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The Syrian bride By Yotam Feldman Tags: Asma Akhras, Syria  Asma Akhras was preparing to study at Harvard University and enjoying a promising career as an economist when Bashar Assad asked her to marry him. At age 25, having spent most of her life in London, she moved to Damascus and married the then newly instated Syrian president. The modest wedding ceremony at the end of 2000, which was held before the year of mourning for Bashar's father Hafez Assad had ended, and during the first months of the Palestinian intifada, was conducted in secret. The exact date is still not known to the public. "We were secretly married in December 2000, and nobody knows our anniversary - everyone knows it's December, but the actual date is hidden - it's our anniversary and nobody else's. [We're] just trying to maintain some form of privacy," she says. Earlier this month, after years of international isolation and being shunned by Europe, Asma and Bashar Assad made a rare appearance at the Union for the Mediterranean summit in Paris - upstaging even France's First Couple, Sarkozy-Bruni, in terms of glamour. Photos of Asma at official events and during visits to the city's museums prompted speculation about the degree of influence the former banking executive has on the economy of a traditionally socialist state, as well as much talk about her outfits by Valentino and Chanel. The Assads, "the two best conversationalists in Syria," as the Syrian president's biographer David W. Lesch describes them (excerpts from his conversations with Asma are being published here for the first time), totally enchanted the statesmen and journalists who met with them. Advertisement "Atop her 12-cm stiletto heels, she moves with the grace of a ballerina," wrote the French weekly Paris Match. "Asma Assad inevitably evokes an oriental [Princess] Diana." Among other things, Asma Assad used her visit in Paris to meet with the president of the Louvre, which is slated to open a branch in Damascus, and with a representative of the Pompidou Center, with whom she discussed plans to build a contemporary art museum in Syria. When asked if she took advantage of her time in the French capital to do some shopping, she replied: "Paris is worthy of more than just shopping. There is so much to see and to do, so many places to visit. Fashion is not of supreme importance to me. Like all Syrian women, I like to be elegant, but I always prefer attire that is quiet, refined and relaxed. At home, in Damascus, I also wear locally made clothes and jewelry. I feel very comfortable in them." To a great extent, Asma Assad, 33, embodies the new cosmopolitan face of Syria. She was born and raised in London in a nontraditional and well-to-do Sunni family, attended prestigious schools, worked as an economist at banks in London and New York, and traveled all over the world. "I tell them: 'The two of you are very cosmopolitan, you have excellent English,'" says Lesch about his encounters with the Assads. He believes that Asma could be "a big hit" in the Western press, and that there's no reason she shouldn't become "the next Queen Noor or Queen Rania" - a reference to Assad's Jordanian counterparts. Prof. Joshua Landis, editor of the daily news roundup SyriaComment.com, which is read by many Syrian expatriates in the United States, says that Asma Assad is the first Syrian public figure to inspire a sense of solidarity among members of the Sunni elite and other Syrian exiles. "She represents everything that a good Sunni family can be," says Landis. "Many Syrians tell me they're tired of Syria's current image. They're tired of seeing the Jordanians and the Moroccans, and feeling like they've been left behind. They want style, they have a passion for the good life, for pleasure - and she symbolizes openness and fun. People admired Hafez Assad, but he wasn't a fun person. He hardly ever smiled, and when he did, it was a sly fox kind of smile. His son Bashar is young, he has a sense of humor, he likes to water ski, to drive cars. You have no idea how many Syrians ask me when Asma's going to come [to the U.S.] already, when we're going to get to see her on the morning programs." The couple live quite modestly. "The official residence of the president next to the People's Palace has never been lived in," Asma Assad told Lesch. "It is huge with many salons, and you would never have any idea who was in the house with you. From day one, my parents-in-law have lived in central Damascus. We live in this street and we have neighbors with kids playing [there] ... And the president plays there sometimes with the kids in the street. The only difference between this street and any other street is the barriers. It's an everyday Syrian street and Syrian building. When I wake up in the morning I hear the birds singing, the kids playing and the traffic. [In] the other place you hear nothing. It's not normal - no birds, no children, no cars." Bashar, devoted father Asma, a dedicated career woman before her marriage and the move to Syria, spends a good part of her time promoting various economic projects within the framework of NGOs she has established in her country. She also likes to cycle, play tennis and scuba dive. "The deep-sea diving there is second to none," she says, referring to Saudi Arabia. "I wouldn't mind going back [there] for certain things, but it would not be a priority. For diving yes, but not for a lot of other things." These days, Assad emphasizes, she and her husband spend most of their free time with their two sons and daughter. The eldest is seven-year-old Hafez. She describes Bashar as a very involved father, who would change diapers and never missed giving a bath to their daughter in the first year of her life. "I do not have a nanny for my children. We were not brought up like that and we don't want our children brought up like that. When I have meetings, their grandmother lives next door and they go with her. It is important for the family to play a role. When I have office work, I bring my children with me." Asma Assad's father, Fawaz Akhras, was a successful cardiologist and her mother was a senior employee at the Syrian embassy in London; they married after Akhras finished his medical studies in Cairo, and began his residency in London. Her mother was recruited as a diplomat in the foreign service and also dispatched to the British capital. Akhras opened a clinic at a chic address and his practice became popular with wealthy Arabs. His success was palpable: He drove a silver Mercedes, while Asma and her two brothers shared a green VW Golf. The family lived in the Acton neighborhood in West London. At every opportunity, Assad stresses the centrality of her Syrian identity. "We were all brought up with a sense that 'one day you will come home.' I have three younger brothers and we all speak Arabic, we all understand the culture, the religion, the tradition - it is not new or alien to us because we were brought up with a sense that one day we will come home." Lesch adds that this upbringing was evident when Assad returned to Syria: "Despite her classic British accent when she speaks English, I didn't see heads turn when she spoke Arabic in public," he comments. "Syrians view her cosmopolitanism as an advantage and not a disadvantage." At age 11, she was enrolled in the local Church of England school. She completed her secondary education at Queen's College, and subsequently graduated from the University of London, King's College with honors in computer science; 140 years ago, this was the first British institution of higher education to admit women to its degree programs. Asma Assad says that right from the start she knew she wanted to be a banker, but still she chose to concentrate on computer science. "It is something that joins my husband and me: We are both technology oriented," she explains. In 1984, her father helped to found the Syrian-British Society in an effort to draw together members of the 10,000-strong Syrian community in London. She became active in the organization in the mid-'90s following her college graduation. As a young teenager, Asma tried going by the name Emma. In retrospect, she's embarrassed by this attempt at Westernization: "I can't say that I was ever really an Emma," she admits. When she was 16, she reverted to her original name. "I was born in London and lived there for 25 years," she says. "But I always knew I was Syrian. I speak fluent Arabic and can read and write in the language. I'm British and Arab at the same time and no part of me is diametrically opposed to any other part. I am in both worlds simultaneously." While Asma was studying computer science and launching her career as a banker, Bashar, 10 years her senior, was just starting out as an ophthalmologist. In 1991, four years before she finished her studies, Assad sent a letter to Asma's father, asking for help in finding a place to do his ophthalmology residency. Akhras introduced him to Dr. Edmund Schulenberg, and the Syrian president's son trained under him at London's Western Eye Hospital. Assad kept in touch with Akhras, although Asma recalls meeting her future husband even before her father did, through friends of the family she met on her visits to Syria: "I didn't know him as a young boy because there is a 10-year difference, but he was always somebody who was there. There was very little interaction. Maybe hello, good-bye. I was 10 and he was 20, and I was playing with my Barbies and he was out doing something - it was scary," she laughs, adding that they did not meet in the traditional Syrian way. "It was very gradual - it was not traditional because he is not from that, nor am I and his family isn't either. Each one of them actually is against the norm. It was a very gradual, natural process." 'A great honor' In 1994, Basel Assad, Bashar's older brother, who was widely viewed as the heir to the presidency, was killed in a road accident. Hafez Assad summoned Bashar to return to Syria. He enlisted in the army, completed an officers' course and moved steadily up the ranks. In 1996, Asma began working in New York, at Deutsche Bank, and later moved to the mergers and acquisitions department of the JP Morgan investment firm. She says she loved New York, and though she lived in a company apartment uptown, she preferred to wander around downtown. She also worked in Paris and was planning to enter Harvard Business School to obtain an MBA. She never made it to Harvard. On June 10, 2000, Hafez Assad died and his son Bashar was appointed president of Syria. A few months later, Bashar asked Asma to marry him and, as mentioned, the two were wed in a modest, secret ceremony (she says she only knew a day in advance that the wedding was going to take place). A brief news item about the event only appeared a month later in the Syrian daily Tishreen on January 3, 2001. Asma Assad says that one of the qualities that attracted her to her husband is his optimism: "He always tries to see the best in any situation. To him, everything can be solved, you can find solutions to everything. And that to me is somebody who is completely open and completely willing to see everything. To me this is one of his strongest points." She goes on to praise her husband's open-mindedness: "He has a very keen sense of research, in the sense of wanting to explore all the possibilities ... and this is something that guides him throughout his political decisions. An example is the camera. I am not sure you know, but he is a keen photographer, very very keen, so anytime a new camera comes on the market, he will explore the differences between this camera and the one he had - not in the sense of perfectionism, but in the sense of liking to know what is happening and keeping track of things. This is a small example, but if you are that keen on photography, it shows up in a lot of things." He's also quite open to hearing her ideas, she notes: "It's not a question of asking or giving, it is a question of having an open dialogue, always between us, from the small things to the larger things, and because he is a conversationalist and because he likes to know different opinions and he likes to benefit from everything around him." Lesch, who has met with the Assads a number of times, says they seem to have a warm and intimate relationship and are very relaxed together. This is evident in the couple's behavior, he notes - "in the way she finishes a story that Bashar starts and it pleases him, in the way they care for their children. I think they're a very good team." Others, however, say that as significant as her input may be, it is dwarfed in comparison to the power of the government types who surround her husband. Lesch says that, without a doubt, there was a degree of self-sacrifice in Asma Assad's decision to cut short her banking career to marry the president. "She was a workaholic career woman," he explains. On the one hand, her father was proud that she became the wife of the president, but he apparently was also disappointed because she was in a certain environment and had a career path marked out. Both her parents had independent, successful careers, Lesch notes, and they worried that she'd become a First Lady who hides behind the scenes, "but, I think that if I were to speak with her father today, he'd be proud of her and of her activity." "I never regretted giving up my studies at Harvard," Asma Assad told Paris Match two weeks ago. "It was the correct decision and it came at the right time. Together my husband and I make a solid team, as a couple, of course, but also on the 'professional' level. We're involved together in the profound change that is occurring in our country. It's a wonderful privilege and a great honor to invest yourself in the development and growth of Syria alongside your husband." In jeans, incognito During the first months of their marriage, Asma Assad was rarely seen in the media. "There were a lot of questions about why. Some people thought that she will no longer be seen, she has disappeared, she lives in a big house and we will never see her again. Some people thought that traditionally here First Ladies have not played an active role and maybe she does not want to play one - nobody knew. The reason was that we both, my husband and I, thought that I needed to meet the people and understand them [first]," she explains. She spent several months visiting rural areas in Syria incognito, in jeans and a T-shirt. "I was able to spend the first couple of months wandering around, meeting other Syrian people. It was my crash course," she said in a 2002 interview with The Observer. "Because people had no idea who I was, I was able to see people completely honestly, I was able to see what their problems were on the ground, what people are complaining about, what the issues are. What people's hopes and aspirations are. And seeing it firsthand means you are not seeing it through someone else's eyes. It wasn't to spy on them. It was really just to see who they are, what they are doing." The couple shuns many of the perks normally enjoyed by Syrian rulers. "Why do I drive my own car? I like to drive it," says Asma Assad, "because you see the people's faces and you interact with them directly. Why do I go to the supermarket to buy groceries? Yes, there is someone to do it for me, but why do I do it? One, because I enjoy it, and two, because I'm seeing other women, other children, other people, and I'm getting a sense of prices, and a sense of what people are buying, and that is something that reports or advisers cannot give you because everybody has their own perception." Many Syrian men and women who have met her say they were immediately taken with her charms. A Syrian-American woman who was active in a joint project of the UN and Assad's organization said: "I admire how fashionable she is and I also think that the face she presents internationally is important to many Syrians. To show that there is a class of women in Syria who are not covered with the hijab or the veil." In the woman's view, Assad's chic and bold attire, which would not look out of place in certain upscale parts of Damascus, is helping to break the traditional image of Syria. Asma Assad comes under criticism mostly from the many opponents of the Syrian regime who reside outside the country. They object to the Western spirit she is bringing to Syria and go so far as to allege, without having much proof, that she is the one running the country. Lesch says that Asma hardly discusses political issues and that she certainly does not deviate from her husband's political line. However, he did get the impression that her attitude toward Israel is different. "It's good for Bashar and good for the regime," he says, "that there is someone there who is not a product of the Israeli-Arab conflict and who proposes different positions. Asma brings to the government the need to integrate in the world economy, and in order to do this, she cannot remain isolated." Business ventures Aside from Valentino and Chanel, Assad also likes the young British designer Stewart Parvin, who makes clothes for the queen of England. Parvin also designs clothes for the queen of Norway and for numerous wealthy women around the world. On the Internet, one can find pictures of Asma Assad in a skirt with a hemline above the knee, and on YouTube there's a "bloopers" clip (censored from other sites) in which she is seen with the wind blowing her skirt up to reveal her underwear as she was being filmed together with the Syrian president at an official event. FIRDOS, the NGO Assad founded in 2001, is the outgrowth of the research she did during her first months living in Syria. The acronym stands for Fund for the Integrated Rural Development of Syria, and it means "paradise" in Arabic. The organization works to assist rural communities by means of sustainable development projects and interest-free loans. Assad is opposed to Syrian investment exclusively in cities: "The more we invest in the cities, the more migration there is to them. [Investment] such as a new tunnel in Damascus that cost 300 million Syrian pounds - how much of that could have been used in rural development? If I put 100,000 pounds in a village, it will have a much bigger impact." The contrast between her liberal views and the socialism of the ruling party in Syria is unmistakable. "The fact that I understand the language is meaningless," Assad said in an interview, "because I didn't understand the mechanism of society." She said she had to learn to work in an atmosphere where "the system does not allow you to stray from the target or to lose focus. Here in Syria, if someone takes a day off, people ask: Where is he? What's his phone number? Hold on, let's ask in administration. And they have a number that was last updated 20 years ago." Every government ministry is pretty much a one-man show, she added. Assad emphasizes that when she offers aid to companies, she still seeks to preserve the free-market system. "We're helping a weaving company get into the market, but after that, they're on their own. There's competition and that will be the judge of whether they're good enough." In the past, she has also expressed dismay over the opposition of some Syrians to liberal economics: "The salaried worker speaks as a salaried government worker," she explains. "He wants modernization, but he doesn't want a situation in which the government can fire him. The businessman wants development, but for the market to continue being closed because he reaps a benefit from this." Therefore, Assad continues, "everyone looks at development from his own angle, instead of looking at the development of the state." And the media "give a national, not a communal, perspective." Assad says she began thinking about Syria's problems purely from a businesswoman's perspective, but adds that Bashar has focused on the human side. As vital as it may be to trim the number of civil service jobs, it means that families would inevitably be hurt. "And we must ensure that there are other opportunities. We need to find the correct balance between creating opportunities and risk management. This is the key to what Syria is becoming today - it's a process of change that we're undergoing." Lesch says that Asma Assad is well aware of the international criticism of Syria's human rights record and of her husband's policies. Though she may not see eye to eye with him here, she is careful not to say so publicly. "She feels that the regime is under attack," he explained. Different groups wish to isolate it and it has to take repressive measures, and "she goes along with this whether she wants to or not. I asked her some very tough questions, but she stood behind her husband and behind the administration's policies." The biographer-interviewer notes that she strongly disagrees with some of the things that are happening in Syria and sees numerous problems, but these are things she says her husband is not pleased with, either. When Asma was asked in an interview with The New York Times for her response to Washington's accusations that her husband is a tyrant who has been responsible for terrible deeds, she replied: "I think that people need to see the man behind the presidency. They need to see what his values are, his ethics, his personal traits. Then they'll be able to better understand who he his and what he's trying to do." Asma Assad was interviewed by Dr. David Lesch of Trinity University in Texas, author of the book "The New Lion of Damascus: Bashar Assad and Modern Syria" (Yale University Press, 2005). Bookmark to del.icio.us   Party for a killer Arabic TV station hosts birthday party for convicted child killer Samir Kuntar. Hamas to blame Noam Shalit says his son Gilad is holding Gaza hostage, and not the other way around.   1.   Come on dont be so easily duped 10:51  |  Ilan 02/08/08   2.   "Haaretz" prepares for Israel,part of Greater Syria 12:45  |  Absolute Sweden 02/08/08   3.   don`t even dignify this with reading it 14:18  |  Gary 02/08/08   4.   Wow, I usually read People for this kind of quality journalism 15:11  |  Aphemia 02/08/08   5.   What`s the problem? 17:06  |  Marty Green 02/08/08   6.   The syrian enemy 17:09  |  Jeff 02/08/08   7.   Haaretz in 1932 and now 18:21  |  Victor 02/08/08   8.   It`s a great article - How about writting about IDF war crimes? 18:27  |  Haaretz 02/08/08   9.   to # 8 20:41  |  martin list, m.d. 02/08/08

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