Acclaimed filmmaker M Night Shyamalan is known for his ability to craft stories – and on the sidelines of this week's pivotal Nato summit, he came to Washington in a bid to convince Congress to pay more attention to Syria.
“It is a fascinating discrepancy, the energy around Ukraine versus the energy around Syria, when they're almost identical situations with identical perpetrators,” Shyamalan said on Capitol Hill.
Speaking alongside his wife Bhavna Shyamalan, a psychologist and cofounder of the M Night Shyamalan Foundation, the couple spoke to The National after a hearing with the congressional Helsinki Commission on Russia's mirrored influences in both Syria and Ukraine.
Shyamalan testified alongside Syrian Emergency Task Force executive director Mouaz Moustafa and the Syrian-American civil society leader Mohammed Alaa Ghanem.
The Shyamalan Foundation supports Mr Moustafa and his work with SETF, and the Shyamalans have also brought their children into north-west Syria for visits alongside the Washington-based organisation.
World leaders have descended on the US capital city this week, rallying Nato support for Ukraine's defence against the Russian invasion.
For the Shyamalans and the Syrian advocates they joined in Congress on Wednesday, the Syrian plight, and Moscow's defining role in it, must also be addressed.
“The prejudice that we feel in the United States about countries that are not white versus countries that are white, and oh my gosh, the white ones are 'us' and the brown ones are 'oh, they're troubled over there,'” Mr Shyamalan said.
“That's deep in our genetics of how we react. But those things hopefully will change, and that's partly why we were here, to say it's the same. It's the same.”
Russia has played a decisive role in the Syrian conflict since 2015, providing air power to Syrian and Iranian-backed ground forces that has propped up President Bashar Al Assad’s territorial control and solidified the regime’s hold on power.
Mr Ghanem told the committee: “Russia got away with it all. A lesson that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin noted and replicated again in Ukraine.”
The hearing unfolded at the same time that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy worked his way through Capitol Hill in a bid to solidify congressional support – after US President Joe Biden announced a “historic donation” of long-range air defence systems to Kyiv.
Mr Moustafa added that “it's incredibly important that this hearing is happening on the sidelines of the Nato summit”.
“Because Ukraine wouldn't be where it is today if we had done something about Russia and Syria, and we can still do something about Russia in Syria and Ukraine,” he told The National.
Ms Shyamalan said that her husband was trying to portray to congressional leaders “the very human side” of the continuing conflict in Syria, and the hearing largely touched on the refugee crisis the conflict has created.
According to a 2023 UN report, the war in Syria has killed 230,224 civilians, including 15,272 who died due to torture, in addition to the arbitrary arrest/enforced disappearance of 154,817 others.
An estimated 14 million citizens have been displaced, and Mr Ghanaam argued that Russia is deeply implicated, with Europe grappling with the effects today.
“Russia dropped tens of thousands of tonnes of munitions on residential areas in Syria … Now, after they left, Putin realises that there is a great potential for using these massive refugee flows, to destabilise domestic European politics, especially with fuelling the rise of the far right,” he said.
Ms Shyamalan emphasised: “There's no bigger human rights issue right now, other than all of the killing that's happening in Syria from Assad.
“It's hard to know if there's going to be movement forward, but it was really hopeful to see both sides come together in this bipartisan way.”
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
PROFILE OF HALAN
Started: November 2017
Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: transport and logistics
Size: 150 employees
Investment: approximately $8 million
Investors include: Singapore’s Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypt’s Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar
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The five pillars of Islam
Lexus LX700h specs
Engine: 3.4-litre twin-turbo V6 plus supplementary electric motor
Power: 464hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 790Nm from 2,000-3,600rpm
Transmission: 10-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 11.7L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh590,000
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
If you go:
The flights: Etihad, Emirates, British Airways and Virgin all fly from the UAE to London from Dh2,700 return, including taxes
The tours: The Tour for Muggles usually runs several times a day, lasts about two-and-a-half hours and costs £14 (Dh67)
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is on now at the Palace Theatre. Tickets need booking significantly in advance
Entrance to the Harry Potter exhibition at the House of MinaLima is free
The hotel: The grand, 1909-built Strand Palace Hotel is in a handy location near the Theatre District and several of the key Harry Potter filming and inspiration sites. The family rooms are spacious, with sofa beds that can accommodate children, and wooden shutters that keep out the light at night. Rooms cost from £170 (Dh808).
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
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KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Zayed Sustainability Prize
THE BIO
Born: Mukalla, Yemen, 1979
Education: UAE University, Al Ain
Family: Married with two daughters: Asayel, 7, and Sara, 6
Favourite piece of music: Horse Dance by Naseer Shamma
Favourite book: Science and geology
Favourite place to travel to: Washington DC
Best advice you’ve ever been given: If you have a dream, you have to believe it, then you will see it.
The years Ramadan fell in May
Squid Game season two
Director: Hwang Dong-hyuk
Stars: Lee Jung-jae, Wi Ha-joon and Lee Byung-hun
Rating: 4.5/5
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Brief scores:
Everton 2
Walcott 21', Sigurdsson 51'
Tottenham 6
Son 27', 61', Alli 35', Kane 42', 74', Eriksen 48'
Man of the Match: Son Heung-min (Tottenham Hotspur)
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
Museum of the Future in numbers
- 78 metres is the height of the museum
- 30,000 square metres is its total area
- 17,000 square metres is the length of the stainless steel facade
- 14 kilometres is the length of LED lights used on the facade
- 1,024 individual pieces make up the exterior
- 7 floors in all, with one for administrative offices
- 2,400 diagonally intersecting steel members frame the torus shape
- 100 species of trees and plants dot the gardens
- Dh145 is the price of a ticket
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Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
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Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
Uefa Nations League: How it works
The Uefa Nations League, introduced last year, has reached its final stage, to be played over five days in northern Portugal. The format of its closing tournament is compact, spread over two semi-finals, with the first, Portugal versus Switzerland in Porto on Wednesday evening, and the second, England against the Netherlands, in Guimaraes, on Thursday.
The winners of each semi will then meet at Porto’s Dragao stadium on Sunday, with the losing semi-finalists contesting a third-place play-off in Guimaraes earlier that day.
Qualifying for the final stage was via League A of the inaugural Nations League, in which the top 12 European countries according to Uefa's co-efficient seeding system were divided into four groups, the teams playing each other twice between September and November. Portugal, who finished above Italy and Poland, successfully bid to host the finals.
