By Miguel Sorans, a leader of Socialist Left of Argentina and the IWU-FI
We received the sad news that Salameh Kaileh, 63, died in Amann (Jordan), a Marxist revolutionary and a Syrian-Palestinian activist, after fighting a prolonged illness. With the same courage he fought against the Syrian dictator Basha Al-Assad and the Zionism. He was born in 1955 in Birzet (West Bank, Palestine). He studied in Bagdad (Irak) and settled in Damascus (Syria). He was in jail for eight years during the 1990s, under the government of the Assad family. He joined the break of the Syrian revolution in 2011.
On 24 April 2012 he was arrested in his house in Damascus. He was severely tortured in jail. He received the worst blows, in retaliation for a slogan found in a leaflet in his house. «To free Palestine, the Syrian regime must fall». Finally, he was expelled to Jordan. Since his liberation he boosted the international fight to overthrow the genocidal Al-Assad.
He liked saying: «I consider myself, above all, an Arab citizen» He had a clear vision the Arab peoples’ fight against imperialism, Zionism and their allies the Arab bourgeois, was the same. He related especially the Palestinian cause with the rest of the Arab revolutions.
He was a brilliant independent Marxist. He was a critic of the Arab nationalist-bourgeois leaders, as the left and Communist parties that had been under the influence of the former USSR. He wrote «The Arabs and the national affair» (1989); «Critic of the dominant Marxism» (1990); «Imperialism and the world plunder» (1992) and «Socialism or Barbarism» (2002). In the revolution he had a clear stance, independent from the bourgeois political opposition leaders, part of the Syrian National Council (CNS). Kaileh encouraged the «establishment of a revolutionary left, made up by the same movement and the youth who are in front of the conflict. The young generation is trying to develop their intellect through reading Marxism and understanding reality, and in the correct and organisational ways, fundamental to win the revolution»*
The IWU-FI had the honour of meeting him and share long hours discussing politics. We worked together to coordinate, simultaneously with other Syrian, Palestine, from Lebanon, Tunisia, Turkey, different organisations and the IWU-FI, the international aid to the Syrian revolution. We did so in the World Social Forum in Tunisia 2014 and in the Istanbul meeting in July 2015.
We are certain thousands of Syrian, Palestine, Middle East, North Africa and the world fighters will take up the flag Salameh Kalieh left, to follow his example and his struggle.
Salameh Kaileh, Untill Socialism always!
*See the article in full www.uit-ci.org
