Dynasty of fear
"All characters and events in this show are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons is purely coincidental". This disclaimer appears at the start of every episode of a new Arabic drama television series on the Qatari station Al-Araby 2, "Ibtasim Ayyuhal General", or "Smile, General" in English. Yet it is difficult to imagine the show as anything other than the story of the Assad family in Syria.
Officially, the plot of "Smile, General" revolves around the ruling family of a fictitious Arab republic, Dawlat al-Furat, starting in the year 2005. The name is a pun, with Furat meaning Euphrates in English, but it is also the name of the authoritarian leader ruling the country. In that way, one can read it as "the Euphrates state" or "Furat's state". Furat inherited his position from his deceased father. The lead character is played by Maxim Khalil, an acclaimed Syrian actor from Homs who in 2015 was wanted by the Assad regime's security agencies.
Furat's fiery-tempered brother Asi (or "Orontes" in English, which is also the name of a major river flowing through Syria), is played by Syrian-Finnish actor Ghatfan Ghanoom, who is also from Homs. Asi is a major general in the army and part of the inner circle running Dawlat al-Furat. This inner circle, which also includes the director of general intelligence, is as busy engaging in crime and acts of cruelty as it is in governing the country.
Other main characters include the president’s wife, sister, mother and crony-capitalist cousin. Viewers who know Syria will immediately identify these characters as Bashar al-Assad's brother Maher, wife Asma, sister Bushra, mother Anisa and cousin Rami Makhlouf.
Free from any censorship
The first episode of the audacious series aired on Al-Araby 2 (and the Turkey-based sister channel Syria TV) on the first day of the Islamic lunar month of Ramadan. A new episode has been broadcast every evening since then at 10:00 pm Syria time. It is simultaneously uploaded to Al-Araby’s 2 YouTube channel, available for streaming for free.
Al-Araby TV was launched in London in 2015 under the supervision of Azmi Bishara, a Palestinian former parliamentarian in Israel, who has since moved to Qatar and maintains close ties with the emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. In 2022, Al-Araby TV moved its headquarters to Doha, Qatar (also launching Al-Araby 2).
Since the 1990s, it has become customary during Ramadan for television channels around the Arab world to broadcast special drama series in the evenings. Muslims and non-Muslims alike await these shows for their release during the month. Metafora, the production company behind "Smile, General", which is filmed in Turkey, has said that the series is a new kind of Arab show, one without any kind of censorship. While Western shows have been made about Arab autocrats and ruling families before, it is difficult to think of any Arab show that has done the same.
With 2 million views registered on YouTube alone for Episode One, and at least 1.3 million for the dozen successive episodes aired so far, the show is a great success. Syrians all around the world are tuning in to watch "that show", the name given to "Smile, General" by some Syrian commentators on social media, who presumably want to remain unnoticed by the Syrian government by avoiding mentioning it directly. This is similar to when Syrians began referring to the U.S. dollar by other names (including "a kilo of zucchini") after the government banned talking about the currency, considering this harmful to the Syrian pound’s stability.
Sublimely Machiavellian
Alongside the opening statement about the fictitious nature of the show, each episode of "Smile, General" begins with a quote from The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli. Indeed, the scene marking the beginning of the series can be best described as Machiavellian. In it, Waddah Fadlallah, a retired Furat army general with terminal cancer, gathers government officials to a party at which he reveals scandalous information about each of his guests and other Furat notables, including the president’s sister. Fadlallah, who later goes into hiding, leaks this information to the Furat press, threatening to disclose even more scandalous information if the president doesn’t meet his demands. The show mainly revolves around how the president and inner circle deal with this threat.
Lebanon also plays an indirect role in the plot. In typical Stasi fashion, the Furat intelligence services cut all communications in Dawlat al-Furat and prevent media outlets from publishing anything related to the Fadlallah scandal. A recording of Fadlallah's remarks, however, reaches a television station in an unnamed neighbouring Arab nation to the west of Furat, whose citizens have Lebanese-sounding accents and enjoy a greater degree of freedom than those enjoyed in Furat. This nation is also occupied by Furat's army. In an act of defiance, the television station airs Fadlallah's statements, leading Furati forces to raid the facility. Later on, as retribution, the station's owner is assassinated with a car bomb.
The events depicted in this fictitious neighbouring Arab country are very similar to what happened in Lebanon during the early 2000s, when Syrian forces were still present. In 2002, Murr TV was shut down for criticising the pro-Syrian Lebanese government. In 2005, Lebanon's former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri, who by then was beginning to oppose Syria, was assassinated with a truck bomb. Other opposition figures, including prominent journalists and newspaper publishers, were also subsequently killed by car bombs.
What chance a second season if Qatar and Turkey normalise relations with Syria?
It has been more than fifteen years since the events that "Smile, General" is addressing took place in Syria and Lebanon. Since then, the Syrian army has withdrawn from Lebanon and a popular Syrian uprising against the Assad regime began in 2011, in which more than 300,000 people have been killed and millions made refugees, now scattered around the world. Despite this, and though Syria has been isolated regionally and internationally for over a decade, many Middle Eastern countries are close to resuming ties today.
Qatar, so far, has not been one of them. Turkey, on the other hand, could be near to mending relations with Assad, with senior diplomats from Russia, Turkey, Syria and Iran recently holding talks in Moscow as part of the Kremlin's efforts to help broker a rapprochement. It will be interesting to see if this will affect the funding or airing of a second season of "Smile, General", if Turkey and Qatar end up normalising ties with Damascus.
Even though the future of "Smile, General" might conceivably be affected by developments in the Middle East, the show merits examination because of its ability to shed light on many themes relating to the internal dynamics of the Syrian government – dynamics that have had disastrous consequences for Syrian society. The show portrays the power struggles among high-ranking individuals in Furat and how they employ internal intelligence agencies to target their political opponents, and even each other (with citizens often being collateral damage).
The show effectively brings to light the totalitarian culture of direct allegiance to a president whose name is also that of his country, making any opposition to him synonymous with treason. While "all characters and events in this show are fictitious", what many viewers will see in "Smile, General" is the reality of a regime that has brought Syria to the calamitous situation in which it finds itself today.
Issam Kayssi