BATTLE OF TV SERIES

Were it not for the event that took place in mid-November, Power of Turkish TV Series would have been a more appropriate title for this article. Over the past few years, Turkey has literally become one of the largest exporters of TV series in the world, which have been broadcast in 140 countries, bringing the country more than $350-400 million annually and promoting Turkey abroad. But for now, let's talk about the event that gave the name to this article.

Kingdoms of Fire

On November 17, the UAE-based MBC channel started to broadcast Kingdoms of Fire, a TV series based on historical motives, which instantly provoked serious discussions in the Arab media and social networks.

The plot of the 14-episode and $40-million budget TV series is based on the events that describe the last days of the Mamluk Sultanate during the 16th century war with the Ottoman Empire. According to historical evidence, the actual war between the two powerful medieval states began in 1516 and ended in February 1517 with the victorious entry of the Ottoman Sultan Selim I into Cairo. After that, Egypt, like most of the Middle East, had remained part of the Ottoman Empire for 400 years.

In line with today's political situation, the narrative of the Kingdoms of Fire is based on an explicit anti-Turkish spirit. Ottoman Turks are depicted as cruel and ruthless enemies. Incidentally, the Mamluk Sultanate was also a Turkic state. In other words, the events filmed by Arabs are the battle of two Turkic dynasties. However, the Mamluks, who ruled from Egypt in a certain part of the Middle East and North Africa in 1250-1517, got their name during the reign of the Eyyubids—Mamluks was a name given to a military class within the Eyyubid army mainly recruited from slaves. Later, the Mamluks overthrew the Eyyubids and for a long time had remained the sole rulers of the region. In 1258, when the Mongol state of the Hulaguids captured Baghdad, putting an end to the Abbasid caliphate, its borders were expanded to Cairo, which remained the capital of the state until 1517. Thus, the Mamluks were the actual rulers of the Islamic caliphate after the Abbasids. After the capture of Cairo by Sultan Selim I in 1517, the capital of the caliphate was officially transferred to Istanbul (the Ottoman Empire), and remained there up until March 3, 1924, when the parliament of the new Turkish Republic passed a law abolishing the caliphate.

Turkish-Arab political confrontation on screen

Let's go back to the Kingdoms of Fire. MBC is run by Saudi Arabia and is considered one of the most popular television channels in the Arab region. The sponsor of this multi-episode film directed by Peter Webber better known for Girl with a Pearl Earring, Hannibal: Rising, and Emperor, teeming with spectacular visual effects and battle scenes, was the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The leading role is played by an Egyptian actor.

We can see a clearer picture if we take a quick look at the list of countries involved in the project. Kingdoms of Fire is filmed by an Egyptian film crew (Egypt is one of the leading Arab countries in the film industry) in the UAE and is produced by Saudi Arabia. Al-Jazeera was one of the first TV channels to protest the film calling it "an attempt to distort the history of the Turks", hence explaining the actual situation.

Back in 2013, Egypt, UAE and Saudi Arabia formed an alliance to support the military coup in Egypt and to counteract the alliance of Turkey and Qatar. The Kingdom of Bahrain later joined the alliance. Obviously, some countries of the region were outraged with the support of Turkey and Qatar for the Muslim Brotherhood movement—the leading force of the Arab revolutions in the Middle East at that time. The discontent, which was most pronounced in Egypt, has further exacerbated in subsequent years. In 2017, when four Arab countries—Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and Bahrain—announced an embargo on Qatar, Turkey was the first country to support Doha. Ankara still supports Qatar. But at the same time, relations between Turkey and the "front of dissenting" countries have been spoiled. In 2018, the popular MBC channel, which had been broadcasting Turkish TV shows since 2008, suspended the show allegedly referring to high prices. According to MBC, while the cost of Arab TV series is $40-100,000, they had to buy Turkish series for $250,000 and higher per piece. However, it was clear that the reason for the rejection of the popular Turkish TV series was the Qatari crisis and the cooling of relations between the countries.

Arab countries provide about a third (more than $110 million) of the revenue from the sale of Turkish TV series, UAE having been the main importer, or rather its MBC television network with 18 channels broadcasting in 24 countries for 140 million of viewers. The first Turkish series presented to the Arab public in 2007 was Gümüş. This was followed by Asi two years later, which broke all broadcast records.

Now, after ten years of cooperation, MBC is trying to fill in the screen time with a series aimed at Turkey and pursuing political goals and the benefits of regional competition.

Turkey's 'soft power'

Turkish TV series are broadcast in 140 countries. Turkey is the second country after the US by the export of TV series. Even Latin American countries and Mexico, which had once popularised television series around the world, import Turkish TV series. Apart from huge annual turnover (about $350 million), Turkish TV series are a powerful tool of cultural, economic and political propaganda.

The first Turkish TV series broadcast abroad was Forbidden Love (Aşk-ı Memnu), shown in France in 1981. In subsequent years, especially over the past fifteen years, sector coverage has expanded significantly. Currently, the global audience of Turkish TV series is 650 million viewers.

So far 15 TV series have been filmed in Turkey about the history of the Ottoman Empire. Among them, the record success and recognition of viewers in many countries of the world rightfully belongs to The Magnificent Century (Muhteşem Yüzyıl), The Last Emperor (Payitaht: Abdülhamid) and Ertugrul: Resurrection (Diriliş: Ertuğrul).

The TV series industry brings both financial and cultural benefits to Turkey. Thanks to them, the country with its rich historical monuments, favourable climatic conditions and the sea beaches is able to attract a huge inflow of tourists to the country to promote its ancient culture and glorious history. In this regard, the TV series sector has become one of the leading areas directly supported by the Turkish government.

Conclusion

Obviously, Kingdoms of Fire is unlikely to compete with the industry of Turkish TV series. But it is also obvious that the project has an explicit political context, being yet another tool in the array of campaigns against the Ottoman Empire, which began in the Arab world at the end of the 19th century. Lukewarm attitude towards Turkey, as the successor of the Ottoman Empire, still prevails in a number of Arab countries. It is this attitude, which occasionally shows up in various degrees due to political moods of the parties, that we witness today.

Either way, the current campaign of the Arab countries against Turkey is clearly based on a weak historical argumentation. After all, such overly politicised campaigns with superficial connections with historical evidence are doomed to failure.

We can clearly say that what we see today is the developing of conditions for yet another confrontation based on political, ideological, religious and other disagreements that had long existed in the Middle East. And cinema has always served as a powerful ideological tool for such a confrontation.