Bachar el-Assad

Summary

Dominique Pagani mentions Bashar al-Assad not for his own policies but as an example of how Western media and governments treat their designated enemies. He places him among the figures demonised one after another1 and sees him as a case of the personalisation of the adversary: he is presented as the "butcher of Syria"2 and as the executioner responsible for the refugees' exile3. He specifies that the man is "not his cup of tea", but he rejects this demonisation, which he considers cynical4. He recalls that jihadists were funded to overthrow him without succeeding5, and that his fall, announced every day, did not happen6. In 2023 he links him to the question of secular regimes targeted by the West7. These remarks recur between 2014 and 2023, in the course of reflections on propaganda, collective amnesia and the divide between left and right.

1. 1L'île du Peuple: the debate23 Jun 2015 · 8:21
2. 2#12 From Kafka to Proust, the dialectical passage from the intermezzo to the perpetuated edge7 Apr 2022 · 2:19:46
3. 3#3 Benefits and harms of amnesia…6 Nov 2020 · 48:48
4. 4Money, work, freedom3 Aug 2019 · 17:14
5. 5#5 Libertarian liberalism, libidinal consumption and music…27 Sept 2014 · 14:26
6. 6#3 Benefits and harms of amnesia…6 Nov 2020 · 1:09:50
7. 7Neither left nor right? Islamo-leftism?17 Oct 2023 · 50:46

Summary produced automatically from 8 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.