Al-Arabiya: Death Makers

The Saudi TV station al-Arabiya has recently started airing a regular program on terrorism, with the neutral title "Death Makers."   

The most recent episode explores the psychological reasons that youth turn to terrorism.  Previous episodes include a profile of bin Laden, Zawahiri and Zarqawi, and a discussion of how terror groups acquire new recruits.  It should give a nice warm fuzzy feeling to those eager to see the Arab media take on the issue of terrorism and denounce extremism.  It should help al-Arabiya demonstrate to American officials its efforts in the war of ideas against terrorism and jihadism.  It fits like a glove within the general official Saudi ideological campaign against extremism, and serves an American interest in putting anti-jihadist programming out on to the Arab airwaves on a station which people actually watch.  Who could object?

Well... to make room for "Death Makers", al-Arabiya canceled Hisham Milhem's program Over the Sea.

Milhem lacks Salha's pretty face, to be sure.  But his program represented one of the only, and best, Washington-based talk shows devoted to bringing the American political debate to the Arab public, demystifying American politics and giving Americans direct access to an Arab audience.  Milhem routinely hosted a wide range of American guests, allowing Arabs to hear American differences and disagreements as they really exist.  Recent guests included Jon Alterman, Shibley Telhami, Ambassador David Welch, Amr Hamzawy, Edmund Gharib, Jim Hoagland, Richard Armitage, and Kenneth Pollack.   Al-Jazeera still offers Hafez al-Mirazi's low-key and informative From Washington, but those who distrust al-Jazeera might be concerned about that station having an effective monopoly on presenting American political debates to the Arab public. 

Milhem's show also represented one of al-Arabiya's only remaining live political talk shows - the lifeblood of what my book calls the "new Arab public."   I've argued often that the talk shows on Arab satellite TV have had a revolutionary effect on Arab discourse.  Not just by shattering taboos, although this did matter, but by presenting contention and diverse opinion as not only acceptable but as desirable.  Live, unscripted political argument defied the preferences of states to police the "red lines" of permissible political discourse.  Not every one of these talk shows offers an edifying spectacle. Many of them give platforms to obnoxious voices or disintegrate into screaming matches.  Others don't, and offfer arenas for very thoughtful political debate.   But in the aggregate, I see these talk shows as a vital force pushing the Arab world towards a more pluralist environment, contentious if not necessarily liberal.  As such, I see them as a key force pushing towards democratic trends in the region. 

Al-Arabiya from the start positioned itself as the antidote to al-Jazeera, and its rivalry with the Qatari station is arguably its only real reason for existing.  While its competition with al-Jazeera is often presented as its representing a liberal and moderate alternative, that has always been misleading.  It would be more accurate to say that it represented the views of its Saudi patrons, and more generally the pro-American Arab regimes (what we like to call the 'Axis of Pro-American Dictators').   So, it was more overtly hostile to al-Qaeda (in accord with the Saudi post-May 2003 ideological offensive against al-Qaeda), more supportive of the American project in Iraq (serving for instance as an agent of Iyad Allawi's doomed electoral campaign), more hostile to Hezbollah in the recent Israel-Lebanon war.   As a result it became the network of choice for most American officials who wanted to address an Arab public (Bush after Abu Ghraib, Condi Rice, John Bolton, even Rumsfeld).   It is also the outlet of choice for most pro-American heads of state:  King Abdullah of Jordan, Hosni Mubarak, and a variety of Foreign Ministers and other establishment politicians routinely grace al-Arabiya with interviews, while al-Jazeera tends to offer civil society activists, intellectuals, and other political opposition figures (along with Ali Abdullah Saleh just before the election, for some reason). 

But even as it pushed these pro-American positions, and preached a mantra of responsible journalism, it proved ever less open to live political talk shows.   Emad Dib's live call-in show Istifta Ala al-Hawa ran its last show in September 2005, Montaha Ramhi's Bil-Mursad ran its last program in January 2005, and now Milhem's has gone.  Giselle Khoury still has her big interviews with famous people, Turki al-Dahkhil interviews some really interesting people, and Hossein Shobakshi is good if wasted on a business show.   But for the most part al-Arabiya's programs are ever more dominated by the pre-packaged and pre-recorded.  Sometimes interesting or informative, but not a public sphere. I often disagreed with Milhem's political opinions, but at least he tried to offer a "better" public sphere than the al-Jazeera shows which he criticized.  That makes its cancelation a big loss for the Arab public sphere. 

Al-Arabiya no doubt had its reason to replace Milhem's show with "Death Makers" (ratings or whatever) and probably doesn't understand itself as pursuing an "anti- public sphere" policy.  (Probably.)   But it's an interesting theoretical and practical proposition to consider. How  is jihadism best combatted, and democratic ideas best spread?  Through pre-packaged programs disseminating a particular point of view from the top down?  Or by providing open forums in which various ideas hash it out in unpredictable, uncontrollable, and sometimes unpalatable public argument?   I don't think the answer is obvious, even though I obviously incline towards the latter.   But it's a question worth thinking about for those trying to get public diplomacy right. 

Comments

[Craig]

Maybe they should find a way to combine the two shows, with both of them co-hosting? You know, the old Dan Rather/Connie Chung bit? Well, actually that didn't work out that well, but it's still not a bad idea. I have to admit I'm a lot more liely to watch a news program with hot women than one with ugly old guys :)

I'm waiting for FOX news to hire Mona Eltahawy. Maybe she's afraid of getting death threats or something, but as far as I know there are no (full time) Arab news perssonalities on FOX. Seems to be the only demographic representation that's missing from their coverage and it's a major lack, in today's world.

[Ghurab al-Bain]

Very perceptive but sadly true. Hisham Melhem's program will be missed and it's removal is ironic since it was actually the best example of a moderate Arab nationalist, liberal, secular platform on pan-Arab satellite television. You some similar programs on LBC and others but they are far more limited, more parochial and sectarian, than Melhem would have ever allowed.