Aron Lund is a Swedish journalist: he is the most knowledgeable person I know about the Syrian opposition, by far. I don't even know Arabs who are more informed about the Syrian opposition than Aron. He studied Arabic and lived in Damascus and has a degree in Middle East studies from Uppsala University. I read yesterday his new book on the Syrian opposition (a version is here). It is most impressive: wealth of information and details and Lund has worked hard to assemble the information. He has conducted interviews with key people in Arabic. Yet, this person is never quoted in the Western press: instead, they go for Zionist hoodlums at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. I don't agree with Aron (and he does not agree with me): I shared with him my criticisms. He really belittles the sectarian rhetoric among personalities and currents in the Syrian opposition: he only mentions that in passing in his sketches of `Ar`ur and Al-Humsi. He does not mention the Ikhwan background of Haytham Al-Malih (but he had not known about that). He downplays the external factors in the opposition. And in the famous clip by Bayanuni in which he clearly states how Ghalyun was chosen and used by the Ikhwan as a cover. Aron clearly is a fan of those factions of the exile Syrian opposition and I clearly am not. In response to my comments about the book, Aron wrote me this (and I cite with his permission of course):
"Anyway, yeah: I sure do have my sympathies, and I don't always agree with your take, whether on Syria or other things - although I always enjoy reading the blog.
As for the sectarian rhetoric, I agree that the sectarian dimension in general deserves a lot of attention, including in how it is treated by the opposition. There is a sectarian (not necessarily religious, but "taifi" along religious background lines) undercurrent in a lot of the "secular" rhetoric, which is not being picked up by Western media. As for the open sectarianism, this is not very prominent in the political opposition groups I'm focusing on in the report. You see a lot more of it in e.g. the FSA videos, which tend to be nakedly Sunni sectarian (even if they're not necessarily hostile to minorities), but that wasn't the topic of my writing right now. Most of the groups I've been writing about here make an effort to keep their language clean, even if sectarian sentiment sometimes shines through, and there are a lot of lower-level sympathizers who cross the line. But yeah, it is a flaw, and a fuller discussion of this would have been useful. Maybe for a future paper.
As for Bayanouni's clip, I don't mean to dismiss it (then I wouldn't have mentioned it at all, right?), it's just that I don't think it's the smoking gun that many claim it to be. From what I can tell, it's from a longer address in response to some earlier statement, so why is it edited down to just a snippet? We don't even get to hear the question he is responding to, so there are many possible contexts for this. For example, I could well imagine that someone had been criticizing him for letting a secularist like Ghalioun lead the SNC, so he was defensively explaining to a pro-MB audience how this benefits the MB. That could be the case, or it could be something else we don't know about. My point is that it's not easy to draw a solid conclusion from a short and edited tape like this.
But more generally, I do think there's ample reason to believe that Ghalioun was the MB's preferred candidate, for the reasons here stated by Bayanouni (a broadly acceptable candidate is better than an Islamist who will alienate crucial backers), plus one that he doesn't mention (as an independent without organized party backing, Ghalioun would be more dependent on their support). But the tape in itself doesn't prove it, it's just one of several pieces of evidence, and there's reason to be cautious since it is edited in a suspect way. That's what I was trying to say."
"Anyway, yeah: I sure do have my sympathies, and I don't always agree with your take, whether on Syria or other things - although I always enjoy reading the blog.
As for the sectarian rhetoric, I agree that the sectarian dimension in general deserves a lot of attention, including in how it is treated by the opposition. There is a sectarian (not necessarily religious, but "taifi" along religious background lines) undercurrent in a lot of the "secular" rhetoric, which is not being picked up by Western media. As for the open sectarianism, this is not very prominent in the political opposition groups I'm focusing on in the report. You see a lot more of it in e.g. the FSA videos, which tend to be nakedly Sunni sectarian (even if they're not necessarily hostile to minorities), but that wasn't the topic of my writing right now. Most of the groups I've been writing about here make an effort to keep their language clean, even if sectarian sentiment sometimes shines through, and there are a lot of lower-level sympathizers who cross the line. But yeah, it is a flaw, and a fuller discussion of this would have been useful. Maybe for a future paper.
As for Bayanouni's clip, I don't mean to dismiss it (then I wouldn't have mentioned it at all, right?), it's just that I don't think it's the smoking gun that many claim it to be. From what I can tell, it's from a longer address in response to some earlier statement, so why is it edited down to just a snippet? We don't even get to hear the question he is responding to, so there are many possible contexts for this. For example, I could well imagine that someone had been criticizing him for letting a secularist like Ghalioun lead the SNC, so he was defensively explaining to a pro-MB audience how this benefits the MB. That could be the case, or it could be something else we don't know about. My point is that it's not easy to draw a solid conclusion from a short and edited tape like this.
But more generally, I do think there's ample reason to believe that Ghalioun was the MB's preferred candidate, for the reasons here stated by Bayanouni (a broadly acceptable candidate is better than an Islamist who will alienate crucial backers), plus one that he doesn't mention (as an independent without organized party backing, Ghalioun would be more dependent on their support). But the tape in itself doesn't prove it, it's just one of several pieces of evidence, and there's reason to be cautious since it is edited in a suspect way. That's what I was trying to say."
