More on the tsunami

More on the Arab media's response to the tsunami.  The Saudi telethon continues apace, racking up enormous private contributions.   Abdullah al-Mahfouz bin Bayat, a Mauritanian Islamic preacher, writes in al Sharq al Awsat today that the emerging Muslim response to the tsunami offers a moment of hope, demonstrating that Islam is a compassionate religion.  The televised appeals are getting a lot of publicity, and collecting a lot of money. 

Over in Al Hayat, Ragheda Dergham describes the Arab response as "a tardy awakening for the Arabs [with] harsh lessons for the future."   Like Abd al Bari Atwan in al Quds al Arabi a few days ago, Dergham writes that the Arabs felt embarrassed too late by their weak response, and that their contributions now - which are still absurdly small - came in response to criticism and not as an honest, profound sense of human responsibility.  This really has become one of the most prominent themes running through the media commentary I've been tracking - criticism of Arab states, Islamic movements, and even public opinion for their weak response to the tsunami.  I'm still waiting to see if the media begins to take credit for forcing their leaders to change their tune.  In this piece, by the way,  Dergham asks an interesting question, to which I don't know the answer:  has (or will) the United States reached out to local Muslim or Islamist organizations to help with the relief effort?  Wouldn't that be a good way to begin to work together?

In a seperate piece in al Hayat, Dergham debunks the conspiracy theory that the tsunami was set off by an American nuclear experiment.   Good to see debunking of conspiracy theories in the Arab media, by the Arab media. A December 31 piece by Dergham pleaded for the world to use the tsunami disaster to recognize the need for "a global citizenship" to transcend national self interest, and got in some shots at American foreign policy along the way (but did not spare Muslim or Arab states, either - they also felt her scornful wrath). Some earlier pieces in al Hayat were more critical of the US.  For example, a January 3 piece by Abd al Wahhab Badrakhan emphasized that Bush only increased from $35 million to $350 million after receiving a lot of criticism (note that he did not use the real original figure of $15 million), and then explored the contradictions in the American global posture.

Meanwhile, in the regularly anti-American al Quds al Arabi, the columnists have begun to awaken on the tsunami.  Subhi Hadidi asks, observing the tremendous outpouring of global responses to the tsunami: "is this the same world which ignored the disasters of Rwanda and Congo and Darfur?  The world of occupied Palestine and occupied Iraq and occupied Afghanistan?  The world of Guantanamo prisoners and the Abu Ghraib prison and the massacres of Fallujah?"   Hadidi argues that global civil society and private citizens far outperformed their governments.  And he is scathing towards the United States and dismissive of American efforts and the motivations behind them.   I expected to see a lot more stuff like this, to be honest, but it hasn't been as prominent as you'd think.  But it is definitely out there. 

Meanwhile...when it looks at Arab media responses to the tsunami, MEMRI finds only conspiracy theories and anti-Americanism. You find what you look for, I suppose.  I look at the two most widely viewed television stations and two of the most widely read daily newspapers, and tell you what I find - including two arguably "anti-American" pieces, along with a surprising trend of self-criticism of the official Arab response.   MEMRI digs up a relatively obscure Saudi television station and an Egyptian tabloid saying what they want to hear, and then passes it off as representative of the Arab media as a whole.  Vintage.   

(In response to prominent American media picking up the MEMRI story about the nonsense on the Saudi TV station al Majd, al Hayat reports that the station director of al Majd has issued a statement that the contents of broadcasts do not necessarily represent the opinions of the station management.  The station manager points out that Shaykh Fouzan was only one of many guests on the program, and that his remarks were his personal opinion expressed in the course of the program.)

Comments

[alvin]

If this Egyptian tabloid and "obscure" Saudi program were to argue that You are to blame for the Tsunami. Would u think it's not worth mentioning, no big deal?:)

MEMRI did not argue that most of the Arab media claimed America set off the Tsunami. It's also not a matter of "seek and u shall find" since if you were to look at the myriad magazines and tabloids in, for example, Britain, Italy, Norway then you will not find such views expressed.

Cukoo views like this, however, are sadly ever present in the Arab media. Countless examples are given. Sad but true. For that matter, MEMRI often translates articles by progressive writers who scorn such thinking.

[the aardvark]

MEMRI found cuckoo views and only translated those. If it had said that there was a range of responses to the tsunami, translated a reasonable cross-section, and also included the ones that it did, then I would have no objection at all. But it didn't. It *only* translated the nuts. If this were your window into the Arab media, then you would be profoundly misinformed about the real range of interpretation of the tsunami.

To say that such views are "ever-present in the Arab media" or that there are "countless examples" is meaningless: what counts is the prevalence and context. Is this 1% of Arab media content or 50% or 100%? Is it on the most read and most watched sources? How did other Arabs respond to it? If you don't know the answers to those questions, then you just can not do anything serious with a cherry-picked outrageous quote.

If Arabs looked at FrontPage.com and World Net Daily and called it the "American media", or quoted Michael Savage and Ann Coulter as "American public opinion", you'd find it pretty outrageous (I think). That's basically what MEMRI's doing.