My latest column for the UK - on the colonialist plan to destroy Syria's anti-imperialist heritage: colonialism and global capitalism are designed to burn the history and culture of prey countries to the ground through forced assimilation into systems branded on whole countries by violence and oppression. Educational systems are dismantled and discarded. The language and tradition are driven underground. Links to historical belonging and ancestral resistance to oppression are brutally severed. In such an environment, colonial narratives prevail until the past is an ember, slowly fading away as future generations are born into the new reality. Trauma and fear turn people from resistance, to acceptance, and finally to abandoning the principles that once held society together. The loss of their land, homes and identity is intended to ensure that they lose their roots and origins in the upheaval of everything they believe in. This method of dismantling indigenous institutions and ecosystems forces people into shrinking sectarian rivalries and finally, hatred, destined to last forever.
However, history also teaches us that indigenous cultures show remarkable resilience when faced with such barbaric ravages. There is always a struggle, albeit limited for some time, to reclaim their heritage and ensure that their civilization survives the complex damage caused by colonization and Israel. Syria is no exception. It is now at the threshold of perhaps the most exhausting phase of the colonial project, but resistance is not completely dead, ever. It goes underground. It reorganizes, it rearms, it strategizes, and it waits for the opportunity to strike and expand. The scars of the colonialist project never fade, but they become a motive for the resistance, towards a future of liberation, just as they always did in Syria's long and broken past.
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