As all year, June 20 is celebrated worldwide at the initiative of the United Nations General Assembly planet exile Day. It is simply a time of remembrance of all migrants who for various reasons had to leave their homes and search refuge outside their homeland or in another parts of it.
According to United Nations advanced Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 103 million people were forcibly displaced in the planet in mid-2022. 72% of forced migrants come from only 5 countries in the world: Syria, Venezuela, Ukraine, Afghanistan and South Sudan. UNHCR papers and this literature talk about the powerful scale of illegal smuggling of people from the countries in the past, or in their criminalization of tragedy.
A conflict that began as a brutal suppression of peaceful student protests against the Syrian government on March 15, 2011 and turned into a civilian war caused by the criminal Assad has already lasted 12 years. It is estimated that 15.3 million people (nearly 7 out of 10) in Syria will request life-saving assistance in 2023. Today, Assad and Russian associates make a luck in the tragedy of their own nation to smuggle people into Europe.
Trafficking in human beings makes immense profits.
Several years ago, a erstwhile doctor from Syria described how he made £60,000 a period by transporting illegally people from Turkey to Europe. He besides sent his message to the European Union. He warned the organization that refugees would come to Europe even if all the borders were closed. - If necessary, even the tunnels will be dug," he said.
Abu Mahmoud uses a pseudonym. I don't want to be recognized. His past began in 2012, erstwhile he had to resign for political reasons from working as a doctor in Aleppo.In the last 2 years, he sent about 9,000 people from Turkey to Europe. Each individual charges a fee in different currencies (euro, dollars, pounds). His monthly wage is at least £20,000. For reaching Europe, Abu's ship charges about a 1000 dollars, of which 75 percent go to gang He works for, and 25% is his pure profit. Smuggling to Germany costs about EUR 2 000. For the most desirable Sweden or Norway immigrants pay up to EUR 4,000. Abu is frequently forced to bear additional costs, specified as bribes to police, or buying fresh boats.
The marketplace for smuggling people from Syria or Libya is estimated at $120-150 million per month
We are talking about organized criminal groups from Syria and Russia that specialise in the smuggling of refugees. They usage drug trafficking routes, human trafficking, forgeries of identity cards, etc. They're perfectly prepared due to the fact that they see money in it. Different methods of smuggling refugees are being tested. The pontoons we frequently hear about are just 1 of many elements of this practice. Experimented with helicopters, specially created boats, etc. He and the refugees are besides attempting to smuggle drugs or weapons.
The article I want to urge to readers of my blog present straight addresses the problem of migration to Europe, which for many ends tragically.
Syria and Russia have a disgraceful part in creating the causes of this migration by eagerly participating in the bandit wars of Putin
And that's all with the applause of the electorate, or actually the electoral cattle with the brainwashed Russian propaganda.
That's enough, 'cause I'm gonna compose something else that could origin me problems...
This article I urge especially hot due to the fact that it may open the eyes of the unconscious.
We Syrians, the crimes of Russia did not surprise us
With Syrian-British writer Robin Yassin-Kassab we are talking about the links between the wars in Syria and Ukraine.
Bohumir Krampera, A2larm.cz: What were your thoughts erstwhile Russia invaded Ukraine?
Robin Yassin-Kassab: For Syrians and Syrian people the situation in Ukraine is very traumatic. It brings back memories of erstwhile Russia became active in the war in Syria.
Many people were shocked to see Russia execution Ukrainian civilians, bomb hospitals, schools, and another civilian targets. We Syrians were not surprised. This is Russia's method. In all wars injured are civilians, but in the case of Russia they are frequently the main target.
W Syria's strategy was to destruct the civilian foundations of the revolution, to remove people on which democracy could stand, those who would be able to organise themselves on democratic principles. In Syria, Russia destroyed hospitals and another civilian targets, bakeries, schools, full residential districts. They bombed them many times until annihilation.
Millions of people have become exiles. Desperate refugees tried to scope neighboring countries, Europe, where they were later reused by Russia – this time as a weapon against Europe.
You're talking about a democratic opposition in Syria. But many people in the West in its context talk of arabian jihadists and terrorists, fearing them. Now Russia is trying to do something similar, repeating disinformation about alleged Nazis in Ukraine.
When Russian troops appeared in Syria, jihadist groups actually operated in the country. However, there was a difference between muslim groups aimed at overthrowing Bashar al-Assad and later establishing muslim order in Syria, and global jihadist groups specified as Al-Qaeda and the muslim State which utilized the chaos in the country. The second came from abroad and utilized the war vacuum.
Syrian jihadists thus arose as a consequence of the Assad war against Syrians. erstwhile the revolution began in 2011, they were almost nowhere in the country. Then millions of unarmed people protested and put their lives at hazard in demonstrations in defence of human rights, democracy, ending corruption and the regulation of law. We are talking about all the nationalities and spiritual layers of Syrian society.
To full realize the revolution in Syria, we request to realise how the Assad government has breathed fresh life into muslim and jihadist opposition.
The Assad government has arrested tens of thousands of frequently young, secular and democratic people, while at the same time releasing about 1,500 Islamists and jihadists from prison. Among these people were, for example, Zahran Alloush (commander Jaysh al-Islam) and Hasan Abboud, who founded the Ahrar al-Sham group. Release from prisons of Islamists and jihadists at the same time as the Democrats and laymen were arrested and murdered, was a deliberate maneuver of the Assad regime.
Accused of sympathizing with terrorists and Islamists, the Syrian Revolution has never received comparable support from Western politicians, intellectuals or activists from Ukraine.Why did the West believe specified a communicative about the Syrian Revolution?
I think it was guilty of a mixture of ignorance, racism and Islamophobia, but we were besides disappointed by many opposition politicians in the West, to which I will return.
People think they know a lot about Syria and the mediate East, but they barely truly know anything. They take the cognition they have, say, from Iraq or Palestine, and apply to Syria. For for them it is 1 “Arab world”, it is “Muslims”. This is as absurd as reasoning that you can take cognition of Scotland's politics and put it in Belarus or Texas. And this is simply a grotesque simplification.
Unlike Ukraine, there was no belief that Syrians themselves should be asked about their experiences and opinions.
Is that what you meant by disillusionment with the political opposition in the West?
I was loudly criticizing the left, and any thought it was due to the fact that I was right-wing. Well, I'm surely not. But democracy is fundamental to me. We should look for ways to strengthen, deepen and radicalise it. And I do not think that we should throw mud at liberal democracy or people who are fighting for its substitute at home, surviving in dictatorial regimes themselves.
Democracy is threatened and we should do everything we can to defend it. And the left, I think, over time, lost religion in people and the revolution for freedom and rights, and began to see the planet through the prism of a kind of geopolitical "game of interests". So here we have a very simplified, bipolar image of a planet in which on the 1 hand there are powers like the United States and on the another hand a country like Russia, Iran, India or Brazil. any on the left seem to us to believe that we must support anyone against the United States in order to accomplish any kind of geopolitical balance. That we must support the "anti-imperialist" Iran against the "imperialist" powers like the United States or Israel.
This bipolar worldview is absurd, and it does not aid the people of the powers themselves, nor does it aid the people of Russia or Iran. And it does not solve the problem of imperialism at all, due to the fact that it ignores the fact that Iran can besides be a victim of Western imperialism and itself be an imperialist in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon or Yemen. This makes it clear that almost all countries are seeking to extend their influence to their neighbours or weaker countries.
On social media, a debate late debated whether the greater ally of Putinian Russia is, then, the left or the right. Do you have an answer to that?
Almost everyone has something on their conscience: left, right and centrists. But let us not forget that Russia is something like the office of the far right: duginism, modern fascism, Christian radicalism.
In this context, isn't it a small comic that the marginal Ukrainian regiment of Azov is so frequently exchanged with 1 breath fighting Ukraine? After all, the far right around the planet has been receiving money from Russia for years. rather openly.
Yes, Russia virtually feeds the global far right. Everyone from Orban through Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson to the beginning of neo-Nazi groups receives direct support from Russia. Russia is making no secret of it. It is absurd to divorce over Azov and ignore the fascism of Moscow. I'd like to go back to the left.
That's right, due to the fact that you frequently seem to be more critical of her.
Because if the Syrians expected support in the West in 2011 at all, it was surely not from the right, but from the left. The nationalist or liberal capitalist right does not even pretend to have an interest in supporting progressive or revolutionary movements. She is inherently opposed to them, either not responding to her financial interests or disrupting the prevailing hierarchy.
But we expected support from the Liberals and the Left. We expected them to support a revolution organized from below against a government aimed at democracy and a more just strategy in the state. We took it almost for granted that people like Chomsky, the British Labour Party, or the left wing of the American Democrats would support us. possibly it was our naivety, due to the fact that it was precisely the opposite.
Is this problem of unusual support on the left a long-term trend, or is it something that has arisen in relation to events in Syria?
Of course, this problem is older than the Syrian revolution. A full bunch of leftists supported Milošević in Yugoslavia due to the fact that they thought in terms of clashing powers. The U.S. is fighting on 1 side, so we gotta support the other. This did not mean that there was genocide of Muslims in the erstwhile Yugoslavia.
Chomsky himself denied genocide in Cambodia under Red Khmer. I believe that Chomsky had already been asked in the 1970s to admit publically that he was incorrect about Cambodia. The left should have explicitly rejected disinformation and attempts to negate genocide. If we had done so, possibly we would have more consciously supported the democratic tendencies of the arabian Spring present and rejected those who agreed to view the planet as a clash of empires.
Many leftists inactive hold romanticist positions against past authoritarian crimes. We have people who proudly parade around campuses, saying “I am a maoist”, “I am a Leninist” or “I am a trotskyist” due to the fact that they think it's cool. We should have a serious discussion on this. Mao was liable for killing tens of millions of people. Ignoring this, due to the fact that we like any of his ideology, is simply a truly terrifying form of racism and the suffering of the local population.
Today the communicative of the fascist version of Russian authoritarianism is played in front of our eyes. If the left wants to matter, it must realise it, build a broad consensus on anti-authoritarianism, and push the argument that democracy cannot be a luxury for the chosen, but must be protected, deepened and extended to all those willing.
One leftist with controversial views on Syria and Ukraine is erstwhile British Labour organization leader Jeremy Corbyn. How do you see him?
In 2014, Corbyn utilized a number of arguments in connection with the seizure of Crimea, which today, in almost duplicate form, sound out of the Kremlin. In 2018, erstwhile FSB agents poisoned Skripal and British police provided evidence of Russian responsibility, Corbyn stated it was not so obvious.
Emily Thornberry, who was an expert in abroad affairs in Corbyn's shadow office, raised the issue of White Helmets in the British Parliament (a voluntary civilian defence formation in Syria, which was the mark of the Krellian disinformation – ed.). She demanded that no money from the UK go to the White Helmets because, as she repeated behind the Kremlin, their people are straight linked to Al-Qaeda. Emily Thornberry is inactive in charge of the Labour organization under Keira Starmer. Today, she claims to be anti-putinist, yet a fewer months ago she spread Russian propaganda about Syria in the British Parliament.
Corbyn is 1 of the leaders of the halt The War Coalition, an organization that automatically organized anti-war demonstrations as shortly as the West bombed any warehouse of Assad's weapons. However, they never condemned the force committed by al-Assad, Iran or Russia with equal passion.
Now they make the thesis, not so uncommon on the western left, that Ukraine fundamentally provoked Russia, threatening to enter NATO. In practice, it looks like Corbyn and him are supposedly condemning Russian aggression to add that the further expansion of NATO is simply a much more serious problem.
Quite abstractly, I can even agree with the view that we should not support any military alliances made up of states and that we should effort to make a planet in which specified alliances do not exist. But reality is what it is – countries that in the past were colonized by Russia, do not want to be colonized by it. Which is why they're trying to get to NATO, for example.
If Ukraine had been given the chance to join NATO, its cities would most likely not be destroyed present under Russian fire. But NATO refused due to the fact that it didn't want to upset Russia. That is why present we see a change in Finland and Sweden, which, in consequence to Russian aggression, want to enter its structures. Before we deal with NATO, we gotta deal with Russian imperialism.
I'm truly glad Corbyn isn't in power in Britain right now. erstwhile Corbyn was asked about 1 of Assad's chemical attacks in Douma, he said something like, “You know, we should be very careful and watch what the Saudis do with British weapons.” What precisely did he mean? That a chemical attack in Syria was done by Saudis? Did he mean indirectly that what the Saudis are doing in Yemen is worse than what Asad is doing in Syria, and that is why we should not talk about crimes in Syria?
This is precisely how Russian propaganda and disinformation work. Different half-truths are proclaimed. any are then raised by the right, others by the left. It creates a state of confusion in which no 1 is certain what is actually happening. abruptly there are so many possibilities that it is impossible to have a clear opinion and an assessment. People are incapable to take positions or take any action. It's a terribly dangerous kind of policy, surely not left-wing.
And he's not helping anyone. It does not aid oppressed and poor, it does not aid Palestinians, it does not aid Syrians, it does not aid Ukrainians. This only makes the left little important, but more dangerous.
You are Syrian, activist and journalist, you have constant contact with the opposition and democratically reasoning people in Syria. How do they see the war in Ukraine?
Most of them are curious in Ukraine. They feel they have the same enemy.
But right now, the Syrian democratic revolution has been suppressed. This does not mean that she has been defeated forever, may return in a different form, but she has been destroyed and Russia is guilty. There is besides a part of society that supports the Assad government and so supports Russia, as its government lives only through Russia. The Syrian government would have no power if it were not for the Russian imperialism that feeds it. any Syrians are besides going present to fight alongside Russia against Ukraine. The same is happening in Libya. It's like a scene cut from the 19th century, a classical textbook of imperialism. The French did the same erstwhile in the 1920s they pacified the uprising in Syria and called for troops from Senegal and Morocco to help. The same for the British. Typical imperialist behavior.
The Syrian opposition, which, as I firmly believe, is inactive the majority of the people of my country, is aware of this and sees Russia as an imperialist enemy. Had it not been for Russian bombings, Asad would have lost the war long ago. That's why the Syrians are on the side of Ukraine.
We see demonstrations of support for Ukraine in Idlib, demonstrators waving Ukrainian flags or painting murals expressing opposition to Russia's war in Ukraine. There are even Syrians who would like to join the fighting with Russia and Ukraine. It's just like the Chechens. On the 1 hand traitor to the Chechen people Kadyrov, and on the another hand the Sheik Mansura battalion fighting on the side of Ukraine against Russia for the liberation of Chechnya.
You mentioned the Syrian city of Idlib. In the West, they are frequently viewed as a very simplistic outbreak of terrorism, where almost no 1 has anything against muslim spiritual fanaticism.
I truly don't know if the West will be able to update its views. This truly is not a simple fight between jihadists and secular government. I am constantly trying to explain that the situation in Syria is much more complex than would have been the consequence of reading the Western media.
There is besides an crucial link between allowing Russian crimes in Syria and the arrogance with which Russia marched to Ukraine and began bombing its cities. The European powers had earlier allowed Russia to daily, impunity-free bombing of hospitals or schools in Syria. They were building another Russian gas pipeline at a time erstwhile thousands of Syrian refugees in Europe sought asylum due to Russian bombs falling on their heads.
As we in Europe have so easy taken Russian disinformation about Syria, Russia has believed that it may besides win with the “denasification” of Ukraine. Russian propaganda is harder to spread this ridiculous misinformation just due to the fact that Ukrainians are Europeans, Christians and whites.
As for Idlib and Syria, many people just gave up. The war has already cost besides many of them and focused on survival. Not only in Idlib, but in another territories controlled by Assad. People are very poor, there is no functioning economy, Syria is present a country surviving on the sale of drugs specified as captagon and is mostly controlled by warlords associated with Asad, Russia, Iran, or another situ controlling the country. average people are exhausted and are afraid with uncovering food or money or winter heat.
And of course there's a problem with Turkey. Most of the forces fighting on the side of the revolution against Asad are now under Turkish control and cannot act independently of it. People from the opposition are in different exile camps or in Europe. This is simply a very hard situation. Finally, we must not forget that Russian imperialism is mastering not only Syria, but besides Libya, the countries of the Sahel, the Central African Republic.
What is the link between Russian engagement in Syria and Africa?
Russia de facto controlled exile flows from Syria and utilized them as weapons against Europe. The Sahel countries are profoundly affected by the effects of the climate crisis, terrorism and force are spreading there. It is very likely that, due to the collapse of the countries there, the drought and its consequences, in the next decade we will be witnessing much larger waves of people fleeing to Europe in search of security.
Russia, through its presence, can control these waves and thus influence policies in Europe and proceed to sponsor right-wing anti-immigration, proputin and anti-European parties.
Therefore, the military defeat of Russia in Ukraine and its collapse would be good news not only for the people of Europe, but besides for the mediate East and the Sahel. It would grow the free planet not only there, but besides in Russia itself. I look forward to the defeat of Russia and I hope it will be crushing.
Like decolonizing Russia?
Yes, exactly. It's about decolonization. We'll most likely agree that America shouldn't dictate to Cuba or Venezuela what these countries are expected to do. At the same time, we must respect the fact that Ukraine, a democratic state, can decide for itself the economical direction or military alliances. It is an absolutely imperialist request that Ukraine decide according to what her large neighbour thinks, who, in the past, colonized her. Like France and the United Kingdom, they went through the process of decoloning their own cultures, not always with success, as Russia must do today.
This immense country, which extends from Japan to the border with Finland, is not 1 country. This is an empire. We should support all countries in Central Asia to become more independent and more democratic. Similarly, the countries in the Caucasus. The more independent and democratic they are, the better and safer our planet will be.
Therefore I number on the defeat of Russia, waiting for its fall akin to Nazi Germany at the end of planet War II. I am not saying that I want to see the destroyed Russian cities and millions of Russians without homes, but I hope that Russia as a state and as an empire will be destroyed. Only in this way will the people of Russia and the countries associated with it be able to live more freely and better, based on human rights and dignity for all.
This may besides be an chance for the West to further respect human rights and dignity in the world. It could be a lesson to us. We long accepted misinformation, accepted the execution of people with chemical weapons by Russian services, accepted the annexation of Crimea. The West itself was liable for lying wars, like the 1 in Iraq. This may be an chance to atone for these mistakes and never repeat them again.
I inactive hope so, but after what happened in Syria, I am a small more cynical and pessimistic. I'm not certain people will always learn anything. At the same time, in fresh months, we have seen what has happened in Europe and in the US radically and rapidly.
Of course, I am aware that rising prices will affect society as a full and will origin us many more problems. However, we are at war and I believe that the failure of 3 or 4 percent of GDP in Germany, with all the negative effects, is inactive a better solution than full war. And that's where we're going if we don't halt Putin now.
Why do you think global The South is not very curious in what is happening in Ukraine and why Russia's position in many countries Is the south beautiful good?
The attack on Ukraine is an apparent example of imperialism utilized by 1 of the most destructive empires in history. In this context, it is worth mentioning that it is the same empire that destroyed Muslim communities in Central Asia and which caused violent force to Muslim communities in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Syria.
This is why it is so depressing that many African Muslim states cannot show solidarity with Ukraine and alternatively sympathize with Russia. But it must be said that, above all, we hear in this context what governments and elites and these countries say, not what people think. Many regimes have their reasons not to upset Russia. Russia provides them with weapons, and in any African states, Wagner Groups are fighting on the side of central governments against rebels or jihadists.
But to any degree the society of the Global South is automatically suspicious of the West, remembering its own colonial experiences or fresh excesses, specified as the disastrous business of Iraq. Therefore, they frequently like to believe Russian propaganda about the dangerous expansion of NATO.
The West pays the price for its past crimes and should so weigh its future policies and behaviour more carefully. In the West, this should be considered primarily as a warning, due to the fact that we are entering an era in which the West is only 1 of the many centres of power in the world. If the West wants to gain the support and knowing of the remainder of the world, it must show a willingness to cooperate and comply with global law. We must fight a simplified view of the world, which yet leads desperate people to support 1 imperialism against another. Any imperialism must be rejected.
**
Robin Yassin-Kassab is simply a Syrian-British writer and writer. He was born in London in 1969. He lived and worked in the United Kingdom, France, Pakistan, Turkey, Syria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Oman. He is the author of the fresh Road from Damascus and co-author of the influential book Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War, which in 2017 was featured on shortlists nominated for the prestigious Folio Prize. He was 1 of the Critical Muslim publishers.
The text was published on the website of the Czech social-political magazine A2larm.cz, translated Sławek Blich.
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