Just two years ago, it would have been unthinkable for a Lebanese TV station to mock the chief Syrian intelligence officer running the affairs of this country.

But in an indication of the broad changes sweeping across Lebanon’s media since the withdrawal of Syrian troops in 2005, Rustom Ghazali, the head of Syria’s much-feared mukhabarat apparatus, has become one of the most enduring stars of the local satire scene.

Once reviled as the de-facto governor of this country, caricatures of Ghazali and his cronies can now be seen on an almost weekly basis on all three of Lebanon’s comedy sketch shows. They are often portrayed as babbling buffoons, drunk on their power over local officials and the fear they struck in the minds of so many Lebanese during Syria’s three-decade-long rule here.

But Syria is not the only target of Lebanon’s weekly comedy programs, which have become increasingly popular as the country’s political crisis deepens. The shows have parodied every major Lebanese politician throughout the turbulent period stretching from the killing of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in early 2005 to the protests to topple the government that went through late 2006.

The criticism has been unprecedented. Never before had the shows been so specific in their use of names and mannerisms and never had they been so bold in their portrayals of alleged corruption and conspiracies. One show mocked MP Saad Hariri, the son of the slain Prime Minister, as pointing to an ATM machine when asked about the new technology that would help him win elections last year. More recent shows have mocked anti-government protestors as crude and uneducated pawns of Hezballah and its allies.

Freedom and ratings

Show directors believe the new freedoms have made their content more relevant and entertaining. “We are able to get close to the people,” says Elie Feghali, director of the cynically-titled show Erbet Tenhal (It Will Be Resolved Soon) on Lebanese channel New TV. Feghali says ad revenues are climbing despite the chaos of the last several months and that the show is now among the most popular on the channel.

New TV was one of three Lebanese stations that actively supported Hezballah during the war but Feghali’s show is also fiercely critical of Syria with Ghazali jokes as a staple. A recurring Erbet Tenhal skit features the intelligence chief weeping on his operatives’ shoulders while crying out his love for Lebanon and his yearning for the Lebanese people.

Feghali says the withdrawal of Syrian troops was the catalyst for new freedoms, underscoring the widely held belief that it was not only Hezballah, but all of Lebanon’s political elite that operated under the support and protection of the Syrian regime.

“In the past we weren’t able to talk a lot,” Feghali explains, describing the period before the 2005 withdrawal. “We would distance ourselves from politicians because they were all close to Syria.”

Nasser Fakih, director of Future TV’s La Youmal or Never Boring, agrees, calling the occupation a “barrier to creativity.” He says the withdrawal has brought “a wider margin of freedom.”

But not everyone is laughing. Some parties have been deeply offended by sarcastic portrayals of their leaders leading in one case to street riots. The violent reaction, which ignited a storm of political infighting, took place last June following the airing of the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBCI) show, Basmat Watan, a play on words that can either mean ‘when the country is dead’ or ‘when the country smiles’ depending on how it is phrased.

Walking a fine line

For Basmat Watan director Charbel Khalil, the new era of freedom meant the liberty to criticize absolutely any character in Lebanon, even Hassan Nasrallah, the much-revered Secretary General of Hezballah. But Hezballah’s supporters were outraged when they tuned into Khalil’s bearded portrayal of Nasrallah, who is considered a spiritual authority or Sayed among Lebanon’s 1.2 million Shiites.

The sketch did not directly insult Nasrallah but rather featured him as a guest on a mock interview program and implied that he would provide any possible excuse not to disarm Hezballah, such as the need to liberate “Abu Hassan’s farm in Detroit” from his Jewish neighbors. Still hours after the broadcast, hundreds of rioters blocked roads and set tires on fire only to be subdued after a televised appeal from Nasrallah who dismissed the sketch but asked his supporters to go home and thanked them.

The event set off a flurry of counter-accusations, with many alleging that Hezballah orchestrated the violence as a show of force. Among the critics was Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, who claimed that the riots were meant to intimidate Lebanon’s Christian community. Nasrallah denied the charges, saying the protests were spontaneous and exaggerated by anti-Syrian politicians ahead of planned “national dialogue” talks aimed at developing a defense policy against Israel and possibly disarming Hezballah.

“All that is happening will not undermine the determination and will of the resistance,” Nasrallah was quoted as saying at the time by the Associated Press. “If those carrying out these actions think that through such language and behavior they could reach a point where they can besiege, isolate and finish off the resistance they are wrong. I promise them that they will fail, God willing.”

About a month after the sketch aired, Hezballah would be embroiled in fighting a devastating onslaught from Israel after it kidnapped two of its soldiers. Tensions would remain high in the aftermath of the war and Gemayel would be assassinated later that November by unknown assailants.

“I was surprised,” Khalil wrote in an email response on the initial reaction to his show. “I didn’t know the episode would cause demonstrations in the streets, just like Mr. Nasrallah was surprised by the aggression against Lebanon after kidnapping two Israeli soldiers. Everyone makes mistakes.”

Khalil issued a public apology to Nasrallah, saying he wouldn’t be criticizing him again; references to Hezballah MPs are still fair game though. According to Khalil and others, this is because Lebanese law prohibits the mocking of religious leaders. They say the law aims to prevent tensions among the country’s disparate communities, but for a social commentator, such rules can be quite restrictive in an environment where the entire political system is based on representation by religious group.

“It’s a very thin line,” says Future TV’s Fakih. “You cannot separate religion from politics in Lebanon. All religious figures are involved in politics in one way or another.”

But interestingly, and despite the laws, a portrayal of St. Maron, the founding saint of Lebanon’s Maronite church, recently appeared in one of Khalil’s sketches. He says the Christian community had no problems with the sketch, which pictured the saint beating Christian politicians over the head with his cane for allowing “Saad,” the younger Hariri and Sunni Muslim leader, to sneak in and steal the chair from behind them. Khalil described the reaction to the sketch as “positive,” adding, “I might do it again.”

So why the discrepancy?

New TV’s Feghali, who like Khalil is Christian, says there is a double standard. “I can’t use Nasrallah to make people laugh,” he explains. “People will say I am a Maronite making fun of a Shiite.” The same appears to be true of political rivalries.

Future Television, which is owned by the Hariri family, took heat when La Youmal criticized Michel Aoun, the influential Christian leader that has allied with Hezballah. “He really hated us,” says Fakih. “In several interviews with the press, he [Aoun] has mentioned our show, claiming that we have orders from a higher source.”

But Fakih says management, i.e. the Hariri family, actually discouraged him from inflaming tensions. The enmity between the younger Hariri who leads Lebanon’s Sunni community and Nasrallah, who leads the country’s Shiites, is now the highest it’s been in decades.
“They always believe any sketch you do is because someone told you to do it,” Fakih says.

Toeing a political line

Although he claims to be solely responsible for the show’s content, Fakih admits that he runs controversial sketches by his superiors when he has doubts. A smiling picture of the younger Hariri is posted on a bulletin board behind his desk; ‘Big brother is watching you,’ is scribbled above the photo.

“Most if not all TV stations in Lebanon are part of a political movement, whether you like it or not,” Fakih admits.

Khalil is even more blunt: “The LBCI administration watches each episode and eliminates every sketch or idea that does not support its policy or each sketch that they think might cause them a judicial problem.”

Basmat Watan was once suspended for a month by the government when Khalil created a mock news bulletin indicating that Osama bin Laden had been apprehended in Lebanon. Instead of “Live”, the upper right hand corner of the screen read “Lie”.

Khalil is cynical about the closure, which was billed as a penalty for disseminating false information. “This was just to teach me a lesson,” he says. “The government was incapable of stopping my show by force so they just stopped me for a month as a warning. The real aim was to reduce my criticism of them.”

However Nasrallah is not the only character that you won’t see on Khalil’s controversial show. He says the station’s relationship with Christian politician and former warlord Samir Geagea also renders that character off limits. And for “personal reasons” the same is true of former General Aoun, whom Geagea once fought against in one of the bloodiest chapters of Lebanon’s civil war and continues to be at odds with today.

You won’t see caricatures of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud or Syrian President Bashar Al Assad either, because Lebanese law also prohibits the mocking of heads of state, according to all three producers. Ironically though, Lebanon’s equally powerful prime minister, Fouad Sinora, is one of the most impersonated characters on all three shows. But despite the expanded freedoms, directors lament their inability to tackle religious figures, especially living ones.

“The mentality has not progressed,” says Feghali in a reference to viewer reactions to religion-related skits. “We all came from the same place. All people are human.” He estimates it will take “at least 10 years” for Lebanese society to overcome the sensitivities. Fakih thinks the figure is closer to 500.

“We cannot reach the level of criticism in the West, like Comedy Central and the late night shows [in the United States] where they have 100 percent freedom,” Fakih says. “Let’s say we have 80 percent freedom.”