WHAT THE MUSLIM WORLD IS WATCHING
New York Times Magazine, November 18, 2001
Fouad Ajami
Al Jazeera is not subtle television. Recently, during a lull in its nonstop coverage of the raids on Kabul and the street battles of Bethlehem, the Arabic-language satellite news station showed an odd but telling episode of its documentary program "Biography and Secrets." The show's subject was Ernesto (Che) Guevara. Presenting Che as a romantic, doomed hero, the documentary recounted the Marxist rebel's last stand in the remote mountains of Bolivia, lingering mournfully over the details of his capture and execution. Even Che's corpse received a lot of airtime; Al Jazeera loves grisly footage and is never shy about presenting graphic imagery.
The episode's subject matter was, of course, allegorical. Before bin Laden, there was Guevara… As for the show's focus on C.I.A. operatives chasing Guevara into the mountains, this…was clearly meant to evoke the contemporary hunt for Osama…
Al Jazeera, which claims a global audience of 35 million Arabic-speaking viewers, may not officially be the Osama bin Laden Channel--but he is clearly its star…The channel's graphics assign him a lead role: there is bin Laden seated on a mat, his submachine gun on his lap; there is bin Laden on horseback in Afghanistan, the brave knight of the Arab world. A huge, glamorous poster of bin Laden's silhouette hangs in the background of the main studio set at Al Jazeera's headquarters in Doha, the capital city of Qatar.
On Al Jazeera (which means "the Peninsula"), the Hollywoodization of news is indulged with an abandon that would make the Fox News Channel blush. The channel's promos are particularly shameless. One clip juxtaposes a scowling George Bush with a poised, almost dreamy bin Laden; between them is an image of the World Trade Center engulfed in flames. Another…opens with a glittering shot of the Dome of the Rock. What follows is a feverish montage: a crowd of Israeli settlers dance with unfurled flags; an Israeli soldier fires his rifle; a group of Palestinians display Israeli bullet shells; a Palestinian woman wails; a wounded Arab child lies on a bed. In the climactic image, Palestinian boys carry a banner decrying the shame of the Arab world's silence.
Al Jazeera's reporters are similarly adept at riling up the viewer. [M]ost are either pan-Arabists…or Islamists who draw their inspiration from the primacy of the Muslim faith…Since their primary allegiance is to fellow Muslims, not Muslim states [they] have no qualms about challenging the wisdom of today's Arab rulers. Indeed, Al Jazeera has been rebuked by the governments of Libya and Tunisia for giving opposition leaders…significant air time. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia…have complained about Al Jazeera's extensive reporting on the misery of Iraqis living under sanctions. But the five-year-old station has refused to be reined in [and] openly scorns…the state-run Arab media and the quiescence of the mainstream Arab press…which play down controversy and dissent.
Compared with other Arab media outlets, Al Jazeera may be more independent--but it is also more inflammatory. For the dark side of the pan-Arab worldview is an aggressive mix of anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism, and these hostilities drive the station's coverage…Although Al Jazeera has sometimes been hailed in the West for being an autonomous Arabic news outlet, it would be a mistake to call it a fair or responsible one…Al Jazeera deliberately fans the flames of Muslim outrage.
Consider how Al Jazeera covered the second intifada, which erupted in September 2000. The story was a godsend for the station; masked Palestinian boys aiming slingshots and stones at Israeli soldiers made for constantly compelling television. The station's coverage of the crisis barely feigned neutrality. The men and women who reported from Israel and Gaza kept careful count of the "martyrs." The channel's policy was firm: Palestinians who fell to Israeli gunfire were martyrs; Israelis killed by Palestinians were. Israelis killed by Palestinians….The station played and replayed the heart-rending footage of 12-year-old Muhammed al-Durra, who was shot in Gaza and died in his father's arms. The images' ceaseless repetition signaled the arrival of a new, sensational breed of Arab journalism. Even some Palestinians questioned the opportunistic way Al Jazeera handled the tragic incident. But the channel savoured the publicity and the controversy…
Since Sept. 11, I discovered, Al Jazeera has become only more incendiary. [S]eething dispatches from the "streets of Kabul" or the "streets of Baghdad" emphasize anti-American feeling. The channel's numerous call-in shows welcome viewers to express opinions that in the United States would be considered hate speech. And, of course, there is the matter of Al Jazeera's "exclusive" bin Laden videotapes. On Oct. 7, Al Jazeera broadcast a chilling message from bin Laden that Al Qaeda had delivered to its Kabul bureau. Dressed in a camouflage jacket over a traditional thoub, bin Laden spoke in ornate Arabic, claiming that the terror attacks of Sept. 11 should be applauded by Muslims. It was a riveting performance--one that was repeated on Nov. 3, when another bin Laden speech aired in full on the station. And just over a week ago, Al Jazeera broadcast a third Al Qaeda tape, this one showcasing the military skills of four young men who were said to be bin Laden's own sons.
The problem of Al Jazeera's role in the current crisis is one that the White House has been trying to solve. Indeed, the Bush administration has lately been expressing its desire to win the "war of ideas," to capture the Muslim world's intellectual sympathy and make it see the war against bin Laden as a just cause. There has been talk of showing American-government-sponsored commercials on Al Jazeera. And top American officials have begun appearing on the station's talk shows. But my viewing suggests that it won't be easy to dampen the fiery tone of Al Jazeera. The enmity runs too deep.
Indeed, the truth is that a foreign power can't easily win a "war of ideas" in the Muslim world. Sure, we can establish "coalition information centers"--as the administration has in Washington, London and Islamabad--and dispatch our diplomats on "listening tours." We can give Al Jazeera extended access to the highest American officials and hope that these leaders will make an impression on Arab viewers. But anti-Americanism is a potent force that cannot be readily dissolved.
What's more, Al Jazeera is a crafty operation. In covering the intifada, its broadcasters perfected a sly game…mimicking Western norms of journalistic fairness while pandering to pan-Arab sentiments. In a seemingly open-minded act, Al Jazeera broke with a widespread taboo…and interviewed Israeli journalists and officials, including Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres. Yet at the same time, it pressed on with unrelenting anti-Zionist reportage… What this means is that no matter how many Americans show up on Al Jazeera, the station will pursue its own oppositional agenda. Al Jazeera's reporters see themselves as "anti-imperialists." These men and women are convinced that the rulers of the Arab world have given in to American might; these are broadcasters who play to an Arab gallery whose political bitterness they share--and feed. In their eyes, it is an unjust, aggressive war they are covering in Afghanistan….
Al Jazeera has a regular feature in which it briefly replays historical scenes and events that took place on that calendar day. On Oct. 23, the choice was an event that had taken place 18 years earlier. On that very day in 1983, a young man in a Mercedes truck…struck the Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 Americans. The segment revisited the horror…the wailing of the wounded, the soot and ruin everywhere. The images were far more horrible than any I had ever seen of the tragedy. There was no sympathy in the narration, and a feeling of indifference, even menace, hung over this dark moment of remembrance. The message was clear: the Middle East was, and is, a region of heartbreak for the foreign power…
Al Jazeera began broadcasting in October 1996. The preceding year, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the crown prince of Qatar, did a most un-Arab thing: he pulled off a palace coup, taking over the government from his father (who was vacationing in Europe at the time). The young ruler promptly…set out to challenge Saudi primacy in the Gulf region. He hoped to underline his independence and give his small principality a voice in the world. The young emir had good timing. Soon after he ascended the throne, an Arabic television joint venture between the BBC and a Saudi concern, Orbit Communications, foundered over the BBC's insistence on editorial independence. The Arab reporters and editors who worked on this failed venture were eager for a new opportunity. Qatar's new emir gave them a new lease on life. With his fortune footing the bill, Al Jazeera was born.
The emir's child has grown quickly. Although it is by no means the biggest Arabic television channel, its reach is expanding [and] now reaches viewers in more than 20 Arab countries, mostly through private satellite dishes… Dishes can be purchased…for less than $100, and tens of millions of Arab families now own them. They are as common in Cairo slums as they are in Dubai mansions. Al Jazeera beams its signal free of charge to most countries. Outside the Arab world…it is offered as part of a subscription service. In the United States, around 150,000 subscribers pay the Dish Network between $22.99 and $29.99 a month to receive Al Jazeera…
The pride of Al Jazeera lies, without a doubt, in its heavily promoted talk shows…One enormously popular program…is "Al-Sharia wa al-Hayat," or "Islamic Law and Life." The program… is…like "Larry King Live"; an interview with a guest is followed by questions and comments from viewers. One recent evening, the guest of the program was Sheik Muhammad Ibrahim Hassan, a young Islamic preacher… Hassan was fierce; it was easy to imagine him inciting a crowd… Hassan really knew how to milk the medium. In an extended monologue, he declared that the Islamic community, the pan-national umma, was threatened everywhere--in Palestine, Iraq, Chechnya, Kashmir, Afghanistan, the Philippines…Then he did something you never see on "Hardball": he broke into free-flowing verse. There was no shred of paper in front of him; this was rote learning and memorization:
Oh Muslims, we have been dying for centuries/ What are we/ in this world?… We are bloodied corpses, /And our blood is being shed./ Oh the honour of Islam,/ How that honor is being violated…/ We strayed from the faith, /And the world darkened for us. If the root dies, /The branches and the leaves will die...
Next, a viewer named Hazem Shami--from Denmark, of all places--came on the line. "Peace be upon you," he began. "The insistence of the colonizing nations, with America as their leader, on tying Islam to terrorism is merely due to the fact that America considers Islam as the sole obstacle to its hegemony over the Islamic world"…The man in Denmark had posed no question, but Hassan nonetheless took his bait. "The Jews are the ones responsible for spreading this hostile view of Islam," the preacher explained. "The Jews dominate the Western media, and they feed the decision-makers this distorted view of Islam. No sooner did the attacks in America take place, the Jews came forth accusing the Muslims, without evidence, without proof."…
Al Jazeera is the only Arab television station to have achieved global fame, but its status is inflated. The truth is, other Arab channels reach much wider audiences. The oldest, most successful of the pan-Arab satellite stations is the London-based Middle East Broadcasting Centre…controlled by an in-law of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia….[I]ts reporters are…careful not to incur the wrath of Arab rulers…There is also the hugely popular Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International. LBCI is loaded with entertainment programming, but it also regularly presents news…Syria dominates the Lebanese world, and its news broadcasts avoid broadcasting anything that would offend…
Al Jazeera's viewers see things that people of the region are clearly not meant to see. On Oct. 21, Al Jazeera offered silent footage of Bright Star, a joint Egyptian-American military exercise…It was a potent commentary on…cooperation of the Egyptian military with the Pentagon. And despite the fact that its coverage of the intifada was horribly slanted, Al Jazeera should get some credit for being one of the few Arab TV stations to interview Israelis.
That said, Al Jazeera's virulent anti-American bias undercuts all of its virtues. It is…a dangerous force. And it should treated as such by Washington…There is a better strategy available to Washington. Instead of focusing on Al Jazeera, the White House could grant "pool interviews" to a large number of Arab stations. It could give the less inflammatory satellite stations, like MBC and LBCI, as much attention as Al Jazeera. Or, indeed, it could give them more. After all, MBC has a bigger audience; shouldn't it have a bigger influence, too? Why not give MBC the scoop of an interview with President Bush? Why not give LBCI some exclusive access to White House officials?
Americans must accept that they are strangers in the Arab world. We can barely understand, let alone control, what Al Jazeera's…reporters…are saying about us. An American leader…interviewed on Al Jazeera will hardly be able to grasp…the hidden meanings, suggested by its hostile reporters. No matter how hard we try, we cannot beat Al Jazeera at its own game. But one thing is sure: there is no need to reward a channel that has made a name for itself through…anti-Americanism…
The only thing America can do is make sure that it never gives this radicalism--and its satellite channel--a helping hand. |
