The Princess Diana Touch

We were invited to the Presidential Palace – renamed for the occasion the People’s Palace – causing quite a stir of excitement. The First Lady, Asma al-Assad is a keen cyclist and normally cycles with FtW, but this year she hosts us at the palace instead. We pile onto buses with maximum security country by country, counted and herded like sheep (a feature of our time in Syria) and drive up the hill to the obscenity that is the PP ($90 million paid for by Rafik Hariri according to Syrian Shadi; he says “why would we kill him if he gives us presents like that?”). It’s not only obscenely big, it’s also obscenely ugly. “Typical communist feel” says a Dane, “trying to impress with scale”. I can’t prove the similarity as we’re not allowed to take a single thing in with us – not a bag, mobile, notebook or camera.

We are met with juice and sweets and music (two girls playing oud and qanun), and stand talking for 40 minutes before the First Lady graces us with her presence, though Detta tells me she wasn’t late, we were early. She’s cut her hair and looks pretty and glamorous, but she’s incredibly thin in a celebrity-anorexia way. (Background: Asma was born in London and lived there until she was 25 except for boarding school, also in England. She worked in investment banking in London, marrying an ophthalmologist and having children. Her husband then became President of Syria without much warning.) She speaks beautifully for 10 or 15 minutes; she’s welcoming and personable and talks of the issues we are supposed to be here for: women all over the world want the same things for their children, women can communicate with each other on a different level than politics, women are crucial to forming any society. But she also talked about Syria which was interesting; there are almost 2 million refugees here (mostly Iraqi and Palestinian; a huge proportion in a country of 17 million), and we are doing good work to improve their lot. I wonder what she really thinks of the aims and achievements of FtW.

And then the People’s Princess act begins. Oh she’s so charming! says everyone who’s ever met her. A lovely, down to earth, friendly first lady! She spoke to every single woman there showing gracious interest, with Detta trotting along beside her: she’s seduced by it all without any understanding of the country (I can say that because she says it herself). The Syrian girls were putting me through my paces in an attempt to make me speak Arabic to “Madame”, rehearsing sentences and making me nervous. They then managed to stand behind the first lady while I was talking, and although I did it, she wasn’t really interested.

British David, a signed-up future supporter, summed it up. “It’s the Princess Diana touch”. The hair, dress, figure, manner of speech to her public, not to mention her charity work and general care of the populace seems similar to the point of imitation.

And then she goes home to her husband, Bashar al-Assad. More on this when I'm safely home.