Allow me to pontificate a bit, based on my experience in politics: methods matter in politics. I have never seen one single person, no matter their political stature, who resorted to lies or deceits of any kind, slanders, gossip, vilifying, exaggerations, backstabbing, or rhetoric full of hate who has turned out well politically. Some take longer to rot & many don’t emit the odor of decay but they never go the distance with principled politics. They don’t know principled politics but only how to manipulate & smear. Something other than indignation at injustice inspires them. When the Assadist called me a “dirty whore” for opposing Assad’s dictatorship, he was not an errant Assadist getting carried away with hate. Such is the rhetoric of political desperation, corruption or fascism, & most certainly of misogyny.
Serendipitously, I came across a post I wrote about the Assadist response to the January 20, 2017 article in the NY Times by Syrian citizen journalist Lina Shamy titled “I went to Aleppo to study; I left in a convoy of refugees.” Throughout the murderous bombing siege by Syrian & Russian warplanes in 2016, Shamy twittered invaluable reports from east Aleppo. She was forced to leave the city in the convoy of buses with tens of thousands of others when the Syrian Army took over. These are among the responses to her article on the FB walls of Assad propagandists Leith Abou Fadel & Vanessa Beeley. Not a single voice of protest was raised when Shamy was called a whore, terrorist bitch, harlot bastard, or retard:
–“Maybe she’s talking about how she went to east Aleppo to study & practice about “how to be a jihadi sex toy.”
–“She studied head-chopping & prostitution.”
–“I didn’t know there’s a school for sex jihadi.”
–“She’s the new Mossad agent playing character for the jue-wish shekel war fund.”
–“She was probably there to give Bilal Abdul Kareem a blowjob.”
–“She majored in how to blow a salafi 101.”
You can follow Lina Shamy on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/Linashamy