syrian TV

Word on the street is that the blog got a mention in the Press Democrat (the Sonoma County, CA newspaper). So, welcome to any new readers that may have wandered by. A quick FYI: this blog was started and will remain primarily a travel log, albeit with some political and social commentary. Also, a caveat about the commentary: I'm still a neophyte in Middle Eastern politics and my Arabic can only half-handle the local news, so I'm not much better informed than the average US viewer. Nonetheless, the political scientist in me can't resist throwing in my 2 cents. Comments are welcomed, but I reserve the right to moderate!

That being said, one news source I failed to mention in an earlier post is the generally solid NPR: their interviews with Shilby Telhami are especially informative.

In more quotidien news, there's been a recent flat-mate transition. Johnny returned to Lattakia and Mike to Lebanon: poor guy, he left about 10 days ago and was so excited to be going home. I've acquired an "of Syrian descent by spent most of life in Beirut and the US" girl and 2 apparently British guys, who I've only seen in passing while rushing to a meeting. Overall, I preferred the previous arrangement. The guys seem pleasant, but are either always out or nocturnal. The girl is rather terrifying: extraordinarily thin, bleached out hair, eye makeup that is heavy even by local standards and a torrent of talk. She's nice, but it's like living with a caricature. Also, I was getting used to having my own bathroom and kitchen...

The upshot of all this is that, during my brief stint as a solo renter, I acquired the TV that used to live in Johnny's room. Vintage ~1965, black and white, and gets one channel: Sthe Syrian national station. So, what do they play on Syrian TV? Based on a few days of viewing, the programming includes a heavy dosage of news, with expert interviews and call-in commentary, but not much on the ground reporting and a very repetitive string of graphics.

There has been, oddly, an enormous amount of basketball; I think it's a Middle Eastern tournament. And, for 3 nights in a row, they showed war flicks in late prime time: first the BBC documentary on WWI, then an Italian film, then a Russian one. They're all in the original language, with Arabic subtitles. For the Italian one, I'm not sure what I understood less of: the Italian or the Arabic. I didn't even try the Russian. Last night, they deviated from the war footage to show a symphony. Very PBS.

The newscasts, unsurprisingly, toe the party line. Funny how ALL the callers seem to support Hizballah and flatly condemn Israel! I've been learning a lot of new words: butcher, martyr, barbarity... and if I hear one more person talk about how they're killing kids, I'm going to lose it. Still, while the callers can sound a bit excessive--the rhetorical style is grandiloquent and involves a lot of forceful intoning--the anchors remain very CNN: modulated and "professional."

So far, all the experts have been male, but the anchors are a 50/50 gender split and callers are about 75/25 male/female: not too different from the US. All this is intercut with inspirational videos of Nasrallah and his troops and the previous day's carnage. They're often set to the music of Fairouz, a Lebanese national icon. I also saw a montage of President Assad, set to the Gladiator soundtrack. Very heroic.

So, yes, I suppose you could say that the Syrian national media is 100% behind Hizballah. But, there's one other thing worth mentioning about Syrian TV: Syrians don't watch it. They all have cable.