Ramzy Baroud's Blog

On February 12, 2008, Arab League information ministers issued a communique
outlining 'tough' guidelines for Arab satellite channels. The new guidelines
specifically prohibited the broadcasting of negative reporting of heads of
state, religious or national figures. 

In following days, a massive campaign of denunciation, led by those who felt
targeted by the new policy, joined by various rights organizations, ensued. The
communiqué was unfair, they argued, because it was largely political, and aimed
at protecting from censure the very individuals and institutions that have
brought about many of the ailments afflicting Arab societies and governments. Of
course, they were correct. 

How can the media in the Arab world fulfil its duties - as a platform from
which civil society is able to monitor the state, and hold to account those who
deviate from the principles of the relevant social and political contracts –
under such ‘guidelines’? 

While only two countries – Qatar and Lebanon – refused to sign, many
intellectuals, journalists and rights advocates protested. However, Abd A-Rahman
A-Rashid, general manager of the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya satellite channel, told
the Media Line website that the Arab ministers’ guidelines were largely
ineffectual and would not stop the spread of information. 

The story in the West naturally generated immense interest; for once again
Arabs were wrangling with issues of freedom of expression, a value for which
successive US administrations have supposedly advocated.

More, forums were abruptly held where the official transgressions of Arab
governments were candidly chastised. In its monthly policy discussion, the
Brookings Centre Doha raised the question: ‘Forward or backward? The 2008 Arab
satellite TV charter and the future of Arab Media, society and democracy’.
Speakers included Saad Eddin Ibrahim, professor of Political Sociology at the
American University in Cairo, Ibrahim Helal, deputy managing director, Al
Jazeera English, and Michael Ratney, Charge d’Affaires at the American
embassy. The session was chaired by Hady Amr, director of the Brookings Doha
Centre and fellow at the Saban Centre for Middle East Policy at the Brookings
Institute. The Saban Center at the Brookings Institute is headed by Martin
Indyk, former US Ambassador to Israel, and despite his personal dedication to
the cause of Israel, remains one of the most frequent guests on Arab TV
stations. 

What is painted to look like a classic conflict between corrupt governments and
their fed up constituencies, the former labouring to gag the latter’s freedom
of expression, is a lot more convoluted. It is not that the corrupt elites are
not indeed labouring to suppress dissent, or that the suppressed multitudes are
not fiercely fighting back. In fact, it’s this relationship that constitutes
the push and pull which came to define Arab media in the first place. But who
has decided that Arab satellite stations – or pan Arab print publications or
other forms of media – represent in any way the interests of Arab masses, or
have improved in any measurable way the welfare of Arab people, especially the
poorer, discounted classes? 

More, how could entities such as the Brookings Institute and its Saban Centre
– known for holding and promoting policies that hardly deviate from that of
the US administration, if not its most rigid qualities - become themselves
mediators for such freedoms, which if genuinely granted would prove most harmful
to the US administration and its interests in the Arab world? 

So is the true state of Arab media, marred with confusion, uncertainty and
mixed messages. 

Since the advent of Aljazeera in 1996, something fundamental morphed in the
world of Arab media. We have heard this argument numerous times and for good
reason. True, but rash conclusions of ‘the Aljazeera revolution’ no longer
suffice. 

Aljazeera was not the only media forum that allowed for the expression of
tabooed views, while censoring others. Egypt’s Voice of the Arabs, during the
Nasser years, for example, decried reactionary Arab regimes left and right, and
it too enjoyed a large following amongst Arab masses from the gulf to the ocean
and beyond. Media technology has advanced immensely since then, and Aljazeera is
packed with less pan-Arab rhetoric and is much more discreet in its political
leanings. The fact that Aljazeera refrains from any serious criticism of Qatar
and is much more candid in targeting specific Arab countries is overlooked by
many since, frankly the world of Qatari politics is relatively trivial in the
greater scheme of things. 

Since then, numerous copycats have sprung up across the Arab world. Satellite
stations with or without political agendas have grown out of control and now
number over 500. This was accompanied by a massive surge of newspapers and
glossy magazines, most offering next to nothing in terms of content value. It
was a media revolution that lacked true substance, thus impacting little the
collective self-awareness of Arab peoples or the Arab individual’s need for
self-assertion in a time of considerable global transformation. 

Those who are on good terms with the official authorities can easily be granted
a license, and thus a new TV station or new magazine is welcomed into the fold.
Those who are not would only need to relocate to London or another, preferably
hostile Arab capital and resume his media ‘mission.’ Of course, funds for
such endeavours are available on conditions, either to refrain from bashing
certain entities and giving free hand to censure others, or to stay away from
politics altogether. 

With cheap American TV content and their Arab imitators, content per se is
never an issue. It’s quality content that poses a problem. To pretend that
such low quality programs haven’t deeply scarred Arab societies and their
cultural and societal identities is to defy reality, but that is for another
discussion. 

The fact is that Arab media is largely political, with political, religious,
nationalistic, even tribal leanings, affiliations and priorities. While some
media have done less harm than others, none represent the untainted exception. 

The Arab foreign ministers communiqué can be understood as a call for a truce
between various Arab governments: you hold your journalists back from attacking
me, I’ll hold mine. It’s neither a call for the suppression of civil society
nor the gagging of free expression: the former is largely suppressed and truly
free expression never fully existed. 

Two points remain to be made; one is that dominating media in the West is
afflicted by similar ailments, themselves owned by big corporations that pander
to their respective official authorities, with the US being the most notable
example. 

And two, a truly independent media that is completely free from the whims of
individuals or those holding the financial or political leverage is only
possible in theory. What civil society usually aspires to achieve, however, are
mediums that are less bias, less totalitarian and as representative of the whole
as possible. This can only be achieved by collective struggle, organization and
pressure, using home-grown platforms, as opposed to imported ones. 

When civil society organizes and speaks out, neither a communiqué by a few
ministers, nor a decree by a totalitarian ruler can silence it.