Libertarian Librarian

Al-jazeera has been, and continues to be, largely a propoganda arm for Islamic Fundamentalists and Arab dictators. Just check out their lovely editorial cartoons (animated, no less!) at the bottom of their home page to get a lively dose of AJ's opinion of the West and the American Satan. But please, please, please, let us not flush any Qu'rans.

And yet.

Right next to the link to those lovely cartoons is a link to this article, by Soumayya Ghannoushi, who is a researcher in the history of ideas at the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London. She is also a woman, and she berates Al-Qaeda for the damage they have done to the "legitimate complaints" of Palestinians, Iraqis and other downtrodden muslims and arabs. What are the odds that even five years ago the major pan-Arab news agency would feature an anti-Al-qaeda editorial on its website, let alone one authored by a woman?

Yes, I know it is also an anti-Western, "you guys had it coming" blatheration that gets most of the facts completely wrong, and puts all of the blame for Al-qaeda's actions on the West. And yet. It's a muslim woman openly berating the chief muslim/arab terrorist organization on the chief arab/muslim news agency's web site. Money quote is the concluding quote:

But the mindless killing of the innocent in Madrid, or New York is the wrong answer to these real grievances. These are illegitimate responses to legitimate causes. Just as occupation is morally and politically deplorable, so, too, is this blind aggression masquerading as Jihad.

Why? Given Al-jazeera's track record, would you have expected them to run anything negative about Al-qaeda, or that puts even a smidgen of the blame on the actual terrorists rather than on the U.S., Israel, and Britain? I wouldn't have.

So why?

My best guess is globalization-- Al-jazeera is feeling the need to reach out to a broader demographic than can be found in Syria and Iran and the like. They need to reach average, normal Muslims and Arabs who don't really give a rat's ass about the Al-qaeda jihad, and who think that blowing up tanker trucks near a mosque might not be all that good of an idea.

There's also the question of legitimacy. The Arab world, the Muslim world, wants a news agency that the rest of the world finds legitimate. And being wholly in favor of the London or Madrid bombings, or covering only people who think that everyone in the twin towers on 9/11 had it coming doesn't get you legimacy. It keeps you on the fringes. If Al-jazeera wants to be seen as an actual news agency, rather than a propoganda arm, it must move towards the center.

Now, given that it started as far from the center as, well, these guys, there's a lot of wiggle room there. They can move a long way toward the center and still be well away from actually being centrist-- though given the leanings of the BBC and various other news agencies, the trip to where many Western news sources currently reside might not be that long a trip after all.

Still it's interesting. And slightly encouraging.

Of course, what is also interesting, and not at all encouraging, is that Soumayya Ghannoushi, a woman who clearly despises Israel and thinks that Bush's "fundamentalism" is equivalent to Al-qaeda's is a faculty member at the University of London. She is researching (maybe teaching-- it's hard to tell from the tagline) at a London university and she espouses the following:

The causes al-Qaida extremists speak for are certainly just causes. The sanctioning of genocide and occupation in Palestine, slaughter of hundreds of thousands in Iraq through exposure to depleted Uranium and years of barbaric sanctions first, then through bombing and shelling without bothering to count the dead, brutal invasion of the country, destruction of its infrastructure and humiliation of its people undoubtedly rank among modern history’s bloodiest crimes and darkest tragedies.

Got that? Al-qaeda is right, they're just going about illustrating their correctness in a wrong-headed manner. But I'm sure her personal beliefs and biases won't affect her moderate and balanced presentation of history and culture in her papers or any presentations she might make. Right?

Right?

Labels: Politics