Opinion, September 2003, www.aljazeerah.info
Human Price of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine
Israeli daily aggression on the Palestinian people
Mission and meaning of Al-Jazeerah
Cities, localities, and tourist attractions
Media crackdown shows true colors of Iraqi Governing Council
The Daily Star
9/25/03
The decision of Iraq’s Governing Council to curtail the activities of Al-Jazeera
and Al-Arabiya TV stations will do nothing to buttress the interim
administration’s claims to legitimacy, even less to lend it an air of
incipient independence, and absolutely nothing for its pretensions to
democratization. The vague accusations against the two television stations
are flimsy at best and smack of an awkward attempt to blame the media for
the failure of a temporary regime to make the populace forget that it
answers to an occupation force. Cracking down on Arab media can only augment
the powerful impression that the council consists of puppets.
The powers that be in Baghdad are not alone in being uncomfortable with the
new phenomenon of assertive Arab journalism. Outlets like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya
are frequently guilty of breathtaking bias, unabashed sensationalism and
other behavior that betrays just how low their standards are. But Arab
journalists are hardly alone in allowing personal opinion to affect news
coverage: Anyone who thinks otherwise missed CNN’s Walter Rogers gushing
about a “wave of steel” as he accompanied American invasion forces on their
push to Baghdad. And Arab governments are hardly in a position to be
intolerant at a lack of professionalism: What consistently infuriates them
is that for all their faults, a new generation of journalists is regularly
debunking the tired drivel supplied by the state-run and state-compliant
media organizations that have insulted the intelligence of Arab audiences
for decades. Al-Jazeera has led the charge and been tossed out of several
Arab countries for its trouble.
The difference in Iraq is that the Governing Council is not like other Arab
regimes, whose intimidation of journalists is just another tactic in
never-ending campaigns to silence dissent. The council operates with
multiple burdens, not least of which are its directly subservient
relationship to the United States and its self-declared mission to lead Iraq
from tyranny to democracy. Washington has never been shy about its disdain
for Al-Jazeera, so Paul Bremer’s implausible denial that he knew anything
about the decision in advance only confirmed that the council’s “decision”
came at America’s bidding. As for democracy, it cannot exist without a free
press, which is why it has taken root nowhere in the Arab world. The notion
that Iraq was going to be first, already battered, now lies crippled.
Democracy rests on a foundation of principles whose beauty lies in the fact
that implementing them is almost always inconvenient. No government is fond
of being harried by a persistent opposition, no political party is happy
when it loses an election and no government official is thrilled at having
his flaws real and/or imagined trumpeted in newspaper headlines.
Nonetheless, the response of genuine democrats is not supposed to be mere
acceptance of these annoyances; deep down, they should verily cherish them.
Non-democrats slap restrictions on television stations.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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