Syrian TV dramas during a post-Assad Ramadan
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Today, Ramadan entertainment in Syria looks a little different this year. People who hadn't seen each other, let alone been able to collaborate in many years, are coming together. With exiled artists returning and a boom in uncensored creativity, how the Syrian TV landscape is changing in a post-Assad era. I'm Manuel Rapalo, and this is The Take.

This weekend was the start of Ramadan, a holy month observed by Muslims all around the world. And it's all about fasting, spiritual reflection, and connecting with one's community. But for many people growing up across the Middle East, it was also about watching a lot of TV. I have a special memory with my grandfather watching TV series together after Iftar and Ramadan.

I am Inas Haqqi. I am a Syrian filmmaker. My father was a very renowned director and producer in Syria. As a kid, I remember that Ramadan means that my father is not so busy anymore because he used to make a TV series every year for Ramadan. My grandfather wasn't a fan of TV series, but he loved to watch TV series that

talked about Syria's history, modern history, because he was a diplomat and he loved to commentate the series and to say what is true and what was not. So I have this vivid memory of him critiquing the series and us having this bond together.

This Ramadan is the first in Syria since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, which is a big deal for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that Syrian TV shows are among the most beloved. And this year, they're being made in a very different political landscape. We wanted to talk to someone about what this all means. I'm Krista Salamandra, and I'm an anthropologist based in the City University of New York, Lehman College, and the Graduate Center. Hi, Krista. Welcome to The Take. ♪

So we're speaking at the start of Ramadan, and one of the ways that people connect is by watching TV together. They will break their fast at Iftar, they'll gather around the TV, they'll watch new shows, which are often released in time for this month. And Syria, in particular, is very well known

for the types of shows that they put out. One of the producers on our team who's a big fan of the Syrian drama even compares it to Mexican telenovelas in terms of popularity. Can you tell us about that? What is it about the Syrian drama that's so appealing, that draws so many people in? What is it about it that people love so much? Well, when I began dissertation fieldwork

in Syria in the early 1990s, I had absolutely no interest in television and no idea that I would be looking at it. And then the first Ramadan that I was in Damascus, Syrian television aired Damascene Days, I Am Shamia. And it was such

A phenomenon. I mean, the streets would empty out each night and everybody would be focused on the cereal and they would talk about it the next day. And it also allowed people to talk about issues that were quite sensitive politically, like the things that divided them in ways that would have been very unlikely to have occurred without the cereal. And I began to realize how important it was socially.

Why did you bring this man home? He wants to get engaged with me. Want to burn me, mother? I will do it myself. Syria's creators have developed a very distinctive form of the drama serial, the Arabic language drama serial, or the musalso, and it's easily recognizable in a flow of broadcasting.

The features that are distinctive about Syrian drama include real-life settings, on-location filming, and themes that are pretty much shared throughout the region. So a lot of the storylines can be plopped into any Arab setting with minimal tweaking. So these serials really speak to a pan-Arab audience. They deal with...

The glories of the past, you know, grand epic stories of empires, Muslim empires of the past. They also deal with more recent history, and in particular Damascus of the early 20th century in a folkloric genre that has become known as the Damascene Milia serial, the most popular version of which is Bab al-Hara, the Neighborhood Gate.

There's a homicide and we don't know who the perpetrator is. But also contemporary social drama, social realist dramas, particularly those set in urban quarters that are inhabited by impoverished migrants from the countryside.

These series depict the everyday problems of ordinary people who are struggling, but are very often precluded from a better life by structural forces. So they provide a very strong structural critique of the system, of the impediments, of political expression even. The Danmasy Milia serials are charming and folkloric,

and make people very nostalgic for a past that perhaps never really was, but is very endearing. And it particularly works well in Ramadan, which is a season of remembering. And obviously, we're talking about this at the beginning of Ramadan. How did the Syrian drama become so closely associated with Ramadan, not just in Syria, but across the Arab world?

Well, Arab drama became associated with Ramadan at some point in the 1980s. And it's kind of an obvious evolution when you think about the Christmas season, for example, as being the moment when producers and advertisers are assured of an audience because they're

Families gather, expatriates return, and there is focus on nostalgia, on belonging, on culture, on belief. The television serial became associated with Ramadan in the 1980s. It was really in the early 1990s that Syrian drama emerged on the regional scene in a big way, with the emergence of both private production companies in Syria and

and pan-Arab satellite networks, which needed material for their long broadcast hours. But it really took off in the 2000s, when satellite access really spread. And there's one show in particular this year that has people quite excited. It's called Habak. It's now 8.10 a.m.

It's supposed to come out in time for Ramadan and depict the ouster of al-Assad. What are you hearing about this show? Why are people so excited about this? Well, the actors that are involved, particularly Chris Bishar, are some of the most illustrious of Syrian actors who in turn are among the most illustrious actors in the Arab world. This show was filming at the time of the overthrow, so it was able to incorporate people

And this is likely the first series that's going to be portraying something that maybe hasn't been portrayed before, at least not in recent memory. Well, people are excited because this is the first time that the upper echelons of the leadership have been spoken about and dealt with and treated directly in a serial way.

We're actually seeing depicted in the trailer that very dramatic, if you like, moment that the overthrow of the regime was announced publicly, which is a very exciting moment for Syrians and Syrian observers and Syrian lovers. How did 13 years of war impact Syria's TV industry? That's after the break.

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Here's Inas Haki. Working in arts during the Assad's era was a constant struggle against censorship. Not only for me, for all artists, I think, my father included. We weren't allowed to touch any subject related to the Assad's power, its military, the corruption in the country on some levels.

The mokhaberat would come to our sets and ask us what we are filming, why we are filming this, and get the names of everybody on the set. And this was a repeated visit that we got from the security forces. Artists who were critical of the regime were often threatened. Many of them went into exile. In 2013,

My aunt was killed in the Aleppo University massacre. My father was in France, so I wanted to come and visit him because I was so worried about him. And I left Syria for Lebanon to ask for a visa. And I realized that I couldn't go back because I wanted to speak up and to support the Syrian revolution.

And to say everything I have to say. A show like Habak couldn't have been made in the Assad era. Here's Krista again. Well, Syrian TV drama, which is the key cultural product of Syria, has never been able to address the upper echelons of the leadership. So there was no naming names. You really couldn't even depict a president properly.

You could depict corrupt individuals, fictionalized, and then people would speculate as to who the model for this or that corrupt official depicted was. But you could never be specific about the upper echelons of the leadership. So to have the regime actually mentioned, let alone the regime overthrow, is in itself quite dramatic.

What would happen to individuals if they went a little too far? What would happen to a show if it went, you know, if it crossed any of those red lines in their criticisms of the government? Well, given the layers of censorship, it would be unlikely to even happen in the first place because serials faced two layers of censorship.

both at the script stage and then before airing of the final product. So it would be unlikely to happen. There have been a few cases where serials went a little bit too far and they were pulled from the air on Syrian television. And what sort of impact would all of this have on the content of Syrian dramas? What kind of storylines and themes were shows having to sort of be more subtle about?

Absolutely. Syrian drama creators became very adept at avoiding censorship, but also sending messages. And Syrian audiences became adept at reading those messages. He's the imaginary leader of a fictional Arab country. But for displaced Syrians in the rebel-held Northwest, who gathered nightly during Ramadan to watch each new installment, the series Smile General is about a family dynasty they know all too well.

There would be a dance each Ramadan of creators encoding messages in their serials, political positionings and critiques of the regime and of the society and audiences reading them, like reading between the lines.

And it really speaks to that creativity once more of the Syrian artists and the way of managing to get messages across. And at the end of the day, this is more than just censorship, right? Isn't it? We're talking about years of sanctions, years of war. How did all of that impact the TV industry in Syria? A lot of artists that we've been hearing from have been speaking from exile. So it has shrunk, hasn't it?

Well, it's both shrunk and expanded because Syrians who had always been working outside of Syria...

really did take their talent elsewhere and participate in joint productions. Joint productions, for many reasons, have become very popular Arabic language joint productions, particularly between Syria and Lebanon. The Syrian industry has always operated on a shoestring, and that's very much its strength as well. There's been little infrastructure, there are no studios, so

So directors had to take their cameras out on the streets and use real-life locations. And a lot of the nation's creative talent has been channeled into the television industry because of restrictions on freedom of expression. So you could get away with a little bit more in fictional television than you could in journalism, let's say. So really, the nation's leading artists, poets, writers,

authors, actors have been involved in television productions. Right, and you talk about this shoestring budget and what people are capable of, and I think that really...

There's a moment right now, right? Because it's been a couple of months now since the ouster of Bashar al-Assad. People are describing what's happening in Syria as a sort of cultural renaissance in many ways. Booksellers are displaying books that were previously banned. Comedians are criticizing the al-Assad regime, criticizing whatever they want, really. A lot of people are returning to the country.

Obviously, there's a lot of excitement. But there's also been a little bit of concern, at least there was at the beginning, following the overthrow of al-Assad, from cultural organizations, from artists themselves, over what artistic freedom might look like under Syria's interim government, which is led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, who used to have ties to al-Qaeda. What are we watching for as well, moving forward?

Well, drama makers are cautiously optimistic and they are concerned about restrictions on freedom of expression. There have been instances of social censorship in the past and they're worried that they're going to face even more of that under an Islamist government. They're worried about not being able to address the social issues in particular that they're used to addressing. They're largely progressive in their orientation and

And they're concerned about gender issues in particular. And they're worried that they're not going to be able to depict society as realistically as they see it and as they would like it to be seen.

We should note that the interim government has said that it's not against any form of art, that it encourages art, that art is part of humanity. So what we are hearing is a very sort of open approach to art and to artists and a lot of encouragement.

I want to go back to something that you said before about the shoestring budget, because on my way over here to speak with you today, I drove past Hollywood Boulevard. I live in Los Angeles. Award season is over. It got me thinking about the film and television industry, not only in Syria, here in the United States. It's an industry that struggles even when times are good.

In many ways, it's an industry that's fueled by a love and a passion that artists have for making movies, for making TV. A lot of people are returning after being outside of the country for over a decade. So with that emotion in mind, how big is this moment for Syrian artists?

I think it's huge for Syrian artists. Syrian drama creators themselves have been returning from exile and they've been filming their returns and uploading them to social media. There is nothing better than a human being returning to his country. It will be a free country. People are optimistic and I have hope.

I think, first of all, they're able to gather together again. You know, people who hadn't seen each other, let alone been able to collaborate in many years, are coming together. And it seems to a large extent that political and ideological differences that have split them in the past are being reconciled. At least that is my hope. And that seems to be the message that is coming out of a large meeting of Syrian artists today

who are involved in the drama industry, most of whom were involved in the drama industry that took place a couple of days ago in Damascus. So what I'm expecting is

and I'm hoping for, is a revitalization of Syrian realist drama, which is very, very much tied to production in Damascus. This is really a hallmark of Syrian drama, is this fidelity to urban spaces, particularly urban spaces of impoverished urban spaces. And that's actually what we'll be seeing with Habakkuk.

So I expect and I hope for a return to social realism and to dealing with everyday life and everyday problems in ways that are even more frank than they have been able to before. It's kind of an open canvas for Syrian artists right now. I think people are probably keen on telling their stories. There are so many stories that haven't been told.

I think there'll be a lot of stories of exile and return and rebuilding and reuniting. Krista Salamandra, thank you so much for joining us on The Take. Thanks so much for having me. And that's The Take. This episode was produced by Tamara Kandaker and Chloe K. Lee, with Sari El-Khalili, Philip Llanos, Spencer Klein, Marcos Bartolome, Melanie Marich, Hannah Choker, and me, Manuel Rapalo. It was edited by Kylene Kang.

The Take production team is Marcos Bartolome, Sonia Begat, Spencer Klein, Sari El-Khalili, Tamara Kandaker, Philip Llanos, Chloe K. Lee, Ashish Malhotra, Khaled Sultan, Amy Walters, and Noor Wazwaz. Our editorial interns are Melanie Marich and Hannah Shoker. I'm your host, Manuel Rapalo. Our engagement producers are Adam Abugad and Vienna Maglio. Aya Al-Malek is lead of audience engagement.

Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abusala and Mohamed Almelhem. Alexandra Locke is the take's executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera's head of audio. We'll be back tomorrow.