Mamoun Fandy
Interviewed about Arab media:
wnyc.org
full text also at
Message 20498846
some exerpts
MAMOUN FANDY "Privately, there is a different reality in the Arab world that's not captured by the Arab media represented by the pan Arab media, like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya and other news channels. But also, the journalists themselves, there is the intimidation factor - the fear factor. I mean, these terrorists killed one of the major writers in Egypt, Farag Fouda, who challenged their rationale for this random jihad. These people are not reluctant to stop and kill in broad daylight."
BROOKE GLADSTONE: -- "so what you're saying is: those who would condemn the executions are afraid, and those who support it feel comfortable in doing so, because there'll be no consequences."
"...A second thing that's relating to Al Jazeera and other channels, and this is probably -might be seen as an outrageous statement by others - but Arab media is free under occupation. They are not free anywhere else; that they can report whatever they want from Iraq under the Americans or Palestine under the Israelis, but next door there was the killing of Kurds in Qamishli last month, in Syria, and Al Jazeera was nowhere to be found. There is a genocidal campaign in Western Sudan in Darfur, and there is no coverage of that.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And that's because--?
MAMOUN FANDY: Because the Arabs are doing the killing, to tell you the truth. I mean this is straightforward -- that if non-Arabs are doing the killing, then there is an outrage. If the Arabs themselves are victimizing other Arabs or non-Arabs, then somehow there is an amazing silence and, and somebody has to speak out about this.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Why do you think it happens? It's not simply because they're afraid of getting attacked by terrorists in their own lands. It's because, you say, of the prevailing culture.
MAMOUN FANDY: There is a general mood in the Arab world to deflect all the problems of the Arab world to the outside world, because governing regimes in that part of the world have very little legitimacy in their own lands, so mainly they live off the threat from the outside that the Israelis are going to get us and the Americans are going to get us, so therefore we don't have to think about our internal situation. There is this slogan that Nasser invented in the '60s [SPEAKS IN ARABIC LANGUAGE] -- "No voice should prevail over the voice of war." That's the dominant slogan, and continues until today. " |
