In a statement issued by the Miley Cyrus management, and "fresh from her performance at the MTV Video Music Awards (VMA) which garnered 360,000 tweets a minute, Miss Cyrus has decided that she will be giving a series of benefit concerts in Syria. No, not FOR Syria, but IN Syria. Miss Cyrus has decided to take her duties seriously as a performing artist and will be bringing her "we can't stop" twerking routine to the Syrian audiences. The show will be culturally nuanced (the nude two-piece ensemble she wore on television will be replaced by a black free flowing dress in Salafi-controlled rebel areas) and even the name of the song will be changed to "we can stop" fearing that the original titled might be mistaken as an invite to pursue the conflict. In addition, in regions controlled by the regime there will be no reference to "Molly" (which is street name for MDMA or ecstasy) which features in the lyrics of the hit song, or to any other "chemicals" whatsoever. This event will be organised and promoted under the auspices of the Pop Oriented Peace initiative (POPi) with the blog Beirut/NTSC as the official media partner."
If I am announcing this, it's frankly because of all the pseudo-guilt I see online - almost every comments board for whatever news outlet which commented on the Miley Cyrus performance at the VMA had - at least half a dozen comments saying "who cares? Where's the outrage about what is going on in Syria?".
What these people fail to understand is that, it takes all kinds of news to make the internet go round (to tweak the lyrics of the song). Seriously, everyone fails to understand that it is news such as the Miley Cyrus performance that provide glues and clues as to humanity's existence (and that's regardless of what I think of the said performance).
In 1990, I was separated from my love interest for several months because she had fled to safety in the north of Lebanon with her family as I stayed in a Beirut being pounded by serious bombing. Upon reuniting in the school yard after such a long time, her first question was "do you still love Michael Jackson?" - see, our first date was to go see Moonwalker, and we were both so fanatically enthralled by him, he was the common denominator and therefore not loving him anymore would be some sort of a let down for a common ideal (or even "cause") and in extenso of the relationship itself.
It's all right if we speak of Miley Cyrus and of Syria at the same time. With marketing goods and knock off imitations being what they are today, I am sure many Syrian children and teenagers had a copybook or some school-related stationary with a "Hannah Montana" image on it. Maybe they have never seen a Hannah Montana film (but the school stationary items coming from China did make it to their rural areas), and most likely the make-shift satellite dishes they have (made from big metallic culinary receptacles) did not catch the VMA, and if they are on youtube they are probably uploading a different kind of video (one that is either pro or against the regime) as opposed to watching her performance (unless she is considering part of "Sexual Jihad" - or "jihad al nikah").
But the point is - it's all right to talk of Miley and of Syria at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive. Actually, they are synergistic in a very twisted way.
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