“Gay Girl in Damascus” Is a U.S. Student in Scotland

Qualtinger pretended to be an Innuit poet; a French woman posed as an Israeli intelligence agent. Now, a student has invented a lesbian Syrian blogger.

Helmut Qualtinger did not have it easy: To implement his plan, he had to steal the International PEN’s stationery. He wrote to the Austrian media on their paper and reported a veritable sensation. He said that Kobuk, the world-famous Innuit poet, was going to read from his work in Vienna. A great procession of journalists and photographers waited at Vienna’s Westbahnhof train station for the celebrity guest on the announced date. Qualtinger emerged from the train, wrapped up warmly in a fur coat.

Now, nobody needs to steal stationary any more. You just need Internet access and a little imagination. Tom MacMaster, an American student studying in Scotland, had both of these and put the story of a young lesbian from Syria on the Internet. The title of his blog — “A Gay Girl in Damascus” — was cleverly chosen and guaranteed maximum attention. Amina Abdullah Arraf al-Omari told stories about her life: of the struggle for democratic change in Syria and of how her father had gotten rid of intelligence agents at the last minute. The blogger was apparently forced into hiding. Three days later, one of her cousins announced on the blog that Amina had been kidnapped. The Facebook page was quickly set up and soon had 15,000 fans.

A thrilling story. The first doubts stirred when a British woman spoke up because she thought she looked too much like Amina, who appeared everywhere on the Internet and in the media. In the end there was nothing MacMaster could do but come out. In his statement he said he did not think he had caused that much harm and he was deeply touched by all the responses.

Did the Internet make it too easy for him? One thing is for sure: Stories that are more exciting than real life have always made it into the public eye. The Washington Post once had to admit that it had fallen for a fake. A journalist had simply made up the 8-year-old heroin addict with “needle marks freckling the baby-smooth skin of his thin brown arms.” Another time, the Kindler publishing house in Germany promoted the fabricated autobiography of a French Jewish woman who wanted to spy on Hezbollah as an Israeli agent as a “breathtaking document.” Stern TV, a German magazine, reported on a Ku Klux Klan meeting that was staged by the filmmaker with friends. Tom Kummer also made up the interviews with celebrities who appeared in “SZ-Magazin” himself.

In hindsight it is easy to say the forgery was easy to spot. Some are aware that people could have uncovered Qualitingers coup, too. This is because Kobuk’s alleged birthday — Feb. 29, 1889 — does not even exist as 1889 was not a leap year. Qualtinger robbed all those who came to Westbahnhof of their illusions at the station, if he had not done so before this point. When asked what his first impression of Vienna was, the Innuit poet replied in broad Viennese dialect: “I hate it.”