I watched the interview by Jeremy Bown, on the BBC Arabic Service, with Mohammad al Shareh, who till recently went by the nom de guerre of Al Julani. He was composed, balanced, and careful in his answers. His demeanor was not threatening (like Saddam was) or unpredictable (like Qaddafi) or simply idiotic (like Bashar al Asad). I would not go as far as to say that he was statesmen-like, but as much a gentrified Islamist militiaman as one can expect. An Arab version of Fidel Castro rather than Mullah Omar of the Taliban.
Enough with the physical appearance and demeanor, the BBC’s Bowen asked him questions that did not only bewilder the respondent but rather the listener, like simpleton me.
He asked him whether the new rulers of Syria would impose the Hijab, or headscarf, on women?! This is coming from a BBC interviewer whereby I witnessed only last week, in London, many women in Niqab (the ninja-turtle version of the Hijab) walking the streets, giggling and merry. A society where “For England, and Saint George” was the motto for thousands of years, has allowed, rightly or wrongly, under the principles of freedom of expression, women to cover themselves by religious puritanism or social decorum. The counterargument would be that the democratic government of the UK has allowed some women to put on the Hijab/Niqab whereby the new Syrian Islamist rulers might ‘impose’ it on everyone. However, we do not know how this will shape up in Syria, and the BBC interviewer was hurling assumptions. The answer of Al Julani was not one of absolute certainty, but a sobering reply. His well-crafted answer was as astute as his well-trimmed beard. He said that a new constitution will be enacted in consultation with all bodies of society, and whatever it would adopt would become law and thus, applicable. I would have ventured another answer: Asma al Asad and Bothaina Chaaban did not wear any scarf and yet they have blood on their hands more than a thousand women in Hijabs. Why would not wearing a Hijab be an absolute sign of democracy or modernity or other forms of societal advancement, and wearing becomes an automatic sign of savagery and backwardness of society? Check the streets of London, I say.
Bowen, unhappy with the savvy answer of Al Julani asked him about drinking alcohol and whether it would be allowed in Syria in the future. Again, Al Julani politely answered that this is not a matter for one person to decide upon (i.e., himself) but for a constitutional committee and law experts who will have to take the specificities of Syria’s society and its multicultural aspects into account. Again, the Alawites were known to abuse alcohol, more than any Christian or Druze community in Syria. Did drinking alcohol or selling drugs, and maybe using both for recreational reason, render the Alawites or any other group, less prone to killing, maiming, jailing, exterminating, bombing, slaughtering, and burying almost 1 million Syrians?
Was Bowen and the BBC interested in freedom of expression only few days after an almost bloodless revolution against one of the longest service tyrant dynasties in the entire Middle East?
Was Bowen and the BBC interested in the liberties of minorities (especially the Christians) in Syria, when these same Christians were never evacuated, given special passage rights, offered asylum, or a privileged treatment by the Western nations who today are all up in arms to preserve their particularities?
Al Julani told Bowen that Syria has much more complex issues to deal with than the Hijab and alcohol, and Bowen acquiesced, almost forcibly, to the gravity of the topics ahead and moved on from the specious concerns he voiced at the start of the interview.
Einstein once quipped: “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and am not sure about the former”.