BEIRUT/LONDON (Reuters) - "I've been a walking heartache; I've made a mess of me" - the first words of a country music lament which, it seems, Syria's president e-mailed to his wife as his army shelled the rebellious city of Homs last month.
For many Syrians, little gifts of iTunes downloads and the luxury shopping habits of his British-born wife - revealed in hacked messages published by London's Guardian newspaper on Thursday - only reinforced an image of Bashar al-Assad as an uncaring tyrant, fiddling in his palaces as their country burns.
But some who survived the bombardment of Homs detected, too, a note of justifiable anxiety from the 46-year-old head of state - for all the cynical disparagement of his own reform offers as "rubbish", the jokey sharing of a YouTube video that mocks Arab peace monitors or his taking advice from Iranian allies and others on "restoring state power ... using all possible means".
"He was downloading iTunes songs while his army was shelling us. His wife was buying expensive things from Amazon," one opposition activist, known only as Rami for his own safety, told Reuters from Homs, where weeks of bombardment have been followed by tales of atrocities and war crimes.
"That makes me feel sick."
An activist in Damascus who uses the cover name Abu Omar said Asma al-Assad's chatter about jewelry, bedroom furniture, fondue sets and $5,000 Christian Louboutin shoes had hardened his resolve against a 40-year-old family rule that has milked Syria's wealth for the benefit of a few: "As women and children were dying, they were writing all these silly things, he said.
"It made me realize our fight isn't just with Bashar al-Assad."
HOPE, WORRY
Others drew some hope after reading e-mails, published on the first anniversary of the uprising, that showed Syria's first couple exchanging words of concern for their situation.
"If we are strong together," she wrote, "we will overcome this together." A Qatari princess, who voiced concern for their children and told them to come out of their "state of denial", urged Asma al-Assad in January to persuade her husband to flee.
"One good thing in this is a clear sign that Assad realizes the mess he is in," said a rebel fighter for the Farouq Brigade in Homs who goes by the nom-de-guerre al-Homsi.
"But unsurprisingly, as we expected, he really doesn't seem to care how many of his people die so he can keep his throne."
In one e-mail, part of some 3,000 the London daily said it received from an opposition group and whose authenticity it had cross-checked as far as possible, Assad responds to a note from his wife saying she was at a meeting and would be back soon.
"This is the best reform any country can have that u told me where you will be," he wrote, in English. "We are going to adopt it instead of the rubbish laws of parties, elections, media...."
That was on July 6. Two weeks earlier, Assad had made a speech pledging new legislation on elections, the media, and ending the ban on any competitors to his Baath party.
There might even be clues in some of the eclectic, largely Western, musical choices made by Assad, who trained as an eye doctor in London before his brother's death thrust him forward unexpectedly to succeed his much feared father, Hafez, in 2000.
Among them was the 2011 single by country star Blake Shelton "God Gave Me You", a file of which he sent his wife on February 5, according to the Guardian, and in whose self-pitying lyrics some could choose to read a reflection on dashed hopes that Assad the son might break with his father's legacy and free up Syria.
"I've been a walking heartache/ I've made a mess of me," it runs. "The person that I've been lately/ Ain't who I wanna be.
"God gave me you for the ups and downs," goes the chorus as sung by Shelton, whose other hits include "Hillbilly Bone".
