Halal Media

I opened my Facebook page and found an invitation to join the Halal-TV! What is that? It is a Swedish TV talk-show presented by three young women wearing colorful headscarf (or Hijab). The show, according to its makers, is meant to show how the three women view their Swedish homeland through the lens of their Muslim beliefs. Halal, by the way, is an Arabic term meaning permissible and mostly used to refer to food, but some extend that to include other things. The first episode of that show broadcast has already created a lot of controversy among Swedes.

When I saw the picture of the three young women from Halal TV, I thought immediately of our own experience in the Netherlands with this type of media: Last year there was a similar show called Halal Maiden, which also presented by three young women (of Moroccan origin) in colorful headscarf, discussing many issues, but mainly its all about the integration of Muslims in Dutch society.

I don’t know if it is the same production company is behind both shows!

I am not against headscarf. In fact I consider headscarf as a matter of self-expression; I see it as a social symbol rather than religious. I perceive the headscarf or the hijab the same way as I see a Nigerian woman wearing her gele or an Indian young woman putting saris on. I don't judge someone’s belief by the way they dress: It happened to me that I meet a person on a certain social occasion, and that person is wearing a very elegant suit or dressed so nicely that make all around keep looking at him, but after a few minutes of conversation with that person I excuse him and go to the toilet, throw up my lungs out because of disgust. Having said that, my objection against having a TV show with three beautiful young woman wearing hijab is not meant to be against hijab as it is against the concept of making specific program or talk-show that target certain people or certain social community under the name of “ the effort to address the issue of integration” . The definition of integration is “ The bringing of people of different racial or ethnic groups into unrestricted and equal association, as in society or an organization “. Would a weekly TV show like the Halal girls help to achieve the definition of integration? In my opinion it would achieve the opposite: a Dutch woman would watch the show and either she like it or not. Exactly like watching any local TV show, Dutch or Swedish, or even American spoken.

Before I continue, again, I don’t want to be misunderstood, I don’t mean to offend any of the two shows or say that the six girls are bad. On the contrary, I enjoyed the Dutch version, especially their argument and the way they approach the different aspects in society – some of them are very funny and I compliment the young ladies for their talent.

There are specific programs for specific communities, such as the Nederlandse Muslim Omroep or the Joodse Omrope, both are broadcast once a week on Dutch TV. What is the purpose of such TV programs? they were made to address different issues related to specific communities living and working in the Netherlands based on their religious belief. It also bring awareness the non-Muslim and non-Jewish. The Halal ladies show can be put in the same category. They are nothing but an introduction to another culture and their activities. Nothing more, nothing less. Bring people of different racial or ethnic background can be achieved the other way around: I have to meet people from another culture, I have to talk to men and women from different ethnic group, and I have to learn about their habits, rituals, and the things they like and dislike. With this, acceptance will be easier, and rejection would not be a barrier in the development of society. I didn’t watch Kurdish or Assyrian talk shows, for example, to learn how to go along with them and to deal with the way they see things. I made contact; talked Christians and Turkmans on the street, in shops, in social occasions, at school, in the neighborhood next to mine. From there I made friendship with men and women, families and individuals, by becoming more selective.

Those who say that there are problems coming from immigrants because they don’t understand the values and principles of the country they live in, for that reason there is a lot of focus on displaying how those immigrants live is part of the solution to integrate those people into Dutch society. By the way, it is known that Dutch society is one of the most tolerant societies in the whole world. This is entirely true, it is less than years ago, yet, it still exist in wide range around the country, and that has its reasons, mainly fear. For that reason people like Geert Wilders took that opportunity successfully and managed to get more than one million votes in the last elections.

I love colors, nowadays every single society consists of colors formed and shaped by its different ethnic groups and cultural backgrounds. However, it is like a painting, there are some colors for some is conceived as being out of shape and context, but the smart artist can adjust this. How? many Dutch ask how? many immigrants ask how? the answer consists of: first to focus more on how to accept each other, as long as there is acceptance from both sides, the mixture of colors will definitely be easier and the end result will be a master-piece. The second is to focus less, much less, on negativity in dealing with problems here and there caused by immigrants (not saying ignore them, but deal with them differently). The media is not the ultimate solution to bring people together in reality. The media will make the concept of acceptance harder to be digested by many, because the media will be the only means to know about that culture or ethnic group – the media topics are a series of messages addresses certain consumers at a certain time of the day and the night, and like any sort of messages, there are the bad and the good ones. Unless the Halal-maiden can be seen in office and universities as colleagues; Partners in one club or on a trip somewhere; in hospitals as doctors; or onsite as engineers, the media will be the only means to form the nature of relationship among citizens. It is not difficult to achieve this, especially if we forget that behind that headscarf or saris or gele there might be a great mind / personality able to contribute in making the neighborhood, school, workplace, and the whole society a better place to live in.

House of Saddam

House of Saddam is a four episodes TV drama that charts the rise and fall of Saddam Hussein from 1979 to 2003. A co-production between BBC Television and HBO films, the series began on Wednesday 30th July on BBC Two in four parts. I watched episode one of the show, till now, and first impression is having actors with comics-like facial resemblance to the real persons was deliberate - Saddam was much more skinnier that Yigal Naor when he was vice president - Saddam started to gain weight during the Iraq-Iran war. This also include all other characters in the entire show, such as a teenager look-alike Barzan (Saddam half brother), a plumpy funny Ali Hasan Al Majid, and a big headed gloomy-faced Tariq Aziz. Having a handsome Hussain Kamel Al Majid (played by whom I consider a genies and brilliant young Egyptian actor Amr Waked) can prove more to this formula.

Another thing I was not comfortable with while watching the first episode is the way English was spoken: 99% of the actors speaks English with Iraqi or middle eastern accent (including the same typical grammatical mistakes used), with Arabic words thrown here and there in every sentence, such as habeebty (beloved one for a woman) or Ammo (uncle). It is like I am hearing Ahmed Chalabi speaking during an interview with CNN or BBC.

The substance of historic material chosen for such a drama work intended for TV viewers is new, which is good to shed light on some details that only known to book readers or to an Iraqi who used to be close or attached personally to these events! Yet, there were many changes to the real events. I don't know if such deviations were made to inject some more dramatic aspect to the show, or the writer was referring to false references! For example, Adnan Khairalla, Saddam's brother-in-law, was not Iraq's minister of defense in late 1970's. In addition, Hamdani (in real, his name was Adnan Al Hamdani) was among other Iraqi politicians who have been detained and executed collectively after the notorious revolutionary command council meeting in July 1979. He was not shot in the head by Saddam himself at the latter's house as we saw it in the show.

As I said, there are some strong details close to reality about the life of Saddam and people around him, such as the powerful personality of Saddam's mother - I don't know if she went that far of being personally interfering in her son's choices of selecting loyal people around him, though! In addition, the use of advanced technology and people resources on many shots were perfectly recruited - the use of live pictures of Saddam in different places merged with the help of computer effects of that of "the new Saddam among the public".

I laughed big at a scene from the show when Saddam and his son were standing at the top of a hill, in presumably the town of Tikrit, the birth place of Saddam. He was looking with sharp eyes in to the horizon, where a big circled green spot of palms stretched an area down the valley in the middle of the yellow rocky desert. Then he starts telling his son about the glory of Iraq:

"look around, Uday, look around! This is the land between two rivers. The first armies and empires were found here. Do you know that the first law was written here? This is the cradle of civilizations. We are lucky Uday..." But young Uday was distracted by something, and looked bored. He was continiousely moving his head up and around, staring at the emptiness of the high hills surrounding. There comes a pause, silence, with Saddam like lost in his emperial thoughts until Uday turns his head to his father's side and asks with obvious stupidity and wonder on his face:

"Papa? I am hot"

Saddam face turns from that of cogitation to fury when his eyes set on his son. With disgust and hidden rage he asks Uday: "have you heard a word I said?" His rage was clearer when his voice became much louder "... of course you feel hot... we are in the desert... drink some water..." Saddam then walks dissappointed passing his son with large steps, and in Arabic he curses Uday saying "God damn you, and that who gave birth to you" (انعل ابوك لابو اللي بزرك) . He snaps at Uday to follow him and continue "I wished I brought Qusay with me instead".

I see this show as a nice attempt to cover the political rise and fall of a ruthless dictator like Saddam, but for me (and many others I talked to) it is an imperfect work. I didn't watch the followup to the series (episodes 2,3 and 4), but covering more than two decades of brutal tyranny with only four episodes would also mark this work as imperfect. They managed to show how cold-blooded this man used to be, it has been reflected by the main actor excellently, but crafting such a story into a TV drama deserves more than that, and would really be much better if more attention to other small details and segments, especially that there was an obvious and hard effort on digging down massive and detailed historic events clearly taken from people lived within that period or government documentation and footage's (like of Iraq-Iran war and Saddam TV propeganda). I don't believe stories about the makers of the series getting in touch indirectly from Saddam while he was in US custody, or through the lawyers of Tariq Aziz, according to some media sources!

No News On Iraq!!

It is the same curious man I see him at work from time to time. a couple of weeks ago we had lunch together – among other colleagues. We talked about everything, as usual, joked about different things, and before the end of the lunch I could see the question written in his eyes. He managed to steel some silence in between the different subjects and jokes and dropped the question: “how are things in Iraq? It has been some time since the last time I saw some news about Iraq? and with semi-confidence he added "I heard it is getting better and better... I think the new troops surge last year helped improving the situation after all!”

That question reminds me of a story a cousin of mine told me long ago. He used to study in the United Kingdom from late 1970’s to late 1980’s when he went back to Iraq – something he regret to this day, as far as I know because instead of having the government taking advantage of his expertise and higher education in the field of technology, he has been dumped for years to come as a soldier in the Iraqi army. After a period of depression like sitting alone in a dark room, eating very little and smoke more than a coal train can make, his father managed to get him serve military services in the capital Baghdad till the end of the second gulf war where he was released afterwards, arranged his traveling papers and left Iraq for good to this day.

In mid 1980’s that cousin of mine decided to spend his New Year’s vacation with his faily and among his relatives in Iraq. During that time Iraq was engaged deeply in the war against Iran and more and more lives were eaten up by this slaughtering machine called warfare. On one of these days, I was at his house, and he told me how someone sent a letter to the BBC wondering why is that no more coverage for the war between Iraq and Iran as it used to be in the early years?

Back to today and seeing the same question being popped up, also from a person who lives in the west, I decided to follow the news here on Iraq more carefully, not that I don't follow the news in Iraq, but I decided to check out different channels and focus mainly on Dutch news. The man was right, the coverage of the news in Iraq compare it to the real events on the street is far from being the same!

It did not bother me when that colleague asked me about the lack of news about Iraq on TV. What bothered me most is my colleague's comment about the improvement of the situation when he said "... I guess the new troops surge last year helped improving the situation after all..." That was like a slap on my head, because from the news we get from people we know in Iraq and what we read on the internet the situation did not improve, not even a little, because there is still self-suicide attacks, still people are being killed, still men and women are fleeing the country in thousands... so I don't see the improvement whatsoever that make the western public believe in such, and that the U.S. government did find the solution to the problem when they added more troops. Not to forget the new propaganda in these days about the "Armageddon of Iraq" that has began a couple of days ago, where the last battle will be taken place in Mosul (north of Iraq) to get rid of the Al Qaeda forever! However, I believe more pumping into the war propaganda is needed, especially that "Iron Man" or "Indiana Jones" latest blockbusters do carry more interesting action scenes indeed.

Yet, I am not a clairvoyant, so I can't say when will be the big end scene (Like in any other movie where we see an end to the story) but I am sure there will be another big action scene close to the presidential elections in the United States... we will see suddenly Bin Laden broadcasting another of his threatening messages, we will see the danger alert level in the United States rises to Red because of a possible terrorist attack, we will see rising in the number of suicide attacks and more policemen get killed...etc All part of the same tragic reality show: just a dynamic movement of events ups and downs with whatever situation that maybe. However, one thing remains static for certain: More Iraqis are either displaced or killed!

media strike image courtesy of Sfinal

Fox News Hates Bloggers???

Many media companies found bloggers as a good and reliable source of news. I read a couple of months ago on the internet that high precentage of Italian public believe more the news read out blogs than these on news bulletins and official news broadcasters. In addition, British and Australian media like the BBC have endorsed bloggers, even there are some bloggers who started their journalism career with support of such media giants. There are also many American newspapers who enjoy this kind of cooperation between them and bloggers. However, what's the problem with FOX news channel? Why do they hate bloggerss by calling them "vicious", for example?