Good Thing I Didn’t Kill Cecil The Lion, Or People Would Hate Me

By Basher Assad, President, Republic of Syria

The ferocity and swiftness of international opprobrium directed at that Minnesota dentist who killed a protected lion in Africa drives home an important lesson for my stewardship of this country: I’m glad I didn’t kill that lion, because if I had, boy would people hate me!

I do not envy that man. Seldom does a person do something so odious that millions upon millions of angry souls feel moved to express their outrage so immediately and so virulently. Indeed, luring a lion out of its preserve, shooting it with an arrow, waiting for it to bleed to death two days later, and then posing for photos with its carcass is despicable behavior. Such barbarity has no place in our world, and I, for one, am both relieved and gratified that nothing I have done as head of this country has attracted so much spite from all over the world.

Which is not to say that I have not made mistakes; I certainly have. Many of my policies could have been implemented with more sensitivity, and I should be doing more to encourage young men to enter my military service. Ethnic divisions in this land still threaten economically and politically, and I have been known occasionally to authorize torture, indiscriminate killing, and the wholesale destruction of neighborhoods. Those situations could have been handled better. But I can say proudly that I have never done anything as horrific as kill a lion that has its own Instagram account, judging from the intensity of the world’s reaction.

And justifiably so. I say this not simply because Assad means lion in Arabic; even with a different name I would feel the same revulsion as the rest of the international community at this senseless killing of a majestic creature that had a future ahead of it, and, apparently, an avid following of which I can only dream. Wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of those millions of passionate individuals. Better to play it safe, not do any illegal killing of creatures who have people who love them, is what I’m saying.

There is also an argument to be made that the man’s profession, dentistry, already prejudices feelings against him, as the typical association with the field is one of pain, sadism, and unnecessarily bloody procedures to remove undesirable elements. I, who trained as an ophthalmologist, carry none of that cultural baggage, and society is not predisposed to view my behavior through the prism of torture, chemicals, and officially sanctioned abuse. Thankfully, my background has allowed me to avoid the knee-jerk reactions that has been leveled at the Minnesota dentist: cries of “butcher,” “sadist,” and “barbarian.”

Also, come to think of it, it is harder for the other guy to blame his actions on Israel. There is that.