How can Arabs influence Western media, combat its inherent bias and grotesque misrepresentations of the Arab and Muslim world?
Despite the perpetual need to address this issue nothing noteworthy has been achieved on this front, particularly after the attacks of Sept. 11, with the awesome, intellectual, social and cultural backlash unleashed thereafter.
Many of the attempts to bridge the gap between East and West have been crude at best. They facilitated the emergence of two groups of Arab intellectuals and media spokespeople.
One group was “uncompromising”. It refused to acknowledge that a Western audience has an entirely different frame of reference and thus cannot subscribe to an Arab or Muslim argument that simply conforms to what is accepted and what is not in an Arab society.
The other group just wanted to “fit in”. Intellectuals of this type told the media what the media wanted to hear. They preferred to draw the audience’s applause, rather than risk its taunts and heckling.
Needless to say, both groups have failed miserably. This is not to suggest that a common ground is far-fetched and that an eloquent as well as courageous third voice is impossible.
For many years, Israeli and pro-Israeli officials, academics and the like have been swarming American news networks, talk radio programs and opinion pages of American newspapers, large and small.
But if one is to discern their approach, he will find an almost complete deviation from the issue at hand. It is noteworthy to mention that in their rhetoric, they scarcely reveal that their ultimate allegiance is to Israel. They come across as very much American. Thus, they justify the killing of Palestinians in Rafah by contrasting America’s need to uproot terrorism in Afghanistan, and explain the suffocating closure of the occupied territories by referring to the US Army’s occasional move to seal Iraqi borders in the face of “infiltrators.”
If you take a moment to listen to an Israel media expert talking to Fox News about democracy, liberty, freedom and so on, it might slip your mind that the real goal of this expert-impostor is to justify the denial of democracy, liberty and freedom to someone else.
I cannot think of better conmen than Israeli and pro-Israeli “experts” in the field of media packaging. Of course Israel invests colossal sums of money in media training, the construction and operation of media centers in Israel and the United States and elsewhere. In short, Israel understands the impact of the media in the world, and takes this business very seriously.
Arabs don’t. Most Arab countries are nowhere close to Israel’s impressive media triumphs. Part of the reason is the uninterrupted corruption that plagues most Arab institutions.
In any given Arab country, chances are that those in charge of media and international relations are chosen based on anything but experience, wisdom and competence. Family affiliations play an important part, but also allegiance to the ruling party or close ties to men in charge. They lack fluency, persuasiveness and are “just too important” to submit to the notion of instruction or training of any sort.
One must not mistake this critique as a justification for the Western media’s deliberate bias. The reproachful tone used on CNN or Fox News to interrogate an Arab guest can hardly be discounted. It is this approach — accusatory and indicting — that drove one of the most eloquent scholars, late Professor Edward Said, to distance himself from mainstream media altogether.
But acknowledging bias should not be a justification for the ineptitude and ineffectiveness of the Arab voice in Western media. The issue of bias must be raised continually as a part of the ongoing debate on media ethics and fairness, not as a justification for shying away from the media challenge.
No surprise that Arab governments employ American PR firms, with total lack of knowledge regarding Arab affairs to revamp their image before Western audiences.
Most Arab countries lack the resources to engage in this important undertaking. Real potential resides in collective action. Countries such as Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia possess the financial and infrastructural resources to sponsor serious media initiatives, making use of the remarkable wealth of brilliant Arab minds brimming all over the world.
This is not a matter of policy, far from it. It is a cultural imperative, a response to the media pundits who justify the hard-line foreign policy of the Bush administration and sell wars and Abu Ghraib-like torture chambers as essential for American freedom, security and democracy. So how can Arabs influence the Western media? They must understand that one may succeed at getting away with corruption and incompetence in any field, but not in the field of media.
