Ultimate hypocrisy: Assad's Christmas tree

Christian refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan; from ekurd.net

Embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has a Christmas tree in his condo. At least he did through the holidays in 2010, in what may possibly be the last unbiased interview by a Western journalist in al-Assad's own home.

Vogue magazine's former French editor, Joan Juliet Buck, was the source of this bombshell. It was only one of many in her early 2011 article for Vogue that has been furiously sensationalized, debated, politicized and execrated since the Syrian civil war ramped up.

Revelations of a Christmas tree in the al-Assad residence left me with a bad case of cognitive dissonance. Al-Assad was vile, the worst in the region (as opposed to competing up-and-coming tyrants, Islamists and terrorists). All that was decent and human required he be put down. CNN said so.

True, al-Assad was tight with Russia and was a dictator, as all his neighboring rulers (excepting Israel) were to one extent or another. He allowed Palestinians sheltering in Syria to attack Israel, but they do that everywhere they live. When Obama began to beat the war drums against Mubarak and al-Bashar, I began to search for their high crimes. Surprising few of the serious charges could be easily substantiated against al-Assad, and was I already suspicious because of who was leading this campaign.

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Voilà. I stumbled into the Vogue ruckus.

Politically correct forces were running amuck, lights and sirens shrieking. Someone in their camp failed to follow the official narrative, which since 2009 is complete congruence with the White House. Buck was apologizing to the liberal world for reporting what she saw and heard – regardless of whether it was highly arranged, as it undoubtedly was. Losing status and employment, Buck ran in reverse as fast as possible in dozens of interviews. "I didn't know I was going to meet a murderer," she moaned to The Independent; and, "Mrs. Assad duped me," to Newsweek.

Which may be true to an extent. A tinder box of religious conflict, human rights abuses and an active radical uprising against al-Assad (family members were killed the next year) made the timing very dicey. But just in the prior year, former French President Nicholas Sarkozy and his wife hosted the couple at the Elysée Palace. In 2009, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie held almost the same intimate soirees with the Assads, similar glowing reports and – poof. Nothing.

Buck's article, "A Rose in the Desert," was quickly throttled after publication from online Vogue, and links to it disappeared. Certain I had seen the Christmas tree phenomena somewhere, I searched in vain. Link after link – "Page not found." Few subjects in the West have been on the receiving end of such a completely Orwellian web-data scrub.

After hours of searching, I found proof of the ectopic Christmas tree in the home of a Muslim dictator. One is here at Gawker and the other I'll keep to myself in case they scrub this too.

Liberal shock and dismay was imputed to the revelation that the Assads hired a PR firm to map out the Vogue writer's stay and advise them. More powerful states such as the U.S. have government advisors and White House employees to do such things for them and hire outside image control professionals as well, so that wasn't the real issue.

Tinsel and wooden mangers are defining symbols, especially in a Muslim-dominated nation. If they weren't, American atheists wouldn't be queuing to sue proclaimers of "peace and good will toward men" and every public image of it. Christian symbols in Syria and Iraq government may also hark back to the Christian founder of Baath Party, which has ruled Syria since 1963.

Meanwhile efforts are being made to host a decent Christmas for the Christian refugees, or at least help them survive it. It's woefully small scale, as a U.N. officially recently admitted; a "blot on our collective conscience." Christmas gifts, foods and preparations come entirely from churches, charities and NGOs.

One of their hosts is Christmas for Refugees, who hosts Christmas dinners for children and gives to their families displaced in Lebanon and Jordan since 2013. They describe the painful job of winnowing down names of 2000 children handed them by a Chaldean priest to the 200 they can accommodate in one celebration. This year they venture into Iraq, and there are several excellent charities doing similar work.

Christmas table, Lebanon refugee camp at children's dinner and gift time,
by Christmas for (Christian) refugees organization

Makeshift camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan will have trees and decorations if they can find or fashion them. Refugees miss their homes and the beauty of the oldest churches in the world. Ancient hymns comfort them as a reminder of the presence of God who travels with them as he did the battered Israelites. Some of the liturgies are in the Syriac dialects of Aramaic that Jesus spoke.

Listen to Syriac Orthodox prayer "Abun D'Bashmayo" (The Lord's Prayer)

Pillaged Christian homes in the region are part of the world's anti-Christmas campaign. Terrorists inhabit their abandoned houses and churches like plagues of weaponized toads. They'll continue doing the terrible things they've been doing, even on Christmas, until someone finally buries them.

Meanwhile, Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako of the Chaldean-Catholic church warns that Christian presence in the region may die off entirely. "In ten years there will perhaps be 50,000 Christians left" in Iraq, if there is no intervention. Both Syria and Iraq have lost or displaced at least two-thirds of their Christian population at this point, with many cities decimated and emptied.

Damascus has an ancient boulevard running East and West. "The Street Called Straight" is mentioned in the Bible and the name refers back to the verse itself. Until a few years ago the unquestioned Christian heritage in Syria existed in unbalanced peace with the majority Muslim neighbors. But at least it remained.

Christmas trees in the home of the Syrian leader symbolize Christian tradition there, which is far older than Islam (the Assads are Muslim minority Alawites). Acknowledging this fact carries political tones as well. Good ones, considering Syria is fighting for her life, identity and existence.

Vogue's banished article featured a First Lady sounding very proud and Western – even liberal, in her assessment of co-existing religions in Syria. After Asma and Buck visited an orphanage run by nuns, she explained that the church is "part of my heritage because it's a Syrian church." Asma claimed the same historic ties to the Armenians, Islam, Christianity, the Umayyads and the Ottomans. "That's how religions live together in Syria – a way that I have never seen anywhere else in the world."

Asma Al-Assad is young, raised in Britain, and she seems believable. There is a sadness in the back of her eyes if you look closely at some of the photos, even in this carefully-staged PR piece. I pity her almost as much as the Christians there, as it is a very unmerry Christmas for almost everyone in Syria now.

According to the powers that be, this is politically villainous, but I don't believe she wanted anything like this to happen. Asma campaigned and invested heavily in contemporary arts between Syria and Europe, even with the Louvre. Other interests are refugees, women's issues, education and health care – much like Princess Diana, who must have influenced her greatly as a girl in Britain.

About her husband, I couldn't say; except that he didn't choose his career either. Al-Assad was training to be an ophthalmologist, but circumstances changed him and Syria. Between Islamic extremists with their aid from the West added to inherited ties to Russia, Iran and North Korea, he may feel his back is against a wall. In this stance, al-Assad may yet end as one of the evil alliance attacking Israel as prophesied all over the Bible. In that case I pity him as well, because things won't go well for them.

In the midst of this, God's people in Syria and Iraq seem to be of little importance to anyone, but fortunately most of them don't believe this.

Anglican Canon Andrew White, known as the "vicar of Bagdad," was forced to flee the country, but still tends to his displaced flock. In a Facebook post, he described what Jesus promised as "peace that passes understanding" in their hardships. Visitors had come to Baghdad and were surprised by thousands of happy Christians celebrating Christmas. "How can you be so happy when you are surrounded, suicide bombs, mortar rockets and such violence?" they asked.

One of the young people answered, "You see, when you have lost everything, Jesus is all you have got left."

All the al-Assads have of this peace is a Christmas tree, which is the final reason I pity them. They don't begin to understand what Christians have in Christ. As for the rest of the Muslim world, they have a choice to consider the life and words of the One who is keeping watch over his flock in Syria and Iraq this Christmas.

He has his own exit strategy for ISIS.

Sources

• The Economist
• Al Arabiya
• GlobalPost
• BosNewsLife
• Gawker