Eurasia Press & News
In the past few days, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced the state of the general call, calling on Kurds around the world to go to Syria to defend what was described as its “last strongholds.” This call has received a clear positive interaction, especially among the radical left, a number of Israeli boycott activists, and some in solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
This reception is due to the image accumulated by the SDF about itself: the discourse of “unity of peoples”, a libertarian language, a feminist presence, and a declared distance from the Islamic current, both political and jihadi, and linked to the intellectual reference attributed to it, i.e. the ideas of Abdullah Ocalan, where the Marxist heritage is mixed with national, organizational and societal elements, in a synthesis presented as an alternative to the models of the traditional nation-state, within this framework, sympathy with the “SDF” seems more an extension of a previous ideological sympathy, than a current reading of the nature of its actual practices and alliances.
However, this theoretical discourse, when approaching reality, clashes with contradictions that are difficult to ignore, as the SDF, in practice, is an allied force of the United States, the main stronghold of the world capitalist system. This contradiction is not usually denied, but is justified as a phased alliance imposed by necessity and interest, not a strategic alliance that reflects an ideological congruence, but the paradox does not stand here, as the SDF has weaved parallel relations with local religious and tribal structures, as in its relationship with the Hikmat of the Hijri in Sweida, with its clear patriarchal religious authority, based on symbolic leadership and collective loyalty, i.e., in historical contrast with classical leftist values.
This pattern is not limited to Sweida, but is part of a broader policy of phased alliances with the Arab tribes in the Syrian Peninsula region. Here, a fundamental question arises: If all alliances are presented as temporary, what remains of the claim that there is a coherent political project that goes beyond the management of the moment? In this context, the announcement of the general call draws attention to its similarity with the policies of “dreads” adopted by traditional authorities in the region, which was one of the reasons for the opposition to the authority in Damascus, the difference is that panic, when reformulated in a modern left-wing language, suddenly becomes acceptable, and even welcomed, as if changing the name is enough to change the essence.
Here we come to the heart of the issue, the “SDF” can be shortened as a progressive left-wing ideological discourse at the theoretical level, in fact matched by a power apparatus, Western alliances, and coarse tools (sometimes overwhelmed by the balance of interests), this characterization is not proposed with the intention of criticizing or evaluating, nor to judge the experience of the “SDF” positively or negatively, but as an entry point for psychological analysis of the relationship of some leftist forces with it, the question is not: Is the SDF right or wrong? Why does some left insist on reading it as a clear left-wing representation, despite this clear disconnect between discourse and practice?
This relationship can be understood as a form of projective identification, the “SDF” turned into a vessel in which a deep desire for a material existence of a left-wing project that no longer has an actual presence on the ground, ideas that have become abstract, without real social or political carriers, have been searched for a body that embraces it, even if it is not identical to it, is a forced dress other than its dress, not out of conscious deception, but out of the motive of saving an idea from fading.
From here emerges the idea of the left as a wounded identity, the Arab left, and the Syrian in particular, has long lost any physical presence: no political representation, no social base, and no ability to influence, in this vacuum, the defense of the “SDF” turns into self-defense, any criticism of it is tested as a direct threat to the left identity itself, not as an assessment of a specific political experience, and so, the justification is replaced by critical thinking, and the act of faith in politics.
The left in other countries still has a physical presence, as in France, where the Innocent France party has a clear parliamentary weight, or in Brazil, where it has returned to power across the democratic path.
What we are talking about here is an absent Arab left, looking for any embodiment that mitigates its disappearance.
It is more accurate to wear its own clothes: Kurdish, nationalist, and tribal, as it actually exists on the ground, this is a realistic characterization, and perhaps a political right, not an accusation, the SDF represents itself, and represents part of the Kurds, and cannot be asked to represent a project that has not been built on, and this was clearly shown when it resorted, in moments of weakness, to seek support from the Barzani family, with the political, financial and tribal weight in Iraqi Kurdistan, this behavior is consistent with the logic of national force (again this is not a crime, accusation, but a reality) not with a UN leftist project.
In conclusion, the way out in front of the left only seems to be the real awareness of reality and recognition as it is, the “SDF” is not a real left, and does not represent the left in thought or application, even if it is to be presented as well, and if the Syrian left is to continue, it will not be through identification with the experiences of others, but by seeing the existing vacuum, and trying to form the nucleus of a real leftist force, small and honest, which is the beginning of actual work, not a permanent search for a body inhabited by the dream.
