Nowadays Al Baba identifies himself as a poet, writer, journalist and founder of the "National Center for the Defense of Freedom for Journalists", or so his bio says on the Huffpost Arabi website, but perhaps a more apt and succinct description of Al-Baba would simply be: a certified ISIS enthusiast, with a knee-jerk propensity for bigotry, sectarian agitation and the promotion of terrorism.
In a nutshell, Hakam Al-Baba is an ardent supporter of ISIS, Al Nusra front, Ahrar Al Sham and pretty much any of those head-chopping, organ-eating, radical neo-Islamic groups that make Bin Laden's Al Qaeda look like a paragon of tolerance and moderation, and he makes no secret of it; his personal Facebook page reeks of crude sectarianism and vulgar bigotry, not only against Alawites, though they constitute the main target for his daily barrage of racist attacks, slurs, insults, sectarian agitation and incitement, but all religious/ethnic minorities including Shia (of course), Christians, Druz, Kurds and even those Sunnis (or "lightweight Sunnis", as Al-Baba often puts it) who don't sport the same vicious brand of hardline sectarian views and ISIS-esque tendencies that he himself proudly wears on his sleeve for all to see.
Here are some of the sectarian comments made by HuffPost's newest featured blogger on his personal Facebook page (translated word for word from Arabic):
- As long as there is a single Alawite who is considered an opposition member, that means that the revolution has been infiltrated. (August 12, 2015).
- To be honest, I prefer (ISIS leader Abu Bakr) Al Baghdadi's plan for the "rehabilitation" of Alawites to that of (Nusra Front's) Al Joulani's. (June 8, 2015)
- Religious minorities, who got used to dealing with "light" Sunnis, are right to fear the coming "whirlwind" that is ISIS. (May 22, 2015).
- Distinguishing between the Syrian Regime and the Alawite population is akin to claiming that Blacks are not "Niggers"! (May 17, 2015).
- I insist that the mere existence of any Alawite, even those who oppose the regime, in 'liberated areas' is a serious breach that could lead to disaster for civilians and rebels alike. (March 23, 2015).
To say that Al-Baba is a fan of ISIS is an understatement; the man is a nasty piece of work, he fully embraces the Islamic State's takfiri ideology with such fervent exuberance that he routinely and explicitly advocates the ethnic cleansing of all Alawites and Shias from Syria, and the entire Arab world if possible (the term he often uses in this regard is "sweeping out" or "taking out the trash"). Al-Baba does not even try to sugarcoat his blatant sectarianism with the kind of political mambo jumbo that some journalists and media pundits stumble through in their GCC-sponsored and paid for anti-Iran/anti-Shia screed. No, Al-Baba is a straight shooter; he is unabashed and unapologetic in flaunting sectarianism in his daily rants on his Facebook page. Al Baba exhibits unhinged contempt and racism bordering on sociopathic obsession towards the Alawite and the Shia sects. He firmly believes that the total extermination of the Alawite religious sect is the only path toward a "free Syria" (free of Alawites apparently), to quote Al-Baba himself: "The (Syrian) revolution's notion of the 'day after' should absolutely be the killing of those 'Shabiha' (a common euphemism devised by GCC media in reference to Alawites) that the rebels didn't get a chance to kill before". Translation: witch-hunt every single Alawite and Shiite (civilian or otherwise) to their mass graves with no mercy and no quarter.
Al-Baba celebrated the Islamic State's capture of Al Raqqa, the Caliphate's capital city, by pronouncing jubilantly that: "the city has been finally cleared of Alawites, hoping to see the same happen in the rest of country".
He also hailed ISIS's conquest of Palmyra as a 'liberation' of the city and a bona fide victory for the so-called Syrian revolution against what he calls the Alawite Occupation in reference to the Syrian government's rule. Not only that: Al Baba often describes the areas which are still under the Syrian Government's control as 'Alawite settlements', and the local residents of those areas as 'settlers', invoking the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine, and somehow equating the Zionist colonization of occupied Arab territories and the mere presence of indigenous Alawite communities in Syria. Not only that, Al-Baba once wrote: "Liberating the settlements of Nubul and Al Zahraa (two predominantly Shiite towns north of Aleppo city which have been under rebel siege and bombardment for more than two years) from the Shia of Iran is no less important than liberating the Israeli settlements of Kiryat Shmona and Sdrot".
This Huffpost Arabi's blogger not only cheerleads terrorism and murderous acts of violence; he seems to fetishize it with demented abandon, especially if the victims are 'infidels' and/or 'apostates'.
When GCC-funded armed groups began their campaign of terror by indiscriminately shelling the city of Damascus back in February of this year, killing scores of civilians and wounding countless more, Al-Baba sensationalized that horror show and called for more: "As of today, Damascus is no longer safe for Alawites, their mass exodus from the city has begun, and it will continue as long as rebel shelling reaches their areas." The guy even relished a leaked graphic video showing Syrian rebels committing a gruesome massacre of civilians in the predominantly Alawite village of Ishtabraq near the city of Idlib: "As long as the pain reaches their villages, and they start looking for places to flee, the revolution is on the right track!".
In his first blog contribution to HuffPost Arabi titled "You Are Here", Al Baba wrote: "Today's battle is the product of oppression faced by every group that has lived on this land; Arabs, Kurds, Amazighs, Christians and Muslims (Sunnis and Shiites, Druze and Ismailis). What has so far materialized of the battle is only the tip of the iceberg, and anyone who has not yet taken part in it is merely waiting his turn. You read this on his personal Facebook page and you cannot help but think that the writer must be a leading campaigner for equality, minority rights and global altruism. However, Al Baba exhibits unremitting hatred towards all minorities and religious groups mentioned in his article, for instance, on September 7th, 2014 he wrote: "The reality of what's happening in the Arab world is that it is the minorities' war against the Sunni majority in the region", and on September 23rd, 2014 he wrote: "Minorities are the Imperial West's Achilles' heel and its leading military force in its wars against the region, by their hands the Syrian people are killed every day and because of them the Syrians are bombed." And again: "As the experiences in Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain and Yemen have proven, All Shiites in the Arab world are Iran's time bombs in the region, ready to detonate at the time it deems convenient, and whoever argues with this fact is a fool."
It's only a matter of time before Al-Baba's bigoted, sectarian contortions seep through from his personal Facebook page into his blog contributions to the Huffpost website for all to read.
To add irony to irony, in a blog post introducing Huffpost Arabi, titled "Marhaba", Arianna Huffington decried "the devastating rise of ISIS, extremism, sectarian and ethnic tensions-- in the Arab world, yet what we've seen so far from the Arabic edition of her website, especially the scandalous inclusion of a true ISIS admirer in the shape of Hakam Al-Baba as a featured blogger, points to the fact that HuffPost Arabi actually flaunts, celebrates and endorses with reckless passion everything that was derided by the site's namesake in her inaugural blog post. And that's only the tip of the hypocrisy iceberg.
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