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Prominent critics in most major newspapers dedicated their columns this week to Awan Al-Ward (Flowers Bloom), the much-talked about soap opera starring Youssra and Hisham Abdel-Hamid. Scriptwriter Wahid Hamid had told the press that the Ministry of Information explicitly asked him to pen a series with Muslim-Coptic relations as its main theme, and it is that theme which has caused much of the consternation amongst the critics.
Two of the columnists', Al-Wafd's Magda Khairallah and Al-Akhbar's Hosn Shah, had similar complaints about Hamid's use of a Muslim-Coptic marriage to cover the "national unity" theme. He could have chosen any of a dozen, or a hundred other plot devices to discuss Muslim-Coptic relations, they argue. Instead, Hamid chose the highly controversial issue of inter-marriage, making the character Amal (played by Youssra), a daughter of a Coptic mother, and a Muslim father. As a result, four seperate lawsuits have been filed by Coptic religious authorities and lawyers attempting to stop the show from being broadcast (or re-broadcast in the future). The argument is that these types of marriages are not approved by either the Coptic religion or the community.
Both critics also point to the series practically dropping the national unity issue and concentrating more on the police drama aspect of the show halfway through, once the couple's child, baby Ahmed, was kidnapped.
On an altogether separate note, Al-Wafd's Azza Ahmed Heiklal called the show a "virus" that will only promote poor values amongst the audience. We were taught, she writes, that everyone is a victim. All the criminal characters were painted in this light, as if the show was trying to find excuses for their crimes: the employee who had embezzled 25,000 pounds, for instance, complains that he was a victim because those who embezzle millions are let free.
Most of the critics also had problems with the portrayal of the airline stewardess who kidnapped the child. A former prostitute who had repented and become a pregnant, faithful wife, her marriage was shattered when police officer Bekheit (played by Hisham Abdel-Hamid) came by asking questions about the murder of her former pimp. When her husband came home in the midst of the interrogation, he hit her in rage, causing a miscarriage, and then promptly divorced her, thus lending her the dramatic imperative to kidnap Bekheit's child in revenge. In the final episode she is given the chance to air her grievances and gain the audience's (and her former husband's, who decides to remarry her right then and there) sympathy.
In Al-Ahram, a Coptic priest also gives his point of view, saying the series was offensive to both Christians and Muslims, for many of the same reasons mentioned by the other critics. He claims that when he took his complaints to the TV Union he was promised by its head that in the future such sensitive issues would be treated with more care.
One of the main gripes many of the commentators pointed to was Youssra's character's by-now-infamous quote about the world needing a third religion called love. In his column, the priest says that both Islam and Christianity encourage love, and that such quotes will only go against the long-standing religious lessons being taught in homes, mosques and churches, and on TV by the Ministry of Information in general.
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