The Tyrant Wears Louboutins

Posted by Mika on Mar 17, 2011 in Middle East Politics, Syrian Politics | 0 comments

Well,  I have not been keeping up with the blog enough recently.   I have, I’ll admit, been cheating with some other projects, but there is no excuse for leaving my dear readers without the ability to chortle at people much more powerful than them.  I was beginning to miss the sound of my own wit. Is is whimsical or is it saucy?  I don’t even know anymore!

Lordy, where to start? Things certainly have been bustling along lately!  Apparently the Libyans didn’t read my “Feel Good Revolution” post. Or maybe they did, I just forgot to add the part about making sure your tyrant isn’t so morally repugnant that he hires foreign mercenaries to murder his own people. That was a serious oversight, and I’m sorry so… forgiven?  Of course, Libya isn’t the only country that is rising up against the tyrant, recently it would seem like the whole world has suddenly decided that they don’t like dictators, it’s mental! Thank goodness the dictators have Vogue magazine to keep them looking glamorous.

Again, this article is kind of old.  I’m sorry I’ve been super busy… doing… things, ok? In fairness, I’ve had this article on my internet tabs for at least a week now, and it hasn’t gotten any less icky.  I also started this post before Japan fell into a sink-hole of awful so it was kind of relevant. It’s called “A Rose in the Dessert” and it is about the beautiful, unadorned, but chic, first lady of Syria, Asma al-Assad, and her loving relationship with a man who is strong and masculine and responsible for the deaths of thousands and thousands of… hey, did you know she hardly wears any make-up at all?  Her skin is just like that! Insane.

Vogue has always done pieces on politician’s wives.  They love them because they are distinctly elite. Also, they usually don’t actually do any work themselves so they can be trusted to talk about fashion and china teapots while touching on world issues with the insight of a Miss America contestant.  You have to give that magazine some credit; there is no writing like Vogue writing.  In their magazine, every subject is a queen and every home is a castle.  If aliens were to read Vogue to learn about the human race, they would assume that every woman still spends their morning writing letters in the breakfast room and their afternoons making jewelry, fashioned from 17 caret gold and old sea-glass that their children collected barefoot on a Hamptons beach. It doesn’t matter what terrible atrocities are unfolding, somewhere in this world…  an heiress is going out for lunch.

Take this quote from the al-Assad article, (by Joan Juliet Black, BTW):

Iraq is next door, Iran not far away. Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, is 90 minutes by car from Damascus. Jordan is south, and next to it the region that Syrian maps label Palestine. There are nearly one million refugees from Iraq in Syria, and another half-million displaced Palestinians.

“It’s a tough neighborhood,” admits Asma al-Assad.

It’s also a neighborhood intoxicatingly close to the dawn of civilization, where agriculture began some 10,000 years ago, where the wheel, writing, and musical notation were invented… Christian Louboutin comes to buy the damask silk brocade they’ve been making here since the Middle Ages for his shoes and bags, and has incidentally purchased a small palace in Aleppo, which, like Damascus, has been inhabited for more than 5,000 years.

It’s awful. War in Iraq, atrocities in Palestine and…. Christian Louboutin?? It can’t be so bad! As for Asma al-Assad herself, Buck works so hard to make that woman likable.  She loves her silk purses, but she’s also a perfect Mum and a wild driver who flirts with traffic cops. It’s always kind of funny when Vogue writes about ridiculously rich people and then throws in a token “but they’re not snobs, they’re just like you!”:

Her accent is English but not plummy. Despite what must be a killer IQ, she sometimes uses urban shorthand: “I was, like. . . .”

Bad English! How endearing!

Beyond Buck painting a picture of Mother Therese in stilettos, the dictator himself makes a few appearances as an open minded secular leader and all-around cool dad. The writer doesn’t actually mention his name once, likely out of fear that someone will Google him.  That’s about the only smart thing Buck does in the whole article, but don’t get too hung up on it, the amount of stupid shit she says more then makes up for it. Like this:

In Syria, power is hereditary. Yes, that’s because it’s a dictatorship.  Buck just sort of throws that out there like it’s a little cultural difference.  “In Sweden, people like an afternoon sauna. In Syria, power is hereditary.” Hereditary power isn’t part of a county’s free-flowing, organic nature, it takes a lot of guns to make that happen.

Here’s another gem:

I shop and see sights in a bubble of comfort and hospitality. On the rare occasions I am out alone, a random series of men in leather jackets seems to be keeping close tabs on what I am doing and where I am headed.

Yes, it’s very hospitable for the secret service to follow you.  Joan Buck should really take a trip to China, I hear they are super hospitable in Tienanmen Square.

But this…. this takes the cake:

The household is run on wildly democratic principles. “We all vote on what we want, and where,” she says. The chandelier over the dining table is made of cut-up comic books. “They outvoted us three to two on that.”

Rude.  SO RUDE!! That family has the audacity to mention democracy and talk about how it should apply to their home decorating but somehow, not their people’s government? SO. FUCKING. RUDE.

Oh course, Vogue has been getting some flack for this article.  Their response to the criticism?  “The article was written before the uprisings in Tunisia”  I think that’s their way of saying “Our bad, we didn’t realize dictatorship was going out of fashion.”

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