IRAQ: In Syria it Comes Down to a Cartoonist

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ferry Biedermann

DAMASCUS, Apr 4 2003 (IPS) - A young man walked into the office of the satirical newspaper Al Doumari Thursday to apologise to cartoonist Ali Ferzat. The visitor had joined a demonstration a day earlier against Ferzat’s cartoons making fun of the Iraqi regime.

The young man wished now that he had not. He said he was misled by articles in the government-controlled daily Tishreen. The paper had tried to whip up popular feeling against Ferzat, and failed.

Only a handful of people attended the demonstration Wednesday in the centre of Damascus. Risa el-Hafez, a young art student wearing a headscarf urged passers-by to sign a petition against the cartoonist, but few obliged.

"His cartoons are an insult to the Iraqi army and the Iraqi people," said El-Hafez. She used to admire Ferzat, she says. His sharp criticism of repressive regimes in the Middle East stands out. But, she says, "now is not the time."

Syrian authorities have long regarded Ferzat as an irritant and have made it difficult for Al Doumari. Now it seems the war in Iraq is being used to silence dissent.

The government of the young President Bashar al-Assad is the most outspoken opponent in the Arab world of the "imperialist, colonialist war on the people of Iraq." State controlled media feeds the public daily with a diet of Iraqi civilian casualties and examples of Iraq’s "heroic resistance".

Syria is a tightly controlled society, and demonstrations are sanctioned if not instigated by the government. The recent outpouring of popular anger in support of the Palestinian intifada, and now the war in Iraq is unusual because the strong anti-war stand has won the government a measure of sympathy from its own population. The economy is bogged down in recession and political freedom is being rolled back after some relaxation several years ago.

Parliamentary elections last month were intended to show that Syria is still set on the reform path. But the result was a massive and predictable victory for the ruling Ba’ath party.

President Al-Assad warned at the opening of Parliament that there is no room for "vindictive and unproductive" elements in the Syrian political dialogue, effectively telling the besieged opposition to keep quiet.

Foreign and Syrian observers say the regime badly needed an injection of popular support. The war in Iraq provided just that.

A leading Syrian commentator says the government is storing up credit with the people in order to delay or cancel reforms. "The longer the war in Iraq lasts, the more they can use it to escape having to change," he says.

That may explain the apparently dangerous course the government seems to be taking. Its opposition to the war is not limited to vocal sorties. Damascus has become a hub over the last two weeks for young Syrians, Iraqis and other Arabs who boast of groups crossing into Iraq "to fight for Saddam Hussein."

This has raised the wrath of Washington. U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accused Syria last week of a "hostile" act in allowing Saddam supporters, arms and equipment to cross into Iraq.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell accused Damascus of supporting terrorist organisations and a "dying regime" in Baghdad. He said Damascus had to choose between this unacceptable behaviour and a "different, more hopeful course." The remarks reinforced long-held Syrian fears of being "next on the U.S. hit list."

The government says it is expressing the will of the people. "Syria’s government and its people are united in their position and their understanding of the reason behind this war," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Buthaina Shaaban told IPS. She is believed to have access to the President’s inner circle.

There is little love lost between the rival Ba’ath Party regimes in Damascus and Baghdad. Shaaban says her government’s support is limited to "the Iraqi people."

She says she can envision Syria establishing normal relations with the next government in Iraq, whatever its nature.

Such statements make it hard to see why Ali Ferzat should run foul of the official and popular line. His cartoons seem to express sympathy for the Iraqi people while criticising the leadership.

Ferzat has a simple explanation for the campaign against him. "They have wanted to shut me down for a while now and they are trying to seize this chance," he said at his cartoon-lined office, across the road from the headquarters of Syria’s ruling Ba’ath party.

Clearly, the campaign against Ferzat is officially sanctioned. Tishreen ran full-page stories two days in a row condemning his work.

Seizing on the fact that the cartoons also appear in the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Watan and in the Arabic version of Newsweek, Tishreen asked its readers: "Have the dollar and the (Kuwaiti) dinar become more important than the blood and tears of the Iraqi children?"

Ferzat is struggling to retain his sense of humour. "My cartoons poke fun at life but the reality is sometimes stranger than what I can draw."