Flunky Euphemism in Bashar al-Assad’s Speech
when Assad’s oppositions decided to do everything in their capacity to depose him, they know exactly that civil war is inevitable yet they are willing to take the chance.
It is thus oversimplified to say that the reason Assad’s opponents attack his regime is their shortsightedness.
Intolerance means when you refuse to accept ideas, beliefs or behavior that are different from your own. Unlike shortsightedness, intolerance contains the
semantic property to refuse other values. This semantic property does not exist in shortsightedness since it only implies inability to examine a situation rather than
refusal to accept a particular situation. This expression is more likely to portray the reason why Assad’s opponents are so persistent to bring him down.
Illiberalness means not allowing people to think and act as they choose. Compared to shortsightedness, this expression contains the semantic property to
refuse other values and to disallow others’ choices. Intolerance might also mean to refuse other values, just like illiberalness but it does not necessarily reach the point of
disallowing. It only implies refusal to believe in other values which are different from the ones he has. In reality, the rebel forces and the international society have been
condemning and disallowing Assad’s conducts. The International Criminal Court has called for his presence in regards to war crime allegations. Moreover, many countries
have sanctioned and embargoed Syria in order to punish Assad as well as to trigger Assad’s change of behaviors because many of his actions violated International
Humanitarian Law. Thus, even though all of the three expressions imply a narrow mind, illiberalness is more explicit to portray what is actually going on with Assad’s
opponents. In order to show the distinction between the three expressions in terms of their meanings, the table below compares the semantic properties of shortsightedness,
intolerance, and illiberalness. shortsightedness
intolerance illiberalness
narrow mind +
+ +
refuse other values -
+ +
disallow others’ choices -
- +
Table 18. Semantic properties of shortsightedness, intolerance, and illiberalness