Syria - March 7th, 2017

Voices from the Syrian resistance

How's life and death among the rubbles
left by the counterrevolution

In Syria today there is a deceitful ceasefire imposed on the rebel masses at gunpoint, after Alepo (the capital city of the resistance) was sold out by the FSA generals (under Turkish command) to Bashar's mercenary troops and Russian warplanes that carried out a butchery.

With 5 million refugees, 10 million internal displaced, devastated cities, neighbourhoods, schools and factories and with over 600 thousand dead and 100 thousand disappeared we want to mention today how is the daily life that we have to live among the rubbles, bombs, bullets and checkpoints.
Many things changed since the beginning of the Syrian revolution, which was another link in the chains of revolutions that shook Maghreb and Middle East. The revolution hasn't succeeded and this left us in even worse conditions than before March 15th 2011.
The most significant changes seen were due to the currency devaluation, the huge increase in the prices of the groceries and the terrible low wages. One dollar is equal to 540 Syrian liras, 10 times more of the exchange rate we had 6 years ago.

The wages we collect as Syrian workers in this country devastated by Assad, Putin, USA and the enslaver bosses counterrevolution are around 2000 liras (3,60 US dollars) for a 12 hour day of work. We have to work every day of the month (30 days) to get a 108 dollars wage. If we only take 2 days of rest in the whole month then we would have a 100 dollar wage approximately.
If we also take some days for going to guard to defend our families and homes confronting the permanent threat of Bashar genocidal forces, our wages can fall up to 72 dollars, since we can only work 20 days per month.

With these wages we have to see how we can buy our food and first need products for us and our families. Below there is a list of the main products we buy and their prices:

- 1kg of brad: 2,20 dollars (our base food)
- 250g of tea: 9,25 dollars (that is to say 37 dollars a kilo and it is our daily infusion)
- 1kg of sugar: 0,92 dollars
- 1kg of rice: 0,36 dollars
- 1litre of oil: 3,15 dollars
- 1 litre of gasoline: 1 dollar (gasoline and diesel are used not only for cars or motorcycles, but also to make our heaters work and to heat some water to take a bath or a shower).
- 1 litre of diesel: 0,80 dollars
- 250g of salt: 0,20 dollars
1kg of sunflower seeds: 2,20 dollars

In a whole month, a family in Syria eats around 30kg of bread in average (that's 1kg every day) which costs 66 dollars. And our wage is around 70 and 108 dollars! This is the reality in our Syria which was crushed by Assad and Putin doing the dirty work on behalf of all the imperialist powers. This happens in the territories controlled by Assad as well as those in where the FSA and Al Nusra are.

So, after buying bread we only have 40 dollars of our wages left (if we work every day) to buy the remaining groceries. We always have to have tea (which is expensive and we can buy half a kilo a month at most) and some sugar. The rest, we try to buy some rice and milk of which we are always short.
That is to say our wages are enough only for tea, bread and a bunch of rice. That's why the Syrian revolutionary socialists fight to expropriate the bankers, the bosses, the bourgeois generals to get bread. This is also the path to make our exploited class brothers and sisters in the areas controlled by Al Assad to rise! This is their best missile, their most powerful weapon! Our revolution started in 2011 for bread.

The workers of the world must know this! They said we were barbarian, islamists, jihadists... We are the Syrian workers! We are millions of outcasts living with only some bread and a handful of rice! We are 9 million workers in a country of 27 million inhabitants! We are one of the countries with the biggest workers composition in Maghreb and Middle East! And we are starved and killed by the boss of the oppressors of Syria, Al Assad, on behalf of imperialism.
Al Assad has and has used against us his most deadly missile: starvation. There is no city, town or neighbourhood that wasn't taken by Assad without seeing children, women and old people starving to death literally. There hasn't been town taken by Assad without being besieged in which people suffered hunger and the wealthy generals of FSA and AL Nusra making business at our expense, keeping the goods in storages so their prices increase and sell them more expensive in moments of shortage and need.
Al Assad has been starving us from before. We stood up against this in 2011. In the areas where he lost control, army parties of the rich armies of the businessmen came and expropriated our revolution, preventing us from getting bread. This is how we are today, with a wage that is only enough to get some bread and tea.

We get the rest of our food in other way. The imperialist counterrevolution forced us to go back to shepherds of any kind of animals to be able to eat meat even if at least it is once a month. Families have sheep, deer, goats, rabbits, hens, geese, pigeons and birds and in times of need we even eat meat from dogs, cats and rats.
We also use these animals for milk and its derivatives (like yoghurt or cheese) to feed ourselves or to sell it. After all, we still need to buy fuel (mainly diesel) for our heat, oil to cook and to eat and also some sunflower seeds to eat while drinking tea.
But all of this is expensive. That's why we also sell all kinds of recycled trash to have an extra income. All those who can work in our families they go to work. From a very early age even children start to work in any job they can get with a wage many times lower than the one mentioned before.

Many of us have also relatives in the borders or in neighbouring countries such as Turkey. They are taken to work as slaves by a miserable wage. They eat once a day to save money and be able to send us some funds. We collect them through the network of the generals of FSA and Al Nusra and those bloodsuckers collect 5 and even 10 percent of our low incomes as a commission!
In the refugee camps many women and girls are taking to the worst denigration by the war lords. They get self organized to defend themselves with the knife between their teeth and we support them.

 

No more lies! Our revolution was a great revolution for bread and freedom!
That's the reason for a bloody counterrevolution with massacres and sellouts

This is the clearest evidence that the revolutions in Middle East were revolutions for bread and freedom! Since revolutions did not succeed, there is neither bread nor freedom.
This is the evidence of why so much massacre and rage on all the workers of Maghreb and Middle East that rose in 2011 against the authoritarian regimes and the increasingly high cost of living, for a decent life.

So, under these conditions we are fighting and living today while the world reformist left accuses us of terrorists, barbarian, backward or they call to trust in the national opposition bourgeoisie and their generals that filled their pockets among many things selling and negotiating food, donations and humanitarian relief that they handle; or they just turn a blind eye and denies the existence of the Syrian working class. They have isolated us from the world.

As we said before, today we suffer from starvation in the entire Syria, whether in the areas under Bashar's control or under the control of the army parties of the "opposition" bourgeoisie, whether they are from the organ for the liberation of the Levant (former Al Nusra front) or Ahrar al Sham or the FSA or the Kurdish bourgeoisie or even the Islamic state. All of them starve the poor Syrian people and the businessmen that make trading agreements over the blood and exhausting the masses.
The way for our revolution to achieve victory is by expropriating the expropriators of the people. To expropriate these bunch of parasite bourgeois and place all the Syrian wealth to feed the people and to be able to be in better conditions to march to Damascus to defeat Bashar the dog. This is our missile against them. So many massacre and sellout of the revolution is to defend capitalists. We will succeed only with the victory of the socialist revolution.
We as socialist workers from the Syrian revolution fight for this program shoulder to shoulder with our subjugated brothers and sisters.