Genocide as Entertainment

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.