Reform Party of Syria (RPS)

Washington - July 24, 2009 (RPS Staff Blog) - In what looks like the apogee of arrogance, wife to Baschar al-Assad (to be called going forward Marie-Antoinette al-Assad), has displayed pictures of herself on her Facebook page that defy logic.

The issue was brought to our attention by angry Syrians inside Syria. People who work with poor families. Such as mothers who cannot afford to buy milk for their children and fathers who cannot find work and go hungry 24/7.

The pictures highlight her designer shoes, bags, and jewelry. The elegance of a woman who has no connection whatsoever with the reality of the people of Syria exactly the same way Marie-Antoinette, prior to her Bastille, did not connect with the hunger her people faced.

Marie-Antoinette al-Assad cannot understand the miseries of Syrians. She believes she is in LaLa land, playing a game that makes her look good internationally, for her husband, but which makes a monstruosity of her inside Syria. Busying herself with the latest designer clothes and the most expensive jewelery the way Marie-Antoinette of France did prior to her demise, the disconnection between what happened in 1789 in France and what is happening in Syria in 2009 is so similar that it is heart wrenching to say the least. Hafez al-Assad kept himself, his wife Anisa, and all their excessiveness outside the public eye.

Although pictures of her shoes are intended to express the main theme on her Facebook page of exposing wealth, the reality lies in what shoes represent in our culture. We all remember the incident of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President George Bush and how much this particular act resonated in the Arab world. Shoes represent a demeanor, a message, and a comportment. Cross your legs and have the souls of your shoes face your guests and it becomes worse than heaving verbal insults upon them. Shoes, in short, express disrespect. And this is the implicit message Marie-Antoinette al-Assad is sending to her people.

Syria has her Imelda Marcos now.

Syrians are poor and hungry, asphyxiated by lack of liberties and stifling oppression. While their miserable lives carry them on a day-by-day basis, whether it comes to food or a roof over their heads, our own Marie-Antoinette is having none of that. The evil of this regime is obvious even down to the in-your-face attitudes aimed at keeping Syrians poor, ignorant, and despondent while their oppressors play to insult their dignity.

Why are we surprised Islamic extremism is growing in the Middle East? Just look at the excesses of our dictator Assad and the excesses of his wife.