Wednesday 4 April 2012

Syrian Activists - Laughing In The Face of Danger

Something that's really stood out to me when looking at the Libyan and Syrian conflicts is the number of satirical  videos being produced by Syrian activists. It seems while the Libyans produced a large amount of satirical graffiti the Syrians have used video as their medium of choice.

Some videos are parodies of the large number of defection and battalion formation videos posted on Youtube by opposition activists. In the following videos school children declare their defection from their schools:



Even when filming a deadly serious defection video it seems it's easy to forget that you're meant to be fighting for the Free Syrian Army now, not the Assad regime, much to the amusement of your fellow defectors:

Recent news that Bashar al-Assad's wife uses the pet name "Duck" in their private emails led to this defection video parody:


Translated by az jan jananam of the Something Awful forums:
In the name of God the Merciful the Munificent. I am Batta ibn Battuta and I announce my defection from the Assadi duck gangs and this is my identity (holds up feather) and my admission into the Free Duck Brigades, as I and a group of ducks announce the formation of the Quack-Quack Battalion. We call upon all ducks to defect from the Duck Regime. Long live Syria and down with Bashar al-Batta (the duck). Victory to all our ducks.
Quackbir! (quack quack) 
 This was soon followed by "the biggest march supporting President Assad":


Reports of weapons being smuggled into Syria by the US prompted activists to make this fake news report titled "Top-Secret, Conclusive Evidence that the Free Syrian Army is being armed by America with Israeli weapons" lampooning such reports, with the reporter describing donkeys as 4x4 and shovels as snipers rifles:


Syria's recent vote on the new constitution proposed to Assad's regime also produce a large number of parody videos, filmed in various locations.  These first videos shows the voting in Homs



Voting in Hama

Voting in Aleppo

Elsewhere activists picked up on this Pro-Assad voter accidently letting slip they are voting on behalf of absent family members, much to the embarasment of the interviewer (English Subs)


Outside of Syria this video, Sh*t Assad Supporters Say, has been produced recently:


This final video shows the absurdity of the situation the people of Syria find themselves in, with Martians saying they are supporting the Syrian opposition as no-one on Earth will:


You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com

2 comments:

  1. Confused by your explanation of the first videos of the school "defections".

    You said: "Some videos are parodies of the large number of defection and battalion formation videos posted on Youtube by opposition activists." Does this mean the parody videos are being made by opposition activists or are they parodies of opposition activist videos of defections?

    Any clarifications would be appreciated.

    ReplyDelete