By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – –
In a bid completely to return the Middle East to the old system of strict government media censorship, four countries have demanded that Qatar close down the Aljazeera television channel.
Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates made the demands formally via Kuwait, which is attempting to mediate the dispute between the four countries and Qatar. The list also included a demand that Qatar close its diplomatic mission in Iran and largely cut that country off, as well as a demand that it cut off the Muslim Brotherhood.
Aljazeera, from the late 1990s, emerged as a fresh voice on the Arab media scene. Its philosophy was to report all sides of an issue. They routinely interviewed Israeli officials. They brought on US State Department spokesmen.
In 2011 when the youth revolts broke out in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Libya and Bahrain, the existence of an independent satellite television station that reported events relatively dispassionately was important. The Ben Ali regime in Tunisia had secret police fire on people and put them in the morgue or the hospital, and then it lied, denying that there were any casualties. Ben Ali’s son-in-law controlled much of the media that wasn’t directly in government hands.
Even Hillary Clinton, who on the whole did not approve of the youth movement, said she thought that Al Jazeera did a good job of reporting these dramatic events.
Al Jazeera has less independence now than it did in 2011, but it is still a wideranging voice that would be sorely missed if it ceased broadcast. It is accused of abetting the Muslim Brotherhood, but I don’t find that it gives the group much air time. As for Iran, you almost never see Iran news on Al Jazeera.
The revolutions of 2011-2012 in the Middle East unseated Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Moammar Gadaffi of Libya, and (for a while) Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen.
The four hawkish countries that made the demand that Aljazeera be closed are autocracies that enjoyed their previous media monopoly, and who are determined that nothing like 2011 ever happen again.
The joke used to be that Dubai-based al-Arabiya reported on everything but Saudi Arabia, and al Jazeera reported on everything but Qatar, but if you put them together, you could find out almost everything.
That joke would go onto the trash heap of history if Saudi Arabia and Egypt get their way.
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Despite all their protestations to the contrary, it is now clear that what really bothers the medieval autocrats in the Persian Gulf littoral states most is their citizens’ access to any other form of media, especially in Arabic, that is a little more open to the outside world than their own tightly controlled propaganda outlets. This also shows the hollowness of the claims of the new Saudi crown prince and strongman Mohammed bin Salman that he is a reformer and wants to bring real change to his country, because he and the UAE Crown Prince Muhammad bin Zayed Al Nuhayyan have been the main drivers behind the move to isolate Qatar and to close down Aljazeera.
This is no longer a local or Arab issue but goes to the heart of free speech. Aljazeera certainly has many faults, especially in it coverage (or the lack of it) of Qatar’s domestic issues, but it certainly is a breath of fresh air compared to other stale Arabic channels. Aljazeera has been mainly responsible for opening the eyes of young Arabs to the realities in the outside world, and this knowledge cannot be unlearned no matter how hard MbS and his fellow-autocrats try. It is a duty of everyone who relishes free speech to go to the support of Aljazeera and to make sure that a relatively open media operates in the Arab world. MbS’s campaign against Aljazeera will fail in the same way that his barbaric attack on Yemen has failed, and it will only expose him as an over-ambitious, irresponsible and shortsighted dictator.
This is just another example of the state wanting to shut down any form of alternative narrative, especially one that contradicts or exposes the state for lies and corruption. There are plenty of people out there who would like to shut down the RT (Russia today) TV station both in the US and over here in England. As for the internet and blogs like yours professor, the deep state and the main stream media are working over time to close down all this “fake news” as they call it and so stifle any alternative voice or opinion. Whilst TV station like Aljazeera and RT etc are a thorn in the side of middle East states and the West, its the net that poses the most dangerous threat to the power of the state, that’s why its banned or under state control in many countries.
Why cannot Qatar simply ignore this?
Qatar’s citizen population is 300,000. Saudi’s is around 30 million.
I cannot imagine they will get away with this. Ayman Mohyeldin ducking shellfire day and night as he covered the 2008-2009 Israeli carnage from within Gaza was in my view one of the greatest pieces of journalism in the history of media. Surely its international audience is too large and its global respect too great. It may be Qatari but in a meaningful sense it belongs to us all. I hope its supporters get organised and make that clear to the despots otherwise the world comes under their yoke.
The Middle East is going backwards in time, and the US supports, arms, and protects the nations doing it. Is this how we take “democracy” over there? Attacking Arab nations where we cannot control their leader, has also added to this situation. Is this how the Western nations want the ME to be?
A festering wound, and we keep picking at the scab?
This recent intensity of animus toward Qatar doesn’t seem to add up. Similarly, the Saudis southern flank in Yemen would be more than a passing concern to them. But there must be more at play strategically to account for the scope of these two moves.
Another voice in the Middle East that Saudi Arabia is trying to silence
‘An attack on free thought’: Middle East Eye responds to Saudi demands:
Saudi Arabia and its allies have demanded the closure of a range of media outlets as part of their campaign against Qatar