Tomorrow's Pioneers | |
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Farfour the mouse
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Created by | Hazim Al-Sha'arawi |
Directed by | Fathi Hamad |
Creative director(s) | Samir Abu Muhssen |
Presented by | Hazim Al-Sha'arawi |
Starring |
Saraa Barhoum Samir Abu Muhssen Mohammad Ramadan Hazim Al-Sha'arawi |
Voices of | Samir Abu Muhssen (as Nahoul) Hazim Al-Sha'arawi (as Nahoul and Uncle Hazim) Mohammad Ramadan (as Assoud) |
Original language(s) | Arabic |
No. of seasons | 4 |
No. of episodes | 17 |
Production | |
Producer(s) | Samir Abu Muhssen |
Location(s) |
Al-Aqsa TV Gaza Strip |
Editor(s) | Hazim Al-Sha'arawi |
Running time | 60 minutes per episode |
Release | |
Original network | Al-Aqsa TV |
Original release | April 13, 2007 – October 16, 2009 |
Tomorrow's Pioneers (Arabic: رواد الغد; also The Pioneers of Tomorrow) is a children's program, last broadcast on October 16, 2009 on the Palestinian Hamas-affiliated television station, Al-Aqsa TV (Arabic: مرئية الأقصى قناة الأقصى). The show features young host Saraa Barhoum and her co-host, a large costumed animal as they perform skits (or "scenes") and discuss life in Palestine in a talk show fashion with call-ins from children (typically of age 9–13 with some as young as 3). Presented in a children's educational format similar to such shows as Sesame Street or Barney & Friends, Tomorrow's Pioneers is highly controversial as it contains antisemitism, Islamism, anti-Americanism, and other anti-Western themes.
The show, brought to Western attention by pro-Israel organizations such as Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI, supposedly deals with Islamic traditions and lifestyles, some as innocuous as the importance of drinking milk, and Muslim customs such as performing one's daily prayers, but also advocates messages of Islamism such as "Resistance Jihad", and the loathing of Israel, the capitalist economic system, the United States, and western world.
According to Palestinian Media Watch, two animal character co-hosts, the Mickey Mouse look-alike Farfour and Nahoul the bee were used to "champion violence, promote hatred of Israel and preach about world Islamic supremacy." Later in the show's narrative, the characters were, as the show described it, "martyred," with the deaths either directly or implicitly blamed on "The Jews, Israel, Israelis, and/or what they believed to be Zionists."