Burhan Ghalioun Harms His Own Cause

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

I read Dr. Burhan Ghalioun’s interview with the American Wall Street Journal, and I noted in it his attack on the resistance specifically, and I read his keenness to resolve the Golan problem through peaceful means. He tells us that he will not deal with Hezbollah and will not allow weapons to pass through Syria, that he will halt Syrian support for Hamas, and that he will dissolve the alliance between Iran and Syria. It is clear that he will have no need for resistance or for weapons if he becomes president of Syria, because he will follow in the footsteps of Sadat, Mubarak, King Hussein, and the rest of the Arab princes and kings — footsteps that boil down to seeking a negotiated solution to Syria’s problems with Israel — and he will normalize Syrian-Israeli relations in the end, and open an Israeli embassy in the capital of the Umayyads.

Dr. Burhan Ghalioun says he will give up the above relationships in favor of new relationships with the principal powers in the region, which he did not name. I speculate that these principal powers include Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel, though I rule out the new Egypt, since it will not be cut from the same cloth as these powers.

Dr. Burhan Ghalioun said nothing about the Palestinian cause, or whether he would play a role in confronting Israel, nor did he speak of the problem of Palestinian refugees or how he would resolve it through negotiation with Israel. Nor did he set out alternatives should Israel refuse to return the Golan to its owners.

Will Dr. Ghalioun content himself with a Sinai-style solution, accepting an administrative solution for the Golan without the return of Syrian sovereignty over it?

Will he accept Israel’s security conditions as Sadat and Mubarak did, so that Syria becomes a guardian of Israeli security?

Will he ally himself with Saudi Arabia and the tribal states that he himself has long described as reactionary?

And will he seek Syria’s solution through the Western states, particularly the United States, which he has so long attacked as an imperialist, colonialist power that must be put in its place?

Has Dr. Burhan Ghalioun become an enemy of his own ideas, the ones we long read in his books and articles?

And what is his position on the unity of Bilad al-Sham? Is the Syria he speaks of not merely Lesser Syria, an integral part of Greater Syria, or Bilad al-Sham?

Will he relinquish Palestine, and leave the Palestinians to pull out their own thorns with their own hands, alone?

And is it wise for Dr. Ghalioun to begin heating up hostilities for a system of governance he himself hopes will take shape in Syria, or is wisdom found instead in focusing on an internal matter that must be settled with the fewest possible losses?

…Calls for foreign intervention in Syrian affairs. He believes Iran is intervening in Syria, yet it does not seem to him objectionable that NATO should intervene in Syria. So what makes NATO better than Iran? I do not know what Dr. Ghalioun’s answer would be, but I do know that Britain and France conspired against Bilad al-Sham and divided up the land and its people, and that France, in whose protection he now takes refuge, expelled King Faisal from Damascus and destroyed the possibility of establishing the Syrian Kingdom. It was France that supplied Israel with various types of weapons after 1948, and with these weapons Israel occupied the Golan; it was France that supplied Israel with its nuclear reactor, and gave it every kind of support. There is no need for me to enumerate what the United States has done to the Syrian people from 1946 until now; suffice it to say that it has long engineered military coups that inflicted enormous harm on the Syrian people.

So is Dr. Ghalioun seeking freedom, or does he want to replace what exists with Western colonialism? And if the alternative to a regime that oppresses people is colonialism, then there is no need to search for freedom in the first place.

Dear Dr. Burhan

We are all for the freedom of the Arab human being, but we must be principled in our pursuit of freedom. The tribal regimes of the Gulf are not a model we should cling to for help against tyrants, because they are themselves tyrannical, oppressive regimes, and it is a disgrace to seek the help of those who hate freedom in order to achieve freedom. As for the colonial powers, their history with us is terrifying, bloody, and full of malice and hatred, and it is a baseness of the soul to turn to them to secure our dignity. We do not sacrifice principle to reap illusions from parties that can never be on the side of the Arab citizen, or of the Arab nation and Arab land.

I hate despotism, and I consider myself at the forefront of those inciting against the Arab regimes and their repressive, despotic, coercive practices, but I do not accept replacing despotism with disgrace. I am seeking freedom, and I will wrest it by the strength of my own people, not by the strength of American aircraft or the money of the Al Saud. So stop, because you are doing harm to yourself and to the great Syrian people.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “برهان غليون يسيء لقضيته” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.