Historic Context
Bab al-Hara takes place in the 1930s, a time when the Middle East was colonized by Western powers. Syria was under French control and Palestine - where some of the neighborhood men go to fight at the end of the second installment of the series - was British-occupied. Bab al-Hara depicts the last moments of Syrian society as it existed in its centuries-old Ottoman era make-up, just prior to the transition into colonial and post-colonial modernity. The series' hearkening back to this era partially explains its massive popularity, an expression of the Arab world's nostalgia and yearning for a simple, more dignified time before the cataclysmic turmoil and cultural identity crisis ushered in by the colonial period.
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