Explanatory Bog Post #1

EXPLANATORY BLOG POST #1: ‘ACTING “AS IF”: SYMBOLIC POLITICS AND SOCIAL CONTROL IN SYRIA’

BY SHAUN PIERCY

In this article, Lisa Wedeen covers a range of aspects detailing the ideological instrument known as the “cult of personality,” particularly identifying the effects of such a manipulative construct in relation to the Hafiz al-Asad rule of Syria from 1970 until the year 2000. To begin with, Wedeen retells a story (identified as fictional for the purposes of her article), that she once heard involving a Syrian soldier named ‘M,’ during the time of the Asad rule. 

One day, according to the story, a visiting high-ranking officer demanded that a regiment of Syrian soldiers recount the content of their dreams from the night before. The soldiers began recalling obviously false visions that glorified and reinforced the rule of Asad (with one particular trooper claiming he saw an image of the ‘leader’ in the sky, and all the people climbed ladders of fire to kiss it). However, when it came to M’s turn to announce his dream, he stated to the officer: “I saw that my mother is a prostitute in your bedroom,” implying that in his dream he witnessed the officer preying on or debauching his mother (or interpretatively in this case, the mother-nation state of Syria). (Wedeen 503) 

The most important element of this story for Wedeen was not necessarily M’s rebellious and mocking response to the officer, but rather why all the other soldiers passively recalled dreams that they did not in fact experience. In other words, why did the act of the soldiers reporting their dreams serve as an opportunity for them to reassert loyalty and complicity to the Asad regime through a completely unbelievable and obviously false medium? Wedeen later affirms: “The question remains why a regime would devise practices that require such obvious dissimulation.” (510) So, why did the Asad regime demand loyalty that was clearly only external and essentially fabricated?

It is identified in the article that many scholars suggest leaders in a similar position to Asad maintained support through the use of ideological forces such as ‘hegemony,’ establishing a sense of charisma and thereby winning the confidence of the public. However according to Wedeen (with the story of M serving as a good example), in the case of Syria there were no genuine attempts to produce ‘believable’ statements with which Asad could fool and brainwash the general population, as well as no identifiable attempt to establish any kind of hegemonic political construct. 

Instead, the Syrian public were fed blatantly exaggerated facts and stories about Asad’s government that were so ridiculous and absurd that they fooled no one. Nevertheless, they were all accepted by the citizens of Syria, because the people were not required to actually believe the cult’s fictitious statements, as long as they acted as though they did. (506) In this way, Wedeen identifies a kind of ‘external’ or ‘real’ obedience that was demonstrated by the people’s acceptance of Asad’s glorified statements. She indicates that obedience out of conviction or personal judgement is deemed not true obedience, as this must be mediated through our own subjectivity. Therefore, ‘external’ obedience represents an individual’s total complicity to the state, and ironically relies on not believing. (511)

The effectiveness of this established complicity and ‘external’ obedience is reflected in the state’s ability to force citizens to admit truths that they know are inherently false. For example, in the case of the story of M, the act of the soldiers repeating fabricated visions identified the regimes ability to enforce and sustain the clear mythology of the leader, and thereby to demonstrate ‘real’ obedience. (511) 

The people of Syria were required to act as though they believed in that which they did not, and so through acting they began to live within the lie itself. Thus, the full power of this “cult of personality” stems from its ability to manipulate the people into confirming and fulfilling the new system. In other words, the people now are the system. (513) Under the rule of Asad, Wedeen continues, regardless of whether the population was truly for or against the government, the population of Syria was forced to participate and share in the experience that was his regime. (505)  

I personally found this to be a very interesting article, as I had not previously considered the level of control that can be exercised over someone if you are able to force them to turn against themselves and believe what they in fact do not. It certainly allowed me to gain some perspective in terms of the role of the public voice as well as the levels of manipulation that can be exercised in regimes similar to Asad’s Syria. 

In terms of what Wedeen identified regarding the acceptance of the state leadership in Syria (and the fiction that went with it), I couldn’t help but privately draw some distinct parallels with the modern North Korean government. In similar ways to the Syrian public’s complicity to Asad, the population of North Korea appears mostly complicit to their currently established state. However, this article has now raised the question (with me at least), as to how much of this obedience is ‘external’ and controlled through the tool of the “cult of personality,” and how much is genuine loyalty and trust.

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