The fever of Arab television shows

Millions of Arabs hurried to their television sets immediately after Iftar to watch their favourite series.

Soap operas of different types and subjects occupy the nights during Ramadan, from Morocco to the Gulf, offering wholesome entertainment. Family members barely talk to each other while watching their favourite series.

The habit has grown phenomenally in recent years. One would not think of Ramadan without thinking of one or more series which has occupied the minds and hearts of the public. Scores of new television shows are aired during Ramadan, ranging in subjects from history to current affairs, showcasing the lives of famous characters, men and women, who had played an important part in the political or social life in the past. It is a huge industry worth billions of dollars.

This year, the most popular TV show is Omar, which depicts the life of the second caliph of the early Islamic era. There has been a heated discussion in the media over whether showing one of the early great Muslim leaders and a companion of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) is appropriate or not. In fact, a lawyer in Kuwait even tried to stop showing the series and demanded a court order to ban it in Kuwait, but failed.

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Caliph Omar Bin Al Khattab is also known as Al Farouq, which in Arabic means someone who applies absolute justice and makes a clear differentiation between right and wrong with no discrimination between Muslims and others. He was known to have the highest standards of justice. One story about him tells how he stood tall when he allowed his son to be punished, as his son had beaten an Egyptian Christian, and recited a phrase which has since been taught and memorised in every Arab school: “Why do you enslave people while their mothers gave birth to them free?”

This saying, for which Omar is so famous, as well as the idea of absolute justice, are what have made the television show so popular, especially at this time. While many Arab countries are facing uprisings for justice and social equality, it does make sense that this particular soap opera is attracting so many viewers. So far, it has the top ranking among TV commercials.

Caliph Omar’s era witnessed some of the great triumphs of Muslims such as the liberation of Syria from the Romans and Iraq from the Persians. So Omar was not just a wise ruler, but a great military leader. Most Arabs would wish to see someone with similar talents today. That makes Omar the most followed series.

Most of the soap operas this year were produced in Egypt and as Syria is mired in civil strife since last year, very few programmes have come from there. The Egyptian productions this year came with no surprises, most dealing with atrocities committed by the Egyptian secret service of the falling regime. Even names such as Mubarak, the former president, and some top of his aides were mentioned — these, of course, featured in song-and-dance sequences to please the viewers. But the surprise was that a good number of these shows convinced the viewers that they knew about the events in Egypt even beforehand!

Watching soap operas for Arab viewers is time-consuming, but at the same time, it is good for business as commercials run longer than usual during these shows, despite a good number of viewers complaining that they take the flavour out of the story.

The owners of Arabic channels, both private and public, compete for a monopoly of good quality series as they can make more money from the commercials. The competition between Arab TV stations is much more intense than the competition in football. The harsh and nasty rivalry between teams is famous, as every one wants to capture the audience for as long as they can. The goal here is not only to gain more commercial time, but to get political opinions across at a time of great uncertainty.

You can easily call what is going on in the world of Arab TV the ‘Battle of Televisions’. It is a soft battle of words and pictures, rather than guns and bullets, and either directly or indirectly, every station wants to have the maximum number of viewers, even if that means paying them or offering expensive gifts and prizes through trivia shows.

So the fever of television in the Arab world is more than what shows in the surface. It is the playground of political arguments of millions of Arabs and many of them make up their minds only from what they see on their TV screens — particularly during Ramadan when there is plenty of time to ponder.

Mohammad Alrumaihi is a professor of political sociology at Kuwait University.