Wednesday, August 22, 2018

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY; SECTARIANISM, TAKFIRISM, RACISM & SEXUAL THREATS CREEP INTO PRO-SYRIA MOVEMENT TO DESTROY IT. By Intibah Kadi 22 August 2018



THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY; SECTARIANISM, TAKFIRISM, RACISM & SEXUAL THREATS CREEP INTO PRO-SYRIA MOVEMENT TO DESTROY IT.

By Intibah Kadi, 22 August 2018
The War on Syria, unlike that on Yemen, has attracted a host of solidarists willing speak out on social media, write letters, make calls to their governments, argue the points with their friends and associates and other activities. It’s wonderful that Syria found such support. At the outset of the war, a sizeable group of us, Syrians, those with Syrian heritage, and those married into the community like myself, took the cause to social media and were very successful. Politicians, some journalists, religious leaders, all sorts of people, mainly from the West, approached us. Some of us, including myself and some wonderful solidarists undertook investigations, tackled Amnesty International, World Vision, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders and others for their lies and complicity in schemes. Some of us made public alerts about known terrorists turning up mainly on the streets of Europe.

Up till mid-2013, we worked in harmony and unison, the solidarists who were with us were exemplary, wonderful human beings who knew how to work with us all. There was a tiny group who tried to tell us all persistently and then aggressively that Syria had no friends and that her allies were really her enemies. In mid-2012, a group was established by a group in Australia which to this day has a large membership. The controller of that group kept fairly aloof towards us in those early days.

Importantly, we never painted Syria and its government as perfect. Our first serious group on social media before the main group was called “Peaceful Reforms” and it was clear that we all knew changes were needed and that the country and its leadership was not perfect. We knew we had to be real and that this would win respect and understanding. We also managed to convince many Syrians who had been highly critical of the Syrian government that this was not the time to take up these gripes as what was unfolding was no revolution but a concerted international attack using sectarianism and terrorism as its tools. My husband, Ghassan Kadi, was the first to warn that Syria has many enemies who will be trying to find a way to round up the biggest possible number of fighters to go and fight and wreak havoc in Syria and no other group that could provide such numbers exists other than Takfiri based terrorists, especially that they historically had an axe to grind against the Syrian government in retaliation to the 1983 events. He wrote of this in his three foundational articles, identifying who these parties would be . Whilst this is common knowledge now, he brought this to the forefront in the English language and possibly also in the Arabic language.

By mid-2013 it became clear to the enemies of Syria that their strategies and tactics were a failure. We all remember the attempts they made to influence decision making in parliaments to strike Damascus in August that year via a BBC fabricated documentary which was soundly exposed by British investigator, Robert Stuart. A month later, despite the British parliament not voting in favour of the strikes, two NATO missiles heading for Damascus were intercepted by Russia, and the ensuing face-saving deals forced upon the USA via quiet Russian diplomacy were deeply humiliating for these enemies of Syria. Possibly, from that time onwards, or in early 2014 with the Crimea voting to join Russia, the NATO strategy for social media that I came across might have been implemented. After all, every aspect of attack on Syria was employed, especially the use of the media, so why would they not employ tactics to subvert and destroy our movement in that forum?

By mid-2013, the English language based social media movement for Syria had, via its largest group in which at that time I was an administrator (for over 3 years), made a huge impact as it was the go-to place for people to get informed and make connections. Of course that meant it was accessible for good and bad forces. We also had to make decisions about particular sect based groups wishing to join. We were super vigilant about upholding these values that kept Syria above water through all her trials and tribulations; the values of secularism and rejecting racism, including distinguishing between Zionism and Jewish people. My area of responsibility was security which of course made me a target. These activities taught me about the tactics of Takfiris from Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, Pakistan, Belgium, France and many other places. Another key area was to never allow reports or photographs that were incorrect. We wanted to always have the moral upper ground as a mirror to the media lies and untruthful narratives about Syria. Our movement, the way it was run, the strategies and tactics it used, and the moral fibre underpinning it from 2011 to mid-2013 was exemplary.

All of sudden, around the mid-2013 mark, our group was flooded with very new kinds of applications for membership; predominately Westerners who, unlike their previous counterparts who kept their eyes and ears open and mouths often closed as they considered they were on a learning curve and there to be of assistance if asked, these solidarists were aggressive, opinionated, and targeted some of the indigenous Syrians who stood their ground on what they believed the issues were for Syria, particularly my husband, the writer and analyst, Ghassan Kadi. They were particularly interested in over stating the capacity of the United States to attack and destroy Syria. This obsession prompted Ghassan to write a part to a sequel in The Saker on the topic:

In no time, this group overpowered our movement with their Western framework and dominated narratives concerning Syria and eventually destroyed the movement and took it under their control to Twitter, a forum not too many Syrians as yet use or relate to. Those who had media contacts didn’t use them to amplify Syrian voices but instead their own. A Christian Zionist church planter got involved after availing herself of the networks, managing to garner support from many of these recent comers. From the moment three patriotic Syrian men, one my husband who is actually a Lebanese-Syrian, realised the issues with this “church planter”, they and anyone related to them were targeted by this large new group and the network around the Australian group.

Almost concomitant to the cases here and there in Syria of a breakdown in secular values and isolated cases of corruption, this trend came to be starkly reflected in our hijacked movement. Whilst these new friends in their posts and articles portrayed Syria as the perfect society, some of them encouraged corruption, sectarianism and ugly racism.

In recent days an ugly undertone of implied Takfirism including its accompanying undertones of sexual assault ideation occurred in the movement from non-Syrians, including extreme abuse and endangerment of a female supporter from a traditional Islamic community and endorsement by the group of a sexual assault threat. The initiator of this deeply shocking attack was a Western convert to Islam who has many options in life, unlike this young woman. Did this abusive person come to support Syria based on religious beliefs? Did they understand how much this attitude displayed this week towards a hapless young Muslim woman is despised in Syria, especially after all that has happened in the last seven years?

Word was filtering through to us from many sources that some visitors to Syria were paying “fixers” hundreds of dollars to get visas, and that there was a price to pay to solve problems of visa refusal. The implication of this was that there might be many other solutions available for other obstacles. A humorous piece about the fixer of a Christian Zionist church planter and her whole network was written.

With much relief, last week President Assad indicated the time had come to challenge this problem. This is a problem all societies face but one that rears its ugly head with regularity when opportunities for incubation arise; a problem that for a country at war is a serious security threat and Ghassan Kadi wrote about it being the next battle for Syria.

Among this network begun from 2013 onwards, the ironic culmination of this was a journalist from a fairly new American news channel, given special favour by President Trump, coming into Syria with the “2013 Network”, to get a front row to Trumps April bombing of Damascus this year. This short piece of mine was published here on this shocker of an event. Another greatly alarming event, given the history of Gladio leave behind armies, was the long term residency of a recent NATO soldier in Damascus, another member of this “2013 Network”.

By late 2017, the self-appointed Western voices for Syria and Syrians, enabled by the “2013 Network”, received much media attention for their vilification of mainstream journalists peddling untruths about Syria. In our movement we had always employed very different values and managed to win friends and influence people this way. Instead, our movement has become identified by these rude and abusive self-appointed voices for Syria and with their style of journalism, despite claiming to be “independent journalists”, they even surpassed the most enthusiastic patriotic Syrians in their praise of the Syrian government and ignoring of the more delicate and sensitive issues that Syria still needs to tackle. As mentioned previously, some of those issues these individuals encouraged and endorsed. There was no effort to demonstrate that they were not straight out “propagandists”. For a loyal Syrian it is only natural to write in such a style, but for outsiders to cover the war, it is necessary to display important qualities of journalism in order to gain credibility. This lack, among other issues described above, has damaged the good name of our movement.

Any competent Syrians that did not cooperate with these newcomers were taken down and defamed. Others after a very long time got the occasional coverage in the media these “friends” had access to. Gradually Syrians were divided by this “2013 Network” into those they work with and those they smear and destroy. Above all, the main tactic to hijack, take down and re-establish their own movement on a forum not popular with Syrians; that is Twitter, was to focus on one of two narratives, repeat incessantly the narratives and drown out anything else about the war on Syria or what Syrians had to say as outlined in my piece from August 2017, focusing on a NATO social media strategy
It is hoped that as further reflection, research and work is done on this topic of infiltration, hijack, destruction and redirection of indigenous based movements using social media, other peoples enduring and fighting against attacks on their sovereignty and way of life, take note of what happened in the struggle for Syria on the social media, indigenous based struggle and be forewarned and prepared. There are many highly mischievous schemes to achieve this infiltration, and indigenous activists need to be well informed

References




(5)https://intibahwakeup.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-brazen-infiltration-of-social-media.html

 (6)https://intibahwakeup.blogspot.com/2017/08/blog-post.html




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1 comment:

  1. ChristopherAugust 23, 2018 at 3:44 AM

    This is a pretty accurate chronicle of how the original Syria support social media group got infiltrated. The only reason I remain in it is to continue my mission from afar to verify the veracity of news and rebutt disinformation about the political and military situation in my country. Thanks for all you do on behalf of our beloved Syria Intibah and Ghassan Kadi.

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