BLACK CROWS DRAMATISES LIFE UNDER ISIS

In commemoration of the Muslim’s holy month Ramadan, Arabs most watched satellite channel MBC 1 will air a 30-part dramatic series.

Titled ‘Black Crows’, the series is the first of a kind to be boldly set entirely in the militants’ world. The series mirrors the frightening lives of people forced to live under the terrorist Islamic State . According to a video made available to New York Times by the Arab network, the series depict recruits as victims while women who challenge the militants’ control are heroes. It is a deliberate effort by the producers to have women stories dominating the series because they provide a robust dramatic material and form the majority of the channel’s viewers.

Most of the intriguing plots in the series include a journalist who went undercover and pledged to abandon her Christian faith and blow up a church when her fiance became a suicide bomber for the terrorist group. Another tells the story of a woman who murders her husband for infidelity and flees to join the Islamic State with her two sons. But she will eventually struggle to escape after one of her sons is killed and the other sexually abused.

The network director of TV Ali Jaber is confident that the series will harness the influence of popular television to undermine the narrative that the Islamic State uses to entice recruits. While many considered the production a risk and may avoid sponsorship of the programme, Jaber, however, sees the idea as a change agent to challenge the jihadist’s message.

The show will be broadcast in Arabic while plans to produce an English-language version is in the pipeline.