{"id":8036,"date":"2019-08-28T21:42:33","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T04:42:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=8036"},"modified":"2019-08-30T04:22:14","modified_gmt":"2019-08-30T11:22:14","slug":"message-of-the-day-human-rights-war-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=8036","title":{"rendered":"Message of the Day: Human Rights, War"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Sama\u00a0al-Kateab, Allepo, 2016, The Observer,<\/em> 25 August 2019<\/span><\/p>\n

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Comfort the afflicted. Afflict the comfortable.<\/p>\n

The former requires the latter.<\/p>\n

So, in the late days of August for the comfortable, we bring affliction.<\/p>\n

Fix your eyes on a baby girl in Syria. Then on her millions of sisters and brothers. And then millions of adults suffering, dying, resisting, running to save the children and themselves when they can, endlessly.<\/p>\n

Three million people are at risk as we write in Syria, in the northern Idlib province. Actually, many more. This on top of the hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of displaced refugees over the past several years, in what has often been described as the greatest catastrophe of its kind since World War Two.<\/p>\n

The proximate cause has been the butchery of the Bashar Al-Assad dictatorship in collusion with Russia and Iran, drawing in or chasing out and enabled by–everyone–including US policy or the lack thereof, and that of the UK and Europe as well. ISIS and other extremist groups were launched or kept alive by the Syrian blood bath, with the original moderate majority of Syrians in resistance increasingly destroyed; Turkey has been pulled and pulls in all directions and is dealing with millions of refugees; Israel and Iran are increasingly at war in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon; the Saudis in Yemen are an offshoot of this chaos in many ways; Jordan is over-run with refugees. And the next wave is headed for Europe, again.<\/p>\n

History and karma redux, maybe times Armageddon.<\/p>\n

As we’ve noted during our series, The End Of Civilization As We Knew It<\/em>, a direct line can be drawn from Syria to the hyper-sped up disintegration of the international order and values at least aspired to in the World War Two aims in defeating fascism. Of course, it was a moment as a lever created by many forces and events over many years. As we’ve pointed out relentlessly, the lack of equality in basic needs and rights for all is at the core of what’s occurred. And the context of the age of weapons of mass destruction and now the digital age has amplified everything in ways that can’t be overstated.<\/p>\n

Any possibility of hope and survival as a species starts with not averting our eyes.<\/p>\n

Today, we focus on what has happened and is happening, in Syria.<\/p>\n

We salute The Observer in London for forcing us to not avert our eyes.<\/p>\n

Here are two articles from Sunday’s edition.<\/p>\n

The first is an editorial. It sums up the situation briefly and powerfully. It is critical<\/em> that the reader go to the links in the editorial, and then the links in the linked articles, which go back years, for a full view of what has occurred. It will be a fair amount of reading, but compared to what? Being a baby girl in Syria running from Assad’s bombs?<\/p>\n

The second is an interview with and overview from\u00a0award-winning Syrian journalist Waad al-Kateab–a revelatory read and experience. Her new documentary film is a history of what has happened in Syria, from the most human on the ground perspective possible. As a mother, with the film dedicated to her daughter, born in Aleppo in 2016, and featured in the film.<\/p>\n

Aleppo.<\/p>\n

A place that made the White Helmets famous.<\/p>\n

A place that compelled courageous journalists of the likes of CNN’s chief international correspondent, Clarissa Ward, while reporting from what WBUR’s profile of her called “the most dangerous country in the world”, to beg the audience and the world to wake up and act.<\/p>\n

A place, and a word, that will, with certainty, echo through history.<\/p>\n

Even more so in the future, if there is one, when individuals in the main value the learning and memory of it once again.<\/p>\n

The documentary by al-Kateab, For Sama<\/em>, which won Best Documentary at Cannes this year and other such awards, is opening at cinemas starting in Portland in 48 hours, then throughout the UK, and broadcast there on Channel 4 and on the acclaimed PBS Frontline in the US in the Fall.<\/p>\n

Keep your eyes on the venues and schedules.<\/p>\n

Do.Not.Miss.It.<\/p>\n

Here are the articles:<\/p>\n

“The Observer view on Syria and the west\u2019s shameful failure to act”<\/a><\/p>\n

Editorial, The Observer, London, 25 August 2019<\/p>\n

The slaughter in Idlib is intensifying and millions have nowhere to go. The whole stability of the Middle East is at risk<\/em><\/p>\n

The crisis in Syria does not feature high on the agenda at this weekend\u2019s G7 summit in Biarritz. The absence of two key players \u2013 Russia and Turkey \u2013 means any substantive initiatives are unlikely. Donald Trump has washed his hands of the conflict, although Pentagon chiefs are resisting his demand<\/a> to withdraw all US forces. European leaders, beset by many other urgent problems, seem to prefer not to think about Syria at all.<\/p>\n

This attitude is intolerably shortsighted. Western governments\u2019 neglect<\/a> of the eight-year war and, in particular, its impact on civilians is a sadly familiar phenomenon, but no more acceptable for being predictable. Their involvement has been sporadic and uneven, spurred from time to time by headline events such as chemical weapons attacks or war crimes too horrific to ignore. The campaign against Islamic State (Isis) was given priority.<\/p>\n

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Civilians flee a conflict zone in Syria\u2019s rebel-held region of Idlib. Photograph: Omar Haj Kadour\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The price of this collective failure to tackle head-on one of the greatest strategic challenges of our time is now being paid, once again, by Syria\u2019s population. In Idlib, north-west Syria<\/a>, more than 3 million people are under fire from Syrian regime forces, backed by Russian bombers and artillery. More than 800 noncombatants have died since April. At least half-a-million civilians, many previously displaced, have fled towards the Turkish border.<\/p>\n

Despite repeated appeals for help by the UN, aid agencies and local organisations such as the White Helmets, the slaughter and mayhem are intensifying following last week\u2019s fall to Bashar al-Assad\u2019s troops of the southern Idlib town of Khan Sheikhoun.<\/a> The plight of the fleeing population is compounded by Turkey\u2019s reluctance to accept more refugees and its determination to force <\/a>many among 3.6 million Syrians already in Turkey out of the big cities and back across the border.<\/p>\n

If not out of compassion then for reasons of narrow self-interest, western leaders must pay more attention. Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan, Turkey\u2019s president, has helped hold the line in Idlib since last year, when he set up military observation posts to keep regime forces, rebels and jihadists apart. But this arrangement is falling apart. Last week a Turkish convoy was attacked, prompting Erdo\u011fan to seek an emergency meeting<\/a> with Vladimir Putin, his Russian counterpart.<\/p>\n

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\"President<\/picture><\/div>
President Erdo\u011fan shakes hands with Vladimir Putin in Osaka, June 2019. Photograph: POOL New\/Reuters<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If a politically weakened Erdo\u011fan loses patience, the consequences could be dire. In line with previous Turkish operations in al-Bab, Afrin and Azaz, he could order more military incursions into Syria to create what Ankara calls refugee \u201csafe havens\u201d. He may further challenge the pro-western Syrian Kurds\u2019 control of areas east of the Euphrates. And by blocking the main escape route<\/a> for Idlib\u2019s civilians, he could trigger another mass refugee exodus in the direction of Europe, similar to what happened in 2015.<\/p>\n

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All this matters greatly for the wider stability of the Middle East. Despite Turkey\u2019s view of them as terrorists, Syria\u2019s Kurds, backed on the ground by US and British special forces, are a vital element in the unfinished fight against Isis. Reports across the region speak of a significant Isis resurgence<\/a> in northern Syria and Iraq. Sleeper cells <\/a>have reportedly mounted 43 attacks in Syrian Kurdish areas since late July. There is even a suspicion that Turkey is covertly assisting them.<\/p>\n

At the same time Israel, with Trump\u2019s blessing and possibly Putin\u2019s too<\/a>, is using Syrian chaos to widen an undeclared war with Iran. It has launched numerous airstrikes on Iranian forces and their proxies inside Syria. Now it is expanding its campaign to include Iranian targets in Iraq. Munitions warehouses and a military base north of Baghdad used by Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards were hit in recent, unacknowledged Israeli strikes. These escalations presage ever-deepening instability.<\/p>\n

Idlib, Isis, Israel-Iran: it is a toxic mix. And all are byproducts of the west\u2019s abject failure to move decisively to halt the Syrian war.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

“\u2018My daughter was raised during the siege of Aleppo. I had to make a film for her\u2019”<\/a><\/p>\n

Kate Kellaway, Documentary films, The Observer, London, 25 August 2019<\/p>\n

For Sama, a new documentary from award-winning Syrian journalist Waad al-Kateab, has won global acclaim. She talks about filming and family life on the frontline<\/em><\/p>\n

T<\/span><\/span>he camera focuses on Sama\u2019s face. She is the sweetest baby and looks, at first glance, as though her life might be ordinary. Her eyes are a transitory newborn colour, greyish green, waiting to turn brown. Her gold earrings look over-large in her tiny ears. Sama means sky in Arabic \u2013 a sky, as her mother imagines it, where no bombs fall, with ordinary clouds and sunshine. So far, this is footage that could be the work of any doting parent, but Sama\u2019s mother is journalist Waad al-Kateab and this is her documentary For Sama<\/em>, filmed during the Syrian war. In the film al-Kateab sings a lullaby that almost lulls us \u2013 if not Sama \u2013 into a false sense of security. Sama is chewing her toe investigatively, as babies do, when a tank shell explodes. It sounds like a nightmare next-door neighbour heaving heavy furniture about and there is a shout: \u201cDownstairs, downstairs, there\u2019s another one coming\u2026\u201d It is the summer of 2016, the beginning of the siege of Aleppo<\/a>. The camera loses focus, swerves incoherently. Al-Kateab calmly asks someone to \u201ctake Sama\u201d. By now, the shells are deafening.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis is insane \u2013 we\u2019re getting this every day,\u201d she goes on in her low, musical voice \u2013 her calm as abnormal as her situation (during the siege there were cluster bombs, chlorine gas, barrel bombs and air strikes). There is fire at the end of their corridor and smoke pours in. They live in the hospital that her husband, Hamza, has started from scratch. And now they are moving a baby on life support and Hamza is shouting: \u201cCome on! We need to pump the ventilators by hand.\u201d In the dark, al-Kateab calls out: \u201cWho\u2019s got Sama?\u201d<\/p>\n

A UN spokesman recently said the world had become \u201cnumb to the carnage\u201d in Syria<\/a> after more than eight years of war and that even the rising death toll in Idlib \u2013 the country\u2019s last rebel-held stronghold \u2013 was being met by \u201ca collective shrug\u201d. No wonder al-Kateab feared her film \u2013 which starts with the peaceful protests against President Bashar Al-Assad in 2011 and goes on through the Arab spring to the sacking of Aleppo by regime forces in 2016 \u2013 would be greeted with indifference. But the reaction has been unanimous and overwhelming: audiences in every country in which the film has been shown stand and clap (at Cannes in May, they apparently did so for six minutes).<\/p>\n