Superstars and superculprits
March 24, 2005
Diana Carazon, Melhem Zein and Ruwaida Atieh, Superstar 2003.
For some reason, this story came to mind when I was thinking about the much more serious events of the last weeks. Go figure.
In August 2003, many people in the Arab world were engrossed in a frenzy of excitement as the first Superstar program (the local version of Britain’s original Pop Idol, or the US’s American Idol) was coming to an end. The last three contestants were Melhem Zein from Lebanon, Ruwaida Atieh from Syria, and Diana Carazon from Jordan. In the penultimate show, Melhem Zein was voted out – and fans went beserk.
People in the audience started throwing chairs at each other, protesters chanted ridiculous pledges in front of Hariri’s Future Television Network (which made the show) as if Zein was a leader – you know, the whole “with our soul, with our blood, bla bla bla.”
In the commotion, the last two contestants fainted and were rushed out, and Future TV stopped the live broadcast.
Well, tough luck for Zein, you’d think. But no … to hear the rumours that week, you’d have believed the Syrian mukhabarat had cooked the whole story and rigged the voting (by eliminating votes in favor of Zein), forcing the elimination of Zein so that the Syrian contestant could win the contest. This seemed to make perfect sense to many otherwise rational people: Syria controled Lebanon, and therefore controled Superstar, and Lebanese leaders could do nothing about it. Zein had been a victim of Syrian domination.
When the last show finally started broadcasting live, conspiracy theories had made the rounds, which may have been a good thing considering that it took many people’s minds off the severe electricity cuts Lebanon was experiencing at the time. Meanwhile, Syria and Jordan were caught in a whirl of theories about who would win: the Jordanian (who – rumor had it – would be getting the votes of the entire Jordanian army, on the orders of its king) or the Syrian (who – rumor also had it – would have the support of the Syrian intelligence services). The Lebanese seemed to have no doubt that the Syrians, because of their advantage in Lebanon, would have the upper hand.
Tensions were high as the results were announced: the Jordanian candidate won with 52% of the nearly 5 million votes. End of the conspiracy theory about Syria, right? Well, not quite. You see, apparently, Syria decided to “allow” the Jordanian girl to win, so that its interference in the voting wouldn’t be too noticed. Had the Syrian girl won, people said, it would have just been too obvious.
Therefore, the Jordanian’s victory proved Syrian involvement!
Moral of the story: in some cases, it’s damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.
