DOESNT THIS WOMAN HAVE ACONSCIENCE
Syria's first lady has a UK passport – that doesn't make her goodBritish-born Asma al-Assad has come out in support of her husband's oppression of his people – but why are we surprised?
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Nesrine Malik
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 7 February 2012 17.00 GMT Article history
Asma al-Assad 'signed up to act as fig leaf', to soften the image of her husband, Syria's president Bashar al-Assad. Photograph: Miguel Medina/AFP
Asma al-Assad, or her office, seems to have unfortunate timing. As the death toll rose in Homs yesterday, due to aerial bombardment, Asma declared that she was fully behind her husband. In addition, the Times says she "appeared to offer full support to her husband and his security forces to crush the opposition, but also claims to be encouraging dialogue and comforting the bereaved". Asma's own Sunni family hails from Homs.
Asma was in the press last year in another colossally ill-judged and badly timed article, this time in Vogue, titled Desert Rose. The puff piece, February's cover story, which among other things fawningly documents the first lady's love of Louboutin shoes, was pulled from the Vogue website soon afterwards. At the time, the first drops of blood were being shed in Syria – a country the article had referred to as "the safest country in the Middle East" presided over by a first couple whose household was run on "wildly democratic principles".
The first lady's latest pronouncements are said to be in response to a previous Times article posing the question "What does Assad's wife, an intelligent, educated woman raised in liberal Britain and seemingly dedicated to good works, think of the evils being perpetrated daily across Syria – nowhere more so than in her family's home city of Homs?"
In fact, across the Arab world at the highest political echelons, there are a number of photogenic wives and daughters who appear western in education and dress, but default unquestioningly to their fathers and husbands. It is not a feminist issue; a Phd from the London School of Economics did not make Saif al-Islam less of a tyrant. Family values trump all.
Asma, one of a breed of educated westernised Arab first wives, was previously regarded as one of the more benign of the bunch. She is less overtly liberal in style and less celebrity- and fashion-obsessed than the west's favourite, Queen Rania of Jordan. Nor was she perceived to be as worldly as Leila Ben Ali (Tunisia) or Suzanne Mubarak (Egypt). She was certainly judged more of an asset to Bashar than a liability; demure, educated, and able to appeal to both Syrian and western hearts.
Yet Asma is referred to in most media reports with the prefix "UK-born"; the implication being that her standards of political morality should somehow be higher than her non-UK-born counterparts. Had she been a traditional Syrian born and bred, in hijab, should we expect her to be more nonchalant about the bloodshed in Syria? Would a statement from her, not even an interview, be a front page story? But Asma has a British passport, and a London-based family to which she could return. She is seen as "one of us"; Harley Street, Marylebone, King's College and JP Morgan are names that bear witness to her upbringing in the most rarefied circles in the UK. All of which made her more of a prime candidate for a compliant marriage to a Syrian man of convention, rather than excluding her.
There are postulations that she is a prisoner, unable to escape, or a tortured woman torn between loyalties – but the reality is possibly more prosaic. Bashar did not turn into a tyrant overnight. His father was one of the most brutal dictators the region had witnessed, despite some stiff competition, and his heir was fully expected to continue in the manner. The marriage was loosely arranged a mere six months after Bashar succeeded his father so there was some transactional aspect to it. Like millions of marriages all over the world, where the wives of high-profile men are contracted to soften their husband's public images, this one had clearly pre-defined roles. To act as fig leaf, to have an "ostrich attitude" – which she has been accused of – is fundamentally what she signed up for.
But there comes a point where it is complicity. And the latest press release (for that is what it was, an email, sent through an intermediary) – which was neither demanded nor expected, nor likely to further her avowed new role of "bridging gaps and encouraging dialogue" – is unnecessarily provocative.
Her British nurture had not inculcated her against the essential objectionableness of the Assad clan and its ruling mores. Neither did Suzanne Mubarak's half-British heritage soften her to the plight of the Egyptian people. The sooner we dispense with the non-sequitur that Asma's UK birth makes her collusion anathema, the easier it will become to understand the role of first wives in the Arab world.
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Syria's first lady has a UK passport – that doesn't make her goodBritish-born Asma al-Assad has come out in support of her husband's oppression of his people – but why are we surprised?
Share 88 reddit this Comments (96)
Nesrine Malik
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 7 February 2012 17.00 GMT Article history
Asma al-Assad 'signed up to act as fig leaf', to soften the image of her husband, Syria's president Bashar al-Assad. Photograph: Miguel Medina/AFP
Asma al-Assad, or her office, seems to have unfortunate timing. As the death toll rose in Homs yesterday, due to aerial bombardment, Asma declared that she was fully behind her husband. In addition, the Times says she "appeared to offer full support to her husband and his security forces to crush the opposition, but also claims to be encouraging dialogue and comforting the bereaved". Asma's own Sunni family hails from Homs.
Asma was in the press last year in another colossally ill-judged and badly timed article, this time in Vogue, titled Desert Rose. The puff piece, February's cover story, which among other things fawningly documents the first lady's love of Louboutin shoes, was pulled from the Vogue website soon afterwards. At the time, the first drops of blood were being shed in Syria – a country the article had referred to as "the safest country in the Middle East" presided over by a first couple whose household was run on "wildly democratic principles".
The first lady's latest pronouncements are said to be in response to a previous Times article posing the question "What does Assad's wife, an intelligent, educated woman raised in liberal Britain and seemingly dedicated to good works, think of the evils being perpetrated daily across Syria – nowhere more so than in her family's home city of Homs?"
In fact, across the Arab world at the highest political echelons, there are a number of photogenic wives and daughters who appear western in education and dress, but default unquestioningly to their fathers and husbands. It is not a feminist issue; a Phd from the London School of Economics did not make Saif al-Islam less of a tyrant. Family values trump all.
Asma, one of a breed of educated westernised Arab first wives, was previously regarded as one of the more benign of the bunch. She is less overtly liberal in style and less celebrity- and fashion-obsessed than the west's favourite, Queen Rania of Jordan. Nor was she perceived to be as worldly as Leila Ben Ali (Tunisia) or Suzanne Mubarak (Egypt). She was certainly judged more of an asset to Bashar than a liability; demure, educated, and able to appeal to both Syrian and western hearts.
Yet Asma is referred to in most media reports with the prefix "UK-born"; the implication being that her standards of political morality should somehow be higher than her non-UK-born counterparts. Had she been a traditional Syrian born and bred, in hijab, should we expect her to be more nonchalant about the bloodshed in Syria? Would a statement from her, not even an interview, be a front page story? But Asma has a British passport, and a London-based family to which she could return. She is seen as "one of us"; Harley Street, Marylebone, King's College and JP Morgan are names that bear witness to her upbringing in the most rarefied circles in the UK. All of which made her more of a prime candidate for a compliant marriage to a Syrian man of convention, rather than excluding her.
There are postulations that she is a prisoner, unable to escape, or a tortured woman torn between loyalties – but the reality is possibly more prosaic. Bashar did not turn into a tyrant overnight. His father was one of the most brutal dictators the region had witnessed, despite some stiff competition, and his heir was fully expected to continue in the manner. The marriage was loosely arranged a mere six months after Bashar succeeded his father so there was some transactional aspect to it. Like millions of marriages all over the world, where the wives of high-profile men are contracted to soften their husband's public images, this one had clearly pre-defined roles. To act as fig leaf, to have an "ostrich attitude" – which she has been accused of – is fundamentally what she signed up for.
But there comes a point where it is complicity. And the latest press release (for that is what it was, an email, sent through an intermediary) – which was neither demanded nor expected, nor likely to further her avowed new role of "bridging gaps and encouraging dialogue" – is unnecessarily provocative.
Her British nurture had not inculcated her against the essential objectionableness of the Assad clan and its ruling mores. Neither did Suzanne Mubarak's half-British heritage soften her to the plight of the Egyptian people. The sooner we dispense with the non-sequitur that Asma's UK birth makes her collusion anathema, the easier it will become to understand the role of first wives in the Arab world.
• Follow Comment is Free on Twitter @commentisfree
Printable versionSend to a friendShareClipContact us larger | smaller World news
Bashar al-Assad · Syria · Middle East and North Africa · Arab and Middle East unrest
More from Comment is free on
World news
Bashar al-Assad · Syria · Middle East and North Africa · Arab and Middle East unrest
Dictators' wives – in pictures
Their husbands have run some of the most brutal regimes of the Arab world, but present and former first ladies presented a different image to the world
The Arab world's first ladies of oppression
Related