The shaky snippet of video looks like it was inadvertently filmed, as if the amateur cameraman — in his haste to escape the intense gunfire crackling in the background — forgot to press pause and wound up recording his sandal-clad feet as he ran along the sidewalk. It’s meant to look like one of the countless amateur videos streaming out of Syria from an anti-government protest capturing the state’s violent crackdown. Except it is not.
It’s the opening sequence in a music video by Syrian-Lebanese rapper Eslam Jawaad. The song, called “Dudd al-Nizam,” or “Against the System,” is also not what its title may at first imply. The system Jawaad, 34, rails against isn’t the Baathist regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which has struggled to quell street protests since mid-March. It’s the forces aligned against it. “You are Syrian, keep your head high,” the deeply-voiced lyrics declare. “The true men of the resistance remain in the lion’s den,” a play on the fact that Assad means “lion” in Arabic.
