Security Council does not exist in order to protect the peace of mind of every member of the Council; it exists in order to protect the sovereign rights of all the United Nations, to protect their sovereignty from encroachment of any kind from any source, to safeguard peace and the security of peoples.”

Syria and the World Today

The world today is going through something similar to what was happening around the time of WWII, at least in the sense that the existing unipolar world balance is crumbling, and a new world balance is forming.

In essence, there are some similarities in the process of moving from the old to the new balance, in which the “Third World” countries are once again a major axis of conflict, between an international system that seeks to subjugate them and turn them into a place of plundering, and a system that sees in their independence a necessity to protect them and protect itself from the historical plundering of the West.

The major problem is that ending colonialism in its old form without completing the battle to the end against capitalism itself as a world system, specifically post-Stalin (i.e., the policy of “peaceful coexistence” and so on), has allowed the West to move from direct traditional colonialism to building the economic neo-colonial system that laid its foundations around the mid-sixties.

The tools of that colonialism were primarily economic (price cuts, loans, brain drain, technological dependency), and this certainly required a political completion so that the regimes of the “newly independent” Third World countries would be transformed into proxies for the West, practicing double plundering, in their interest as regimes and in the interest of the West. This undoubtedly requires, with time, the development of repressive tools to silence the peoples from objecting to the brutal plundering to which they are subjected.

Syria became independent from the French in 1946, and thus became “politically” independent, but this independence was not complete in its other aspects -- economic, cultural, legal, etc. Additionally, Syria is currently experiencing a crisis, one of the main aspects of which is the de facto partition (which is similar to where it was before independence), through which the West, in addition to all other tools, is trying to prevent Syria and Syrians from emerging from this crisis safe and united.

Our Mission

Today’s conditions are much more complex than they were 75 years ago, which makes the mission we are trying to accomplish also more complicated than the one our forefathers achieved. Theirs was not an easy struggle by any measure, as they had to wage a tumultuous struggle to expel the occupier and have Syrians get control of their own country. However, today’s mission is to become politically as well as economically independent.

UNSC Resolution 2254 is an international legal expression of the first external condition (from the two aforementioned conditions needed to achieve independence), which resembles to a large extent the first Security Council veto that not coincidentally was specifically related to Syria, and it was by the Soviet Union in defense of an unconditional independence of Syria and the evacuation therefrom of the occupying forces without restrictions or conditions.

This one aspect of Resolution 2254, that is the one related to preserving the unity, sovereignty, and independence of Syria. However, another aspect thereof is also the Syrian people’s right to self-determination, which is not only an entry point for resolving the crisis, but also an entry point and tool to defend Syria’s unity and survival. This is because preserving Syria now requires restoring to the Syrian people the power over their country, in all areas, and certainly among which, and on an equal footing with democratic and national rights, the issue of a fair distribution of wealth so that it is in the hands of the real producers, that is, the general population of Syria.

Our mission is to continue the struggle that our forefathers started over a century ago, through which Syria got independence 75 years ago. Now, we must achieve independence from the new colonizer, politically and economically, and that cannot be achieved without ending the domestic plundering machine and proxies. In a word, it will not be achieved by simply ending the external domination and having “Syrians” get a hold of power in Syria. Rather, the new Syrian system that will get a hold of power should be a true representative of the overwhelming crushed majority of the Syrians, not a representative of a plundering economic minority.

(Arabic version)