It's become a yearly tradition for Syrian T.V. viewers to spend Ramadan with the company of families from the early 20th sentury Damascus, (Ayam Shameia, Al-Khawaly, Laaly El-Salheih, and more) lots of series showing old life in Damascus with all its cons and pros, its whites and blackes.
We can't deny that we were all caought by these series, cause the old allies and the arabian-style Houses and the beatiful touch of old Damascus, they all brought us back to the wormth and compation we are denied from in the business of our modern life.
However, on this year we 've seen the Damask neighbourhood (Harra) as we never did before.
Damsk houses were dark this time, their walls were falling apart, their fountain water is like pond water, it stinks with the disgusting odore of hating and behind-the-face talking of the family and neighbours, their rooms are filled with eckos of words we probebly never heard before it such shows.
Why give that ugly disfigured image of our people and our past???
Fabricated unconvincing encounters, sick low-life personalities, negative colliding characters representing us, our community on the satellite channels, representing Damascus People!!!
That was in addition to intense doses of male dominance, doses that most of our men awaited everyday to grieve the good old days of "glory" and total control.
Enough of these images of male power and women who are either weak and slavish, or mean and blethering, causing endess problems and wrecking lifes and following wizards talking of Ginnies! Is this the picture we chose to represent the Damask women?!
The real problem is that this case is not "internal affairs" anymore, Syrian drama isn't just for Syria anymore. Drama today is a mirror of their societies, reflecting their images through satellites for the world to see.
We certainly can't deny the existanse of such characters in our old neighbourhoods, but not in this quantity or quality of deeds, and anyway, we don't have to brag about it on satellite T.V. Channels. We don't accept those characters to be our representatives even if it was between us only.
Has our writers and producers finished resolving our social, educational, and economical problems? cause it sure seems like it if they were extending the dimentions of Souad and Abu-Esam's divorse over more than 20 episodes of this 30-episodes series.
I think that drama should be guiding and goalful, or at least not disfiguring to a whole society as (Bab Al-Harra) did.
T.V. is the shortest way to send thoughts to our children and youth's minds, it's of our duty to look after the ideas and vocablary they view in it, because thay are the ones building our future and it'd be a catastrophe if tomorow youth were replicates to those we see today on our T.V. screens.
Nada Rasoul Agha, 6/11/2007, ("Bab Al-Harra" Why was it re-opened?)
Translated by: Nawar El-Sabaa