"Stand Up, Sit Down, Shut Up," Reviewed by Biedermann

Ferry Biedermann of the FT has an interesting review of the new nationalist play now on in Damascus. I will be posting again soon. I am now in NYC visiting friends and will be back in DC soon to spend the holidays with my brothers and parents and Manar's aunt and cousins who will all be there.

I spoke at the Stimpson Foundation with David Ignatius about Syria the other day and a good cross-section of the floura and fauna of interested DC turned up. Emile el-Hokayem organized it and Ellen Laipson, the director moderated. It was fun. I spoke about the Lebanon-Syria relationship and the personal contest between the Hariri-Junblat-Khaddam-Kanaan group and President Asad's family and allies since 2000.

David Ignatius of the Post spoke about how Syria is not "ripe" for dramatic change and how the US will have to develop a more nuanced strategy over the next years in order to encourage reform. (Here is the article by Biedermann.)


Syrian play fires nationalist passions
By Ferry Biedermann in Damascus
Published: December 22 2005 02:00 | Last updated: December 22 2005 02:00

But is it art? Stand Up, Sit Down, Shut Up, a play now on a triumphant run in downtown Damascus, is all about stoking the fires of Syrian nationalism.


For a finale the actors trot on to the stage carrying the country's flag and, with hands on their hearts, burst into the national anthem, topping off a two-hour tirade against Syria's perceived enemies.

"We are trying to deploy art for national unity," explains Zuheir Abdul Karim, the play's director and main actor, from the stage of the rickety Ramita theatre, where he has counted President Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma among the audience.

The director says he mounted the play to help counter what he calls "external conspiracies and pressures" against his country. Syrians are keenly aware of such external pressures these days.

The United Nations investigation into the murder of Rafiq Hariri, former Lebanese prime minister, was last week extended for at least another six months. The outgoing chief investigator, Detlev Mehlis, has for the first time openly said he thinks Syrian authorities are behind the killing and the Security Council is demanding full Syrian co-operation in the probe.

In the tradition of the ruling Ba'ath party, the government has reacted by closing ranks and mobilising the people with a mix of nationalist slogans, pan-Arab clichés and broadsides against designated external enemies - among whom they count their Lebanese neighbours and, of course, Mr Mehlis.

For good measure, internal dissent is also being stifled. In recent months dissidents have met increasing intimidation and, in at least one case, have been arrested. Portraits of the president have reappeared along highways and on buildings, an echo of the days of his father, Hafez al-Assad, who was omnipresent.

Posters parrot a defiant excerpt from a recent speech: "Syria will not bend. We only bend for God."

"Your report does not amount to one penny, oh Mehlis," goes a line in a song in the play.

And in the performance Mr Abdul Karim's character claims that the Mehlis report to the UN is "politicised and written a year ago" as part of a campaign against Syria, driven by the US and its ally, Israel. Some Syrian intellectuals say they abhor the play and what it stands for. "First of all, it is a bad play. It is propaganda that uses the lowest forms of popular entertainment," says dissident writer Yassin Haj Saleh, who describes it as part of a campaign to rally the people behind the government.

The real vitriol in this campaign is often reserved for the Lebanese, who are variously portrayed as ungrateful, traitorous, craven and licentious.

After Hariri's murder in February the Lebanese took to the streets to demand an end to Syrian control over their country. In May the Syrians withdrew their troops, after a military presence of nearly 30 years.

"It came as a complete surprise to us," says Mr Abdul Karim, who maintains the play reflects popular sentiment in Syria that the Lebanese are attacking his country. "We name the people who are insulting us."

The names include Fouad Siniora, Lebanon's prime minister who has already been called a "slave of a slave" by President Assad, and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt.

One politician no longer named is Gebran Tueni, a member of parliament and prominent journalist, who was killed this month together with three others when his car was blown up by a roadside bomb in a suburb of Beirut. He was the fifth anti-Syrian figure to be assassinated since the murder of Hariri and the third to die in such an attack.

"Gebran Tueni, oh no, [he is not named] any more because he is dead," says Mr Abdul Karim.

Mr Haj Saleh, the dissident writer, says the play is "not innocent" even though Mr Abdul Karim denies it amounts to incitement.

"It is comedy, the people laugh. The president really enjoyed it," the director asserts.

One of the theatregoers, a young pharmacist, said he was aware of all the trouble the country was in. "It is good to be able to laugh at it, for once." But an older woman said she knew very little about politics. "I just came because I heard the president and his wife also saw it."

Mr Abdul Karim echoes her view.

"We are theatre people, we don't engage in politics. We just believe what [President] al-Assad tells us."