A newly circulated satirical illustration of the Syrian parliament has captured something raw and uncomfortable about the country’s post-Assad political class.In the image, Ahmed al-Sharaa (still widely known by his old nom de guerre, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani) sits elevated like a tribal chief who accidentally inherited a state. Around him, parliamentarians are on their knees, buffing his shoes with luxury polish while murmuring the usual slogans of loyalty and “national consensus.”
A few feet away, other members of the assembly are struggling to milk goats that have somehow wandered onto the floor of the chamber.
The joke writes itself.The first group represents the oldest political instinct in the region: when power changes hands, the first skill required is not legislation or economic planning, but the ability to look busy while kneeling.
The second group represents something newer and more embarrassing — the sudden collision between men who spent years in mountains and camps and the actual machinery of a modern state. One moment you are issuing religious edicts; the next you are expected to pass a budget while a goat stares at you.
The satire works because it refuses to choose a single target. It mocks both the new strongman, who appears perfectly comfortable being worshipped, and the assembly that seems equally comfortable worshipping him.
It also quietly asks a more painful question: after fourteen years of war, is this what “liberation” looks like? A hall full of men who traded one form of submission for another, now arguing over whether the goat is a cow.
Of course it is only a cartoon. But the best political cartoons have a habit of arriving slightly ahead of reality. In this case, the artist may have simply drawn what many Syrians already suspect: that the new parliament is less a legislative body than a performance of obedience, occasionally interrupted by livestock.Whether the real assembly ever matches this level of farce remains to be seen. For now, the image has done its job. It made people laugh — and then, a second later, feel a little tired.
