"SadaNews"... When the Fugitives Carried Their Sick Homelands to the Island

Author: د. أسامة الرميلات

There are dramatic works you watch for entertainment, and others you watch because you feel the writer is placing his finger directly on the wound. "SadaNews" is of the second type; a work that seems, on the surface, like a satirical comedy about survivors from the sea who reached an unknown island, but at its core, it is closer to a long group confessional session with the Arab mind after destruction.

Mamdouh Hamada did not write a fictional island; rather, he wrote about the whole region trying to start anew, only to fail in the same old ways.

The idea seems very simple: a group of people fleeing death and oppression arrive at a place without a state, without security agencies, without borders, without heavy history. In practical terms, this is a golden opportunity for any society to redefine itself away from everything that previously destroyed it. But the surprise is that these people did not just flee from their regimes, but they carried the regimes with them inside their heads.

Here lies the genius of the work; the military in "SadaNews" cannot see life outside the concept of rank. For him, any place needs a leader, orders, obedience, and punishments, even in an island where there is nothing worth controlling at all. He immediately begins to try and build a new authoritarian pyramid, as if the Arab person has long been raised to believe that authority is not a means of organizing life but an end in itself.

This is not far from the reality of the region, after many Arab revolutions, people came out demanding the end of oppression, but a significant portion of them was only looking for a "new version" of the ruler, not a new idea of governance, as if societies that have lived for a long time under military rule no longer knew how to imagine themselves outside the image of the "necessary leader".

On the other side, the leftist dreamer appears, longing for absolute justice and equal distribution of everything, talking about a new classless society, yet you gradually feel that the idea itself is transforming into a beautiful theoretical discourse more than a viable project, resembling many Arab parties that spent decades talking about the masses while remaining completely distanced from real people.

As for the businessman, he is perhaps the most realistic character in the series, this Arab model who sees everything through the lens of profit and loss, just like the character Masoud in the series "Al-Taghreeba"; even the disaster itself becomes, in his eyes, an investment opportunity, resembling a whole class that emerged after the Arab wars; the wealthy crisis merchants who amassed fortunes from the collapse of cities and people, from trade through crossings, and smuggling through tunnels and aid, and sometimes even from blood.

Then comes the political Islamist, not as a representative of religion, but of movements that have reduced religion to appearance and moral authority over others. The character was very clever because he was not presented as a devil, but as a human full of contradictions. He talks about virtue while living his own fragility, and clings to the external form because he fears his internal void, and perhaps here the writer wanted to say that some currents were not always seeking the salvation of society as much as they were looking for guarantees of their survival within it.

Even the lawyer, who initially seems to be the voice of freedom and reason, gradually transforms into another model of the person who wants the law customized to their personal dimensions; freedom, yes, but on the condition that it serves their own convictions and complexes.

The beauty of "SadaNews" is that the characters are not entirely evil or entirely noble, but rather a confused mixture that resembles us completely, and this is a rare strength point in Arab drama; because the work does not distribute moral heroics, but holds a mirror up to everyone.

One of the most important phrases in the series was uttered by a crushed character, always searching for her master, who simply said horrifyingly:

"Society is divided into two levels... And in order for the upper level to remain, it must create a lower level that is crushed and delights in its oppression and suffering."

This is not just a dramatic sentence, but an accurate summary of the relationship between authority and society in many Arab countries. Regimes do not only survive by force but by convincing people that their natural place is at the bottom, and that fear is safer than freedom.

But the most dangerous thing "SadaNews" says is not about authority, but about the people themselves.

Some characters, despite becoming completely free for the first time, began to automatically search for a new master, as if freedom for them was a confusing and unfamiliar state. This is quite similar to societies that emerged from oppression but remained afraid to make their own decisions, thus replacing old idols with new ones.

The series here does not just ask why regimes failed, but why did people also fail to rid themselves of the idea of the "herd"? Why did the culture of obedience remain stronger than the idea of partnership? And why are we still always searching for a savior leader instead of seeking a mature society?

"SadaNews" does not provide ready-made answers, but raises the most important question: Can a new homeland be built with an old mentality?

And perhaps this is the whole essence of the work; the problem was never in the island, nor even in the sunken ship... The problem lay in the intellectual and psychological burden the survivors took with them to the new shore.

That is why "SadaNews" felt like a work about Syria, about Egypt, about Iraq, about Palestine, and about any Arab place that tried to survive destruction, only to discover that the greater destruction dwelled within it long ago.