About 11,000 people have been estimated dead due to the impact of a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Syria and Turkey / credit: Aaman News English
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in Peoples Dispatch.
The head of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, Khaled Hboubati, demanded on Tuesday, February 7, that Western countries, specifically the United States and its allies, lift their siege and sanctions on Syria so that rescue and relief work can proceed unimpeded, after the country was devastated by a powerful earthquake on Monday.
“We need heavy equipment, ambulances and fire fighting vehicles to continue to rescue and remove the rubble, and this entails lifting sanctions on Syria as soon as possible,” Hboubati said at a press conference on Tuesday, as reported by the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).
A powerful earthquake registering a magnitude of 7.8 struck Turkey and Syria on Monday. Over 5,000 people have been reported dead so far. In Syria alone, the death toll was 1,602 on Monday. These numbers are only expected to rise as a large number of people are suspected to be still buried under the debris of houses that collapsed in the earthquake and its aftershocks.
Kahramanmaraş, a city in Turkey, was reported to be the epicenter of the earthquake, and the nearby city of Gaziantep—home to millions of Syrian refugees—was reportedly hit the hardest. Relief and rescue operations in Turkey have been affected by bad weather as several of the affected areas have received heavy rain and snowfall on Monday and Tuesday.
Syria’s northern provinces such as Idlib, Latakia, Hama, and Aleppo have also been badly affected by the earthquake. Some of the affected areas in Idlib and Aleppo are under rebel control and densely populated by refugees from other parts of the country.
Though several countries including the United States and its allies have extended their support to Turkey in its relief and rescue work, they have refused to extend similar assistance to Syria. The U.S. State Department made it clear on Monday that it was only willing to support some work carried out in Syria by NGOs, but that it would have no dealings with the Bashar al-Assad government. “It would be quite ironic—if not even counterproductive—for us to reach out to a government that has brutalized its people over the course of a dozen years now,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said, as quoted by Al Jazeera.
On Monday, the Syrian government had issued an appeal to the international community asking for help. Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad is quoted in Al-Mayadeen as having said that his government was willing “to provide all the required facilities to international organizations so they can give Syrians humanitarian aid.”
Sanctions Hamper Relief and Rescue Work
Claiming that “Current U.S. sanctions severely restrict aid assistance to millions of Syrians,” the American Arab anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) asked the U.S. government on Monday to lift its sanctions. While it said that the NGOs working on the ground were doing a commendable job, it also said that the “lifting of the sanctions will open the doors for additional and supplemental aid that will provide immediate relief to those in need.”
The U.S. Congress had adopted the so-called Caesar Act in 2020, according to which any group or company doing business with the Syrian government faces sanctions. The act extends the scope of the previously existing sanctions on Syria, imposed by the U.S. and its European allies since the beginning of the war in the country in 2011.
The impact of sanctions on Syria’s health and other social sectors and its overall economic recovery have been criticized by the UN on several occasions in the past. The UN has also demanded that all unilateral punitive measures against Syria be lifted.
Meanwhile, countries such as China, Iran, Russia, Cuba, Algeria, and the UAE, among others, have expressed their willingness to provide necessary support to Syria, and have sent relief materials already.
Al-Mayadeen has however reported that the delivery of international aid, as well as the speed of relief and rescue work in Syria, continue to be impeded as the Damascus international airport is not fully operational at the moment. The airport was hit by an Israeli missile on January 2 and repair work is not yet complete.
Part of a drumline at the July 24 protest in front of the Philippine consulate in New York City to counter the new Philippine president’s State of the Union Address / credit: Cygaelle Bergado
NEW YORK CITY–Hours before Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr., gave his first State of the Nation address on July 24, Filipino people throughout the world protested, holding their own “People’s State of the Union Address,” or PSONA.
“The Marcos-Duterte oligarchic symbiosis represents one of the biggest barriers for progress in the Philippines,” Gabriel Rivera told Toward Freedom amid a crowd of about 200 Filipinos who had gathered outside the Philippine consulate in midtown Manhattan, just a few blocks from the United Nations.
As a drumline’s rhythms echoed through the city streets, Filipinos spoke out against Marcos and his vice president, Sara Duterte, both of whom had been elected to office in the island nation on May 9.
Part of a drumline at the July 24 protest in front of the Philippine consulate in New York City to counter the new Philippine president’s State of the Union Address / credit: Cygaelle Bergado
The families of Marcos and Duterte have been accused of violating human rights. That includes during the 1972-81 Martial Law Era under Marcos’ father, Ferdinand Sr., and during former President Rodrigo Duterte’s War on Drugs, which has killed over 6,229 alleged drug users since 2016. Rodrigo is the new vice president’s father.
“Two historically violent dynasties with no regard for human rights or the rule of law have just been seated on the two highest positions in the land,” said Rivera, a member of the Malaya Movement, a progressive Filipino organization advocating for human rights in the Philippines. “I am terrified to even imagine how this could affect generations of Filipinos to come.”
To counter the violence in their homeland, grassroots Filipino organizations from the Northeast Coalition to Advance Genuine Democracy, such as Migrante, GABRIELA, Malaya Movement, Anakbayan and Bayan, assembled for the New York City rally. This rally was one of many held around the world for PSONA, an annual global grassroots event, during which Filipinos report on human-rights violations in their homeland to counter the Philippine president’s annual State of the Nation address that takes place on the same day.
A map of the Philippines, consisting of thousands of islands / credit: Google Maps
The Philippines is a U.S. ally that has waged a war on its own population, killing alleged drug addicts and traffickers. Since 2002, the United States has shipped almost $900 million in arms and has provided more than $1.3 billion in security assistance to the Philippines.
The scene at the July 24 protest held outside the Philippine consulate in New York City / credit: Cygaelle Bergado
In an interview with Toward Freedom, 25-year-old Momo Manalang denounced the disappearance of three Filipino women activists, allegedly abducted by the Filipino government. She demanded their return.
“Our movement is intergenerational, comprised of both martial-law survivors of families of those slain during the War on Drugs, which persists to this day under Bongbong Marcos,” said Manalang, a member of GABRIELA, a mass-based organization focusing on womens’ rights in the Philippines. “It is imperative as a diaspora to register our condemnation and call for the accountability of both regimes for their crimes against humanity.”
A.J. Santos, a migrant from the Philippines, recounted to Toward Freedom how these administrations have directly affected his family.
“My mom fought Ferdinand Marcos, Sr., during Martial Law and was even hunted by the military while her friends and comrades were tortured and killed,” said Santos, 38, of Migrante, a grassroots organization consisting of migrant Filipinos. “And Duterte, he killed five of my friends with his so-called ‘War on Drugs.’”
Protesters lined up July 24 behind Shirley Atienza of Filipino grassroots migrant group Migrante as she read aloud the demands to the Philippine government of the Northeast Coalition to Advance Genuine Democracy / credit: Cygaelle Bergado
Shirley Atienza, a New York-based Filipino migrant and Migrante member, read aloud the nine points of the “People’s Agenda for Change,” while protesters standing behind her held signs outlining each. In bold black paint, they read:
Regulate prices
Revive local agriculture
Enact land reform and national industrialization
Defend and promote human rights
Defend freedom of press + speech
Institute a democratic, ethical and accountable government
Provide free health care and basic social services
Uphold national sovereignty and independent foreign policy
Ensure country’s natural wealth and resources
A Filipino protester at the Philippine consulate in New York City wears an effigy to call out human-rights violations in the Philippines / credit: Cygaelle Bergado
A protester had adorned cardboard signs to their body in an effigy that listed human-rights violations committed in the Philippines. Painted to look like flames, the signs read:
“Extreme inflation & economic crisis,”
“2.9 million unemployed,”
“Forced migration/separated families,” and
“Selling out to foreign interests.
The flames were surrounded by cardboard replicas of gas cans that read, “Corrupt family dynasties own all the land, make all the laws,” “US tax $$ funds Philippine Drug War,” and “Historical revisionism & fake news.”
At the top of the protester’s head sat a gas can that read “Marcos.” Draped around their back was the Filipino flag. As participants gathered to smash the gas cans, the crowd recited, “Makibaka! Huwog matakot!” (Struggle! Do not be afraid!) and other revolutionary Filipino chants, cheering for the downfall of Marcos and Duterte.
Being oceans away from their home country doesn’t stop these Filipino revolutionaries from fighting. At least not Theo Aguila, a 25-year-old organizer from Anakbayan, a mass organization consisting of Filipino youth and students.
“It is through action both here and [in] the Philippines that we may enact change for our motherland.”
Cygaelle Bergado is the Summer 2022 Claudia Jones Editorial Intern for Toward Freedom. She can be followed on Twitter at @cy_bergado.
“Cruelties of slavery” / source: The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1835-05.
Editor’s Note: The author offers their perspective on American Exceptionalism in this essay.
In a chapter he wrote titled “Exceptionalism,”1 historian Daniel T. Rodgers argues American Exceptionalism is a historically contrived myth. The book in which the chapter appears is Imagined Histories: American Historians Interpret the Past (1998, edited by Anthony Molho and Gordon S. Wood). Rodgers discusses the origins and evolution of the historicism that undergirds the embedded structural creed that says the United States stands alone as inimitable among nations. Historicism is the theory that history determines social and cultural phenomena.
Within U.S. social movements, American Exceptionalism increasingly has been used to explain the ideology that guides U.S. interventions around the world and against domestic colonized populations, such as African and Indigenous peoples. This essay seeks to examine the roots of this ideological framework.
Historian Frederick Jackson Turner first struck an exceptionalist chord in his 1893 essay, “The Frontier in American History,” with his “perennial rebirth” or “rebaptized as an American”2 theme that proclaimed a singular “American” character. This came about by rejecting the European ethos and replacing it with a unique pioneering spirit exclusive to the “American.” Within was a detailed examination of the dialectical shifts of American historiography, philosophy and religion that pulsed through the “American” experience: From the earliest origins of the pious fundamentalism of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to the American Revolution, World War II, the Cold War and its current role as a global hegemonic superpower, Rodgers demystifies and untangles the “skein of tropes”3 that underpin the “newness” and “distinctiveness” that defines United States’ historical, social and political “uniqueness.”4 Rodgers ignites his chapter with a question: Is the United States different? Then, through the use of scholarly and authoritative evidence, he methodically proceeds to lay bare the mythological foundations that buttress the United States’ fabled white-supremacist history, analyzing and exposing an unexceptional exceptionalism at its core, for all to see. Yet, in spite of his and other scholars’ well researched conclusions, Rodgers ends his chapter by exposing the persistent and entrenched depths of the American exceptionalist archetype, writing, “Michael McGerr and Michael Kammen demonstrate [that within modern American historicism] challenges to the exceptionalist paradigm [still] generate sharp, visceral reactions.”5
Rodgers, unswayed by post-1950s acculturation, looks back through time critically scouring the metahistorical chronicle in search of the decisive epochs that contributed most to the phenomenon called American “exceptionalism.” His contribution is considered a seminal work in contemporary and post-exceptionalist historiography. Literary critic and academic Donald Pease writes, “Daniel T. Rodgers, perhaps the most articulate of a growing cadre of post-exceptionalist U.S. historians, has formulated the rationale for this collective endeavor with eminent clarity.”6 Rodgers proclaims the United States’ build-up and victory in WWII, its rise to global supremacy and its dominance throughout the Cold War are central to decoding the portent of American Exceptionalism.
Contemporary scholars concur. “I agree that World War II set up an important phase in the history of American exceptionalism,”7 states Ian Tyrell. Rodgers and his post- exceptionalist colleagues (through primary and secondary source material) expose past and present historiography by turning it on its head. Laurence Veysey points out, “It is clear that earlier interpretations of American history and culture, aggressively put forth as recently as the 1950s and emphasizing ‘uniquely’ American experiences and habits of mind, served largely to mislead us.”8 Eric Rauchway pushes even further by stating, “The concept of American exceptionalism does not really have anything to do with actual history,”9 meaning that, in-depth analysis of the historical record reveals quite a different story.
Rodgers points to another specious characteristic of exceptionalist historicism. That being the claim that providential intervention and the United States’ cultural preeminence are guided, if not driven, by God, which defines the nation’s “difference.” Rodgers explains, “…difference in American national culture has meant ‘better’: The superiority of the American way.”10 He argues how unexceptional the United States is in this regard. “Pride and providentialism are too widely spread to imagine them American peculiarities.”11 According to Rodgers, the dissemination of American Exceptionalism, in the mid-20th century, was undergirded by a political, philosophical and psychological propaganda campaign: A deep rivalry with the former USSR that led the United States to co-opt and invert a Stalinist neologism of the 1920s (i.e., Soviet “exceptionalism”) and plant it firmly and inextricably, in its “divine” and rightful place: The United States of America! Yet, he queries even further: “What was the historiographical past of that conceit?”12
Rodgers traces the historiography back to an 18th-century travel writer, J. Hector St. John de Crévecoeur, who first described the Europeans [i.e., white males] inhabiting North America as unique and distinctive. Crévecoeur posed an essentialist question, “What is an American?”13 Rodgers demonstrates Crévecoeur was, “virtually unread in the United States before the twentieth century [his] lyric passage on … [the] ‘melting’ of persons of all [European] nations into ‘a new race of men’ [was] extracted from context … which now seemed to appear everywhere.” That was co-opted and retitled, “What Is the American, This New Man?” by “Arthur Schlesinger, Sr., [U.S. historian who] made it the motif of his presidential address to the American Historical Association in 1942.”14 Rodgers asserts, “The literature of the new American Studies movement [from then on] was saturated with Crévecoeur references.”15 He continues, “They led off that catalyst of revisionist histories … [including] Robert E. Brown’s Middle-Class Democracy and the Revolution in Massachusetts, in 1955.”16 The United States was considered from that point on, in and out of the academy, a uniquely singular phenomenon in world history.
Rodgers exposes an irony. “…In their anti-Marxism, they reimagined Marx’s general laws of historical motion applied everywhere but to their own national case.”17 Meaning, “John Winthrop’s ‘city upon a hill’ … was no longer a mid-Atlantic hope … it was now America itself.”18
Until the most recent shockwaves of the U.S. empire felt externally, and internally, in the forms of a 20-year-long Afghan debacle, endless wars for profit, brutal domestic police abuse (which disproportionately kills people of color), a permanent war on the poor and a healthcare system that ruthlessly places profits above life, the American Exceptionalism myth woven throughout U.S. history was fixed. But now, the mask has fallen for all the world to see.
Stephen Joseph Scott is an essayist associated with The University of Edinburgh’s School of History. He is a singer/songwriter, humanist/activist, a self-taught musician and performer. As a musician, Scott uses American Roots Music to illustrate the U.S. social and political landscape. His latest video is “We Know They Lied.”
1 Daniel T. Rodgers, “Exceptionalism,” in Imagined Histories: American Historians Interpret the Past, ed. Anthony Molho and Gordon S. Wood (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1998), 21–40. 2 Ibid., 25. 3 Ibid., 22. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid., 35. 6 Donald Pease, “American Studies after American Exceptionalism?” in Globalizing American Studies (University of Chicago Press, 2010), at https://chicago-universitypressscholarship- com.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/view/10.7208/chicago/9780226185088.001.0001/upso-9780226185064-chapter-2 7 Ian Tyrrell and Eric Rauchway, “The Debate Table: Eric Rauchway and Ian Tyrrell Discuss American Exceptionalism,” Modern American History 1 (2018): 247–256. 8 Laurence Veysey, “The Autonomy of American History Reconsidered,” American Quarterly 31, no. 4 (1979): 455. 9 Tyrrell and Rauchway, “Debate Table.” 10 Rodgers, “Exceptionalism,” 22. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid., 21. 13 Ibid., 37. 14 Ibid., 27. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid., 29. 18 Ibid., 27.
Editor’s Note: Aside from federal terrorism charges against animal-rights and environmental activists, African descendants are active in the Stop Cop City movement. In 2017, the FBI created the “Black Identity Extremism” domestic terrorism category for African-descended activists in the United States. Light editing helped conform the following Unicorn Riot article to TF’s style.
ATLANTA, United States—On Dec. 14, Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams and other armed police officers from eight different federal, state, county, and city police agencies conducted a raid on those camping out in the Atlanta forest in hopes of preventing the construction of an 85-acre police training facility that opponents have dubbed “Cop City.”
During the raid, police shot tear gas and plastic bullets, and forced people out of the forest at gunpoint. Police in Bobcats and other heavy equipment destroyed treehouses, a communal kitchen, and other infrastructure built by those dedicated to the defense of the forest.
By the end of the two-day operation, a total of 12 people were arrested, according to police. At least six of those have been charged with a host of felonies, including state-level domestic terrorism charges, according to the Atlanta Solidarity Fund.
On Tuesday, Dec. 27, all six arrestees charged with domestic terrorism were granted bail totaling $51,000, with amounts per defendant ranging from $6,000 to $13,500. The six were also ordered to report to “pretrial services” within 48 hours, to refrain from contact with their co-defendants, and to refrain from “contact with Defend Atlanta Forest on social media.”
The Atlanta Solidarity Fund, an Atlanta-based bail fund, posted on social media their intention to bail the six out as soon as possible.
“The ‘domestic terrorism’ charges these protesters are facing are utterly baseless,” the group wrote on Twitter following the hearing. “Legal experts, including the ACLU, have warned prosecutors that there is no basis for such a case. We have been assembling a legal team to defend them every step of the way through the legal process.”
At a hearing on Dec. 15, Magistrate Judge Claire Jason denied bond to five of the arrestees charged with felonies.
“Each of you have been charged with domestic terrorism,” Jason said, appearing to read from a document on her screen. “Generally, the information that I have on the affidavit of warrant… You did participate in actions of DTAF (Defend the Atlanta Forest) a group that’s been classified by the United States Department of Homeland Security as a domestic violent extremist group.”
Those involved in the movement to defend the forest deny that the group, “Defend the Atlanta Forest,” even exists. Writing on Twitter Friday, Dec. 16, from the handle, @DefendATLForest, those running the platform explained, “’Defend the Atlanta Forest’” is the name of a movement and it is also the username of a submission-based social media platform. It is not a group. We do not organize any actions and we don’t know the people who do.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland security did not respond to questions from Unicorn Riot regarding the alleged domestic violent extremist group classification. However, arrest warrants and affidavits obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution indicate that those arrested are being charged with domestic terrorism simply due to their affiliation with the “group.” The documents state that the Department of Homeland Security classifies “Defend the Atlanta Forest” as “Domestic Violent Extremists.”
Some affidavits say the offense is “16-10-24 Domestic Terrorism.” However, as of 2021, that Georgia state law does not include any references to domestic terrorism—it only pertains to “obstructing or hindering law enforcement.” Another affidavit says the offense is “16-4-10 Domestic Terrorism,” although this appears to be a mistake by prosecutors and the judge, as that section is currently repealed according to Justia.com. However, there is a domestic terrorism statute on the books in Georgia.
Cop City Opponents Aim to Stop Construction
The encampments and tree sits within the 380-acre expanse of forest have been constructed, destroyed by police, and reconstructed several times throughout the year. Those living in the trees and supporting them from afar are trying to prevent the razing of the forest and the construction of the Atlanta Police Foundation’s Public Safety Training Center, currently scheduled to open in late 2023.
The facility carries a price tag of $90 million for its initial phase. In September 2021, Atlanta’s city council approved a proposal to construct the facility within a huge swath of forested land in unincorporated DeKalb County, southeast of Atlanta, some of which is owned by the city of Atlanta.
Other sections of the forest are also in danger of destruction. Last year, film company executive Ryan Milsap, former owner of Blackhall Studios (recently rebranded Shadowbox Studios), was given forty acres of forested land called Intrenchment Creek Park just west of the planned police facility in a controversial land swap. Opponents of Milsap responded to an escalation he made on July 30 by setting a work truck on fire.
Milsap has stated publicly that he plans to raze the forest to build 1.2 million square feet of sound stage, which would make it the largest film studio in the state.
“I want to be clear, the people that the police are attacking with plastic bullets with chemical weapons, as recently as yesterday, these people were not involved in threatening anybody,” said Marlon Kautz of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund at a press conference on Wednesday. “They were not involved in endangering anybody. They were sitting passively in trees trying to express a political position. And for sitting in trees, trying to conduct a non-violent protest, they were attacked by police, arguably tortured with chemical weapons.”
On Tuesday night, in the midst of the raid, activists called for a protest at the Dekalb County Jail where those who had already been arrested were held. They beat drums, shouted, and chanted so that those held behind the jail’s walls could hear them. In response, detainees in the jail banged on windows, waved, and even lit a fire.
This is not the first time people have been arrested and charged with crimes for protesting against the project, but it is the first time authorities have charged protestors with domestic terrorism. The first arrests associated with the movement came in September 2021 when activists were protesting outside the homes of several City Council members in the midst of the council’s vote to approve the Cop City project. The protests were held at City Council members’ homes because the meeting took place remotely.
A Trend Continues: Leftist Activists Get Pinned with Terrorism Charges
There is a longstanding precedent for terrorism charges being used against animal rights and environmental activists. According to a 2019 study by The Intercept, of the 70 federal prosecutions of animal and environmental activists they identified, the government sought terrorism enhancements in 20. Overall, the use of terrorism charges has risen dramatically in recent years, peaking in 2020. The rate of federal terrorism prosecutions has increased 388 percent since 2017.
Although the FBI is involved in the repression of the movement to save the forest, those arrested Tuesday face state-level terrorism charges, brought by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI).
However, activists associated with the campaign to save the forest have raised doubts over whether these charges will actually stick.
“The GBI knows that these charges will not hold up in court, and they are not intended to: The point is to raise the stakes of protesting,” said a spokesperson for the Defend the Atlanta Forest campaign in a press release. “Their goal is to create a chilling effect across the city, scaring off anyone concerned about police militarization and the climate crisis from taking action.”
Despite the rhetoric currently being wielded by the GBI and other law enforcement agencies, which seek to portray the movement to defend the forest as a militant fringe group, the Cop City project remains wildly unpopular among a broad segment of Atlantans, including those who will be forced to live closest to it. Even a local preschool has gotten involved in the fight to save the forest.
Activists say police are escalating the level of violence and repression they are using against the movement as its success and popularity grows. Kautz, of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, told reporters Wednesday:
“When the Stop Cop City movement began, police tried to use intimidation to dissuade activists. And when that didn’t work, they began making baseless arrests, which the Atlanta Solidarity Fund has documented and is providing legal support to defend people in those cases.”
Kautz continued:
“When the baseless arrests failed to discourage people from speaking out about the problems that they saw with Cop City, we got to where we are now, with the police using open brutality to try to suppress them. “Are we going to end up in a situation where the police are murdering protesters in order to advance, not public safety, but their particular political agenda? Are we going to end up in a situation where the police are murdering protesters in order to advance, not public safety, but their particular political agenda? No, they’re going to be learning urban warfare tactics to harass our communities, to surveil us, to prevent us from doing things like gathering here today and letting the public know what’s going on.”
