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The Spatial Politics of Revolution Depicted in Syrian Television Drama This is a repository copy of Visualizing Inequality: The Spatial Politics of Revolution Depicted in Syrian Television Drama. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/146100/ Version: Accepted Version Article: Halabi, N (2019) Visualizing Inequality: The Spatial Politics of Revolution Depicted in Syrian Television Drama. Middle East Critique, 28 (2). pp. 161-175. ISSN 1943-6149 https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2019.1599539 © 2019 Editors of Middle East Critique. This is an author produced version of an article published in Middle East Critique. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self- archiving policy. Reuse Items deposited in White Rose Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the White Rose Research Online record for the item. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Visualizing Inequality: The Spatial Politics of Revolution Depicted in Syrian Television Drama NOUR HALABI Leeds University, UK Abstract: Space has played a central and largely overlooked role in the Syrian conflict during the past eight years. A tension surrounds the organization of urban space and its impact on cultural identity, inequality, and political mobilization. Spatial politics represent a looming threat that is implicit in the project of ISIS, an international terrorist organization that seeks to appropriate the geographical area of al-Sham (Greater Syria) to create a transnational Caliphate. It also appears in the ‘development proposals’ of the Syrian government, which capitalize on a humanitarian crisis to expropriate forcibly displaced citizens of their land and properties.1 This article analyzes how Syrian television drama is not only an important field of cultural expression and a site of contestation but also reveals the many socio-economic spatial tensions underlying the 2011 Revolution and its aftermath. The latter aspect is demonstrated through a visual and textual analysis of two television serials that depict the ‘ashwa’iyat,2 [arbitrary informal settlements of Damascus]. The first show, al-Intizar, (2006) was aired before the Syrian conflict. The second, Zawal (2016) was aired as the political turmoil in Syria unfolded. This comparative analysis illustrates how the organization of urban space has impacted the dynamics of the Syrian Revolution and its aftermath, and how portrayals of urban and shantytown dramas portrayed the spatial inequalities of Damascus before and during the conflict. Key Words: Culture; Media; Revolution; Social movements; Syria; Television drama Since the outbreak of the ‘Arab Uprisings’ in 2011, the social movements sweeping through the Middle East have captured the attention of international scholars. The region long was considered predisposed to dictatorship,3 and some scholars as late as 2010 attributed the Correspondence address: Nour Halabi, Lecturer, School of Media and Communication, Leeds University, Leeds, UK; E-mail: [email protected] 1 Signed into law by Syrian President Bashar Al Assad in April 2018, law number 10 allows the government to seize and redevelop properties in ‘ashwa’iyat or illegal neighborhoods. For more on this see: Rania Mostapha (2018) Law 10 and the Theft of Syrian Property, in Salon Syria; available at: https://salonsyria.com/law-10-and-the-theft-of- syrian-property/#.W_s8tPZFxyw, last accessed February 4, 2019. 2 The term ‘ashwa’iyat’ literally translates to ‘arbitraries’ in English, referring to the unregulated, unlicensed and arbitrary fashion in which these slums have been erected and continue to exist. The adjective, in its plural form, has morphed into the common term used to describe the shanty towns surrounding the Damascene urban center. 3 See Rolf Schwarz (2008) The political economy of state-formation in the Arab Middle East: Rentier states, economic reform, and democratization, Review of International Political Economy, 15 (4), pp. 599-621. Also see, Michael Ross (2001) Does Oil Hinder Democracy? World Politics¸53, pp. 325-361.; For more on this discussion, 1 authoritarian politics of the region to Islam, or to the combined impact of Islam and oil.4 Yet, the popular mobilization demanding democratization throughout the Middle East—including multiple Muslim-majority countries from Tunisia to Egypt to Syria—challenged such arguments and suggested new political economic frames grounded in the regional context to explore the question of democratization in the Middle East. Several scholars have taken note, calling attention to the contradiction between arguments against democracy in the Middle East and the realities of social movements that swept through the cities and villages of the region, from Aleppo to Istanbul.5 Particularly in Syria, geographically-grounded inequality has had a great effect on the patterns of the revolution that challenges many other perspectives that have been brought to bear on the events of the unfolding conflict. For instance, analyses of the Syrian crisis tend to rely on sectarianism to explain the patterns of the current political turmoil.6 Admittedly, religious and sectarian divides affect Syrian civil society and impact the dynamics of the Revolution particularly after the first protests had begun. This impact is evidenced by the current tensions between Saudi and Qatari (Sunni) involvement, and Iranian (Shi’a) military interventions in the country. These considerations are complicated once more by the intervention of regional non- also see: John Esposito & John Voll (eds) (1996) Islam and Democracy. (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press); Charles Kurzman, (ed.) (1998) Liberal Islam: A Source Book (New York: Oxford University Press). For treatments of this debate following the outbreak of the Arab Uprisings see: Jean-Pierre Filiu (2011) The Arab Revolution: Ten Lessons from the Democratic Uprising (New York: Oxford University Press). 4 Niklas Potrafke (2010) Islam and Democracy, Public Choice, 1 (2), pp. 185-192. 5 Oğuzhan Göksel (2012), Assessing the Turkish Model as a Guide to the Emerging Democracies, Ortadoğu Etütleri, 4(1), pp. 99-120. 6 See Reva Bhalla (2011) Making sense of the Syrian crisis Stratfor, Available at: http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110504-making-sense-syrian-crisis, accessed on November 24, 2018. 2 state groups such as Hezbollah and others, with ties to Sunni or Shi’a political powers.7 However, sectarian tensions only can explain a fraction of the divisions that plague the Syrian public. Consider this: Syria is a nation that is characterized by a relatively low level of religious diversity. It is estimated that three fourths of Syria’s population are Sunni, an even larger proportion—around 85%, of Syria’s population—is Muslim.8 The vast majority are Arabic- speakers, and as far as linguistic diversity points to ethnic and cultural divisions, other groups represent a small portion of the Syrian public, including ethnic Kurds (5%), Armenian Christians (4%), and Turkmen, Circassian, Assyrian & Jewish minorities (1%).9 As Christa Salamandra has noted, the context of the Syrian Uprising has indeed encouraged a resurgence of sectarian affiliations10. Yet, the divisions that plague the Syrian public today include—and transcend—religious or sectarian tensions, exemplified by the split within the majority Sunni population between those opposing the regime and those supporting it. Nevertheless, at most, scholars concede that the Syrian crisis is at the very least ‘semi- sectarian,’11 while continuing to neglect other factors that may have sparked the initial protests and subsequent conflict. Another trend has been the use of geopolitical Realpolitik approaches that explain the conflict as a result of the ongoing battles between international and regional players such as Iran, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Indeed, all of these perspectives lend useful frameworks for understanding the complex dimensions of revolutionary movements. 7 Nour Halabi (2017b.) The Contingency of Meaning to the Party of God: Carnivalesque Humor in Revolutionary Times, International Journal of Communication, 11, pp. 4032–4045. 8 Adigbuo Ebere Richard (2014) Cold War Resurgence: The Case of Syrian Uprising, Journal Of Humanities and Social Science, 19(8), pp. 39-47. 9 Ibid., p. 10 Christa Salamandra (2013) Sectarianism in Syria: Anthropological Reflections. Middle East Critique. 11 Christopher. Phillips (2015) Sectarianism and conflict in Syria, Third World Quarterly, 36(2), p. 387. 3 Yet, none of them consider the chants of the many who marched across Syria and who expressed political goals that transcended sectarian identities and had no connection to external players. This is not to say that sectarianism has not played a role in the dynamics of the Syrian Revolution and the ensuing conflict, but that the dynamics of sectarianism are in fact intertwined with a ‘geography of distinction’ in which religious and ethnic identity, socio-economic status and all vectors of privilege and status are ‘alloyed with […] region’12 in the urban geography. Thus,
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