Syria tunes in the West on Madina FM
Popular 'Good Morning Syria' host Honey Sayed and others on the airwaves are mixing thumping music and racy U.S.-style talk shows, providing a rare cultural bridge in the Arab world.
DAMASCUS, SYRIA — It's the midmorning commute, and time for the horoscope on "Good Morning Syria," the nation's hottest radio show.
"Cancer," host Honey Sayed addresses listeners first in Arabic, then in English, with an air of sisterly candor, "don't get all worked up for nothing."
On the other side of the window, deejay Abdullah Shaaban cues an oldie from John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. "I got chills, they're multiplying," Travolta sings. "And I'm losing control."
Honey laughs and continues with her astrology report. "An opportunity is present," she coos into the microphone, "so take it, Leo."
Newly instituted freedom on the nation's airwaves has transformed Syria's sonic landscape. Some say it is shaping the way people view themselves, part of a wave of global influences turning this nation, whose government is the most hostile to the West in the Arab world, into the culture most amenable to it.
Honey 's "Good Morning Syria" is the staple of Madina FM, the oldest of nine new commercial radio stations. All sprang up over the last few years with the approval of President Bashar Assad, who ascended to power after the 2000 death of his father, Hafez Assad.
The stations broadcast hectic and supercharged melanges of Arab pop tunes, thumping dance music and lurid hip-hop rhymes spliced with snippets of Western-style culture, like horoscopes and call-in programs. Guests on talk shows discuss topics as touchy as child abuse and homosexuality. Hosts like Honey toggle between English and a relaxed informal Arabic rarely if ever heard here in the past.
The musical repertoire includes techno and rock 'n' roll as well as Arab pop. Tunes by Lebanese diva Haifa Wehbe and Egyptian heartthrob Amr Diab are interspersed with those of American stars including Britney Spears, Mariah Carey and Beyonce.
It's indisputable that these are tough times for cultural understanding between the Arab world and the West. Muslim clerics rail against decadence in the United States and Europe. Right-wing politicians in America and Western Europe denounce Islam as a religion of terror and intolerance.
But despite the political and military tensions, the rhythms and textures of daily life here are increasingly meshing with those of Western nations. On the streets of Damascus, people breezily draw in American sounds, sights and icons, making them part of their own cultural DNA.
