An opthalmologist marries a banker
March 10, 2021 10:24 PM   Subscribe

Banker, princess, warlord: the many lives of Asma Assad. "How a girl from West London became the unlikely winner of Syria's war." A long read from the Economist's 1843 Magazine.
posted by russilwvong (6 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
I’m confused, this reads like your typical war-laundering puff piece the Economist would impunibly publish in the 1840’s - is that not the actual case here?
posted by progosk at 12:35 AM on March 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


Imperialist brutality's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it. Or something.
posted by ocschwar at 5:02 AM on March 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


The Economist take is a little more "can you believe this demure English banker girl came to this" than "we should've known she was a sociopath when she went into mergers and acquisitions." And there are other yikes moments, from the description of Asma Assad almost successfully assimilated into an English person with no interest in Syria, to a bit about Bashar al-Assad dating his brother's "manicured discards," to the wide-eyed acceptance of the idea that she'd sacrificed, for true love, the sort of career where her manager freely describes her as "subservient."

There is a rather sympathetic part in the middle, where she is described as a young wife marginalized for her Sunni heritage, poor ability to speak Arabic, and terrible relationship with her in-laws. After that, this piece is not flattering at all, which makes me doubt it as PR fluff. The nicest thing anyone can say about Asma Assad is that she might have political ambitions of her own, and that she has gotten rich and newly influential off the back of her (UN-funded) charitable organization. If the best thing people can say about you is that you only took part of what was meant to go to those in desperate need, well, people really can't say anything good about you. That's not a viable political path at all.
posted by grandiloquiet at 9:26 AM on March 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


I see both Asma Assad and Basha al-Assad have this week tested positive for Covid. I mean I'm not normally into siding with coronavirus, but....
posted by inflatablekiwi at 10:00 AM on March 11, 2021 [2 favorites]




BTW, you can find an archived copy of the original article here.

It's worth reading.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:00 PM on March 14, 2021


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