Al-Monitor Discovers 'Rebels' When Assad's Done Clearing House
Al-Monitor's feel-good piece, "Daraya reborn: the rebels rebuilding Syria's deserted city," highlights artist Bilal Shorba returning to paint murals. The article mentions Daraya lost its 'entire population' during the nearly 14-year civil war. What it glosses over is that Daraya, a symbol of peaceful Syrian resistance, was brutalized by Assad's forces for years, enduring sieges, chemical attacks,
and massacres like the one on August 25, 2012, where hundreds were executed ( Human Rights Watch ). The 'rebels' rebuilding are doing so on ground forcibly depopulated by a regime the West now, rather awkwardly, tolerates. It's not a rebirth if you had to commit genocide to get a blank canvas. This 'rebuilding' narrative is a neat trick, isn't it? First, you shell a city into oblivion, starve its
civilians into submission, force them to flee, and then – voilà! – anyone returning to pick up the pieces is a 'rebel' revitalizing a 'deserted' ghost town. Funny how when Assad's regime does the depopulation, it's called 'winning' a civil war, but when anyone else returns, it's 'rebels rebuilding.' One might wonder if Al-Monitor remembers who started the desolation before celebrating the
decorators.