Why do so many Syrian actors want to be politicians?

There’s something wonderfully ironic in modern Arabic political language about calling the representative of the people in parliament “the people’s representative.” The word representative (mumathil) in Arabic also means “actor”, as in someone who acts in a play or TV drama. The Qur’an, for its part, had a rather more dignified term for “representative” — naqīb, or “leader.” One wonders: how did “actors” acquire such prestige? And why do actors now crave the glory of political leadership, when they already enjoys fame without the headaches of politics? Do they long for real power and not just the make-believe of cinema and the stage? The glory of the film star has outshone that of the poet, the writer, even the philosopher. Those poor souls are often unknown, unintelligible, and usually un…