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Democratizing
Iraq
By Stephen Schwartz
New York Post | September 29, 2003
The Iraqi Governing Council has
issued a temporary, two-week ban against Al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya, the two
main Arab satellite TV networks - a move that points at center state the
question of how to forward orderly free speech in the liberated nation.
"Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya
will temporarily be excluded from any coverage of Governing Council activities
or official press conferences, and correspondents of the two channels will not
be allowed to enter ministries or government offices for two weeks," the
council said.
The council condemned the two
networks as harmful to democracy and tranquility in the country. The Baghdad
authorities cited the broadcasters incitement of violence and disorders, and
"journalism" that simply amounted to recycling the propaganda of the
former Ba'ath dictatorship.
The two networks make it seem
like every Iraqi is a jihadist "resistance" fighter looking for an opportunity
blow him or herself up, taking along as many of the coalition's troops as
possible.
Al-Jazeera could just as well be
called Al-Jihad: It typically features visceral anti-American and anti-Western
propaganda. Having repeatedly appeared on it as a debater, I can say that
fairness, balance and even basic good manners have no place when its
commentators weigh in on the United States.
But what do Iraqis
outside the Governing Council think? Happily, we can find out - because new
voices are being heard on the Iraqi side of the famous "Arab street,"
from websites to the burgeoning Baghdad daily newspapers.
Representatives of the Arab
networks pled innocent to the Governing Council's charges. But some Iraqis were
thrilled.
Only days before, an Iraqi commentator
named Tayseer Abdul Jabber Al-Alousi wrote, "Most of the Arab satellite
channels defend the former dictatorship and justify every one of its degrading
crimes against the Iraqi people. This outlook has stimulated certain Arab
leaders to pay off dishonest writers with petrodollars.
"Anyone watching these
satellite broadcasts will recognize the hatred of our Iraqi people that
emanates from them. They encourage terror, assassination, and some of them seek
to destroy our national unity through incitement of civil strife between
differing religions, sects, and ethnic groups. Some of these satellite
networks' correspondents pay people to say things that follow their destructive
propaganda line."
Al-Alousi does not write as a
Sunni or Shia Muslim, but as a defender of a single Iraqi nationhood without a
specific religious agenda. (If you read Arabic, check his columns out on www.geocities.com/Modern_Somerian_Slates.)
He says, "These satellite
networks never explain how to help or support the Iraqis. They never talk about
the [Coalition] heroes who did a lot for Iraq and who are working hard to
establish safety and security. They concentrate on crime, death, bombings, and
destruction."
His solution: Let the Iraqis
start their own satellite network to broadcast their real thoughts.
Another popular essayist, Abdul
Rahim al-Refai, seems to express the views of many Shias on the future of Iraq.
He also has things to say few audiences in the rest of the Arab world, let
alone Westerners, ever hear.
He warns that Iraq remains
threatened by the Saudis, who disseminate their state form of extremist Islam,
Wahhabism, around the globe. "According to the Saudi view," al-Refai
recently wrote, "Iraq deserves to be punished for being different .¤.¤.
the House of Saud oppressed us as well as its own subjects, for 35 years, until
Allah brought our liberation. Curses on the House of Saud!" (Arabic
readers can check out al-Refai's writings at www.nahrain.com.)
As the U.S.-led coalition faces
the challenge of Iraq, one thing has become clear: the technique and technology
of peacemaking have lagged far behind those of war. Coalition troops enjoy
awesome military advantages, making the most of 21st-century technology.
But their methods of winning the
hearts and minds of Iraqis remain bogged down in old habits. For example,
Western military officers have been trained to deliver information to the Iraqi
public through traditional civil affairs practices: loudspeakers mounted on and
leaflets thrown from the backs of jeeps.
Extremist incitement is hard to
counter by these methods -- or by direct censorship.
Free -expression as represented
by writers like Al-Alousi is the solution to the primitive extremism as
purveyed by Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya. It's time to assist Iraqis in creating
their own free and responsible media -- delivering a choice, not an echo.
And an Iraq-based satellite
network sure sounds like a neat place to start.
Stephen Schwartz, an author and journalist, is author of The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror. A vociferous critic of Wahhabism, Schwartz is a frequent contributor to National Review, The Weekly Standard, and other publications.