Aug 10, 2015

DAMASCUS — On its Facebook page, the Online Production Company has been posting since May a satirical cartoon series called "Siyaseh Noss Com." The main characters of the series are political figures in the Syrian arena such as President Bashar al-Assad, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, Syrian National Coalition head ​Khaled Khoja and Louay Hussein, head of the Building the Syrian State movement. Assad is the main focus as a pivotal figure and target of criticism and ridicule.

The animated series is a creation of young members of the Syrian opposition such as Samir al-Matfi, who also goes by the name of Songa. Songa also handles the administrative account of the satirical opposition Facebook page “The Chinese Revolution,” which was created in December 2012. This page was among the first that used satire to call for the fall of the Syrian regime and gained wide popularity at the beginning of the Syrian revolution.

Songa comes up with ideas and writes scenarios for "Siyaseh Noss Com," while Hazem draws the characters, Khaled and Youssef create the animation and Subhi directs. Khaled also does the voice-over for all the characters except for Assad, whose voice belongs to Songa. The team works under fictitious names for security reasons.

"Siyaseh Noss Com" keeps up with the latest developments on the Syrian political scene. Songa told Al-Monitor, “We started effectively working on the show in mid-May. We started with Assad’s speech at the Martyr’s Day festival May 3. The character of Assad was the first to be created and we produced the first episode on this speech May 20, which set the wheel in motion for subsequent episodes that reflected the developments on the Syrian political scene. The last episode, titled 'Syria at auction,' interpreted Assad’s latest speech before the presidents and members of the popular organizations and trade unions July 26.”

According to Songa, since its first episode, the show has ridiculed political events by focusing on deriding the actions of the Syrian regime and its allies. “However, sometimes the show scorns Syrian opposition figures. Also, on May 20, we produced a satirical episode titled 'You are not yourself when you are hungry.' This episode was about the conference where President of the Syrian National Coalition Khaled Khoja and head of the BSS Louay Hussein met on May 11, following the incident when the Syrian revolution flag was removed during the conference, which caused a stir in the opposition media circles,” Songa said.