Barbara Walters chats with Forward Syria
Swaying between art and seduction
Discussing monetary policy with the man in charge
Where the earth screams in horror
0 - Issue 40
The Rebel TV
Built by a generation of rebels, Syria’s silver screen celebrates its golden anniversaryby Sami Moubayed
This June, Syrian TV marks its 50th anniversary. Many of today’s actors and celebrities have helped build, shape and create the culture and spirit of our national television. But it wasn’t easy for them back in 1960 when they walked the less trodden road – by choosing an acting career over more ‘suitable’ jobs.
When arriving at the port of Beirut back in the late 1960s, celebrated Syrian comedian Duraid Lahham was approached by one of the workers who eyed him from head to toe and said, “Were you not a schoolteacher at one point?” Duraid nodded, having studied chemistry and taught at school and university before becoming a professional actor in 1960. “Wouldn’t it have been better for you to keep that job instead of joining this embarrassing business?”
That is how most people viewed the profession of an actor or actress for decades, especially those who rebelled against Puritan society in Damascus to work as actors, dancers, and directors at Syrian Television, which opened its gates to an entire generation of artists exactly 50-years ago, back in July 1960.
It was shocking indeed for conservative Damascenes to see their children acting or looking funny on the silver screen – clowns, as they would call them – when many had the chance to work in more “socially accepted” professions like Lahham, who was a school teacher, or his acting partner Nihad Qali, who was an accountant.
Rafiq Sibayii, for example, who went on to play the popular role of the Damascus quarter boss Abu Sayyah, changed his last name at one point, to avoid embarrassing the family. Abdul Latif Fathi, a pioneer of both theatre and TV, took on his wife’s last name, given that he was the son of a respectable middle class police officer from the posh Qanawat neighborhood of Damascus. Turkan – a beautiful young lady married into the wealthy Abu al-Dahab family, took on the stage name Hala Shawkat.
It was very exciting being an actor back in the 1960s; to walk down the street and be recognized and applauded by everyone, but not very rewarding for those wanting to make a decent living or marry into a respectable family. These artists, once regarded as social outcasts, are now being hailed as pioneers of Syrian TV on its 50th anniversary.
Back in early 1960, during the short-lived Syrian-Egyptian Union, it was decided that a Syrian TV station would be established in Damascus on the 8th anniversary of the Egyptian Revolution. Despite a few amateurs who worked as theatrical actors, nobody in Syria knew exactly what to do at a TV station; how it operated, how images are broadcasted on air, how to film, produce, or edit a work. Some went to crash courses in Yugoslavia to learn – since apart from Iraq and Egypt itself, not a single Arab country had a TV station in 1960. Others learned the trade through trial and error, or as Nihad Quali would often say, “Need is the Mother of All Inventions!”
Today, 50-years down the road, Syrian actors and actresses are VIPs not only in Syria but throughout the Arab world. Their achievements have been recognized by states, communities, and world leaders. Several of the pioneers were recently granted the Order of Merit of the Syrian Republic (Excellence Class) by President Bashar al-Assad, including Lahham, Quali, Fathi, Sibayii, and Muna Wasif, the first Syrian woman and first actress to receive such an official honor. Many are married into the well-to-do society of Damascus, and unlike the case in the 1960s they now drive expensive cars, live in luxurious buildings, globetrotting the world to attend film festivals in Berlin, Tokyo, and Cannes. Back in the 1980s, a Higher Academy for Theatrical Arts was founded in Damascus, which teaches stage acting, directing, lighting and other secrets of the trade, creating a new generation of professional actors who find a road before them – paved and ready for acting – laid out by the pioneers who took the baby and difficult steps, with the start of Syrian TV, back in 1960.
