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Statement by two participants of the full plenary, first evening of the “Civil March For Aleppo”

26.12.2016

Julia and Ansar

We are very sad to announce why we felt we had to step back from supporting or participating in the “March to Aleppo”. We did actually put hope in this march, even if we didn't support all things said by the organizing group in the pretext, but we want to make clear that we really wished it to be successful.

First we want to quote parts of the marches' manifesto which have lead many of us to support this march, as we believed it is actually taking a position of solidarity:
“We’ve been taught submission to war. We’ve been taught to be afraid of the powerful who pull the strings. […] But we refuse to take it anymore. We’ve just withdrawn our consent. We’re ready to deny powerlessness.
[...] We will not tolerate the siege of Aleppo anymore.”
Mentioning for an example the siege on Aleppo, means mentioning the perpetrator which is -the Syrian regime and its allies. There is a political will to commit systematic sieges on whole communities, in this case we can not accept a fairy tale of separating human rights and political issues from one another as was later on enforced on us by members of the organizing team.
As the two people writing this statement, we want to be clear that we were not just sidelining witnesses to the unfolding debate within the march, but participated in this specific evening assembly and do not want to be neutral.
Ansar had actually planned to participate in the march, Julia was asked by several participants to support moderating during evening discussions if necessary. This necessity already arose on the first evening of the march.
That an urgent discussion was imminent was not surprising after the march had just started off from Berlin and organizers had created an awe of shock for several participants by informing them that the Syrian revolution flag would not be permitted and Anna Alboth saying: “I don't know who is doing the bombing in Syria and I don't want to know”.

Already at this starting point in the morning the banning of the Syrian revolution flag and the try of de-politization of the matters lead to several participants to leave the march. But some, even though un-happy about what happened, did continue as they put hopes in this collective action and also in a collective process to discuss, solve and clarify. For many it was hopeful to at last see an action like this in solidarity with the people in Syria being bombed and displaced, like just happened in Aleppo.

After having arrived the first tour stop, a general assembly of all participants was called to come together.

Anna Alboth, the initiator of the march opened the assembly, saying some welcoming words, accompanied by a short excuse for her statement in the morning and further giving mere notice on practical issues in a top-down approach. She then meant to close the assembly on which until then only she had spoken.

At this point several participants intervened and demanded to discuss collectively on the stated goals goals of the march, their need to express the struggle they come from (meaning the Syrian revolution) and its very symbol, the flag of the Syrian revolution, just as the need to point out the actual perpetrators of war crimes in Syria.

Tensions quickly became quite high and efforts needed to be made to keep everybody together and actually start an open discussion. This was when Julia offered to moderate for enabling a plenary of about 100 people who until then hardly knew each other. This discussion was also meant to fill the obvious gaps between the small faction of organizers and the many participants who -as we understand- should be part of the collective process a march like this can only be.

Of course it is naturally given on such an occasion that over 100 people coming together for an action like this are from various backgrounds: places of origin, political knowledge or experience and especially on the given topic they were marching for: Aleppo/Syria.

There was an Arabic speaking corner, translated by Ansar which consisted of about 15 people. We also tried to point out that for taking measures of group and self care, accurate translations must be available at all times, filming or recording (that was already taking place) must be agreed upon and rotating moderation should be considered to give a group of people such as this a chance to grow together. All these things were clearly not prepared for, but most people present committed to take care of this collectively in future.

How do we now describe the discussion that evolved over the next several hours?

It is important to notice, that it was Syrians present who opened up the topics needed to be discussed. It was the organizers that had on the one side answered with “we love to listen to Syrian's and their stories”, but on the other side they were trying to block discussing with the argument of having already discussed and decided as a core group in the pretext of the march.

Now people strongly voiced their disagreement and expressed their frustration of feeling a creation of an obvious line of separation between a mainly European decision making group and many Syrian people present (and non-present) on who's behalf this group claimed to act.

This was not diffused by any of the organizing team, but many of the other non-Syrian participants did acknowledge the legitimacy of the the Syrian struggle and expressed their solidarity with it.

Many people present said, this march can not go along and ignore the cores of the struggle for freedom, democracy and dignity in Syria as expressed by the Syrians, or without mentioning the perpetrators of violence against just this struggle. So, the discussion continued.

As a symbol that represents exactly this struggle, the flag became also a symbol within this discussion. The discussion lasted several hours. Repeatedly Syrians and non-Syrians connected to the revolution had to explain the simple meanings of the flag to an organizing group that seemingly had not done their homework.
A lot of constructive proposals came up, such as offering information evenings throughout the march, showing movies about the situation in Syria, giving briefing on historical events that lead to the revolution and how it unfolded. These proposals were welcomed by many present and should lead to a way out of the dilemma of the lack of knowledge and empower participants.

To cut things short, many arguments arose throughout this discussion: The aspects of colonial behavior when determining for others, what solidarity is or can be, basic steps on how to start an action as a core group and make it a collective one, the importance of listening and the possibilities of different beliefs under one common umbrella.

It was a fruitful discussion and let many understandings actually develop. For this we are extremely thankful. For example the issue mentioned above on the importance of an anti-colonial discourse, which as people pointed out can not be left aside when people start to march for other people's causes.

It also needed to be clarified for many Europeans present, that most Syrians who wanted to join the march would not be able to walk more than a few days with it, as they do not share the privilege to cross even the first border.

People supporting the Syrian revolution expressed clearly that they don't demand from people to hold up their flag, but that it is too hurtful and unacceptable for them to be pressured to deny what is important to them. Furthermore it is those who dared this revolution who in return are being bombed into submission in Syria by the Syrian regime and it's allies.

A decision was taken to vote at last and determine how people in the whole assembly felt on visible symbols. The results were clear: almost everybody in the room voted for letting the revolution flag be present.

When asked if anybody was strictly against the presence of the flag, three people expressed this still being a concern for them. As a moderator Julia mentioned the possible practice of trying to reach a consensus rather than enforcing only the will of a majority (which was to keep the Syrian revolution flag).

To find a possibility for these last three of about 100 people to feel comfortable, the collective decision was made to continue to temporarily accept the presence of the Syrian revolution flag at the march for the next day and to continue the discussion on the following evening. This included the repeated offers to explain the meanings of the flag, it's history and symbolism and really using the march and the time spent together to learn about the actual struggles and causes in Syria from various backgrounds.

In our eyes this is really important, as a main goal defined by the organizers throughout the discussion was “to end the conflict in Syria” and “just wanting peace”, but the lack of knowledge by the organizers and many participants of just the basics of the conflict they declare wanting to end, was so abundantly clear. Outstanding was also the lack of will on the side of many organizers to actually take a position of solidarity.

This morning should perform itself as another shock: when the march was just about to start moving, the organizers called three of the Syrian people to their side and informed them that “over night we changed our minds” and now once again they were not permitting the flag to be present. They also let them know, that they had informed the police about this decision, which inevitably means that they had even taken the steps to instrumentalize police force against participants.

The few participants presented with these orders demanded a public announcement of this and an explanation, which was refused. The big crowd was not informed and had already started walking not knowing of these happenings, which deepens the impact of undemocratic imposing of decisions taken by few against all.

For nearly all Syrians and also some others the march that had started just one day earlier ended here.

It is a pity: the long discussion was important and resultful. To override the whole assembly's decisions is ignorant towards the people and the cause that was discussed, but also towards any democratic process in any collective action.

We want people to be informed about this. The underlying structures we have tried to describe here must change. As they are for now as such, we have decided to step back from the march.

http://civilmarch.org

facebook.com/CivilMarchForAleppo/
facebook.com/events/979588475478509/

The statement is written by two persons and was originally published on Facebook: facebook.com/zihni.sabit.3/posts/661911340656400