Human memory belongs to a neurological bias for a certain period of time. Memory, no matter how many times it accumulates, remains more relevant to the adolescence period of every person, the adolescence period that memorizes everything, and even if one suffers from Alzheimer’s, he will inevitably remember his adolescence. From here, many generations did not lose their verbal memory of Abu Antar, the physical significance, the tremendous sobriety in the movement of the body before striking, and the symbolic connection of the body as carrying a message. To this day, the people of the poor class in Syria reproduce Abu Antar’s immortal tattoo “Your satisfaction, my mother” or “ void”.
We do not have many details regarding Naji Jabr, but the dimension of the personality brings us repeatedly to his abilities. Something from Naji appears without a good distance from Abi Antar. In every appearance of him, his real name will not be mentioned, as if his postponed birth was the role he played. Close observation of him reveals this, the time he used his hand to strike, his abilities to remind Syrians from the thirties to the eighties – and perhaps even those born today in Syria – of the sanctuary of the alleys, the al-Akid – al-Azaar – the moderate, the toughest man over other men. There is a tendency among the Syrians to produce a cunning or supernatural, bullying, immoral, or moral man in every dramatic period, but the original remains a monopoly of Naji Jabr, in his first shot and his first appearance.
What makes Abu Antar authentic is the reality of the personality in its realistic nature, meaning that the reductive simulation of his personality had a logical premise from the beginning and a precise ending. The character was realistic, and Naji was able to faithfully embody it, unlike the character of Al-Akid and Al-Qabbai, which, for example, “Bab Al-Hara” tried to perpetuate.
The originality of Abu Antar is in the ability of the writer and his ability specifically to upload the realistic storage of personality in the memory of society. Some may think that the character is simple, or that Dalalah Abu Antar is Dalalat the traditional Qabbay or one of the typical thugs, but this is wrong. The character of “Abu Antar” revolves around the responsibility of the question: What if we put “Abu Antar al-Azaar” here, what would he do, and what did he do earlier? This significance was established by reality, the windows that were secretly opened by the sons and daughters of families at the beginning of the twentieth century, to watch the qabbay beating the son of another neighborhood, or the beating of a boy who transported food to his teacher in the market for him to eat, or the power of the foolish hero in his attempt to drag a rock, or visiting the cemetery at night.
These antics, which later turn into comedy, were all found logical by the Syrians and preserved, unlike Al-Akid “Abu Shehab” (Bab Al-Hara) and any other idea that was proposed for Al-Akid. Al-Akeed, who was never, in their logic and history, anything but a representative of the class of the rich and the clergy. In a lengthy explanation by Philip Khoury in his book “City Notables and Arab Nationalism,” this can be discovered, the strong hand as the hand of power, and its cruel hand as well, contrary to what is being published and we got involved in it in order to imagine the savior as a strong hand.
Abu Antar, then, is consistent with a natural and non-fabricated reality. This is what made him continue to hoard a real image, the most extraordinary rebellion, the hypothesis (Lou), and his repeated presence in more than one dramatic context (according to Stanislavsky). Naji Jabr maintained a certain form of masculinity and its lapses when the male figure is violent. In the 1990s, the series “Shameya Days” connected the character more, through Antarah’s poetry. This is also an indication of her marginalized pregnancy in its ability to transform (Lou) into a violent and different connected context in governance, i.e. the possible end of the character, then the justification for its violence is to exploit it in resistance colonized.
There is something from Abu Antar in every male or child too, his success completes our rebellion once morest any higher authority. And the growth of the idea of power from the sixties until today also made “Abu Antar” remain as a kind of intimacy, to rebel once morest the supreme authority, and also with sarcasm. Each time it is mentioned, it constitutes an unconscious desire to be present or integrated into it.
Tracing the personality of “Abu Antar” is not only a tribute to Naji Jabr, but also an attempt to understand the history of Syrian art since its inception, the emergence of the political cabaret theater in Syria, and its transition to television. Especially since the role of Naji al-Antari is not created from the context of the writer alone. It has been known regarding the texts of Nihad Qalai that each “character” in it has a natural life within the text, meaning that the text is its first theater for creation, then the actor embarks on the character’s journey, correcting and drawing its dimensions. That is, Naji is the creator of the character with his own culture, awareness of his role, and making it for him.
Naji’s era was confined to the role of “Abu Antar”, not because of his weakness, but rather because of the lack of Syrian creative artistry in understanding the success of a character. Some kind of obsession in the character swallows up any excellent actor who masters his role and excels in it. Naji was swallowed up by his role forever, since the success of Abi Antar himself, and this is also repeated. Arab viewers have a desire for every star, even a Hollywood one, to be in a formula close to the role in which they love him and openly wish he would not leave it. In other extensions of the “Abu Antar” character following the “Sah al-Num” stage, the character grew a little, and the success of the series was linked to any scene of Abu Antar in his classic form, the violent, the bully, the prison leader, the rebel once morest the supreme authority. In this, Abu Antar will not succeed in renewing his context, nor Naji in highlighting his ability to be more clear, talented, and capable, but the survival of the character retained a symbolic and realistic character for once once more.
At every anticipated stage of the maturation of young men and women, there is the appearance of the funny violent, the cowardly violent as well, and the violent that the stages of personality development must overcome. Abu Antar is the symbolic context in its harshness and humor. In our countries that did not emerge from the beginning of the twentieth century, in its neighborhoods, the awareness of its inhabitants, and the narratives of fear of going out into the street, Abu Antar still has a huge presence, and any scene of him is enough to verify his reality, unlike any character that the Syrians tried to create for the character of Al-Akeed, for example, although Naji performed it in a way More realistic. Even his peers in the first work did not last long in memory.
Children have no attraction even to “Ghawar al-Tushi” because it is easy to repeat, nor to “Hosni al-Burzan,” who is poor at the level of acting talent, nor Yassin Bakoush in the role of the poor, kind boy. As for “Fatoum Hays Bays,” it was forgotten because today’s example girl will never look like the poor girl with the bathroom. It is worth noting that some monasticism dominated the role of Abu Antar, as he is also a model of masculine authority that abstains from women, meaning that watching him was also a self-made heroism in him, and this is also realistic. Many of those who are called thugs have an obsession with being loyal to their streets, their control and their pranks, more than they have an obsession with women. Abu Antar painted this with his devotion to violence, permanent rebellion, and the majestic physical nature that was associated with a different way of walking, and strong hands tattooed with emotional and violent symbolism. Even his body was an indication of how the body and its tattoos would be a special theater for understanding the personality.
