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Why 7-year-old Syrian girl Bana Alabed is a symbol of western hypocrisy

Ruby Hamad

In the five long years of the Syrian conflict, a succession of its child victims have been paraded before the eyes of a horrified world; Alan Kurdi, Omar Daqneesh, and most recently Bana Alabed.

Bana captured our imagination not through death or physical trauma, but being very much alive and, since late September, tweeting from her home in east Aleppo. It's the section of Syria's largest city that had been captured by "rebels" – the name given to a loose and ideologically diverse coalition of armed groups fighting the Bashar al-Assad government – and subsequently placed under siege by the army.

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Seven-year-old Bana Alabed and her mother Fatemah, who tweeted about living conditions under the Syrian government's assault on eastern Aleppo, have evacuated to the Aleppo countryside as part of a deal reached last week to return the city to government control.

Last night, Bana and her family were evacuated to safety, but since her account went live in late September, they had been under intense scrutiny by a public obsessed with fake news. Was Bana the new Anne Frank or a new low in war propaganda? Revolutionaries hailed every tweet as a damning indictment of the crimes of the government and its allies, even as Assad supporters derided it as a fake account that 'proved' western audiences were being fooled.

And just like that, it seemed the entire conflict hinged on proof of Bana's life.

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To settle the matter, journalism website Bellingcat conducted an investigation so meticulous it included the geolocation of her home. They concluded Bana is very real, has an account managed by her mother Fatemah, and they definitely live in East Aleppo.

Bana's escape from east Aleppo will be met with intense relief by many of those who had been gripped by her story, but now that she is safe, which Syrian child will take her place in our attentions and affections as the country continues to burn?

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And burn it will – as long as we refuse to even acknowledge what is really happening on the ground. While we were debating Bana's existence, the battle of Aleppo was reaching its final stages with the Syrian army and its allies, descending on the city amidst claims from local activists and rebel leaders that a genocide was under way.

Were the consequences not so dire, it would be hilarious more effort was put into verifying the existence of a seven-year-old girl than into interrogating claims of rebels made throughout the four-year siege.

Journalists are unsafe in opposition-held areas and so rely on civilians and rebels for almost all information. During the chaos and confusion in Aleppo last week, this meant rebel claims, including one from the leader of the Islamist Levant Front that 20 women had committed suicide rather than risk rape by army soldiers, were repeated in explosive headlines and quickly regurgitated as fact - as were stories of children being burned alive, and indiscriminate slaughter in the streets.

Which is not to say these things didn't happen. Atrocities committed by Syria and its allies are well known, and there is no denying east Aleppo has been suffering for many months. However, with no evidence provided for any of the claims made in the early stages of Aleppo's recapturing, save for the UN claiming to have credible sources attesting to the killing of 82 civilians, it is dangerous to accept uncritically the words of rebel leaders who are themselves agents in a bitter conflict.

More effort was put into verifying the existence of a seven-year-old girl than into interrogating claims of rebels

The western world's framing of Syria's conflict as one of a ruthless dictator waging war on his own people is a seductive narrative because it makes the villain - and resolution – so clear cut. The tyrant will be brought to heel by a ragtag bunch of rebel heroes who will liberate their country, free their people, and live happily ever after. Roll credits.

Except that's not quite what's happening. Earlier this year, Amnesty International sounded the alarm that in areas under rebel control – including Aleppo – civilians were being abducted, tortured, and summarily executed by rebels, "often using the same methods of torture that are routinely used by the Syrian government."

And - how is this for a plot twist - the UN said it had received reports of rebel fighters shooting at civilians who tried to leave east Aleppo back in October, after the government had opened a humanitarian corridor during a temporary truce.

Suddenly our narrative is less Hollywood western and more dour arthouse tragedy. If rebels were indeed keeping civilians hostage, then they are also culpable for the humanitarian catastrophe of Aleppo. Are these really the sources we should be relying to tell us the 'truth' about what is happening in Syria?

There is certainly horror in Aleppo, as there is in villages rebels themselves have besieged. But at least part of the reason this war has dragged on for so long is because the way we frame this conflict insists on damning some sides and sanctifying others.

Kurdish fighters are hailed as nationalist heroes but they 'recruit' child soldiers as young as eight. The rebels, still enjoying their early reputation as secular revolutionaries, have executed civilians from the Druze minority sect who resisted the takeover of their village, prompting Druze leaders to demand arms from the government.

The concept of what constitutes a 'rebel' is so loose it includes Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, otherwise known as al-Qaeda, which has openly expressed its desire for a Sunni Islamist state in which all minorities are either expelled or converted. The rally cry "Alawites to the grave, Christians to Beirut!" coined in 2011, can still be heard at revolutionary marches across the country.

Does this absolve Assad, Iran, and Russia? Certainly not. But it certainly demonstrates that the good vs evil narrative we have been sold is naïve at best, deliberate obfuscation at worst.

In such a complete meltdown of humanity, how can the west blame the millions of Syrians who have fled? And why do children like Bana tug at our heartstrings even as we ignore the mistreatment of children like her in refugee camps across the world? Never before has this disconnect between our public anguish at the destruction in Syria and our callous attitudes to refugees who flee the carnage been so apparent.

It seems our sympathy for Syrians extends only to those inside the country, dodging government bombs and rebel snipers. But when Syrians take matters into their own hands, when they show agency and escape, then our hearts harden, and they become threats to "our way of life," potential terrorists, "rapefugees," and, to paraphrase our own immigration minister, illiterates coming to simultaneously steal our jobs and live it up on welfare.

Syrians are living in constant fear; tortured, killed, expelled from their homes, forced to convert. And while little Bana made it out Aleppo alive, the fact so many doubted she ever existed demonstrates how little most of us really know about the nature of this conflict.

But, as Syrian anguish and western hypocrisy continues, what is beyond doubt is there will be no shortage of Syrian children whose suffering we can fetishise even as we fail those whose pain we can actually alleviate. 

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