Tuning out
The Horseman has fallen off the saddle. Amira Howeidy reaches for the remote control
The controversial TV series Fares Bela Gawwad (Horseman without a Horse) began airing in Egypt and more than a dozen Arab countries on the first day of Ramadan. Initially branded anti-Semitic by Jewish and American groups because it draws on the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion for its subject matter, the series is now being attacked at home as well.
For weeks, the brouhaha over Horseman without a Horse was the hottest topic in town. Washington had asked Cairo not to broadcast it, and Egyptian officials refused, fervently denying it was anti-Semitic, and going so far as to describe it as "a turning point in the history of Arab drama".
With the story shaping up as an Arab government refusing to "succumb to American pressure", guided by rhetoric about "no one having the right to stifle our freedom of expression", the bizarre saga surrounding the TV series seemed important and politicised enough to become part of the Arab-Israeli conflict. After all, loaded terms like "national sovereignty" and "exposing Zionism for what it really is", were emerging from Cairo in response to equally loaded terminology about "cutting USAID to Egypt" and "broadcasting the series violates the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty" coming from Washington.
The star of the show, Mohamed Sobhi, was cast as a real-life "hero", struggling to expose imperialism and uncover what Egyptians don't know about "the poison of Zionism".
It was inevitable, then, that when the most famous series in the history of Arab television was finally broadcast on 6 November viewers across the Arab world would be glued to their TV screens so as not to miss any of the "very important" material they had been hearing about for so long. Officials at the American Embassy in Cairo, meanwhile, were also carefully monitoring episode by episode, hoping to catch a glimpse of red-handed anti- Semitism on Egyptian state TV.
But then, to everyone's surprise, nothing happened. Episode after episode, a historical drama unfolded, purportedly telling the "true" story of an enigmatic character named Hafez Naguib (who is played by Sobhi), and how he become a national hero by actively resisting British occupation. This supposedly extraordinary man's personality was shaped as a result of his politicised upbringing and background. Naguib's family were the victims of both Ottoman and British brutality (the former manifested in hysterical Turkish pashas; the latter via the British forces who killed Naguib's father).
The reasons for Naguib's hatred of any form of occupation and colonialism were thus hammered into viewers' brains. Naguib's Zoro-like resistance operations (bombing the British bunker, springing a fellow nationalist from jail) make him a target of British police, forcing him to continually don dozens of disguises.
It is not, however, until he comes across a rare copy of the Protocols (smuggled into Egypt by the British) that Naguib "understands" who the real enemy is.
Before the series began, Sobhi and every single official who had seen the show categorically denied that it was anti-Semitic. Sobhi even went so far as to say that Horseman without a Horse doesn't even address the authenticity of the Protocols -- though it clearly does. In at least one scene a certain British Princess Margaret tells a group of elderly Jewish characters that the real danger in the Protocols being stolen from her library is the possibility that "your plans and schemes will become known to everyone".
The authenticity of The Protocols -- which were published in Russia in the early 20th century as the minutes of a series of secret meetings held in Switzerland in 1897 with the aim of devising a Jewish strategy to control the world -- has been widely contested. Most scholars consider the book a hoax disseminated by the Czar's intelligence service in order to enflame anti-Jewish sentiments in Russia.
Local criticism of the series emerged last week with an Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR) statement rebuking the show for drawing on a "forged" document for its inspiration. The EOHR, said the statement, strongly supports freedom of expression but "it also believes that free speech shouldn't be used to incite hatred based on religion, ethnicity, colour or gender." And in a direct condemnation of the show, the EOHR said that the series should have shown more "respect for the Arab mind" because there is a difference between combating Israeli crimes and promoting "historical lies". The Protocols, the group says, were presented in a way that "is anti- Semitic". At the same time, the show neglects to expose actual Israeli atrocities.
Other critics had more of a problem with the show's principal character, Hafez Naguib, who writer Mamdouh El-Sheikh described, for instance, as nothing but a "crook", and an agent for the French intelligence service.
Drama critics, on the other hand, described the series as void of any artistic value, with many disappointed in Sobhi for offering a shallow story regarding what is in fact a serious issue -- the occupation of the Arab world.
Perhaps as a result of all the negative publicity, an unusual disclaimer was aired midway through the series' run this week. A note announcing that "The series is not out to prove the authenticity of the so-called Protocols of Zion," flashed onto the screen during the episode being aired on state television.
Hundreds had rallied around Sobhi before the series began; three weeks and more than 20 episodes later, there is only silence as more and more viewers are put off by the production. "Its just painfully boring," said 23- year-old journalist Dina Sami, "that's why I stopped watching it. We were given the false impression that we would be watching an earth shattering production about the Arab national struggle, which it isn't. They should really be ashamed."
