Vogue, America’s leading fashion magazine, is one of those glossy periodicals providing in David Brooks’ words “nutrition for the imagination.” He asks, “Why do we eagerly seek out images of lives we are unlikely to lead?”
Perhaps of greater interest, why did a magazine that a year ago launched an auction to advance, “...human rights through various programs including human rights education advocacy programs and pushing for legislative reform of juvenile justice systems,” recently produce a puff piece on the wife of a Middle Eastern dictator? (http://www.looktothestars.org/news/4185-experience-vogue-for-charity#ixzz1GXZnSb68) Here’s Vogue’s perspective:
“Asma al-Assad is glamorous, young, and very chic—the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies. Her style is not the couture-and-bling dazzle of Middle Eastern power but a deliberate lack of adornment. She’s a rare combination: a thin, long-limbed beauty with a trained analytic mind who dresses with cunning understatement. Paris Match calls her ‘the element of light in a country full of shadow zones.’ She is the first lady of Syria.”
What is the record of the nation she represents? Here are a few observations.
“There was no significant change in Syrian human rights policy and practice in 2010. Authorities continued to broadly violate the civil and political rights of citizens, arresting political and human rights activists, censoring websites, detaining bloggers, and imposing travel bans.” (From Human Rights Watch)
“The government remained intolerant of dissent. Critics, human rights defenders, alleged opponents of the government and others were detained, often for prolonged periods; some were sentenced to prison terms after unfair trials. Torture and other ill-treatment remained common, and were committed with impunity; there were several suspicious deaths in custody.” (From Amnesty International)
“During the three decade reign of Hafez al-Assad, Syria was a harsh and stagnant dictatorship, reviled in the West for its support of terrorist groups and generally isolated even from more moderate Arab countries. Mr. Assad's son, Basher al-Assad, who became president after his father's death in 2000, has from time to time made gestures toward a more open and mild regime. But it has remained a dictatorship, with the tiny Allawite minority from which the Assad's come firmly in control of the military and the government.” (From The New York Times, Updated: Feb. 7, 2011)
I discovered Vogue’s remarkable hypocrisy, not by reading Vogue, a most unlikely occurrence, but rather by this response in the Wall Street Journal’s column “The Dictator’s Wife Wears Louboutins.”
John A. Baden, Ph.D., is Chairman of FREE and Gallatin Writers.