Away From Politics… Close to the Arts… Making a Dinosaur Out of Your Hands is of No Use to You

Dr. Shams El Din Younis

In 1993, specifically in July, my feet led me, driven by Macbethian ambition, to the city whose whales die of cold, as Tayeb Salih described it, or the city of fog, as others call it… I headed there, gentlemen, seeking a theatrical education to follow in the footsteps of my teacher, Dr. Othman El Badawi… My destination was the same university where he studied, so I was accepted for my MPhil/PhD. Master’s/Doctor of Philosophy degree in Theater Sciences, upon the recommendation of Dr. Khaled Al Mubarak, or so the papers say.

My destination was Lancaster University in northern Britain, where the Lake District is the home of the poet Werthworth and where that sofa is on the door of his house, on which is written: It is free like air. Free to sit in the open air.

The important thing, gentlemen, so as not to prolong our digression, is that since the Yemenia Airways plane landed on one of the runways of Gatwick Airport, I noticed that there were black and red posters of the legendary and extinct mythical creature (the dinosaur) filling the airport halls with the words Jurassic Park written on them. At first, I ignored the matter.. and as soon as I finished the passport procedures and went out to the train station that would take me to the city centre, I took the bus to Sudan House in the (Rutland Gate) area, where I would spend the night there and then travel to Lancaster… and on my way to it… the signs and posters still filled the horizon, and the name of dinosaurs was everywhere… I spent that night, and the image of dinosaurs still crowded my mind and imagination; what could be happening…? but I did not ask anyone about the matter, as is the habit of the Sudanese, we do not stop at the details, so we do not understand the whole… and some things and their meanings do not attract our attention…

Early in the morning, I went out for a walk around the area before going to Lancaster… I was surprised when I entered a store… a grocery store…, or a library, except that the picture of a dinosaur-filled the place… and the most surprising thing was when I entered a stationery store, I found everything dinosaurs: notebooks, pens, school bags, T-shirts, geometry boxes, everything dinosaurs… Here I began to wonder to myself… what is behind that (there is something strange about it)… But I didn’t ask anyone… only the Jurassic Park… no describer, no described, or any of the language details to clarify the matter…

The next evening, I headed to Lancaster and the pictures of dinosaurs still filled the places… the gardens… the buildings… the intersections, the shops… the palaces, and all the vital areas… I arrived at Victoria Station to take the bus to Lancaster, and that’s another story that we won’t discuss now. Dinosaurs filled the places from Victoria Station, passing through Birmingham to Lancaster. I arrived and my friend Salah Mohamed Othman, the engineer of this trip, was waiting for me, so he took me to the house where he lives in Lancaster… and in the morning after ten in the morning, he took me to the shopping mall in one of the shops… Oh my, dinosaurs still filled the places… Here I couldn’t control myself, so I asked him why everything was a dinosaur…??!!! He asked me what I meant. I told him everything I told you, my brothers… His usual smile appeared on his face… There is only a movie called Jurassic Park that will be shown soon… here… It is why this media and advertising campaign is ongoing… just so people would watch the movie… things aren’t that free…

– And what’s the truth of the matter

– We eat a meal of beans and then I tell you what happened

– Okay

We sat at the table eating fava beans and falafel…. He started talking to me about the movie: All there is to it, my friend, is that there is a movie coming out in theatres called Jurassic Park… directed by Steven Spielberg, one of the most famous Hollywood directors…

– Why don’t we go watch this movie and find out? ….?

– And the following week; The movie theaters started showing… So we decided one Friday to go to the Lancaster theatre, booked our seats, bought two packs of popcorn, nuts, and cola, and went to our seats… The movie starts with a story that revolves around the establishment of a zoo for extinct animals in one of the Costa Rican regions. There was a wealthy businessman named John Hammond who dreamed of establishing a zoo for extinct animals in remote Costa Rica. Several species of dinosaurs are cloned by taking the genetic material of the dinosaur from a mosquito that an archaeologist found inside a piece of ancient amber. The events of the movie then revolve around the owner of the farm and his assistants losing control of the dinosaurs and the dinosaurs are released from their cage to set out into the city to spread terror and destruction, terrorizing the hearts of the safe residents, some of whom took their belongings and emigrated, leaving behind all their possessions. In the movie, we see images of destruction and wrecked cars, and people begin to rush to escape from the dinosaurs that had taken over the island’s affairs… people are still struggling amidst the destruction and devastation…

To be close to the drama, drama does not tell us about something that has already happened but about things that could happen, according to Aristotle. Therefore, drama is more truthful than history.

And the levelling with your own hands overcomes your best… So does man contribute to the corruption of the earth with his ambitions, desires, and pursuit of immortality, which is an attribute of God… And does man escape from the kingdom of his Lord and leave his land and sky…