Criticism mounts of Asma al-Assad, the fashion pinup at the heart of Syria's repressive elite
By Esther Addley and Katherine Marsh in Damascus
This commentary was published in The Guardian on 01/04/2011
To Paris Match she was "the element of light in a country full of shadow zones"; to French Elle, the most stylish woman in world politics. Even the Sun was moved to coo over "the sexy Brit bringing Syria in from the cold".
But when American Vogue last month published a glittering profile of Asma al-Assad, calling her "a rose in the desert … glamorous, young and very chic", it seemed the world's patience with fawning paeans to Syria's British-born first lady was beginning to wear thin.
The former banker, 35, who grew up in Acton, west London, has been married for more than a decade to the country's president, Bashar al-Assad, with whom she has three children. She is, said Vogue, "the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies," who combines her passion for Christian Louboutin shoes with a mission "to create a beacon of culture and secularism in a powder-keg region".
Several months into the current "Arab Spring", during which growing calls for reform of Syria's oppressive dictatorship have been met with a brutal police crackdown, critics of the Syrian regime have become increasingly reluctant to allow such remarks to go unchallenged.
"This is the most insulting article ever published by Vogue," read one comment on the magazine's website, representative of many. "She joined a family that is responsible for a history of brutal and repressive dictatorship. She represents everything that is opposite of what you are praising her for."
Observers pointed out that the 97% of the vote that propelled Assad to the presidency, succeeding his father, was probably less "startling" to Mrs Assad than to the Vogue writer, as her husband had been the only candidate and now presides over one of the most brutal regimes in the world.
"Ever wonder what a Marie Antoinette profile might have looked like if Vogue published in 1788?" asked one commentator. "Wonder no more."
Certainly, to admirers and critics, Asma al-Assad is an intriguing figure. The daughter of a former diplomat and a Syrian Harley Street cardiologist, she was raised as a secular Muslim and spoke Arabic at home, but attended a Church of England school in west London, where fellow pupils knew her as Emma. After the private Queen's College girl's school in Marylebone and King's College London, where she studied computer science, she embarked on a brief career as a banker with JP Morgan in London and New York.
Her father, Fawaz Akhras, was a prominent member of the Syrian emigre community in the UK (later founding the British Syrian society) and she and her siblings visited Syria frequently, where Hafez al-Assad, the long-term ruler, was a family friend. She and Bashar, a decade her senior, began dating when she was in her early 20s. The courtship was conducted in absolute secrecy, with neither her colleagues at JP Morgan nor the Syrian press or public knowing anything about it until they married privately in December 2000.
The new president's wife – multilingual and articulate, with a light London accent and warm, easy manners – soon charmed interviewers and statesmen alike. Syrian public opinion was seduced by the story of how she had spent three months before her marriage touring the Syrian countryside incognito, and her subsequent establishment of an NGO aimed at encouraging "empowerment in a civil society". She regularly makes unexpected appearances at charity events and development functions, and mingles easily with crowds, famously driving herself to and from locations.
Her good looks and understated glamour, like that of Diana, Princess of Wales, to whom Syrians often compare her, didn't hurt. High hopes for a new era of political reform were invested in the president, a former eye surgeon, and his charming wife; in the souqs of Damascus and Aleppo posters and magnets of the president, the first lady and their children became popular souvenirs.
But more than a decade into the second Assad regime, those hopes have been frustrated and Syria is in the middle of a gathering crisis. Dozens of pro-democracy protesters have been killed in recent weeks in a violent crackdown on dissent, and although President Assad has offered limited concessions in an attempt to fend off the wave of unrest sweeping the Arab world, he refused this week to lift the hated emergency laws that have permitted Syrian oppression for more than half a century, defiantly blaming "conspiracies" for the unrest.
Some insist that this is not the fault of Assad or his wife, blaming an intransigent old guard and obstructive military hellbent on frustrating the couple's reforming instincts. Unsourced reports suggested Mrs Assad had considered moving back to London, frustrated at the lack of reform.
Others are more sceptical. "What has been holding back reform, if they are committed reformers?" asks Soumaya Ghannoushi, a Middle East commentator based at the university of London. "He has had a long time in government, there were so many hopes pinned on him for reform when he became president. People have given him chance after chance, and nothing has happened.
"There is a mixed feeling in the country towards her. There is a sense of pride, I think, that they have this young, good-looking first lady, westernised and very stylish. But at the same time, they feel she is playing the role of giving a very soft, friendly human image to a regime which is anything but."
Despite the growing political crisis many young women, especially among the urban elite, still express admiration for the first lady.
"She is doing a lot of good," said Nour, a 32-year old office worker in Damascus, pointing to raised awareness on the environment, disabilities and young people. Mrs Assad is also widely credited with a notable rising interest in volunteerism in the last few years.
But among female activists and protesters, Mrs Assad's appeal appears to be fading. "She's a dictator's wife. I don't see how someone married to him can be dubbed a reformer," said one.
The Vogue article "was offensive to Syrians", said a female lawyer in the capital. "Many of my friends were angered by it." She referred specifically to Mrs Assad's boast that she runs her household "on wildly democratic principles" — in sharp contrast to Syria.
"I wonder what she thinks about [the crisis]," said one woman, who asked not to be named. "Surely she wants her children to grow up in a free, democratic country and have the possibilities she had?"
Katherine Marsh is a pseudonym for a journalist working in Damascus
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