Wellington Special by Alec Lumsden

Show description

Obviously, Syrian ideologues are not alone in likening political relations to familial ones. Political theorists and ideologues in various historical epochs and places have invoked metaphors of the family to define the terms of political membership. Political narratives often displace the emotionally charged, immediately meaningful relationship of family life onto the more impersonal, remote, and abstract relations between rulers and ruled or among citizens. Or conversely, theorists may make the abstract meaningful by analogizing it to people's concrete, lived experiences.

No one is deceived by the charade, but everyone-even M -is forced to participate in it. " And "real obedience" relies on not believing. The soldiers' participation, however, entails more than an outward manifestation of obedience. As each soldier tries to outdo his predecessor with increasingly exaggerated dreams lauding the leader's supernatural feats, he registers not only his obedience, but also his complicity in perpetuating the cult. To be complicit is to allow oneself to be made an accomplice, to become bound up in the actions and practices the regime promotes.

Insofar as Asad personifies state institutions designed to provide goods and services in return for obedience and allegiance, the metaphor of the father operates to underscore that Asad is like the family patriarch: similar to but bigger, better, and more powerful than one's own father. 48 Implicit in the metaphor of the father is also love and connection between ruler and ruled. Under Asad, it is not uncommon to see slogans, bumper stickers, and spectacles invoking "love" or signifying it with a heart to represent public devotion.