No one is indifferent to al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based Arab satellite television station. You can practically see the blood of US officials boil when they discuss it. To be sure, in the context of the dream of all Arabs being united and independent of foreign control, al-Jazeera is undeniably partial to Arab aspirations. But that does not make its news reporting untruthful. In fact, al-Jazeera, which US Secretary of State Colin Powell calls "horrible" and "slanted," is a pivotal vehicle for reform and change, which genuinely democratic Arab activists and the international community alike have been calling for.
So incensed has the US been, however, that it created its own Arabic language mouthpiece in the form of satellite station al-Hurra. Yet al-Hurra is forbidden from broadcasting within the
US, because it is state controlled. Arabs don't trust it, either. It demonstrated its lapdog status by never broadcasting images of
prisoners being abused inside Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison. In this respect, at least, al-Hurra fits perfectly within the tame tradition of Arab state broadcasters. The US, however, is not alone in challenging al-Jazeera head on. The BBC, which briefly ran its own Arabic language news station in the mid-1990s -- before closing it down because its Saudi funders were unhappy with its reporting -- recently announced that it will re-launch an Arabic language news satellite station. But instead of bashing or seeking to undermine al-Jazeera, politicians should encourage this bastion of free expression, recognizing that Arabs will need to endure a messy
process on the way to democracy. Along that tortuous route, the world's major powers are bound to be offended, probably quite regularly.
Television in the Arab world has for years been the mouthpiece used by ruling presidents, kings, and emirs to propagate their official opinions and nothing else. Elite military units usually protect radio and television stations, because they have often been
the first targets in military coups. Given this history, and the storm of calls for reform in the Arab world, it is a tragic irony that the US and the West have paid so little attention to the terrestrial Arab monopoly television channels. Indeed,
US criticism of al-Jazeera sounds more like special pleading because of the US' inept bumbling in Iraq than a genuine desire for free, open, and critical Arab media. If democracy means giving people a free choice, then there is no doubt that the choice of most Arabs is
for a television broadcaster that reflects their aspirations. In this sense, al-Jazeera is clearly biased, because it is run by Arab patriots and reflects Arab sentiment. But this is no more a crime than the fact that the US' media reflects American aspirations, and in times of war behaves like a cheerleader for US forces.
The key issue here is whether al-Jazeera, as well as American TV stations, are truthful in what they say. Al-Jazeera is certainly professional. Its leading journalists are Western-trained, many having worked for years at the BBC. In fact, al-Jazeera was founded only after the BBC closed its Arabic language station under Saudi pressure. Al-Jazeera's motto, "opinion and opposing opinion," has galvanized Arab viewers, because clashing opinions are rarely heard on terrestrial Arab television stations. Of course, when covering the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the US-led war on Iraq, al-Jazeera has not been objective. How could it be? But it did not make up facts; it merely reflected majority Arab opinion. On such fundamental issues of Arab consensus, it is simply illogical to expect an Arab broadcaster to be even-handed. Moreover, al-Jazeera has not been dumb to complaints about it. In July, al-Jazeera became the first Arab TV station to create a professional code of ethics. According to the BBC, the code defines with absolute clarity and transparency how al-Jazeera journalists are to behave, and sets clear divisions between news, analysis, and commentary.
As for al-Jazeera's journalistic performance, it is past time that the station be judged by respected professional journalists, not by US or other officials with a policy axe to grind.
A major university department of journalism working with Arab media critics, for example, could provide a much more honest analysis of the station's work.
If American, British, and other
Western officials are serious about reform in the Arab world, they must support reform-minded Arab individuals and organizations, even if those organizations make them uncomfortable at times. If that
becomes the West's standard,
al-Jazeera will rightly be seen as part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Daoud Kuttab is director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al Quds University in Ramallah, and of AmmanNet, the Arab world's first independent Internet radio station. Copyright: Project Syndicate
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS