“Circassians” Film and Fallacy of Reality
Presented by: Adel Bashqawi
16, May, 2012
A news published on social network, Facebook, caught my attention, which quoted a YouTube video, quoting a report by the Russian Satellite TV in Arabic language, “Russia Today,” reporting on a recently produced film, entitled “Circassians,” directed by, Mohydeen Quandour. When it was displayed in the “Moscow International Film Festival,” and the film was described as one of the films that were presented on its “sidelines.” At the beginning of the broadcasted video (film), highlight was shed on the question of one of the film main participants (actors):
Those who lose the war, do they leave their homes and their place of residence…? The correspondent elaborated in her report on mentioning a historical fallacy, namely that the early immigrants of Circassians of Jordan “came to Jordan from the Caucasus onboard the “Hejaz Railroad Train,” while on their way from their original homeland “crossing Turkey and Damascus.” The correspondent continued that the film is “about a love story that brought together Nart, the Circassian Youngman and the beautiful Bedouin girl, Hind.”
Where the topic was shortened to be a “romantic story”; the report highlighted the opinion of a commentator that “the film is the first novelist work, which documents the history of the Circassians.” The reporter who prepared the TV report went on to say that “the story was likened by many with the story of Romeo and Juliet.” She continues, “but it varied in conclusion, where Circassian scenes of joy, with all those regional and ethnic details have fueled feelings in the hearts … .“
What a gorgeous expression, they came with? As if they were not subjected to forced deportation from their homeland. What joy they are talking about, where they are people who were subjected to murder, genocide, displacement and deportation under extreme circumstances? And how a romantic story to be first pursuant to document the history of the Circassians? Wasn’t there a plenty of time to mention the Black Sea and its horrors?
There is fabrication for matters that did not occur except in the imagination of that who wanted to change the facts as if the entire Circassian nation had went out from homeland for a picnic and fake information was provided that has not turned in the imagination of those who cited the information contained in the film, to the point a fabricated map for an imaginary course of the deported Circassians, that the film has insisted to describe them as immigrants, which the report’s introduction said that “they came”.
It mentioned that the first Circassians had arrived to Jordan by the Hejaz train railroad, which is categorically wrong. Because deportation of Circassians from their homeland had begun before the year 1860 where numbers had increased later on, to reach unprecedented numbers in the year 1864 and beyond. That is due to the fact that displacement did not occur by the Hejaz railroad, which had been constructed and inaugurated after the year 1900 AD.
The construction work had been initiated in the year 1900 and was opened in the year 1908. It continued operating until the year 1916 as a result of the First World War. The film had bluntly ignored the genocide suffered by the Circassian nation. As well as the occupation of the country of Circassian, which was the direct cause of all the tragedies suffered by the Circassian nation.
The first Circassians who arrived to Jordan, they arrived by sea from Turkey to Palestine (which was part of the Ottoman Empire at the time). Later on, some convoys came from Turkey by land, which used old means of transportation such as carriages pulled by horses and oxen. Those Circassians were expelled forcibly and were deported from their homeland in accordance with a conspiracy between the influential international forces at the time.
Some of them had been deported to the Balkans and then they were re-deported to other places. The first batch of frightened refugees had arrived to Amman, that had consisted Roman and other historical ruins. They had established the village of Amman, which had no train station, where the Hejaz Train Railway had not been established in the first place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmXPfNm5KOk
