The recent political reversal [17] in Bolivia raises the question of whether the advances of nearly 20 years of rule by the indigenist left will survive—including a constitution [18] that refounded the state as a "plurinational [19]" republic. In Episode 299 [20] of the CounterVortex podcast [21], Bill Weinberg explores how the lessons of the Bolivian experience can be applied to Syria, where the new revolutionary government faces a challenge in Kurdish [22] and Druze [23] demands for regional autonomy.
New fighting [25] in the Kurdish district of Sheikh Maqsoud [26] in Aleppo city between government forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF [22]), armed wing of the Kurdish-led autonomous administration [22] that still controls much of the country's northeast, points to the continued threat [22] of ethnic war. Results in Syria's first post-revolution parliamentary elections [27] (carried out in a controlled process [23] by the central government, not popular vote) were tilted to the Sunni Arab majority [28]. Exiled left-dissident Joseph Daher [29] sees a consolidation of power [30] by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS [31]), the ostensibly disbanded Islamist formation that led the rebel offensive [32] that toppled the old regime last December, and whose leader is the current interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa [33]. Can the current transition process [23] in Syria return to the secular-democratic values of the 2011 Arab Revolution [34] without a rethinking of nationalist precepts?
Listen on SoundCloud [20] or via Patreon [35].
Production by Chris Rywalt [36]
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