Those Losers Ought to Be Ashamed of Themselves

It mystifies me how in spite of all the disasters that are happening in Syria, Syrians seem to have been taken with the news of the Etilaf’s president, Ahmad Jarba, slapping the SMC’s coordinator, Louay AlMokdad, across the face. For the purposes of this reflection, the incident itself is of little importance. This reflection is not intended to discuss the politics of what happened. 

I think we’ve had enough of it and we should move on and focus on what matters at a time of retreat and great human tragedy. What mystifies me, and what I think Syrians should be paying close attention to, is the phenomenon itself: the unhealthy preoccupation with a scandalous event represented in one high-profile slap despite the thousands of deadly slaps Syrians are receiving in Syria. Within minutes of the reporting of the incident a page was dedicated to the news, and, in no time, the page was boasting thousands of followers! Thousands of posts have been made to comment on, poke fun at, or ridicule what happened. 

Syrians’ FB profiles were washing over with sensational gossip, and the news became an immediate source of merriment for many a commentator. Mind you, this was happening at a time when large parts of Tala’aren in the reif of Aleppo were falling to the Assad regime.

How can we explain what happened? The problem I’m concerned with is not that of the Etilaf. The problem at the Etilaf does exist. There’s no question it’s real. What happened that night was a manifestation of deeper systemic issues. What I'm concerned with, however, is us. What about us? Is there also a problem with us or are we just normal people exhibiting acceptable and justifiable behavior? If this pattern of reacting to problems persists, will it contribute to us winning the struggle or will it doom us to retreat and eventual failure?

Human beings in general enjoy gaping and gawking at scandals. The lust for learning about scandals might have to do with the primordial voyeuristic peeping Tom we all have inside of us. After all, it takes discipline and self-restraint to resist the urge to exchange piquant bits of gossip. Syrians in this case are no exception to the rest of humanity. These are traits we all share in our collective genome registry as a human species. In our case as people fighting to throw off the yoke of repression and snatch freedom from the jaws of dictatorship, however, is there more to what happened than meets the eye?

Some have suggested that people love reading about scandals because it helps them find equilibrium. As Syrians, most of us are grappling with challenges: in our neighborhoods, coordination committees (I know lots of stories), local councils (a fresh story from Aleppo just surfaced two days ago), regional councils, media activist groups, armed groups (my word!), smaller political groupings, NGOs, humanitarian relief organizations, political and relief coalitions, and the list goes on and on. Relationships with family members, professional colleagues, revolutionary colleagues, or counterparts may be under strain. Emotionally it’s been one hell of a roller-coaster. Maybe with that comes the need to deflect and generate better feelings? One way to do it is by finding people who we can perceive to be more miserable than us, suckers who suck more than we do, so we can find solace and derive a sense of better feeling, perhaps well-being.

If that's true, what does it reveal about us? Maybe that's what we ought to be preoccupying ourselves with. Maybe that's what we ought to be learning about so we can learn from.

Notwithstanding names of individuals and how we feel about them (Jarba, AlMokdad, etc.) since we are faced with existential threats, and a possible throw-back to the dark ages for at least another 5 decades, should we adjust our thinking about those “losers out there” who always seem to exist outside of us? Do we share responsibility at all? Can we win this fight as individuals and small groupings or will we all go under unless we accept shared responsibility and have each other’s back? At a societal level, can our boat stay afloat if that of others capsizes, or are we all in this boat together?