On January 3, German Overseas Minister Annalena Baerbock and French Overseas Minister Jean-Noel Barrot travelled to Damascus to fulfill 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 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 deal with al-Sharaa’s choice to greet Baerbock with a nod and a smile as an alternative of extending his hand to her, in observance of Muslim non secular 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 fingers ought to develop into the brand new “litmus take a look at” 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 pressured to shake girls’s fingers – 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 develop into “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 take a look at” of Arab management laden with contradictions and easily offensive.
I ponder the place was media’s fury when the British royal, Prince Edward, defined he most well-liked non-physical contact with unusual Brits making an attempt to greet him? Ought to we provide grace when the motive is private choice and anger when the motive is non secular observance?
It’s not stunning that Western media is making an attempt to impose Western cultural values as the brand new litmus take a look at for the “moderation” of Muslim Arab leaders. It has accomplished so for many years.
As anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod has argued in her guide, Do Muslim Girls Want Saving?, there may be an assumption within the West “that liberal tradition is the acultural norm and needs to be the common normal by which to measure societies. Those that fall quick are the barbarians exterior the gates…”
The very characterisation of Muslim non secular 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 look at their non secular values even after they defy the dominant cultural expectations within the West – though we’ve seen a willingness to bend these expectations in relation to British royalty, concern of COVID-19 transmission, and so forth.
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 underneath the authoritarian Baathist regime.
Syrians have their very own “litmus take a look at” for evaluating their new management, like the federal government’s capability 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 fingers of ladies. Most urgently, Syrians are involved about their new management’s capability to steer the nation in the direction of peace, prosperity and stability.
Half of the Syrian inhabitants is presently displaced and greater than 90 p.c of the folks inside Syria reside under the poverty line. There are excessive shortages of meals, water, and electrical energy. Unemployment is rife and the financial system is in tatters.
Then there may be additionally the trauma of dwelling by 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 members of the family 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 throughout 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 underneath one of the brutal dictatorships on the earth, Syrians are determined for a brand new starting, holding on to tattered threads of hope. They might 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 long run they need.
If the Western media needs to get Syria proper, it must apply 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 take a look at” on Arab leaders, it ought to ask Syrians what they need of their management.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.