"The
Other Opinion"
By Hazem I. Kira
CA
Overcome by the news, the lone minuteman got into
his blue colored Toyota Tacoma and madly twisted
and turned down a dirt country road near the southern
border, shouting for all to hear like Paul Revere
on horseback," The Arabs are coming! The
Arabs are coming".
Only moments before the frantic driver was watching
Fox News when he heard that the infamous Arab
TV Channel, Al Jazeera, had launched its English
Channel invasion on American TV.
While Al Jazeera's inauguration caused uncontrolled
frenzy in some, it is in truth a symptom of an
emerging pluralistic media independent of the
'alphabet channels' or strictly Western sources
for news and analysis.
For a long time, the sad old joke in the Third
World was that to know what was happening on your
street you had to tune into BBC or CNN. Roughly
96 percent of the news that flowed into Third
World living rooms came from the First World.
Existing media in the region, was either state
run or sufficiently intimidated by a state. But
today, the media in the Third World is able to
tell its own story and in its own words, and equally
important, it can offer that perspective to Western
households. A viewpoint increasingly necessary
with expanded US presence in the Middle East and
Central Asia.
Modern technology, funding, and greater autonomy
have made it possible to break the relationship
of dependence on news information, and opened
the gates for large and small TV studios to inform
larger and larger audiences.
Recently, a domestic based Muslim organization
(the American Muslim Alliance) launched a television
program, Global Forum, to focus on major world
issues by inviting respected American figures
and commentators like former Republican Congressmen
Pete McCloskey and Paul Findley, intellectuals
such as Noam Chomsky and Zbigniew Brzezinski,
and immigrant leaders such as Nativo Lopez and
Ghazi Khankan. The studio makes it possible to
produce a first rate news analysis program, documentaries,
and highlight historical and contemporary Muslim
cultures, literatures and philosophical traditions
This flourishing alternative media shows us the
other side of wars in Iraq and Lebanon, raises
public's awareness about democracy, human rights,
pluralism, international cultures, politics and
even literature, which in the past was dealt with
through mostly overused clichés and rhetorical
speech.
Al Jazeera's motto of "The opinion and the
OTHER opinion" may not seem as catchy as
CNN's "The Most Trusted Name in News"
or Fox New's "Fair and Balanced Reporting",
but, nevertheless, is reflective of the new global
reality of access to views from all sides.
In the end, however, what will probably take place
is what happened with radio. With so many options
people will watch what matches their own personal
bias, and in the end diversity of options will
be limited by one's narrow preferences. For the
sake of our common futures, perhaps each of us
should step out of our comfort zone and watch
and listen to all sides, as uncomfortable as that
may sound.
(Hazem Ibrahim Kira is a syndicated columnist
and political analyst who works in the San Fransico
Bay Area. hazemkira@yahoo.com)
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