It’s fair to say the TV show Schitt’s Creek would have been a lot less funny had it concerned the family of a deposed dictator rather than the family of an embezzled video store mogul. Even so, it’s a strange but undeniable fact that when toddlers are stumbling out of dungeons, and the unspeakable horrors of the former Syrian regime are still being revealed, a significant part of the human impulse is to thirst for details of the dreadful Assad family’s new lives in Moscow, then remark tartly: “Well, they’ve gone down in the world.” And of course, the Assads may yet plunge further – for all the overly impressed reports of apartments in glittering Moscow skyscrapers, I must say I’d have picked something on the ground floor myself.
For now, Syrian refugee Bashar al-Assad might be telling himself that if Vladimir Putin has offered him asylum, he can’t possibly be angry with him for putting Russia’s unrivalled network of military bases in Syria at serious risk. In which case, it’s possible Bashar is about to go on a journey of discovery as long as the Trans-Siberian railway. Then again, it could be much, much shorter. But perhaps Assad’s comfortable with limbo. He has, after all, spent the past two decades apparently unable to decide whether he is or isn’t growing a moustache. Follically speaking, I guess he now finally has time to pick a lane. Or, as I say, doesn’t have time. For while the man who used chemical weapons against his own people may be physically located in Moscow, in security terms, and for the rest of his entire life, he cannot be at all clear where he stands.
Nor, at present, can the Syrian people, who deserve so much more than a few days of giddy celebration. None of it is unalloyed, given the utter grimness of the stories being disgorged from Assad’s torture prisons, and the ominous uncertainty of what comes next under victorious Islamist rebel chief Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.
Having said that, you have to celebrate the bright spots. What is not to love about that footage of a toppled Assad Sr statue being hooked to the back of a truck and ridden through the streets by cheering Syrians? Elsewhere, one of the best bits of any successful coup against a murderous tyrant is watching their giggling former people swarm through the private chambers of their ghastly palace. And so it has been with the Assads. Here are half a dozen oppressed citizens grinning as they take goofy photos on a souvenir sofa; here are a few hundred helping themselves to all the incredibly expensive things that got bought instead of food and medicine for the country’s children. No doubt Assad’s wife, Asma, will be aware of this, and sobbing into a diamond-encrusted iPhone to anyone who’ll still listen (an increasingly small field) that she “can’t watch the news footage”. No doubt it feels like a … what’s the word? … violation?
Perhaps Asma could distract herself by writing one of those end of year family letters that always cause so much appalled merriment for those who receive them. “Well, we finally made the big move to Moscow! Downsized a little bit, for sure – but we keep saying it’s so cosy. BTW if anyone sent greetings to the old address, it’s not totally clear they’ll be forwarded to us by the new owners. Incidentally, we heard on the grapevine that people thought our dear friend Vladimir was angry with Bashar. We assure well-meaning friends that this could NOT be further from the truth. Vladimir adores Bashar. He keeps inviting him to come and drink tea with him, which seems so hospitable, and we mean to take up the invitation just as soon as we finish unpacking the money.”
Anyway: the money. For some reason, news reports about fleeing dictators often peg their fortunes at the $2bn mark, and I duly read this week that Assad had escaped with $2bn of squirrelled-away funds; “$2bn” must be the answer to the question “what’s the precise amount of money that sounds like an ill-gotten running-away fund?”
But if the megarich Assads are nevertheless wondering what happens next – guys, get used to it! The not knowing is the whole fun of being a former dictator! Your shit creek may yet become shitty enough to satisfy even your most persistent detractors. It’s definitely possible that at some point, your gracious hosts will get bored of being gracious – as hosts in these situations historically have – at which point you might be suddenly forced to take a trip to The Hague after all.
Ultimately, I wouldn’t say nature is healing – but at least late-2000s magazine power lists are finally starting to make sense. It was back in 2007 that the US magazine Details ran a list of the most powerful men in the world under the age of 45, in which Assad was ranked a full 14 places below Kevin Federline, who at the time was Britney Spears’ unemployed former backing dancer ex-husband. If that felt like a slight misreading of the then-Syrian leader’s status – and, indeed, of Kevin’s days of smoking weed and hammering the PlayStation – this week it is starting to look more rational. K-Fed may very well now be more than 14 places more powerful than Bashar al-Assad. At the very least he can holiday outside Russian airspace – and not have to worry about whether the food delivery guy really is the food delivery guy.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
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