Following are excerpts from an address by British MP George Galloway, which aired on Mayadeen TV on June 18, 2012.
George Galloway: "I am with the Syrian people's legitimate demands, but I will never support the destruction of Syria. I will never support the invitation to the Crusaders to come back to Syria. I will never support my army, my airforce, in England bombing the holy land of Syria, the beautiful citadel of Arabism, of Arab resistance to colonialism. Don't ask me to support that.
"What's even more amazing is that some of you should support that. What kind of Arab revolution would require the presidents of America, Britain, and France to bomb your country? What kind of Arab revolution would that be?
"So a principle for me is that the Arabs must liberate themselves, because if the foreigners, the khawaja, the imperial powers come to liberate you, it won't be liberation at all. Ask the people of Iraq. Ask the people of Libya if they have been liberated by these Crusaders, or have merely exchanged a small tyrant for a bigger tyrant, a bigger tyranny – the imperial system itself.
"I come from an Irish background. I know about empire. My Irish grandfather told me, when I came home from school, and told him that the teacher said: 'The British had an empire so huge that upon it the sun never set'… He answered: 'That's because God would never trust the British in the dark.'
"Don't trust the British in the dark or the light, or the French or the Americans, or any of these people who want to come and find a new basis for stealing your things, another hundred years of stealing your things. The first having failed, the new Sykes-Picot is busily being prepared. […]
"I want to see a transformation of the political situation in Syria. The question is how we get there. I believe that we should get there through the Kofi Annan plan – by dialogue, negotiation, and by peaceful and democratic means. Most of the world supports that. The Syrian regime has accepted that. The only people rejecting it are the Crusader powers, and their political allies in the Syrian revolutionary camp. That's a big historic mistake by that revolutionary camp.
"Who is that revolutionary camp? Well, some of them are employees of the Crusader powers. I don't want to name names, 'cos I don't have time, but you must know who I'm talking about – people who are based in Paris, based in London, based in Istanbul. These are the same kind of employees that the so-called Iraqi opposition consisted of before the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
"They are servants of the Crusader powers. That is why they are asking the Crusaders to bomb them – because the Crusaders are asking their servants to ask them to bomb them. It's really not rocket science. […]
"I believe in the Arabs more often, it seems, than the Arabs believe in themselves. If you think that the Arabs have a low level of political awareness, you've never visited Britain, you've never visited the United States, you've never visited any of these other democratic countries.
"If you think that the Arabs vote for a president rather than a program – believe me, nobody's voting for a program in Britain. Nobody even reads the program. Nobody even broadcasts the program.
The Arabs have fantastic potential. In Egypt, the man who sweeps the street at Fishawi Café in the Khan Al-Khalili market is a politician. I never met an Arab anywhere who wasn't a politician.
"Believe in yourselves! Stand up and believe in yourselves! Stop waiting for somebody else, waiting for Godot, waiting for the khawaja to come and liberate you, waiting for the foreigners to liberate Palestine. Do it yourselves. You can do it. I believe in the Arabs.
"Salaam Aleikum, thank you very much indeed."
