You get back from work, take a nap and wake up by iftar time. Then you feast on all the types of food available. The food fills you up, you feel heavy and lethargic with only one option: veging on the sofa with the remote control in hand. It’s almost midnight and you’ve done nothing in the past few hours but watch one TV show after another. It sounds like a typical day in Ramadan, huh?
Ramadan has been associated in our minds with TV – a fact that got TV channels and advertisers battling for viewers’ attention at least a month before Ramadan actually starts. Newspapers are full of advertisements of soap operas and new TV shows to be screened during the holy month. The amount of productions in this month can be equal to the total production all over the year.
This recurring phenomenon has left many dismayed and this year groups of young people are trying to change the typical Ramadan lifestyle. Armed with their generation’s wide access to the Internet, these groups are encouraging people not to watch TV this year.
Several groups on facebook have been created and started to attract large numbers of members expected to increase as the holy month approaches.
The reasons for their campaign are varied between religious and boredom.
They say that we should make use of our time in Ramadan in a better way by going to the mosque, visiting relatives and participating in charity activities. Also, they criticized the quality of programs and soap operas shown on TV saying that the ideas are tired and present nothing of value.
“Why are we wasting our time watching these meaningless things? The answer is because we have nothing else to do but if we look for something we will find a lot, said Mohamed Hussein, creator of How Many of Us Will Boycott Soap Operas in Ramadan? group on Facebook.
Another group chose “Turn Your Back to TV in Ramadan as their name, a spin on the once popular Bilharzias public awareness ads.
Mahmoud Shafik, the creator of the group argues that programs shown on TV are silly. In addition, several channels screen reruns after Ramadan, not to mention their availability on the Internet.
Members of the group suggested a practical solution which is watching one or two soap operas at most and then spending the rest of the time doing “useful things.
“We should sit in the balcony, suggested Mahmoud Kassem a student in Alexandria University.
