countries all over the world. The civil war in Syria has also taken its toll on its neighboring countries such as Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt. Furthermore,
this war was taken into the United Nations Security Council’s agenda – strengthening its urgency as an international threat.
When Assad used this euphemistic expression to describe his opposition A3, he is actually belittling what has been done by his fierce oppositions. Thus, sedition
does not portray the reality of what is happening in Syria since it lacks the semantic property violent, the existence of an organized military force, and the status of being
a threat to world peace. The table below shows the semantic properties in sedition, insurgency, and belligerency.
sedition insurgency
belligerency opposing authority
+ +
+ violent
- +
+ organized military force
- -
+ threat to world peace
- -
+ Table 4. Semantic properties of sedition, insurgency, and belligerency
4. Master
Lexically, master is defined as a person who has control over or responsibility for someone or something. In comparison to the words which fall under the semantic
domain of control over other people, master does not possess a tone that is either negative or positive. Manipulator means a person who controls people to their own
advantage, often unfairly or dishonestly. It is in this expression that the sense of
unfairness and dishonesty appear. Thus, the tone of manipulator is rather negative. Another word closely related to master is conqueror. The lexical meaning of
conqueror is a person who takes control or possession of a group of people by force. This means that conqueror has the semantic property force while master does not.
Bashar al-Assad used this euphemistic expression when addressing the Free Syrian Army and their masters A4. Although it is true that Free Syrian Army FSA
is under the control of many organizations and even countries, what happened in Syria is far more than that. Since its formation in July 2011, FSA has been in constant
contact with Sunni extremist groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham. These organizations have been helping the FSA to fight against Assad’s forces yet
simultaneously recruiting FSA’s soldiers into their own. They provide trainings and military assistance as well as arming FSA but eventually they manipulate FSA’s
soldiers to leave FSA and join their fronts instead. The FSA depends on these organizations for support thus it cannot disassociate itself from these extremist
groups. Since al-Nusra and al-Sham are militarily stronger, they use threat and force to make sure that FSA is obedient to their orders. Until present time, these
organizations are controlling FSA’s military strategies, taking a superior stance against the FSA while having a hidden interest to pursue. Therefore, expressions like
manipulator or conqueror fit more to the reality compared to master. The table below shows the semantic properties of master, manipulator, and conqueror.
