The words of the Syrian artist, Yasser Al-Azma, in the second part of his program on YouTube, “With Yasser Al-Azma – Your Place in the Heart,” is reasonable in one case. If it is measured by the regime loyalists and shabiha drumming in his country, a criterion we do not think he himself can satisfy. However, many other criteria will make the video a piece of a distant past that may deserve an episode of the well-known series “Mirrors”, nothing more, and the Syrian official screen may venture to display it, as it ventured to others, such as “Spotlight”, plays and films by Duraid Lahham. His new broadcast, from the question “Why do Syrians emigrate?” He stressed that no one emigrates without compelling reasons, due to the absence of dignity, electricity, lack of capabilities, a sense of persecution, and the feeling that you are “a complete number” and that your opinion has no value. Likewise, you emigrate because “your economy is collapsing, as a result of a group of evil merchants,” and to ensure better conditions in a country where there are no wars. The artist himself sums up his answer by saying: “Syrians resort to emigration because of despair, exacerbation of anxiety, and lack of hope for a secure future.” He started from the fact that “the homeland is precious”: and it was missing to add that “the homeland is dear”!
The problem with the words of greatness lies first in the fact that it ignores the causes of the Syrian catastrophe that are known to all, i.e. the survival of Bashar al-Assad and his regime in power, and blame it on “dealers” and “wars” (as for the exacerbation of anxiety, this alone is a story, reminding of the former internationalist Ban Ki-moon), and it is almost equal to Among the reasons for emigration from Syria with other neighboring Arab countries: “There is no Arab official who warned us against emigration and displacement.” Secondly, the speech is shy and gray, although the man speaks from outside the country, at a time when we find braver words than this sometimes coming from the heart of the country. There is also something that weakens the sermon of greatness (except for the exacerbation of anxiety), as it comes as a personal defense of his own emigration, and it seems that his speech comes in response to the “frowning and drying” of his country in his face after his repeated visits to him. Many blames for his absence must always be thrown at him.
Yasir al-Azma continues to borrow his same language, his gestures, his extinct and tedious linguistic acrobatics. In short, he continues to act, even after he chose to address the people.
Whoever follows what is happening today in parallel with the wonderful protests in Iran must notice how many creators, artists, athletes, and various celebrities stand with the demonstrators. You find them everywhere, on the ground, or on social media, saying, broadcasting, and showing solidarity, and many of them are in prisons. We will not ask the greatness to go to prison, God forbid, but let’s talk about what artists and celebrities abroad can do, if an unknown Egyptian contractor and artist was able to move demonstrations in the Egyptian street. Undoubtedly, countless people are ready to put facts, statistics and pictures in their hands. You are laughing now! You say that Yasser al-Azma is not the one who plays this role. Let’s just hope. Even if every defection, and every speech that wears a mask of truth, after Rami Makhlouf defected, is invalid and unreliable.
It is also remarkable that Yasser al-Azma is Egypt, despite his appearance outside the cages of “mirrors”, and despite his daring to keep pace with modern means of communication, but he continues to borrow his same language, his gestures, his extinct and boring linguistic acrobaticities himself, that, in short, he is still acting, even after he chose Addressing people, Syrians, face to face, with direct conversation. To the extent that pays to wonder how a man speaks in life!
This time we want to hear you as a citizen, opinion-holder, human being, not as an actor. The time has come to get out of the maze of mirrors, from the old cages, and from the aggravated drowning in the accounts of visiting the country, begging for a less dry face.
Half positions
Immediately after it was broadcast, Yasser al-Azma’s video raised various objections, and it is remarkable that it came from both sides of the regime and its opponents alike. Among the most prominent comments of the loyalists was a comment by a sectarian journalist who was on a mobile broadcasting his poison from the battle fronts. And he addressed one point to respond to it, and in a clear restoration of the artist Bassam Koussa’s theory, regarding: “If my mother gets sick, I don’t leave her and walk, when the country gets sick, I don’t carry my current and walk. The sectarian journalist says: “Do you know why (Syria) is upset? Angered because you and your ilk left it and left it. Why do you know? Because the mother who raised her children when she got sick left her and started coming like guests. Do you know why you are upset? Because many of her children stabbed her and turned out to be crippled. Now I know why she is upset. I am upset because many people left her and thought they would take her to the nursing home. Is it possible for someone to leave his country, which is his family, and she is his mother and father? A speech parallels other speeches on the Syrian side, the most prominent of which is a post by the editor-in-chief of a semi-official newspaper, and an unofficial spokeswoman for the regime. In it, he said: “Let me address you directly and say: Do not squeeze your self with sketches, turn it into a drama, and twist our heart against our country. Our neighborhood is narrow and we know each other very well.. It is true that you are an accomplished comedian, but believe me, the “squeeze” is exposed and the tears are clearly fake. I wish you would try Offer something to the people of your country while you are abroad, until you find someone who will smile at you when you return.”
Fair attitudes are not necessarily the best things, and holding the stick in the middle is not always praiseworthy.
This, above, is a sample indicating that the campaign against the Damascene artist will not stop here, as the regime, before its opponents, does not accept the middle position. It remains for the artist himself to know, after this age, that half-stances are not necessarily the best things, and that holding the stick in the middle is not always praiseworthy. And if you will pay the price in different circumstances, it is better to pay it while you are on the side of the truth. Strengthen your heart a bit, you’ll only lose a few annual visits, dry.
Killer languages
One tries to replace the lesson of the “Shiite language,” according to a controversial program on LBCI TV, with any other language (or dialect, in fact) around us, to test whether it will be provocative to the language’s owners, in the same way that it provoked the people of the Shiite sect. In Lebanon, we do not think that the matter is a provocation, at least not in the same way that the militias of “Hezbollah” got angry (it is certain that this reaction to bullying, to the point of throwing a bomb at the channel that owns the program, will not come from an ordinary Shiite).
The other dialect has always been despised and ridiculed, so why would a particular dialect become sacred? Is every joke worth dropping a bomb?
What do people do in their daily and evening hours other than joking, mocking, and imitating neighboring dialects? The other dialect has always been despised and ridiculed, so why would a particular dialect become sacred? Is every joke worth dropping a bomb?
I was once struck by a video that French teachers present to foreign students here in France, and it blithely addresses prevalent clichés about the French, without making any attempt to disprove them. Perhaps the most beautiful thing about this language lesson is that there is no sanctity or sanctity for language, nationalism, or an idea.
*Writer from the editorial board of Al-Quds Al-Arabi