Visit of Assad’s sister to Dubai

PHARMACIST Bushra Hafiz Assad is known for two things: She is the daughter of the former Syrian President Hafiz Assad and the sister of the incumbent President Bashar Assad. These are the two main reasons for her fame. Now she has gained new fame because of the fact that she has traveled outside Syria, away from the power of her brother and his militias and far from his borders.
Bushra lives in Dubai, the Monaco of the East and the Switzerland of the Arabs. She has set foot on the same pavement that bustles with Syrians who abhor her brother’s regime and who raise their hands for supplication for his downfall. Dubai is the sole oasis in the region where all kinds of people flee and find safe haven. These include those who flee fighting; retirees who join those seeking riches and the social escapees looking for pizza restaurants and movie theaters with their families. Every visitor to Dubai has his own story.
Can we call Bushra an escapee of the holocaust; one who has deserted a mad regime; a family mutineer; a devastated widow with her five children or a lady on vacation like the hundreds of thousands who arrived in Dubai during the past two weeks? 
Of course we cannot say that the only sister of Bashar, the Hitler of the Arabs, has left her country, which is seething with violence, for a picnic or because of family rift. Bushra’s departure from home, even if only to drink a cup of coffee at one of the coffee shops in the JPR, a district in Dubai and not a name of a Russian weapon, is a downright political action.
Bushra had fled her country and arrived in Dubai for the first time about three years ago. She revolted against her brother a year before the revolution. She is known to be bullheaded. She revolted against her three brothers when she married Asif Shawkat. The confrontation between the family members culminated in her husband being fired upon. We do not want to give her the medal of heroism for confrontation with her brothers because this happened within a family. However, Bushra has been angry with her brothers for a long time. Now she has become a victim of her brother Bashar, like the thousands of other widows who are blaming Bashar, the butcher, for what has befallen them.
During the family rift three years ago, Asif joined his wife in Dubai in defiance of Bashar. The husband and wife later accepted mediation and returned to Damascus after they were given assurances. Bashar moved Asif up promoting him to the rank of brigadier in the army, removing him as intelligence chief. Asif was made deputy chief of staff.
When the revolution broke out and the freedom fighters tightened their grip around Bashar, he made Asif the deputy minister of defense. Forty days later Asif was killed in the explosion that ripped through the national security building where the “ crisis cell” meeting was in progress.
Why should the world be concerned that Bushra, who did not work in pharmacology or politics, was leaving home? In fact, Bushra is a living example of the brutality of her brother. It is obvious that she abandoned him and his regime. Many wives and widows of Bashar’s top leaders have also abandoned them and are hoping to leave for Dubai as well.
However, this is not possible for them at the moment. An Egyptian proverb narrates the situation of the people who want to leave Bashar but cannot. The proverb says “entering a bathroom is not similar to exiting it.” The story behind this saying was that an Egyptian had opened a Turkish bath and told his customers that entry to the bath was free of charge. When the customers came out, they discovered that the owner had taken all their clothes. He refused to give their clothes to them unless they paid for enjoying the bath. When they reminded him that he had said that entry was free, he replied that entry was not the same as coming out. There are many Syrians who wish they had the courage Bushra had so that they could leave the country.
Bushra knows her brother better than anyone else. She knows all his evil acts and bad habits, including his brutalities. And because she knew about him, she opted to distance herself from him.
We hope that all the close relatives of Bashar, his friends and members of his clan would leave him as his sister has done. They should stay away from the crimes Bashar has been committing. Just by leaving Syria at this time, the relatives and friends would prove to the world that they do not approve of his actions.