“Look, but don't touch” is good advice anyway you look(?) at it, and may be the only bit of advice, I find, that is best heeded most of the time. Then there is also believing what wants to believe even when the odds are stacked to the contrary.
News is hot on the online media about the Syrian gay girl in Damascus blogging on the situation in Syria, as being a hoax.
Far from being Amina Abdullah Arraf, the half-Syrian, half- American lesbian caught in rigmarole of Islamic oppression and political tension in Damascus, the true author of a damascusgaygirl.blogspot.com is Tom MacMaster, a 40-year old American man studying in Scotland.
And he is sorry.
He is sorry for leading the western journalists and activists worldwide on a purported (and incredulous) journey of Syrian dissension and political energy as 'Amina' blogged about “her social life and relationships,” in the background of the Syrian uprising against president Bashar al-Assad.
So convincing was MacMaster's entries as Amina that the Associated Press (among other news organisations) had even picked up an interview with her. An AP reporter who had corresponded with 'Amina' at length said that “her e-mails sounded very much like those of a woman in the middle of a violent uprising.”
MacMaster's admission might have gone down better had he not orchestrated Amina's capture by armed men believed to be members of president Assad's Baath party. He even had Amina's cousin pleading through the blog for international help to find out what had happened.
The capture triggered widely reported news internationally with other bloggers and activists launching an online campaign to secure Amina's release.
I am sure MacMaster did not intend all this to happen, he DID lose his nerve to lead people on any further and confessed to his 'deception' shortly afterwards.
Truth be told, his real intention might have been to use the blog to further the uprising in Syria and felt that a Syrian woman's voice (and that too of a lesbian) would be heard louder and be more credible across the western world.
In his defence, he was right. The western media and the sexual rights activists were tuned in to Amina's every word.
In my opinion the anger that surrounds this man now after his revelation is more because he fooled people who are so full of themselves – so much so that they would have probably preferred that Amina was jailed and tortured and her body strewn on the roadside so that her corpse could be used as a symbol of Syrian oppression by one camp and sexual oppression by the other.
Having said that I do not exactly support MacMaster's approach only because he has taken the focus off the main story – all Amina's entries, regardless of how close to the actual ground level experiences they might have been, have been discarded and completely silenced. What's more any potential threats from real bloggers on the scene in Syria have probably been defused in a stroke. President Assad could not have hoped for a better reaction.
Clearly MacMaster could have 'looked' into the Syrian tension but not 'touched' it the way he had. But having done so, in my opinion he has proven that while some truths are ugly, they do not always originate from Middle East and African despots.
Blind hypocrisy is also a western media and 'do-gooder' activist's addiction too.
There were of course skeptics as well, who were more interested in her views than her true identity. Alia Ibrahim of Al Arabia News, who wrote about Amina before her true identity was uncovered, suggested that Amina might have been a cover name in her piece titled 'Correspondent’s Outtakes: Where is Amina? Who is Amina? Why Amina?' She justified pseudonyms by cyber activists to protect themselves and remain free to propagate their views.
Ibrahim kept finding the “Gay Girl in Damascus” site a few months back when she was researching Arab bloggers. She points out that “A Foreign Policy article entitled “Here’s your reading list, Mr. President” picked her among top Arab Blogs that President Barrack Obama should keep an eye on. She was also often quoted and referred to by international media outlets for her coverage of the demonstrations in Syria.”
Following is an excerpt from her article:
”As I started reading her entries, it became obvious to me that Amina’s blog, and her courage weren’t as much about her sexual orientation as they were about her strong political views.
”I was impressed by her writing and touched by her story which flew like a novel rich with inspiring characters: a “heroic” Syrian father, an American mother, glorious ancestry, uncles, cousins, friends and neighbors all roving across the times around the charming houses of a Jasmin smelling Damascus…
“By narrating what’s allegedly the story of her family, Amina retold Syria’s modern history exposing the hypocrisy and the atrocities of a brutal Baath regime.
“Her blogs are well researched and are often accompanied by images, videos and sharp commentaries.
Whoever she really is, Amina has found a way to tell the world the story of deserted Quneitera and the Hama massacre and why she is confident what is happening in Syria now, is a people’s quest for freedom, and not the seed of a sectarian war.
“Her name may very well be fake and the title “Gay Girl in Damascus” may have been chosen to attract, but behind Amina there is also a real writer whose sensitivity to and knowledge of the places imply is a young Syrian who really knows the story, and who has used all her skills to get the attention of the widest audience possible, which she undoubtedly managed to.
“For the sake of the writer, who I hope is somewhere safe and sound, I hope Amina is an invention.
 |
| Online plea to 'Free Amina' |
Far from being Amina Abdullah Arraf, the half-Syrian, half- American lesbian caught in rigmarole of Islamic oppression and political tension in Damascus, the true author of a damascusgaygirl.blogspot.com is Tom MacMaster, a 40-year old American man studying in Scotland.
And he is sorry.
He is sorry for leading the western journalists and activists worldwide on a purported (and incredulous) journey of Syrian dissension and political energy as 'Amina' blogged about “her social life and relationships,” in the background of the Syrian uprising against president Bashar al-Assad.
So convincing was MacMaster's entries as Amina that the Associated Press (among other news organisations) had even picked up an interview with her. An AP reporter who had corresponded with 'Amina' at length said that “her e-mails sounded very much like those of a woman in the middle of a violent uprising.”
MacMaster's admission might have gone down better had he not orchestrated Amina's capture by armed men believed to be members of president Assad's Baath party. He even had Amina's cousin pleading through the blog for international help to find out what had happened.
The capture triggered widely reported news internationally with other bloggers and activists launching an online campaign to secure Amina's release.
I am sure MacMaster did not intend all this to happen, he DID lose his nerve to lead people on any further and confessed to his 'deception' shortly afterwards.
Truth be told, his real intention might have been to use the blog to further the uprising in Syria and felt that a Syrian woman's voice (and that too of a lesbian) would be heard louder and be more credible across the western world.
In his defence, he was right. The western media and the sexual rights activists were tuned in to Amina's every word.
In my opinion the anger that surrounds this man now after his revelation is more because he fooled people who are so full of themselves – so much so that they would have probably preferred that Amina was jailed and tortured and her body strewn on the roadside so that her corpse could be used as a symbol of Syrian oppression by one camp and sexual oppression by the other.
Having said that I do not exactly support MacMaster's approach only because he has taken the focus off the main story – all Amina's entries, regardless of how close to the actual ground level experiences they might have been, have been discarded and completely silenced. What's more any potential threats from real bloggers on the scene in Syria have probably been defused in a stroke. President Assad could not have hoped for a better reaction.
Clearly MacMaster could have 'looked' into the Syrian tension but not 'touched' it the way he had. But having done so, in my opinion he has proven that while some truths are ugly, they do not always originate from Middle East and African despots.
Blind hypocrisy is also a western media and 'do-gooder' activist's addiction too.
*
There were of course skeptics as well, who were more interested in her views than her true identity. Alia Ibrahim of Al Arabia News, who wrote about Amina before her true identity was uncovered, suggested that Amina might have been a cover name in her piece titled 'Correspondent’s Outtakes: Where is Amina? Who is Amina? Why Amina?' She justified pseudonyms by cyber activists to protect themselves and remain free to propagate their views.
Ibrahim kept finding the “Gay Girl in Damascus” site a few months back when she was researching Arab bloggers. She points out that “A Foreign Policy article entitled “Here’s your reading list, Mr. President” picked her among top Arab Blogs that President Barrack Obama should keep an eye on. She was also often quoted and referred to by international media outlets for her coverage of the demonstrations in Syria.”
Following is an excerpt from her article:
”As I started reading her entries, it became obvious to me that Amina’s blog, and her courage weren’t as much about her sexual orientation as they were about her strong political views.
”I was impressed by her writing and touched by her story which flew like a novel rich with inspiring characters: a “heroic” Syrian father, an American mother, glorious ancestry, uncles, cousins, friends and neighbors all roving across the times around the charming houses of a Jasmin smelling Damascus…
“By narrating what’s allegedly the story of her family, Amina retold Syria’s modern history exposing the hypocrisy and the atrocities of a brutal Baath regime.
“Her blogs are well researched and are often accompanied by images, videos and sharp commentaries.
Whoever she really is, Amina has found a way to tell the world the story of deserted Quneitera and the Hama massacre and why she is confident what is happening in Syria now, is a people’s quest for freedom, and not the seed of a sectarian war.
“Her name may very well be fake and the title “Gay Girl in Damascus” may have been chosen to attract, but behind Amina there is also a real writer whose sensitivity to and knowledge of the places imply is a young Syrian who really knows the story, and who has used all her skills to get the attention of the widest audience possible, which she undoubtedly managed to.
“For the sake of the writer, who I hope is somewhere safe and sound, I hope Amina is an invention.
“Still then, cynical hoax?
I don’t think so. I prefer virtual heroine.”
*
Now that it is found that Amina is not a Syrian woman, is her reports any less poignant? Who can you trust?
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