Hazem al-Amin

A number of Lebanese journalists and authors considered to be allies of the Syrian regime or close to it have written articles condemning the conduct of Syrian security agencies toward citizens in Daraa and elsewhere. Their condemnations ranged from demands that the regime arrest corrupt figures inside it – especially Rami Makhlouf – instead of unarmed citizens, to ridicule of the use of “foreign conspiracy” as an explanation for the ongoing demonstrations and protests.

These authors’ adversaries ought to tip their hats to them for this step. However, the significance  in their action lies not only in their positive intentions toward the Syrian people, but in the fact that it is a response to the insult to their intelligence by the official Syrian rhetoric they were called on to endorse. The authors of these articles, no matter the level of our disagreement with them, never stooped to the unintelligence and banality of the Syrian rhetoric. It is difficult – nay, impossible – for them not to be insulted by the regime’s raving explanation of what is happening in Syrian cities.
A brief review of Syrian media broadcasts and comments by its mouthpieces is enough to see that one would feel ashamed if called on to endorse such rhetoric:

- Official Syrian television broadcast images of a demonstration in Damascus and said that the protesters had come out of their houses to celebrate rainfall after a long drought.

- A university professor close to the regime said that conspirators were being hidden in the coffins carried by mourners at the funerals of those killed during demonstrations, and that this legitimated opening fire at those carrying the coffins.

- A political analyst working for the regime’s official newspaper said that orders had come to protest conspirators via weather bulletins broadcast by Al-Jazeera – that the weather forecaster had given code phrases.

- An Egypt citizen was arrested and Syrian television held an interview with him in which he confessed that he was an American intelligence agent and  had been taking pictures of sensitive areas. He was released the next day after the intervention of the US embassy.

- The reception of former Lebanese politicians who have no representative character or rhetorical credibility could also be added to this disgraceful list. It appears that the regime in Syria does not understand  that its hosting Michel Samaha, Nasser Qandil, and Wiam Wahhab on its official television will double the credit of its adversaries in the interior. It has not noticed that the Syrians have not seen the allies who have more credibility than these on regime television.

This is a small sample of the rhetoric that the demonstrators in Syrian cities are facing. It is, in a sense, rhetoric that helps the demonstrators in attracting more supporters in Syria and abroad. The story of the partiality of Lebanese journalists who supposedly did not essentially object to the Syrian regime is only one of this rhetoric’s effects.