The president of the United Arab Emirates Khalifa Bin Zayed has ordered Abu Dhabi TV to end broadcast of a Ramadan soap opera after complaints in Saudi Arabia that it was re-igniting passion for tribal rivalries in the Kingdom. “In response to appeals by several Arab tribes,” the soap opera ‘Saaddoun Al-Awaji', which had started to be run at the beginning of Ramadan, was shut down, the UAE official news agency WAM said. Century-old tribal fights, mainly over territorial disputes, had dominated the Kingdom before it was finally reunited by late King Abdul Aziz Aal-Saud in 1932 after a long unification struggle of more than 30 years. “Saudi people can't afford to go back to that era,” said a famous blogger in a hot discussion of the drama when it was first run. “It is more of wrangling about a tribal war that seems rather odd to the modern viewer,” another blogger jumped in. This was the second soap opera to be stopped this year over fears of stirring up tribal hostilities in the Arab peninsula after MBC tabled “Finjan Dam” (Cup of Blood) soap opera. ‘Saaddoun Al-Awaji' tells a true story of a well-known war between two of the major tribes in the Arab Peninsula, the Shammar and the Onaiza tribes, set from 1750-1830 and depicting famous persons whose descendents reportedly lobbied against the drama. The war took place at a time when the territory of the Saudi royal family was expanding southwards Najd, modern Riyadh. The main character in the Syrian-made drama is an Onaiza tribal leader with an exceptional charisma who pleads with his sons not to kill a minor Shammar tribesman who had been stealing fine horses and camels. Before he dies, the tribesman composes a poem – famous among Arab tribes – calling on his kinsmen in Iraq to come and avenge his blood. In addition to Saudi Arabia, the Shammar tribe extends into Kuwait, Iraq, and Syria while Onaiza tribe is mainly located in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. As families tend to spend more TV time in Ramadan, the holy month has become the peak time of the year for historical TV dramas. With that proliferation, the question rises: is this drama presented to provide a fresh reading and interpretation of history or to stoke tribal feuds? In most cases, the drama on the Bedouin history in the Arab Peninsula takes considerable liberties with the facts in both the plot and depiction of its characters. Sometimes a drama would come with a serious sounding title like ‘Cup of Blood' or ‘Rakan Bin Hithleen', a famous tribal figure in the modern history of Arab Peninsula, to draw in a large audience. The early campaign blitz to axe the tribal TV drama ‘Saaddoun Al-Awaji' started online through popular forums, spreading into the Arab media. Recent TV shows like ‘The One Million Poet' and ‘The Most Beautiful Camel' contributed to the wake up of the dragon of the tribal sentiment in the region. “Today's tribal sentiment rises from the ashes of the pre-Islamic tribal rivalry,” said historian Khaled Al-Juraisi. Sheikh Abdullah Bin Suliman Al-Mane, member of the Senior Board of Ulema, couldn't agree more. “Tribal sentiment is the virus of human society,” he said. The TV drama ‘Saaddoun Al-Awaji' ignores the cultural and historical sensitivity of the events as the drama crew is foreign to the real situation in the Kingdom, said Ali Al-Subaie, a drama critic. This type of drama may ruffle feathers in the Saudi social context, he added. Only producers want those TV shows to thrive to make unprecedented fortune as they sell them to Arabic TVs, especially in Ramadan when they compete for ad revenues, said a media expert. __
