Thank-you Reflections beyond Peace Conference in Istanbul

Peoples do want Peace: Thank-you Reflections beyond Peace Conference in Istanbul and Antakya, 7^th May 2013 .

The organizers of a great and energizing peace event end of April 2013 in Turkey, who hosted some of us for one week, deserve our heartfelt feelings of gratitude and admiration for the great job they have done. Most of their collaborators worked on a voluntary basis beside their job. And yet, everything was organized in just a perfect manner. It was the donations of small people, of the Turkish Peace Association, the TKP and the World Peace Council who made this important gathering of peace activists from around the globe in one of the most beautiful metropolis of the world with 20 million inhabitants, not only possible, but turned it into a pleasant event. The two major highlights were doubtlessly the peace concert in Antakya, near the Turkish-Syrian Border and the Mayday Rally on Kadiköy Square, events that assembled tens of thousands of people.

What we have learned apart from all the insight, that we gathered through meetings with Union leaders, Majors, MPS, Lawyers, Medical Doctors and representatives of different people's associations, women's projects, Artists, Musicians, was, that a brotherhood of men is still conceivable and reachable in the near future. Life is all about people and their well-being. Steps towards human happiness can be brought about through truly co-operative efforts within a short period of time. What we have to do more, and there we can learn a lot from our Turkish comrades, is to study harder in order to understand the true origins of the conflicts at stake. We can and must also learn from our US-American brothers and sisters, from the Nordic people, the Latin Americans and the Middle Eastern Resistance Movements. We must understand and explain to others the true nature of the most burning conflict that brought us together this time. It is the dirty neocolonial, imperialist war against Syria, in which Turkey as a neighboring country plays an especially dirty role. Of course it does so as a member of NATO, sharing its imperialist strategies. The war against Syria is an undeclared war, fought with especially brutal and vicious methods, accompanied by a black propaganda that would have even turned even Mr. Goebbels pale. As we have learned from lawyer Adel Omer from Damascus, the only one representative from Syria who dared to go on this dangerous journey, the brutality of the rebels knows no boundaries what so ever. These people are recruited from all war zones of this planet and from elsewhere. They are heavily equipped with high tech means of communication and they receive endless weaponry supply from across the many borders Syria has. Internal critique of government policy must be turned down low key by now, Adel Omer taught us. In his eyes it was of course the neoliberal policy concept that weakened Syria before the aggression had started early in 2011. The present government was eager to compromise with Western proposals, as we have seen it in other countries, who later became victims of NATO aggression. But now is the moment for patriotic forces to rally behind their government and to defend their country's sovereignty. And the Syrian people have done so for over two years by now. No government in the world, Omar explains, can stand through such extreme pressures without strong support from its citizens. The Conservative Christian Democratic German politician and journalist, Jürgen Todenhöfer, has expressed similar views these days, when he says, that there is no peaceful opposition in Syria any more. And yes, let us help understand others: Syria has to cope with yet another neo-colonial attack, an attack as it has suffered from many times before in history. The many minorities in this ancient part of the world are threatened with extermination, the Christians have already been driven out of the country, deprived of their sometimes rich properties by people who claim to defend Western values. Syria's wonderful cultural heritage is in the process of being destroyed as we have seen it before happen in Afghanistan, in Iraq and in Libya and as we are witnessing right now in Mali, Africa. It seems easy to comprehend that this pseudo internal war is not being supported by the Syrian people. It was only a tiny minority that could up to now be bought up by imperialist efforts. The higher their rank and position in society the higher the price that was payed for their betraying their home-country. But as we learned from Adel Omar, from the lawyer, the certified journalist, an academic who speaks five languages fluently, including German, there are still 250 000 devoted members of the Syrian Communist Party, defending their homeland with their hearts and minds. This, apart from their longterm solidarity with the Palestinian cause, may be another reason why Syria is under such heavy attack. For the rest it is all for geopolitical reasons of course, for gaz near the costal lines, for concurring pipelines, for imperialistic hegemonic dreams of other nations who want to bully the region.

This “war” is different, Adel Omer explains. An open NATO-interference is unlikely to occur in his eyes. Syria is being ruined by a contra Guerrilla-strategy and economically strangled. Such an undeclared war can continue for a long time, he says. Already the victims are almost countless, about 500 martyrs die every day, he thinks.

In the meantime the bordering countries suffer, too. The peoples of Turkey suffer, especially in the bordering province Hatay, where many people speak still some Arab. Historically the province belonged to Syria and was given away by the French colonizers to Turkey as a gift for not siding with the German in World War I.

It seems very important to make every possible effort to help the world understand, to help the German people understand that this ugly war is a neocolonial effort, an imperialist war, part of master plan how to govern the world by destroying every thinkable resistance to their neoliberal strategies who have already proven to be desasterous to the world.

In Turkey we met analysts and strategists from different parts of the world. We began to join our efforts to block the neoliberal, neocolonialist efforts to conquer the world.

Again, thanks to the Turkish organizing team, thanks to all the people who came and who helped make this meeting the beginning of a success story. Thanks to Aydemir Güler, to Iraklis Tsavaridis, to Zeynep, to Soccorro Gomez and all the crew.