When Ahmad Al-Shar’a Plays Basketball

NYN | Articles 

By Lina Al-Tabbal

Who said the war is over? It has only changed its uniform…

Ahmad Al-Shar’a, the man of the moment, the leader of the post-ruins era, was seen smiling—then smiling again—as he tossed an orange ball into an American hoop. Did you see it? The Commander of U.S. Central Command applauded him. What scene could be more profound than this?

Syria, once the empire that taught others the meaning of pride, now discovers a new pleasure—by dropping the pride of a nation with an orange ball.

Al-Shar’a plays, laughs, poses for photos, dripping with sweat from a friendly match. He signs agreements containing no clauses about progress, Israeli air raids, or enemy incursions that continue unanswered… The most important thing, after all, is that Al-Shar’a outplayed his American opponent with a three-pointer. A hero—on a court built upon the scorched ground of his homeland. What a historic achievement!

State media found in this match a “message of peace”—a peace as cold as Ahmad Al-Shar’a’s face, which grows colder every time Israel scores a goal in Damascus’s net.

Israel stands at the gates of Damascus, marking coordinates, preparing a new field for another game… Ahmad Al-Shar’a runs between maneuvers and policies, trying to blend in with the rules of play, catching the deals Trump throws his way. Only Israel keeps scoring—point after point. You say it’s an unfair game? Who cares what you think?

At the very same moment, while Al-Shar’a appears to be playing on the ground, he is soaring above reality.

Have you ever seen a man speak from the ozone layer? That’s how Ahmad Al-Shar’a looked—or wanted to look—during a moment of staged reverence as he recited a Quranic verse at the Climate Conference in Brazil (COP30). He appeared almost theological, making us believe he could save both Syria and the planet with the blessing of his recitation. But one verse cannot rebuild what the game he keeps playing so eagerly has destroyed.

And here arises a larger question—one no less ironic than the scene itself:

Can he combine anthropology and metaphysics?
Can Ahmad Al-Shar’a erase his material reality with celestial preaching?

No amount of blood can be washed away by an image of a man raising his hands in piety and posting it on X.

Let’s set aside all that and move to a lighter segment—the removal of Ahmad Al-Shar’a’s name from the terrorism list.

Trump and Al-Shar’a will meet in Washington… A meeting between two illusions that sums up the dilemma of the modern world order: the alliance between domination and submission. They will sit face to face, say little, exchange only silence and photographs.

They will smile in a photo that documents nothingness—Al-Shar’a smiling like an employee at a dull meeting, and Trump issuing orders like a CEO. What foolish actors they are!

Al-Shar’a will return from Washington carrying promises of reconstruction, promises of debt disguised as a rescue plan—or “international cooperation.” The name doesn’t matter. What matters is that World Bank economists will release their new report on Syria’s “potential growth,” concluding with the line:

“The Syrian economy is steadily recovering.”

They will declare that reconstruction requires 216 billion dollars—and they will smile, that same cold smile Ahmad Al-Shar’a wears.

216 billion dollars for reconstruction—the same phrase repeated in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and now pasted once more, copy-and-paste style, onto a new corpse called Syria.

After decades of blood and ash, they want us to believe that everything can be forgiven, that numbers can contain pain and ruin, that 216 billion dollars can bring life back to a shattered homeland. No, dear economists—spreadsheets cannot repair history.

In the end, there will remain that photo of nothingness—Trump and Al-Shar’a together on the X platform, beneath it a small caption:

“Syria enters the international community through the front door.”

One commentator said the scene marked the beginning of a new era of cooperation. Indeed—“a remarkable transformation!”

Congratulations to us on this new phase—
A phase that concludes, of course, with the national anthem… the American-Israeli one.

Researcher and academic – Paris