It’s all About Unity:

 Since the emergence of Arab televised drama in the sixties, Arab TV screenwriters have been trying to adjust its themes to the quick and prodigious socio-cultural and political changes in the Arab world. Despite the variety of themes (with a special focus on social critique), Arab drama remains tightly devoted to the question of Arab (Islamic) identity. Egyptian drama was the first to produce televised series that gained a lot of popularity, outshining productions of Syrian drama which has remained largely in the shadow of Egyptian productions, until the nineties when it started to present to the audience dissimilar contextual landscapes, though they focused on the same issues more or less. Syrian drama is now making important efforts to offer to the Arab audience what may be labelled as a committed art.  Broadcasting over the last five years, the Syrian series of Bab Al Hara (literally meaning the Neighbbourhood’s Gate), is probably the most popular and the most viewed Arab series since the days of Egyptian series ‘Layali el Helmia’ (The nights of el Helmia).

Taking after the example of Eyptian drama in its early years, history is now the favourite target of Syrian drama.  The early wave of Egyptian series had plots inspired mostly either by the Islamic conquest and the early Islamic history.  Other series like Layali El Helmia dealt with a wider range of issues over its five seasons that chronicled the lives of three generations, and still inspired by the large tapestry of history, like colonisation and resistance, feudalism, social class, and finally the Arab Israeli conflict and its aftermath.  When Syrian drama first came into the scene, it also chose history-related themes that successfully competed with Egyptian drama.  It was Syrian drama which first introduced in the early nineties what was known as historical fantasies, whose plots presented allegories of the modern times, with pre-Islamic tribal life as its main background.

The latest wave of Syrian series that has recently gained a lot of popularity chose another historical model; the life of the neighbourhood (hara) in the early twentieth century, a period marked by its intensity owing to the major political changes it had birthed, including the breakdown of the Ottoman empire, and the hard and bitter sinking of the Arab world into disintegration: disintegration of dignity, and disintegration of values.

Bab El Hara deals with a series of issues, (family, politics, social values...) in that part of our history, with a very deep sense of nostalgia.  It storyline is an idolization of a lost past, and a call for the restoration of the old communal values that had once characterized the classic Muslim Arab society before it was ‘invaded’ by western culture.

The storyline of Bab El Hara takes place in old, French colonized Damascus in the 1930’s, when nearly all of the Arab nations were under the rule of the then collapsing Ottoman rule and that of European colonisation simultaneously.  Damascus, as it appears in the series, is a city immune to foreign cultural invasion, which is not difficult to understand if we take into consideration the slow penetration of western culture and values, yet other major events of economic and political nature and which had influenced the world barely have any resonance in the series. Even the great depression which shook the colonies much as it shook the metropolis seems to have been crossed out of the scriptwriter’s conception of his idyllic world. 

This neglect does not seem to be spontaneous. It is not surprising that the world depicted in Bab El Hara is seemingly independent in terms of its economic structure and despite the fact that we are constantly reminded of the struggle against colonisation.  Against all odds, the world of ‘Bab el Hara’ is one whose society excellently preserves its social values and wallows in abundance behind its closed gate.

But what or who is it that the closed gate shuns?

The very name of the series directs the imagination of its viewers toward a world of bygone times that is near and remote, lasting and ephemeral at the same time. It is a perfect romanticised tale set in a poetic time and place, and it is perfectly attuned to the longing of its viewers whose disenchantment with the present is more than a strong reason to search for answers in the past.

Though the conflict between the local community and the colonial authorities occupy the largest part of the series as a way to point out the gap between the outside and the inside, the world of the family in Bab El Hara again highlights this gap.   Family ties are very strong in the series, and through them, we see the prototypical Father, Mother, neighbour relations, and of course, we see the reverse of all of these. Inside of every house in Bab El Hara, the fountain, descendant of the Andalusian art and architecture, stands for the perfect harmony and serenity that reigns over the place. It is not a coincidence that this specific architectural feature recalls another episode of Arab history which Arabs often evoked with nostalgia and sadness.

 The specific timing of the broadcasting of the series (after fast-breaking in Ramadan) when most of Arab families would be gathered watching TV, is another factor behind its success. A good timing to ensure a large viewership, you may say, yet, the timing also directly points to the sanctity of the family institution, an idea that Bab El Hara never fails to shed light on time and again through the image of the unified family.

It is all about unity, and unity starts at home. (source:http://www.g4z4.com)

But unity cannot be maintained without a strong, wise leadership. (source:http://b7st.com)

But unity is not only the unity of the family, it is also the unity of the whole community, whose fabric is woven of shared values and principles, and whose violation deserves severe reprimand. In Bab El Hara, the aggressor often comes from the outside, and often in the form of the danger under disguise. (Steif who is disguised as a tramp in season 2 and who is a reporter to the French authorities, and Nemr, (Maamoun Bek) the agent working for French authorities, who takes the false identity of a dead resident from the neighbourhood in seasons 4 and 5).  In the age of globalisation, with the risk of the loss of identity becoming more and more prominent, Bab El Hara seems to offer a good answer to the wretched generations estranged from their past. 

Is the Clue to the Future Lies Behind the Gates of the Past?

Now the question is, in the age of inevitable globalisation, what is exactly the role of the past?  More importantly, do these nostalgic approaches to the past represent the answer to the disintegration of the socio-cultural, political and economic foundations of the Arab world?

If the media persists with this view, it may result in generations of youths who unlike their parents and grand-parents, are more than ever faced with the challenge of open doors of information and cross-cultural pollination.  

This reminds of what American media offered to its fear-stricken audiences in periods of mass fear. This may be true of now, but also true of the decades of the fifties and the sixties when the Americans were under the effect of media that intensified the fear of the outside and idolised the image of the safe home during the period of the cold war.  In Pleasantville, one of my best American movies, the extent to which the media of the time influenced the visions and the dreams of the ordinary Americans are brought to light. Sitcoms like ‘Leave It to Beaver’, which the movie is a parody of, had painstakingly praised the image of the unified family and the sheltered home. But, the movie asks, what happens when you shelter your world too much, till you grow totally convinced that beyond the way out there is nothing but inevitable danger? The world becomes colourless, the movie dares to say.   The happy family of the era is nothing but a projection of the alienated individual who lives in fear and repression.  The black and white of the nostalgic, turns out to be the black and white of lifelessness and enforced silence.

 In a similar historical situation when America is once again facing its horror of the enemy coming from the outside, Pleasantville warns against a relapse into a similar attitude, while the very foundations of the term ‘pleasant’ are undermined.

In the last season of Bab El Hara, the colonial authorities decide to rip off the gate of the neighbourhood, for no clear reason but to tease the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, a teasing that comes at an exorbitant price as it represents the shattering of their protected world, and the melting away of the values that keep it together. The violation of the door is an act of aggression against the ‘horma’ or sanctity of the neighbourhood.  The door is not restored back to place until the end of the last episode, when agent Nemr (Maamoun Bek) is rightfully executed at the hands of the neighbourhood’s men (plus one woman!).

The return of the gate in the final episode shows the restoration of peace and harmony and the expulsion of danger which Maamoun Bek and his likes stand for, but not forever.  Just like Nemr could sneak into the neighbourhood disguised in a fake identity and succeeded in gaining the confidence of the residents under that disguise, the danger of modern times sneaks into the modern Arab reality by camouflaging its identity, and by taking different names and versatile shapes.  If we are not wary enough, we risk giving away our identities like the residents of Bab el Hara risked losing their houses by giving them away to Nemr Bek with their full will, before his truth was unveiled, the morale of Bab El Hara says.

In the last scene of final season of the series, we see the residents grab their weapons and ride their horses into the unknown to fight the enemy, a call for every proud Arab to fight from their positions against the danger of outside invasions, and to outline their own fate.  This is the typical ending scene of all Bab el Hara’s final episodes in their different seasons, with the metaphor of the road used repetitively to point to an unknown destiny. 

With the recent upheavals in the Arab world, the reprogramming of the series has become frequent in several Arab channels.  The question of an enemy lurking behind the door is even more persistent, and the prospect of an imminent invader is once again raised.   However, this issue could be easily caught into simplistic yet successful plotlines not only of drama, but also of politics. Recent post-revolutionary scenes have unveiled a hotchpotch of stories that recall old movies and old series, in which enemies are easily recognizable, easily accused and easily brought to justice, only to be easily substituted by other enemies when the  baffled audience starts to ask ‘what happened?’