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August 16, 2004
Guardian feature on Arab attitudes toward Aljazeera
Leader of the pack: Lisa O'Carroll reports from Qatar on how the satellite channel al-Jazeera has put the Gulf state on the map
I am descending in the lift in the plush, marble-clad interior of a five-star hotel in Qatar to rejoin an international conference which is ostensibly about Arab media versus the west but which has turned into something like a old-style Labour party conference, with tedious speech after speech.
The lift stops at the third floor and an Arab gentleman steps in. "Are you enjoying the conference?" he asks. "Yes," I reply politely, not wishing to offend in case he is an executive from al-Jazeera which is, after all funding the forum.
"I hate al-Jazeera," he declares, baffling me. And so the most illuminating discussion of my first morning in Qatar begins. With a man who has nothing to do with the channel but who has plenty of opinions about it.
"It's full of Palestinians," he snorts. "And they supported Saddam," he adds for good measure. At this point I start to laugh incredulously. I know al-Jazeera will never be flavour of the month with Rumsfeld or Bush but it is packed with ex-BBC staff and I hadn't expected such venom from its own quarters.
I linger in conversation to hear him enthusiastically explain that he is half Saudi and half Kuwaiti and the Saudis don't like al-Jazeera because it's sowing unrest in the Gulf region.
It was a theme that was to crop up again and again in my brief stay in Qatar - later in the conference a newscaster stood up to reveal that he is the only Saudi reporter at the station and that sometimes he feels as if he has committed treason."Joining al-Jazeera was an act against my own country."
To an untutored eye like mine, it is easy to assume that al-Jazeera reflects a uniform Arab perspective, but it doesn't, and al-Jazeera is long-accustomed to attacks from Arab regimes and people like my man in the lift who think the station serves as a platform for terrorists and suicide bombers.
Saudi Arabia and Tunisia are particularly hostile to al-Jazeera, which has been operating for eight years, and they have banned it from operating bureaux there.
"Many (Arab) governments don't mind having correspondents from al-Jazeera, as long as they concentrate on tourism or cultural affairs, but as soon as you talk about something that is a problem, you become an irritant," said al-Jazeera presenter Mohammed Krechan, before adding that the western press simply did not know what it was like to operate in such a hostile environment.
"It's like being one rat and being chased by several cats. Arab governments are running like a cat running after the rat, but then there is another big cat - the west," adds Krechan.
"The Saudis, the Tunisians, don't want anything to do with these channels," he said. "But among the Palestinians, the Lebanese, the Egyptians, Libya and Iraqis, there is an acceptance that you have to play the game. In Saudi, there is a complete shutdown in the interior and exterior level. These are countries that are closed from inside."
The Saudis haven't just singled out al-Jazeera - the BBC has also been banned from having a permanent presence in the kingdom until late last year, when they finally relented, although the office has yet to open as the BBC reviews the security situation in the wake of the killing of cameraman Simon Cumbers in a shoot-out in Riyadh.The hostilities between Saudi and al-Jazeera partly stem from historic border rows - one Gulf journalist privately described the relationship as similar to that of Iraq and Kuwait - but it seems that it is more than that: al-Jazeera has now become the envy of the entire Arab world.
In just a few years the Emir has established an international reputation for Qatar in a way that a bigger and more powerful neighbour could never have imagined, and some feel that the Saudis have squandered the opportunity they once had to establish themselves as leaders in the Arab media world in the way that the BBC is considered one of the most important news-gatherers in the west.
"Al-Jazeera is an international force on a par with CNN and BBC News now. Eight years ago, nobody had ever heard of Qatar, now everyone has. Al-Jazeera has put Qatar on the map. I would go so far as to say it is like an army to Qatar, it shields it from criticism. Before, countries like Egypt could say what they liked about Qatar; now they are more reluctant because they know it will be reported on an independent news channel owned by Qatar," a Palestinian journalist who operates news agencies in the region told me later.
To rub salt into the wound, it is a position of international importance that the Saudis could have achieved, had it not torpedoed its joint venture - an Arab news service with the BBC - by taking offence and suspending the satellite network in 1996, after the BBC screened a Panorama programme, Death of a Principle in Saudi Arabia.
Despite criticism in the west, the channel has much to be proud of - its suspension from Baghdad last week is a further boost to its credibility as an independent operation.
I am assured by one of the senior Doha editors that it was the Emir himself who came up with the idea for al-Jazeera and that the channel now has so high a profile that there will never be a reason for him to interfere with the independence of the channel, for his own political reasons.
There is talk that al-Jazeera is looking to sell a stake to outsiders. This could only be to demonstrate its independence further, as it isn't a drain on the country's wealth. Although the Emir launched the channel with a budget of $ 175m and it costs tens of millions to run a year, that figure is put into perspective by the fact that his charitable foundation for education, science and community development has promised an $ 8bn fund for a new all-digital medical care and research centre in Doha.
Qatar, a former British protectorate that once made its fortune from pearls, is an immensely wealthy country with oil and, more significantly, huge gas reserves.
Such is the wealth of the country that all 120,000 citizens of the tiny emirate are guaranteed free water, free health care and free private education at home or abroad. This is a country that thinks nothing of reputedly spending £2m of al-Jazeera's budget on flying journalists and opinion-formers from all over the world for its media forum. This is not a country that needs outside investors for a TV news channel.
Posted by Matthew Burton on August 16, 2004 at 03:32 PM in Aljazeera | Permalink
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