I've been observing the media frenzy around the two Turkish soap operas now presented on MBC channels. The top of it was last night's show of "The Opposite Direction" on Aljazeera.
A lot has been said and discussed about these two shows... some of which are quite interesting... my own take about this... is that we are missing the main problem... and that is... the only reason these two shows have become a phenomena is the mass...
People went crazy about these two shows... and we should analyze carefully why before we blame anyone or condom any culture...
Turkey is a country that went through some drastic changes in the ladder of "Westernization"... and though a Muslim country they have a different cultural structure and ethics than the neighboring ME countries... We can't judge their values because they are irrelevant to ours... and we can't compare ourselves to them...
Having said that TV series are not always an honest mirror of the real situation in life...
Look at any Egyptian series or movie... Egypt is a country dominated largely by Hijabi girls... how many do you see of them on TV shows?
MBC is a media based corporate... which means they only care about the MONEY... whatever brings more viewing rates... they put it on... and they encourage people becoming crazy about it... again... they only care about the money... like all other TV channel... are they part of some grand conspiracy to demoralize our youth? =?
Now the people... and here I must confess that I do believe that the Arab world and the Arabic 'traditional' culture is festering from inside...
Yesterday the presenter of "The Opposite Direction" said something which I found so true about globalization... he said that it is one of the biggest lies of our times... and it is only a one way globalization... that what happens is our Arab countries are taking all the Western culture without them taking anything from ours...
I agree with that... and I think that we still have things to offer to the world in general but what happens is that nowadays we feel so empty and numb that we are ready to take anything...
For me the real problem with Noor or any other show put on TV... is the simple fact that it becomes a tool to serve what I think is the biggest crusade of our times... which is [depriving people the freedom of thinking]...
Now people are debating whether to watch these shows or not... they are between two poles... the extreme approach of banning it and condemning the Turks... or continue watching it blindly searching for role models or fantasies...
The fact that the Arab youth are creating icons or idols from fictitious characters is very dangerous when we take them as perfect human beings that we wish to imitate...
I don't believe in role models... and I hate imitation...
I can't see any problem in watching TV... the problem becomes when the people have empty vessels inside their heads and they are not [THINKING] and making conscious choices...
Noor or others are just a side effect of what the real problem is...
We should work on the mass level... expand the minds of people not to accept what is being presented or modernized but to [think]... for themselves... to have clear stands about everything around them... in that case... even if they watch a hundred prettier women having abortion they will still have their own thought about abortion...
We should stop crying out for better shows or for cleaner media... Media is just a response to the masses... we should start changing ourselves and fixing our own cultural faults...
A human is the sole savior of her/his own self...
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