On January 3, German International Minister Annalena Baerbock and French International Minister Jean-Noel Barrot travelled to Damascus to satisfy with Syria’s interim chief Ahmad al-Sharaa. The go to got here lower than a month after the sudden downfall of one of the crucial violent regimes within the Arab world – the Baathist dictatorship of President Bashar al-Assad.
There are a myriad of points on the agenda of Syrian-European relations, not least regional stability, financial restoration, post-war justice and reconciliation, the refugee disaster and so forth.
And but, Western media selected to give attention to al-Sharaa’s choice to greet Baerbock with a nod and a smile as a substitute of extending his hand to her, in observance of Muslim spiritual norms. Western media pundits characterised the incident as “a scandal” and a “snub”.
A Politico editorial went so far as suggesting that trivia like shaking palms ought to grow to be the brand new “litmus check” on how “average” a Muslim chief actually is. Within the identify of inclusivity, the Politico piece implied that religious male Muslim leaders like al-Sharaa needs to be compelled to shake ladies’s palms – no matter what their faith instructs – or else, it ought to set off “alarm bells” within the West. The previous adage “when in Rome, do because the Romans do” has grow to be “when in Syria, do because the Germans and French do”.
As a Syrian American whose father was exiled from Syria for 46 years and whose household buddies have been tortured and killed by the al-Assad regime, I discover the Western “litmus check” of Arab management laden with contradictions and easily offensive.
I’m wondering the place was media’s fury when the British royal, Prince Edward, defined he most popular non-physical contact with atypical Brits making an attempt to greet him? Ought to we provide grace when the motive is private choice and anger when the motive is spiritual observance?
It isn’t stunning that Western media is making an attempt to impose Western cultural values as the brand new litmus check for the “moderation” of Muslim Arab leaders. It has completed so for many years.
As anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod has argued in her ebook, Do Muslim Ladies Want Saving?, there’s an assumption within the West “that liberal tradition is the acultural norm and needs to be the common commonplace by which to measure societies. Those that fall quick are the barbarians exterior the gates…”
The very characterisation of Muslim spiritual norms as “excessive” is a symptom of a hegemonic discourse by which Western norms are masked as common ones.
The dangerous information for individuals who subscribe to this viewpoint is that Western cultural values are usually not as dominant as they could think about. Muslims and Arabs even have company – the company to decide on to watch their spiritual values even after they defy the dominant cultural expectations within the West – though we’ve seen a willingness to bend these expectations in terms of British royalty, worry of COVID-19 transmission, and so on.
The media’s hyperfocus on trivia – like al-Sharaa’s gown or private mannerisms – seems trite within the context of brutal repression that Syrians have endured for 61 years beneath the authoritarian Baathist regime.
Syrians have their very own “litmus check” for evaluating their new management, like the federal government’s skill to ship democracy and freedom, restore and enhance civilian infrastructure, unite Syrians and defend constitutional rights, not whether or not male authorities members shake the palms of girls. Most urgently, Syrians are involved about their new management’s skill to steer the nation in direction of peace, prosperity and stability.
Half of the Syrian inhabitants is at the moment displaced and greater than 90 % of the folks inside Syria reside beneath the poverty line. There are excessive shortages of meals, water, and electrical energy. Unemployment is rife and the economic system is in tatters.
Then there’s additionally the trauma of dwelling by means of a 13-year-long civil battle and 61-year-long authoritarian rule.
There’s not a single Syrian household I do know that has not misplaced relations or buddies to al-Assad’s brutal repressive regime. My childhood buddies misplaced their father, Majd Kamalmaz, a psychotherapist and a US citizen, when he went to pay condolences to his mother-in-law in Syria in 2017. A relative from Aleppo misplaced two teen brothers to torture in al-Assad’s infamous dungeons. My feminine cousin spent a month in an underground jail for passing out bread in a poor neighbourhood in Damascus through the civil battle. Household buddies – like Heba al-Dabbagh, who spent 9 years in Syrian jail within the Eighties as a result of the regime couldn’t discover her brother – shared harrowing tales of torture.
After struggling for many years beneath one of the crucial brutal dictatorships on this planet, Syrians are determined for a brand new starting, holding on to tattered threads of hope. They could have confronted unimaginable horrors – mass killing, torture, systemic rape, repression, and displacement – however they’re no helpless victims. They’ve a transparent imaginative and prescient of the longer term they need.
If the Western media needs to get Syria proper, it must observe introspection and recognise how its discourse and expectations could also be formed by a long time of hegemonic bias. As a substitute of imposing a Western “litmus check” on Arab leaders, it ought to ask Syrians what they need of their management.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.