From VHS to streaming: how Ramadan shows became a must-watch for the diaspora
For Sara Mansour, there can be no Ramadan without the television that comes with it.
Food, prayer and religious rules may dominate discussion during the month when Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset, but for Australians and others in the diaspora it also brings a slew of new television shows from the Middle East, with many calling the month the “Oscar season” for the region.
Pitched as the perfect dessert, the shows, known as musalsalat, are intended to be watched with family after the breaking of the fast (iftaar), filling up a time usually reserved for sweets and coffee.
“We would eat, and you’d almost get comatose from all the food you’ve eaten, and then sit down to watch TV,” says Mansour, the co-founder and director of the Bankstown Poetry Slam in south-west Sydney. “You just can’t really do much else in that moment.
“We would watch them every single day, after we had washed up and prayed, we would sit down to watch something good.”
The shows range from soap operas to grand historical epics, and have grown in popularity as satellite technology has allowed more households around the world to watch them. Typically series run throughout the holy month, with an episode released once a day, culminating in finales just before the month ends with the celebration of Eid.
This year Australian Muslims will be able to access channels from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, among others.
Shows such as the Syrian historical soap opera Bab Al-Hara (The Neighbourhood’s Gate), which attracted more than 50 million viewers for its season two finale, chronicles family dramas in a Damascus neighbourhood, in usually over-the-top fashion:
Others are more serious and deal with political or social issues, such as the spy thriller Ra’fat El-Haggan, which traces the life of an Egyptian spy sent to infiltrate Israel before the October war in 1973
Hakawatis, or storytellers, were essential parts of Arab social life before the onset of television or cinema, recounting fables and legends to enthralled audiences at coffee shops or even at homes or parks.
By the end of the 1970s, an obvious replacement had emerged in television, but it wasn’t until the 90s that the industry, based mainly in Egypt, began to tap into Ramadan as a month for prestige TV.
In those days many Arab communities in Australia had to wait to see the shows on VHS release the year after they came out in their home countries. Video shops popped up across western Sydney and locals flocked to them for their Ramadan fix.
Widyan Fares, a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney, says the trips to the video store are some of her fondest memories of Ramadan.
“I remember I used to go with my mum to Fairfield to the different video stores, where you can go and buy all the different drama series, and it wasn’t just Arabic content, you had a lot of Bollywood content there and a lot of Turkish dramas, all dubbed in Arabic.
“It was like Blockbuster for Arabs.” In 2001 an Egyptian soap opera called Aaylat Al Hajj Metwalli (The Family of Al Hajj Metwalli) aired during Ramadan and exploded in popularity across the Middle East, opening Pandora’s box for Arab production companies.
Eventually, the channels themselves reached the different Arab communities in Australia via satellite. At first it was ART (Arabic Radio and Television), a channel based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, but it was eventually joined by an avalanche of channels from every country in the region.Now streaming companies have begun staking their claim on the season.
Texas-based media critic Hazem Fahmy says their move has been with diaspora communities in mind.
“A lot of distributors are realising that the diaspora market is only growing more invested in keeping up with musalsalat, and more non-native speakers are becoming invested in keeping up with them.
“You’re seeing a really significant push from streaming services that are accessible around the world, and also subtitled. There’s just so much more investment there.”
Fahmy says production companies have increased their output in response to the demand.
“Growing up, there were just a handful of shows, and they were the big shows of that year. But you fast forward to the early 2010s, and you start to see the numbers steadily rising, from a handful to a dozen to 30, 40, 50 in a month.”
“It is an actual struggle to try and even just survey all the shows you are interested in.”
Fares says streaming has changed how her parents experience Ramadan.
“Not only is the content we’re consuming very different, but the way we’re consuming it is different as well. It’s about the convenience.
“My dad has an iPad and knows how to use it better than I do. He works long hours, he knows he can come back and if he doesn’t like what’s on TV, he just picks up his iPad.
“He can be checking out trucks one minute, then flipping on to a drama in a second.”
‘Keeping the traditions alive’
To many in Arabic-speaking communities, especially the younger generations who grew up in Australia, musalsalat represent an opportunity to understand their parents and their communities better, offering content that would never appear on Australian television.
Fares says the shows, and the channels they aired on, were essential to her parents’ experience of Ramadan.
“My parents aren’t strong English speakers, they can definitely get by, but they’re not going to sit there and watch content in English – they’re going to want to watch something in their native tongue.
“And there’s no way you can replicate the cultural references or the religious expectations in content on Australian television. You just can’t, it wouldn’t work.”
Waves of first- and second-generation migrants have grown up watching.
Fares says many of her generation are looking for more than entertainment in the shows.
“Belonging to a diaspora, you’re always longing to know about things that are from the particular part of the country you belong to.
“When you consume this content, you’re always reflecting on your own life and where you’re at.
“People use it as a way to understand their own experiences, in a way.”
It’s a connection forged in the cross-section of cultural influences that underscores diaspora life, becoming a means to connect with the traditions and culture of older generations.
Mansour says when her parents arrived in Australia in the late 1980s from Lebanon, there was little of the fanfare they were used to at Ramadan.
“When they first came here, they were struggling to feel that connection, that sense of celebration in it. Which is why the shows felt like they were keeping the traditions alive.
“The shows pay homage to the ‘better days’ in the Middle East, for simpler days, and that’s something that’s attractive to them as people who’ve immigrated and struggled and tried to cling on to their identity so desperately.”
Mansour says the shows also helped her parents open up about their childhood and their lives in their home country.
“They would start talking about their childhood, what they grew up seeing and doing, what the similarities and differences were [with the show].”
The shows provide an insight into the values and outlook of the region, an insight hard to come by in Australia for many who struggle with their identity. They can give life to what would otherwise be abstract, as well as an opportunity for cross-generational communication, taking the familial traditions of Ramadan and remixing them.
“It is often the easiest and simplest way to maintain a communal sense of Ramadan, especially in the internet era,” Fahmy says.
“Because if you don’t have a community around you, Ramadan can just feel empty.”
Oliver’s visa and he can remain in Australia with his family. Christel says she is “over the moon”, but is aware that not everyone can afford to mount the same legal defence.
Policy ‘tearing families apart’ Barrister and Australian Lawyers Alliance justice spokesperson Greg Barns has represented several New Zealanders facing deportation.
“These are very, very difficult cases,” Barns says. “It’s not only the individual, but it’s also the family and their loved ones, particularly children. I’ve seen families torn apart as a result of the policy of the Australian government.
“When it comes to deportation, the Australian government has no sense of humanity whatsoever. These are harrowing cases. Often people stay in immigration detention for a number of years while the case is being decided.”
New Zealanders stripped of their Australian visa do not have access to legal aid to fight this decision, and fees for immigration lawyers can typically reach hundreds of thousands of dollars, locking out most of the people facing deportation.
O’Dowd is hoping to educate the general public in Australia on what’s happening with these deportations.
“I feel like people don’t understand that we have done our time – they think we get sentenced and then get deported, they say ‘do the crime, serve the time’. But I did serve the time,” she says.
“Considering most of us have lived in Australia for so long, our crimes are more indicative of Australian culture than anything else. Getting rid of us hasn’t stopped the drug problem in Australia, it has just left broken families.”
He’s never going to be able to come back to see his son
Christel, mother of deportee
* Names have been changed for legal reasons