In December I attended this march in central London; I had very little idea as to what the content of the march would be other than knowing it was for the people of Aleppo, a city that had recently received heavy bombing by Russian and Syrian forces. I was mainly interested to see what form the march would take; the demographics of age, nationality, but more importantly whether it would take a side in the conflict. It became apparent very quickly that there was a strong anti-Assad/Russia theme to this march - the large number of Turkish flags were the first signal.
A year earlier I'd attended another demonstration against British bombing in Syria of which the demographics and theme were considerably different. This took a far more anti-Saudi Arabian/US and Assad/Russia appeasing tone, and while there were many middle eastern and eastern Mediterranean faces, the crowd were mostly white.
What is seldom mentioned about this conflict is that Syria, like the much less reported conflict in Yemen, is just one battleground in a wider on-going cold war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. And while the media in the UK are very quick to mention Russia's non-neutrality, they are less willing to mention ours. While I'm sure that the US, like Russia, has its own agenda I suspect that a large part of the US and Britain's involvement in Syria has a lot to do with the wishes and interests of Saudi Arabia.
Alongside the physical conflict, there is a propaganda war being waged to convince us that Assad is a uniquely evil tyrant that needs to be wiped from this earth and that by supporting them, Russia is by proxy evil itself. I have no doubt that the Assad government are guilty of a great many things but why is it that Syria has a "Regime", while Saudi Arabia or Egypt have a "Government". Why was the bombing of Aleppo an outrage and the bombing of Mosul justified? And why is it that when Russia drops bombs and kills civilians they're "killing indiscriminately" yet when we do the same we "did everything we could to avoid casualties".
This is what concerns me about the videos showing victims of the recent chemical attack that appeared on my Facebook feed and those of the children caught up in the fighting in Aleppo before Christmas. It's important that people report these events, not just for now but also for the historical record, and it's important that those outside see these images. Although I can't help but worry that these images are being used as part of a wider propaganda campaign to stop people from thinking rationally and to justify further violence.
I don't know who committed the chemical attack. It may very well be the Syrian government and it may be that Russia's account of what happened is just propaganda. But as this is being used as a pretence for increased involvement by the US and potentially, by extension, Britain I think it's important that we know exactly what happened. Especially since this will potentially put the armed forces of two of the world's largest military powers in direct and opposing contact with each other. It's this kind of thoughtless chest beating that I've seen from the governments of both the US and the UK that has in the past lead to world wars.
I'm not making light of what is happening in Syria, but I think we all need to calm down a little before we make a bad situation worse.
(I'd like to say a thank you to my colleague Sara for once again helping to edit this blog)