Putting the Christmas Spirit in Perspective: Syria Needs Hope to Rebuild

Rasa - Pope Francis says Christmas has been "taken hostage" by dazzling materialism that puts God in the shadows and blinds many to the needs of the hungry, the migrants and the war weary.

News ID: 426034

Date: 25 December 2016 - 22:23

RNA - By “the migrants” and the “war weary” the Pope means hundreds of thousands Syrian refugees who have left the ruins of their country behind to find some hope in Fortress Europe. There are also millions more who are still trapped inside Syria, where after the war they would need all the help they can get from the international community to rebuild their country.

Here, the point is not who wins the war. The point is disrupting the inertia of an unfair US-led campaign that is poised to devastate everything we care about long after the war is over:

The specifics have only become more grotesque these days. It didn’t occur to anyone, for example, that after destroying Syria, the United States and its NATO allies might raise the specter of continuing to impose sanctions on the war-torn country for many more decades to come. They have made it clear that they wouldn't help to rebuild the devastated country unless “Assad goes” and their “moderate” goons have a say in the post-war political establishment.

They know the “Syrian moderate” rhetoric is a hoax; they are surely aware, too, that after liberation of Aleppo the people of Syria no longer want to talk about this national threat, much less support their regime-change agenda. They are all bad news. Many respected international aid agencies and human rights groups have also debunked the myth of “moderate rebel” while at the same time condemning their war crimes and allegiance to ISIL and Al-Qaeda.

It’s like a bad dream; even some Western governments now support military action on these Al-Qaeda-allied zealots. The battle for Aleppo was hard enough with the US and its client states behind the “moderates” -  so with Washington and NATO allies behind the new campaign not to help rebuild post-war Syria, how can its people exercise enough power, enough hope to retain the possibility of a decent future?

At the United Nations where there is still some kind of democracy, passivity is implicit consent too. Here, hopelessness is self-fulfilling. When the international civil society fights this new anti-Syria campaign, the whole world wins. That is, if they have the guts to fight.

Ironically, we should listen to Iran and Russia, who reminded us this month after liberation of Aleppo that “they might win the war on terror, but more will be needed to rebuild Syria.” To understand our power as citizens of the world, we have to remember that in countries where it’s still frowned upon to help Syria, their governments cannot impose sanctions without their people’s consent.

What does that consent look like? It looks like people in the West deciding not to defend their basic rights to freedom and democracy and/or adhere to International Humanitarian Law. It looks like they are shrugging when hundreds of thousands more Syrian refugees are in their ports, and figuring well, they’re going to house them anyway.

It looks like many more refugee camps being built in Europe, because their governments across the Old Continent believe the regime-change campaign when their people believe otherwise; that it has failed – with devastating consequences for their own countries. It looks like people leaving their money in banks that fund this terrible project, because they don’t see how it matters, or they think the banks (their governments) are going to help rebuild Syria. They won't.

All the UN member states, all the human rights groups and aid agencies, all the financial institutions and banks in the world: Syria and its Iranian-Russian allies will win the ongoing War on Terror one way or another. There is no country for terrorists there. No doubt about it.

But for Syria to rebuild itself from scratch it will need all the help it can get from you, the international civil society. Syria cannot rebuild its civilian infrastructures, schools, hospitals, watersheds, farms, roads, airports, railway networks, and many others without your  much-needed support and cooperation.

As the ongoing terror attacks and refugee crisis in Europe as well as death, destruction, chaos, violence and many others have tragically shown in Syria, there are reasons to be deeply disturbed by this “we won't help to rebuild Syria” rhetoric even without considering the terrifying urgency of a post-war reconstruction plan.

When the people of good conscience in the West do consider that terrifying urgency, they understand that what the current anti-Syria rhetoric really carries is the end of humanity. They cannot simply let their political system continue this self-defeating policy. They can and they should put the Christmas spirit in perspective and find the most inspiring, safe, and effective ways possible to force their governments to reckon with the Syrian crisis. There are many rotten legs they can kick. Merry Christmas.

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