Television and Middle East children

by Daoud Kuttab

the Jordan Tiimes (used w/permission)

I PARTICIPATED this week in an international press conference held in Brussels, where a unique Middle Eastern version of the famous Sesame Street children's series was launched. I was in Belgium in my capacity as Palestinian producer of Hikyat Simsim (Sesame Stories), which will be broadcast by 10 local Palestinian stations at the start of Ramadan. Jordan TV will also be airing this Ramadan a Jordanian version of this new Middle East co-production.

Children in the Middle East represent the largest single age category. In Palestine, children under 12 represent a majority of the population. Yet, what these children, most of who are trapped in their homes for long hours, watch on television gives little hope for a better future. By just watching the news on television, children get a heavy diet of violence and blood as a result of the daily Israeli oppression and Palestinian resistance.

I told the European Union officials who supported this programme that we produced the programme despite many difficulties. For a while, in 2002, I didn't imagine that I would be in Brussels or anywhere else announcing the completion of 26 episodes of the Palestinian version of Hikyat Simsim. I told our European supporters how 18 months ago, the engineering unit of the Israeli army, unprovoked by us, decided that the building where our offices and studios are located would make good headquarters for them as the incursion of Ramallah took place. After 19 difficult days, that April 2002, the Israeli army gave us back our offices. They were a wreck with broken equipment, missing cameras and lost valuable computer data.

Worse still was the damage inflicted on us, our artists and our community as a result. We often wondered whether we could produce a high-quality TV series for children under the circumstances: we could not even hold a full-staff meeting or have our writers meet with the head writer and producers. Could we produce such a programme when many of us couldn't even go to the shooting locations in Gaza or Bethlehem? Could we complete the programme when our actors and puppeteers had to cross daily Israeli checkpoints to come to our Ramallah studios to complete the month-long studio shootings?

We tried our best not to allow these problems to sway us away from our main purpose. We felt a powerful sense of mission. Our purpose was to try and bring a smile back to the children of Palestine, in the hope that they would be allowed to feel self confident and proud in their heritage and culture, as well as show respect for "the other" both in our society and outside it.

We found in the animated story of the "rose" a sort of example for all of us. This five-minute animation written by a Palestinian refugee from Gaza is the story of Said, a boy growing up in a refugee camp who decided to grow a rose in the tiny balcony of his refugee home despite the difficult surroundings and the sarcasm of his friends. His success in overcoming the problems, his focus on the prize not only allows him to fulfil his dream but, in the process, makes his work a positive model for others to emulate.

I told those attending the launching of our programme that our hope is that, with this series and hopefully more to come, we, like Said, can plant the seeds of hope in our children, so that one day the rose of peace and independence can blossom in Palestine and the region. Thus, instead of the negative, violent pictures that our children see every day, they can see positive images that can convince them that they and their nation can make the turn for a better future.

Our effort, as important as it is, is not enough. Much more attention to the children needs to be paid in the Arab world. Of the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent to create satellite stations and filling them with programmes little goes towards production targeting children.

The latest UN report correctly points the finger to the audiovisual Arab media (controlled mostly by governments), telling that they must play a bigger role in improving the lot of Arabs in general and Arab children in particular. It is great that an American organisation like Sesame Workshop is willing to produce a programme with local producers and local content for the children of the Middle East.

It is also great that the European Union believes in this age group that are willing to put money into such production. But it is high time for Arab money and Arab talent to pay attention to our children. We can still learn a lot from internationally acclaimed producers experienced in children television. But if we want to improve the lot of the Arab person and the Arab region, our governments, our investors and our media people need to channel money and effort towards children, especially children programmes on television, in front of which our children spend so much of their time.