God is my witness, Dad ... all we’re missing is a little dignity

Ghawar replies that Arab unity, for which his father struggled, has become a reality, to the point that he has breakfast in Baghdad and lunch in Khartoum, while he is speaking to him now from Abu Dhabi, and that prisons are now only for criminals, and that detention centers have been turned into schools and hospitals, and that justice and equality have prevailed, and there is no longer a single displaced person or Arab refugee.

Then Ghawar explodes, revealing the bitter truth, and how the Arab world has been torn apart by wars, conspiracies and conflicts, and how Israel has become a brotherly country, and that it is now selling its sons for a loaf of bread, and that the Arab world has become in need of nothing but a little dignity. The play remained immortal in the Arab memory for several reasons, most notably that it brilliantly summarized the bitter and painful Arab reality, to the point that its hero, Ghawar, did not ask at the end of the scene for wealth, influence, power, victory, or privileges, but only for dignity that had become lost. The most prominent reason for the Arab citizen’s recall of this play is that it was able at that time to break through the censorship boundaries in a repressive state at that time, which raised the question about the reasons that made the authority at that time allow a play that contradicts its political, intellectual, social and economic approach, and whether political satire on the stage at that time constituted an outlet to absorb anger and contain resentment, which is indeed what many critics expressed when the play “Kask Ya Watan” was shown in more than one Arab country.

In this play, Muhammad al-Maghout did not need a political statement through which to express the structural flaw in the Arab environment, but only a dialogue in a scene between a citizen and his martyred father, in which this theatrical scene was transformed from an entertaining theatrical scene into a symbolic trial of the modern history of the Arabs, in which al-Maghout narrated everything. Throughout human history, theater has played a prominent role in raising awareness. From ancient Greece to the modern Arab world, theaters have witnessed plays that posed open questions to audiences concerning freedom, justice, war, and other issues. For example, in pre-revolutionary France, a play satirizing the privileges of the nobility was performed.

It was initially banned and delayed before its performance was finally permitted, becoming a symbol, though not a direct cause, of the French Revolution. Muhammad al-Maghout’s plays did not change the regime in Syria, nor did the French play The Marriage of Figaro lead to the revolution that stormed the Bastille. But in both cases, the theater presented a different narrative from the prevailing one. Both plays raised questions, but did not provide answers; questions that remained open in the memory of humankind. The German director and playwright Brecht had already used theater to reveal, through his works, the truth about the economic and social interests behind wars. Saadallah Wannous did the same, who made the defeat of 1967 an entry point for questioning Arab political discourse. Then Muhammad al-Maghout came along in a different way and with the same steps, making dignity alone the fuel for awareness.