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Syrian
Director Defies Death Threats
A Syrian director who
received death threats after a Ramadan television series on suicide bombers is
back for this year's holiday: This time, he condemns terrorism by Islamic
extremists as a global threat that hurts Muslims.
September 26, 2006
Scenes of the new Syrian TV serial "Al-Mareqoun",
Arabic for "the Renegades" given to reporters in Damascus by its director,
Najdat Anzour. The new serial deals with global terrorism and aims, according to
its director, to "defend Islam and to show that it's the religion of tolerance
and dialogue not that of violence."
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - Najdat
Anzour, Syria's most renowned director, said he wants his new series to drive
home the message that Islam is a religion of tolerance and dialogue -- not of
violence.
''We should realize the size of
the danger that engulfs the Arab nation,'' he told The Associated Press at his
studio in Damascus.
Anzour's series last year,
''Al-Hour Al-Ayn,'' aired throughout the Middle East during the Muslim holy
month of Ramadan. It told the story of five Arab families living in Saudi Arabia
and the militants scheming to blow them up so they could collect rewards in
heaven.
The series, whose title referred
to the 72 virgins that Islamic militants say will greet ''martyrs'' in heaven,
attracted tens of millions of viewers when it was aired by Middle East
Broadcasting Corp. of Dubai. It was broadcast in prime time -- as Muslim
families gathered to break their daily Ramadan fast after sundown.
But Anzour was lambasted on the
Internet as an infidel who should be killed for allegedly tarnishing the image
of Islam.
Anzour shrugged off the death
threats as ''aggressive criticism.'' He said he did this new series because he
felt he did not handle terrorism thoroughly enough in the earlier production.
This year's series, ''Al-Mareqoun''
(''The Renegades''), began airing Saturday, the first day of Ramadan, on
Lebanese Broadcasting Corp., a leading Arab television station.
It consists of 10 three-part
episodes dealing with terrorist attacks in such locations as Syria, Egypt,
Morocco, England and Iraq.
The first episode, ''The Flock of
Illusions,'' tells the story of a woman whose husband dies carrying out a
terrorist attack. A Muslim sheik comes to her door one day, asking the woman to
hand over her 5-year-old daughter for another suicide operation.
''This girl will go to paradise,
just like your husband,'' the sheik says. The woman slams the door in his face,
screaming: ''It's not enough that you took away my husband! You want my daughter
too?''
In another episode, ''They Kill
Jasmine,'' a Muslim woman urges Muslims to unite against terrorism after her son
dies in the July 2005 London subway bombings.
''I wanted to tackle the impact of
terrorism on the Arab and world level and deal with it from different points of
view to make it complementary to the first serial,'' Anzour said.
He blames the rise in terrorism on
the United States, making a criticism common throughout the region that the
Americans have fueled extremism by invading Iraq and supporting Israel.
''Terrorism is an American industry, 100 percent,'' he said.
Anzour said he believes the new
series, which cost around $1.5 million to make, can draw an even bigger audience
than last year's. He also hopes to translate it into other languages, including
English, French and Spanish, to reach beyond the Arab world.
''I don't mind giving it for free
to foreign and even Asian countries -- to show them how open we are and how we
think,'' he said.
He is optimistic the new series
won't draw the same hostility from Islamic extremists as the last.
''The series opens discussion over
these problems -- and this would be eventually in the interest of our people,''
he said.
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