Today British newspaper The Guardian published an article headlined 'Asma al-Assad as a hope for peace because she wears Louis Vuitton? Pah'. "A fixation on the Syrian dictator's wife western appearance has seen an absurd petition gain traction. She is complicit in tyranny," the author of the article, Sana Saeed says.
"When Vogue infamously featured Asma al-Assad during the early period of the Syrian uprising in 2011, most level-headed folks were quick to point out the sheer bad taste and absurdity of the feature. It seemed surreal, yet unsurprising for a publication built on promoting the superficial, that the wife of a man running one of the world's most historically brutal regimes was being lauded for her daily sartorial choices as well as her promotion of democracy in her own home and "active citizenship" amongst her fellow Syrians," the article reads.
"In addition to this laughable angle, the piece was packed with declarations of Asma's "enigmatic" existence: she was, as the piece's title proclaimed, a "rose in a desert". The title implied more than simply a painful cliche. Roses are unable to grow in the desert for obvious botanical reasons that hopefully need no further explanation. Thus, Asma was not a "product" of the Muslim or Arab world. Heavens no. She was, with all her class, elegance, education and wardrobe successes, a product of the ever-constant "western culture". She was, as both the title and feature announced, a sight of beauty in a barren, deadly land. She was not a rarity in the desert, but an edaphological miracle. Yeah. Gag," the article says.
"The wives of the British and German ambassadors to the United Nations have recently launched a campaign calling upon Asma al-Assad to "stop being a bystander" and start speaking out against her husband and his regime's gruesome crusade, which has left an estimated 10,000 Syrians dead. The campaign's tedious open-letter video is accompanied by a petition that has received quite a bit of traction in recent days, with over 22,000 signatures out of the goal of 25,000," the author says.
"Oh yes, if the images of dead children and decapitated countrymen outside her own window do not touch the western sensibilities of Asma al-Assad, then no doubt a petition will. The fixation with Asma al-Assad as a rational, liberal-democratically educated woman with fashion and career receptivity seem to lead to the conclusion that she has the ability to stand against the very tyranny that safeguards her power-clad interests. Indeed, as the campaign and video insinuate: Asma has the ability (and perhaps even an interest!) to speak out against her husband's (note: possession of tyranny is not hers, but his alone) oppression. What this video and campaign ignore is, as I wrote elsewhere, that Asma and her fellow first lady dictators are in fact active participants in upholding dictatorship and oppression of the very people they claim to represent," the author believes.
