Screenshot from the @syrianpresidency instagram account.Recently an Instagram account posted a photo of a soldier, his back to the photographer, pointing a gun to the sky. He is in the center of the dimly lit frame, as he looks out over a darkening vista and a setting sun. The caption: “Safe weekend...by you... for you... and for all Syrians”. Then come a handful of hashtags, #honor, #brave, #EasternGhouta.
The photo belongs to an Instagram account with over 100.000 followers. It has images accompanied by hashtags such as #photooftheday, #instagood, #mondayblues #goodmorning, and even #throwbackthursday, but it is not curated by the usual millennial. The account holds the handle @syrianpresidency and belongs to Bashar Al-Assad. Mostly, it exhibits photos of the president himself and first lady Asma Al-Assad taking care of their daily duties. Asma appears as an empathic first lady and mother figure as well as a style icon. Bashar follows suit. When not captured in an interview situation or signing a document, he is walking hand in hand with his wife, posing with Syrian kids or writing autographs on the shirts of the national football team.
While other major actors in the Syrian conflict, such as ISIS, have been shut down multiple times due to posting disturbing content, @syrianpresidency sticks to social media etiquette by exhibiting pleasant photos and catchy hashtags and has thus been updated regularly since 2013. Operating behind a guise of transparency, Bashar al-Assad and his regime are portrayed as just crusaders, determined to lead their population to safety, as a quote accompanying one of the pictures outlines: “When a ship is in the eye of the storm, the captain doesn't jump but rather faces the dangers to steer the ship back to safer shores.”
