Syrian Revolution in need for a PR campaign

I heard whispers about a revolution in Syria in the summer of 2012, but there was very little information in the mainstream or alternative media. I started to look for a credible source of information, but one did not seem to exist. I found some coverage by Arab media, but not by the larger news outlets and the accounts were conflicting each other. 

A few months passed without fully grasping what was happening in Syria. 

I met a few Syrians but I refused to believe their first-hand accounts. It seemed all too far-fetched that there was a media blackout. It was far easier to believe that they had it wrong or were lying. No matter what they said I would not believe without proof. 

A Syrian named Naser who was on the ground in Daraa in 2011 explained there was an absence of English news coverage. I would need to read in Arabic and from non-regime sites if I wanted to know the truth. 

One day Naser asked me, “OK, you love Palestinians, do you know Assad killed more Palestinians than the Israel?”

I laughed. This was a flat-out lie. This was not possible. My response, “Prove it.”

“O.K. I will, but you’ll need to read Arabic. If you want to know, you need to work too,” Naser quipped. 

Within hours, he sent me a graph of Palestinian deaths caused by the Israel and deaths caused by the father-son Assad regimes. I set off with Google translate to decipher the words. The contrast between the numbers of deaths was drastic. He continued to send news reports in Arabic and I translated them.   

A different picture started to emerge about what was happening in Syria. I recalled the work of the late historian Howard Zinn who was the first to use the letters and personal accounts of everyday people to provide a different view of American history. My Syria research would require a similar approach. I had to find English speaking people who were affected by or who were participating in this revolution. 

I started with a Google search. I found a few Syrian-American organizations, but no one returned my emails or calls. I drove to Anahime, California, home of Little Arabia, looking for Syrian business.  I went on line and sent friend requests to people with the three-starred Syrian flag on their profile. I found local councils in Idlib and Aleppo who sent me data on the destruction being caused. 

Finally, I found a Syrian-American political advocacy organization. They had little printed material, but they were hosting a conference in Gaziantep, Turkey where over 100 representatives of local councils would attend.

I flew to Turkey in the summer of 2013 and listened to the stories of many people from all over Syria. They all said the same thing: they wanted a future without Bashar. They wanted education, health care and jobs. They wanted the world to help them. 

At the start of 2013, articles about Syrian refugees started to appear in the English language media outlets, but they seldom explained how those Syrians became refugees. Later it was ISIS or destruction caused by war that was largely blamed for the displacement of Syrians. The perpetrator of the destruction was seldom named. It was as if Syria spontaneously combusted. Even today the Fall of Aleppo is blamed on “terrorists” who refused to leave the cover of Aleppo’s civilian population. 

Syrians never were in control of the narrative of their revolution. Information about their uprising was squeezed through a Western prism fixated on terrorists and ISIS. Seldom was the Assad regime’s narrative challenged by the press. Assad was consistently given unfettered airtime with the West’s most respected journalists, but where were the thoughtful interviews with leaders of the Syrian Opposition? The voice of the Syrian Revolution is lost in a wave of words that sought to sanitize it for a Western audience and transform it into a “civil war” over “ethnic or religious” tension. The voice the Syrian people desperately wanted the world to hear was continually silenced. 

For the Syrian Revolution to be heard and seen in the world, there is a dire need for a public relations campaign. High time, indeed!

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Anisa Abeytia is a freelance writer who contributes to a good number of media outlets. Abeytia is actively engaged in advocating for the Syrian cause since 2012 and more recently for refugee rights. She produced/directed three documentaries on Syrian refugees. Abeytia is a graduate of Stanford University with an MA in Post-Colonial and Feminists Theory.