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| Screen Grab from Episode of Damien |
The opening scenes of A&E’s new
series, Damien, take place in contemporary Damascus, Syria. They purport to show
an attack and an ensuing massacre by government forces on the Christian Quarter
in Old Damascus. The problem: although the attack is attributed to government
forces, the flag the soldiers waive, which is shown for a fraction of a second,
is actually the Independence Flag adopted by the Revolution, and not the Baath
flag imposed by the regime. Also, and although the regime did conduct
operations against Christians on separate occasions, it did so in a clandestine
manner using techniques such as car bombings and kidnappings that can be attributed
to Islamists, because the whole point was to scare Christians of the rebels and
have them rally behind them rally behind the regime. A direct attack as shown
in the series would have defeated the purpose. So, now with our suffering, our
genocide, serving as nothing more than background noise and entertainment, the
truths and facts of it have become totally irrelevant.
