WestminsterResearch http://www.westminster.ac.uk/westminsterresearch Home under siege: Bab al-Hara, televising morality and everyday life in the Levant Nassif, H. This is an electronic version of a PhD thesis awarded by the University of Westminster. © Ms Helena Nassif, 2015. The WestminsterResearch online digital archive at the University of Westminster aims to make the research output of the University available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the authors and/or copyright owners. Whilst further distribution of specific materials from within this archive is forbidden, you may freely distribute the URL of WestminsterResearch: ((http://westminsterresearch.wmin.ac.uk/). In case of abuse or copyright appearing without permission e-mail
[email protected] Home Under Siege: Bab al-Hara, Televising Morality and Everyday Life in the Levant HELENA NASSIF A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment to the requirements of the University of Westminster for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy July 2015 The Arabic language evolved slowly across the millennia, leaving little undefined, no nuance shaded. Bayt translates literally as house, but its connotations resonate beyond rooms and walls, summoning longings gathered about family and home. In the Middle East, bayt is sacred. Empires fall. Nations topple. Borders may shift or be realigned. Old loyalties may dissolve or, without warning, be altered. Home, whether it be structure or familiar ground, is finally, the identity that does not fade. (Shadid, 2012: xiii) What disappointments await the naive traveller to the famous cities of the fabulous East! Were all those old story-tellers lying? Did they see things differently then? Can things and people have changed so much? The eagerly awaited wonders, the marvellous surprises, the ruins, the monuments, the stories from the Thousand and One Nights, the folksongs and dances - they are no longer enough to colour the spectacle and transform it for us.