Third Arab Bloggers Meeting, 3-6 October Tunis

I`ve been looking forward to this third edition of the Arab Bloggers meeting, the coolest Internet-social media related event I`ve ever attended. The last one in Beirut, 2009, was pretty amazing.

Sami Ben Gharbeia from Global Voices and Tunisian webplatform Nawaat, has just published the program of the first day.

For updates and Arabic version, please visit http://www.arabloggers.com

Day One: October 3rd, 2011

Doors open: 8:30
Start Program: 9:00
End Program: 5:45

Program Overview:

9:00 – 9:15 Opening

9:15 – 9:45 Rebecca MacKinnon: Fighting for Our Digital Rights: Threats and Opportunities.

Internet activism played an important role in the revolutions of Tunisia and Egypt, and in uprisings around the region. Meanwhile, a global struggle for control of the Internet is raging. It is time to stop debating whether the Internet empowers individuals and societies, and address the more fundamental and urgent question of how technology should be structured and governed to support the rights and liberties of the world’s Internet users. Even though the United States and European governments talk about “Internet freedom,” the truth is that the world’s democratic nations do not have clear answers for how best to balance law enforcement, national security, child protection, and economic interests with human rights and free expression on the Internet. All concerned citizens of the Internet around the world – global “netizens” – have an important role to play.

9:45 – 10:30 Panel Discussion: The Revolution Shall be Twitterised .

Moderator: Amira Al Husseini
Panelists: Sultan Al Qassemi, Manal Hassan, Ahmed Al Omran, Hisham Al Miraat, Ghazi Gheblawi and Razan Ghazzawi.

Twitter has played an instrumental role in the Arab revolutions. Many tweeps have worked around the clock, serving as relay stations, amplifying the voices of netizens across the Arab world. We held the megaphone for each revolution starting with Tunisia and then moving to Egypt. Following Egypt, the entire region seemed to explode. How did we manage to continue to cover the news, informing a growing audience of developments on the ground, tweet by tweet, minute by minute? On this panel, where we have tweeps with an overall following of more than 110,000 followers, we will examine different types of Twitter users, the measures they follow to verify their information and the journalism standards and ethics they bring to the table.

Sultan Al Qassemi (@SultanAlQassemi), from the UAE, commands a following of more than 78,000 on Twitter, providing up to the minute commentary on developments across the region; Egyptian Manal Hassan (@Manal) spent her days and nights at Tahrir Square witnessing and tweeting Egypt’s revolution to her 16,000 followers. With 17,000 followers, Saudi Ahmed Al Omran (@ahmed) continues to be a loud voice commenting on the Arab revolutions, surfing through heart-breaking videos from Syria and curating their content for us; Moroccan Hisham Al Miraat (@__Hisham), with almost 6,000 followers, reports on protests at home and the rest of the region from France; Libyan Ghazi Gheblawi (@Gheblawi) amplified news from Libya all the way from London and Syrian Razan Ghazzawi (@RedRazan) continues to use Twitter to tell us about the atrocities being committed by the Syrian regime.

Who are those tweeps? How do they work? Where do they get their information from? How credible is their news? What do they do to ensure that their news is accurate?

10:30 – 10:45 – Coffee Break

10:45 – 11:15 Moez Chakchouk: Towards the Development of internet in Tunisia: New challenges

The Chairman and CEO of the Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI), Moez Chakchouk, will highlight the importance of acting according to a clear strategy that needs to be adopted in the future for the development of Internet and broadband in Tunisia. This strategy should be implemented according to international best practices in the field and by taking into account the current situation of the country in terms of Tunisia’s achievements. We focus on constraints that have hindered more than a decade for any initiative or action from Internet stakeholders including civil society, private sector, public sector, multinational companies and foreign investors, etc. What is noteworthy is to tell the community of bloggers to participate in the dialogue on Internet governance by adopting the principles of neutrality, freedom and openness of Internet as well as considering privacy issues.

11:15 – 11:45 Zeynep Tufekci: Beyond Tahrir: Networked Activism in Post-Revolutionary Transitions

2011 is turning out to be a remarkable year in the Middle East and North Africa region–and beyond. In some countries, citizen movements have already ousted long-standing autocrats (Tunisia, Egypt) while in others we have witnessed an eruption of anti-dictatorship civil strife (Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya and elsewhere). Networked activism played a role in most of these uprisings through multiple means ranging from countering state censorship of news to the supporting of an anti-dictatorship public sphere. However, there are significant differences in the structure of post-revolutionary transitions compared with the anti-dictatorship struggle. In this talk, I will discuss some of these differences and attempt to start a conversation about the role of new technologies in post-revolutionary politics in the 21st century in terms of both opportunities and limitations for networked activism.

11:45 – 12:15 Marek Tuszynski: Get the picture! Images, evidence and activism in times of transition

We all know certain images associated with revolutions, do they have any meaning beyond pure symbolism? What role and function do they play? How do visual communications change when we move away from mass political mobilisation into a context of advocacy and the creation of democratic processes? what can be the role of visualisation and data in these situations?

This talk will present recent examples from the region and ask many questions about the function, role and importance of images and the role of data in times of political and social transition.

12:15 – 12:45 Arturo Buzzolan & Jacob Appelboom: Crash course of Mobile (SS7) privacy and security

The SS7 protocol and network is what allows mobile phone operators to communicate with one another. When the SS7 network was designed and deployed well defined boundaries existed. With the liberalization of the market, these boundaries have been extended beyond a point that was not imagined. In a sense, the walls of the so called “”walled garden”” have been opened.

We will analyze SS7 in relation to GSM networks and in particular how anyone (even a “”non-telco””) is able to locate mobile phones. Some reference to real world examples will be given. People will be educated and made aware of issues related to privacy and security.

12:45 – 2:15 Lunch Break

2:15 – 3:15 Screening of Zero Silence, a documentary about the Free Wor(l)d

Presented by Alexandra Sandels

Zero Silence is a documentary about young people in the Middle East who have grown angry over the authoritarian regimes they live in. These young people are using the Web to bring about change in their societies where free speech is controlled or censored.
Among other topics, the production will explore the impact of the Internet and non-traditional media such as social media and whistle-blowing sites on the Arab world and beyond through a new generation that uses the Web to get the free word out to organize, mobilize, collaborate and fight injustice.

ZERO SILENCE – Trailer

3:15 – 3:45 Leila Nachawati: Citizen mobilizations and citizen communications: The Spanish 15 M movement and the Arab inspiration

How the Spanish 15 M movement emerged, inspired in the mobilizations South of the Mediterranean. Although the contexts are quite different and the Spanish population does not suffer the repression characteristic of Arab regimes, the way citizens all over Spain broke the wall of apathy taking public spaces back and organizing both online and offline shows a strong influence of the Arab uprisings. Institutional reaction to the movement and the tension between official narratives and decentralized citizen communications is also paralell to this tension during the Arab Spring and a global issue that affects governments and civil societies as a whole.

3:45 – 4:30 Panel Discussion: Tunisian Bloggers & Politics:

Moderator: Malek Khadhraoui
Panelists: Amira Yahyaoui, Riadh Guerfali (Astrubal), Tarek Kahlaoui, Mokhtar Yahyaoui, Mehdi Lamloum

On October 23, 2011, Tunisians will elect a national constituent assembly which will be writing the country’s new constitution. Seven Tunisian bloggers decided to join the election race. With more than 1700 electoral lists inside and outside the country, what will be the chance of the 7 Tunisian bloggers to be elected and what do they want to achieve?

4:30 – 4:45 – Coffee Break

4:45 – 5:30 Panel Discussion: Wikileaks and the Arab Spring: What is the Impact of Information on Social Change?

Moderator: Jillian York
Panelists: Mansour Aziz & Sami Ben Gharbia

On November 28th, only two weeks before the Tunisian revolution was sparked on December 17th, and just half an hour after the whistle-blowing site Wikileaks unleashed the cables, the Tunisian collective blog Nawaat launched theTunileaks site and published 17 US embassy cables in which President Ben Ali’s extended family was “often cited as the nexus of Tunisian corruption“. Following Nawaat, the website of Beirut-based al-Akhbar newspaper published dozens of cables from several Arab countries, and the site was forced to shut down following a hack and sophisticated DDoS attack. What was the impact of the release of these diplomatic cables, as well as other subsequent document leaks, on the Arab Spring? Was Wikileaks an ignitor of protest movements regionally and elsewhere as claimed by its video “What Does it Cost to Change the World?”

With two panelists from Wikileaks partners, Tunileaks and al-Akhbar, the panel will discuss the impact of the cables on the Arab spring and shed some light on the events and momentum prior to the spark of the Arab revolution.

What Does it Cost to Change the World? from WikiLeaks

5:30 – 5:45 – Closing Discussion

The Wadah Khanfar`s file part two

Since Wadah Khanfar stepped down from his position at Al Jazeera network few days ago, lots of speculation have  been going on.

I`ve got lots of emails and questions from friends, colleagues and readers of this blog.

…Why he stepped down, what`s the real story behind?

Of course I`m not aware of the real reason behind this move which left everybody with great surprise, happening just few months before the 15th birthday of the channel (had it been just a “normal” resignation, I dont think it would have occurred only few months before the biggest event planned this year, the celebration of Al Jazeera`s anniversary. That would have been simply more logic and logistically better to have the big boss leaving after, I guess..).

But I`m pretty sure about the reasons which did not play an important role in Khanfar`s resignation.

He did not leave the network because of the Wikileaks affair. The US has never been the real “enemy” for Al Jazeera but a great media story, the giant super power fighting the small channel which eventually wins and gets bigger and bigger. It has been like that since the very beginning.

While Al Jazeera was denouncing the US-led occupation war to Iraq in 2003, it was exactly from Qatar that this war was being initiated and the warplanes sent.

Officially, there are endless disputes between the US administration (much more on the Bush old one, of course) and Al Jazeera.

Under the table, US and Qatar are such best friends, and have been like that for many years. There is an agreement between the two countries, and being Al Jazeera the biggest diplomatic weapon in the hands of Qatar, it can not be out of the deal.

If Al Jazeera pulls its arrows against the US and its policies towards the Middle East, this does not change the fact that we are speaking about media arrows only.  It is a cosmetic battle, fought according the rules of media, not according the rules of politics.

To prove this, it would be enough to read the following piece, which was out few days ago on Kuwait News Agency Kuna. “US officials praise Qatar leadership in Mideast” , it titles.

The article tells about a side meeting between US  State Secretary Hillary Clinton and Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad  bin Khalifa al Thani which occured on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York.

The top issues being discussed during the meeting would have been Libya and Syria. Concerning the latter, a senior US official quoted in the same article by Kuna -but without giving his name- would have said that:

” ..given that Qatar has had a long relationship with Syria, the Secretary also raised our concerns with Syria with the Emir, because the Emir is able to talk to Syria in a different way than we’re able to talk to the Syrians”.

“They compared notes on how the region and the international community can, again, work together to push back against the type of killing and atrocities you see taking place in Syria, and to show support for the struggle of the Syrian people for dignity, freedom, and to participate in how they are governed”.

So what does this article tell us about Khanfar`s resignation?

First, that US-Qatari relations are excellent, so Wikileaks is just a media hype which doesnt ruin the ongoing honeymoon between the two countries.

Second, Qatar is the country to talk to when it comes to the Arab springs and the new Arab world map. The US acknowledges it, by holding separate talks with the Emir at the UN meeting. Indeed, Khanfar has indirectly participated in building this international reputation of Qatar, where Al Jazeera stands as a key diplomatic weapon in the hands of the Emir. And it was under Khanfar`s management that Al Jazeera became the “revolutionary network par excellence”. It was under his visionary leadership that it entered the new media space, becoming the “coolest” broadcast brand on the Internet, enjoying an extraordinary presence in social networks and social media domains. It was under Khanfar`s leadership that the network finally achieved a reputation as a global player even in the US (remember the  success of the “Demand Al Jazeera” campaign).

Third, Syria. This is probably the most obscure point, where Khanfar`s resignation becomes eventually tied to a sort of “political deal”.

“the Emir is able to talk to Syria in a different way than we’re able to talk to the Syrians”, says the anonymous US senior official quoted by the Kuna article.

He is right. There is a special relation which ties Qatar and Syria, and this is not only made by the financial ties and investments that were bounding the two countries before the Syrian uprising started last March.

The Qatari royal family has bought lands and castles in Syria, not only for investment reasons and not in the same way they buy land in Switzerland.

There are historical ties which bound the Bin Tamim tribe (from which the Qatar royal family Al Thani descends) and Syria.

A musalsal financed last year by Qatar and produced by the Syrian company SAPI (tied to Dunyia TV channel) celebrated this bound through an historical figure, Al Qa`qa bin Al Tamimi, who is an hero of the Islamic history and an ancestor of the Al Thani family (one of Sheikh Hamad al Thani youngest sons` name is Al Qa`qa..not  by chance).

So Qatar and Syria are historically related. Qatar royal family feels this emotional bound, even before the financial ties. It is clear that Sheikh Hamad knows how to talk to Syrians in a way that nobody else knows, as the US senior official points out in Kuna`s article.

But so far none of the Qatari offers to Syria has worked. Few days ago, an article by Boutheina Shaaban`s close friend Sami Moubayed was titled: “An offer that Syria shouldn`t have refused” . He precisely refers to the “offer” that was made through Qatar. Moubayed calls it “the brainchild of Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifah al Thani, once a close friend of Damascus”.

He calls it a “golden opportunity” but stresses on the fact that Syrians should have taken it and re-brand it as “Syrian initiative“, which would be a “win-win formula both for the Syrian government and for the Syrian street”.

So far, Syria has not jumped on it “precisely because of the Qatari connection”, says Moubayed and adds “the Syrians would not accept it as it stands”.

Rumors have been circulating that Turkey and Qatar are still at negotiations with Syria to stop the violence, and Khanfar`s head might have been part of the deal. In this scenario, probably a Qatari member of the al-Thani family would know much better than a Palestinian born which tribal ties bound Syria and Qatar. Khanfar`s head would have been a sacrifice paid as part of the negotiations with Syria.

This might be just another  “conspiracy theory” coming from the Arabs. It might be a good one though, which takes into account the historical ties between Qatar and Syria and puts the latter in a different, more privileged position vis-a-vis the “revolutionary movement” openly supported by Al Jazeera -and deeply backed by Qatar,too, although in a less direct way-.

This might also match with the “new” Al Jazeera grid that started few weeks ago. An “old new” grid that has been restored after months and months of revolutions-only coverage. Since the beginning of the Egyptian revolution in fact, Khanfar had stopped the normal flow of programs and talk shows in Al Jazeera Arabic and devoted 24 hours coverage to the revolutions. The few programs going on were in any case related to the revolutions –“Hadith at-thawra” and “Iqtisad at’thawra”-. 

Al Jazeera Arabic grid has been a “revolutionary grid” till few weeks ago, when we saw the “old new” programs, like Faisal al Qasem`s show “al Ittijah al moakis” coming back on air weekly. This might be a clear signal of the end of the strictly “revolutionary” period in Al Jazeera Arabic.

This might mean that, after the fall of Tunisia, Egypt and now Libya regimes, all the other ongoing revolutions -Bahrain, Yemen and, of course, Syria- will be dealt in a different way. As a part of the “normal” flow of information, not as a “cause”.

All this might reasonably be true.

But there is something I also know about the history of Al Jazeera, since the very first time I visited the station in early 2000s.

First, the choice of this new director might be a temporary choice, him being just an “interim” director before another one comes into the scene.

Second, Al Jazeera is a “brand”,  a “philosophy” which is bigger than those who lead the network. The journalists who stay will make sure that “the opinion and counter opinion” is preserved, in different ways, of course, but I`m sure the general philosophy will stay.

Third, the Emir of Qatar is  too smart to put somebody from the royal family at the top of Al Jazeera just to strengthen his control over the network. He is much more sophisticated than this. His diplomatic strategy over the past years has been sophisticated,too  and, if Khanfar`s resignation has anything to do with Qatar foreign policy -or with the Syria issue- this will be a clever move. Can`t be such a plain thing as achieving a more direct control over the network by putting there a member of the Al Thani family.

And Khanfar will find another place where to exercise his talent. In the past few years, he has proven to be a clever manager, not a clever Arab manager.

The doors of global networks should be wide open to him.

 

Al Jazeera`s Wadah Khanfar quits after 8 years..a new course for the Qatari-based network?

picture by @NazQatar “Wadah is speaking to Al Jazeera employees”

On Tuesday 20th September, the following email reached every Al Jazeera`s employee desk:

  Dear Colleagues,

This month marks my eighth year at the helm of Al Jazeera. Having served as the organisations top executive since 2003, first as Managing Director and then as Director-General, I have decided to move on.

For sometime I have been discussing my desire to step down with the Chairman of the Board. He has kindly expressed understanding and has accepted my decision. Upon my appointment, the Chairman and I set a goal to establish Al Jazeera as global media leader and we have agreed that this target has been met and that the organization is in a healthy position.

Today our network spans 25 channels that broadcast in Arabic and English, and will soon by broadcasting news in Turkish, Kiswahili and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian. Each and everyone of you have played a role in building this network into world-class media organization founded on mutual respect and integrity. Through your hard work and persistence, often in times of great adversity, we now reach millions of viewers across the world. This includes inroads into the most competitive media market in the world, the United States of America. This was no easy feat – not long ago, then US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld unfairly attacked our coverage of Iraq while today, US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, hails our news coverage. We were not weakened by Rumsfeld’s comments nor made complacent by Clintons’. Al Jazeera Al Jazeera is still-our independent and integral coverage has not changed.

From our first Arabic news broadcast in 1996 our audience recognized the distinctive and courageous editorial agenda that was marked by our promise of independence and our motto of “the opinion and the other opinion”.

When we launched in 1996 “media independence” was a contradiction in terms. State media was prevalent and was blatantly used for propaganda and misinformation. Within such an environment the public probably doubted that Al Jazeera would fulfill its promise of independent journalism. We managed to pleasantly surprise them by exceeding all expectations.

Authoritarian regimes were terrified at the birth of this new institution and they quickly went on the offensive. From trying to discredit our reportage and staff through disinformation to lodging official protests with the Qatari government. When this did not stop our reporting, they started harassing our correspondents, detaining our staff and closing our offices. The only way they could stop us was by jamming our satellite signal. Yet we remained steadfast in our editorial policy – in fact, each attempt to silence us further emboldened us and increased our resolve.

Al Jazeera gained the trust of its audience through consistently speaking
truth to power, and channeling peoples’ aspirations for dignity and freedom. Our
audience quickly saw that Al Jazeera was of them and their world – it was
not a foreign imposition nor did it seek to impose a partisan agenda. We were
trusted to be objective and to be the voice of the voiceless.

It is through dedication and conviction of our staff that we have assumed a position of leadership in our industry. Even though we are a young organisation, in just 15 years our name is deeply associated with the very notion of news the world over. We are respected by our audience and hold the admiration of our peers.

Prior to assuming my role leading Al Jazeera, I served the channel as a correspondent in Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq. It was during this time that I realized the importance of a free press with the human being at the core of its agenda. Whether it is the impact of decisions made in a country’sSituation Room or a corporate boardroom, being in the field engrains in one the responsibility to tell the story from the perspective of those affected the most. It is this culture that I have endeavored to build and maintain over the years – an independent newsroom that respects its audience, understands their collective consciousness and reports for and to them with integrity.

It is this newsroom, our correspondents, producers, presenters, cameraman, editors and technicians who provided the world with integral and fearless coverage of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, Somalia and elsewhere. This newsroom that showed the world the first images of the Asian Tsunami and of the famine in Niger. In 2011 the eyes of the world watched the aspirations of millions unfold as our newsrooms broadcast, tweeted and published the events unfolding in the Liberation Squares from Sidi Bouzid to
Jissr Al-Shughur. The coverage of these revolutions is ongoing, and we continue to report the fight of the youth to achieve dignity and freedom from tyranny and dictatorship.

Contrary to the “common sense” imparted by the regimes political elite, the Arab public are not naïve demagogues or irrational believers. They are intelligent, politically astute and have a level of empathy that the political elite lack.  Our channel lives and dies by this audience and they will not forgive us if we deviate from the mission that we have lived for the past 15 years. This is perhaps the best guarantee that Al Jazeera will maintain its stellar record and lives up to its code of conduct. It is the mission for which Tariq Ayoub, and Rasheed Wali Ali Jaber gave their lives for, the mission which Tayseer Alouni and Sami Al Hajj spent years illegally detained and for which many of you were harassed. Between our audiences
expectation and your vigilance, I am confident that Al Jazeera will continue to report with integrity and courage.

I have been fortunate over the past eight years for having worked with successive Boards of Directors, each distinguished and committed to Al Jazeera. I am personally indebted to the Chairman of the Board, Sheikh Hamad Bin Thamer Al Thani, whose expertise and vision had a most profound affect onmaintaining the stability of Al Jazeera through turbulent times, while always focusing on its long-term vision of growth and excellence in
journalism.

Al Jazeera would never have accomplished its mission were it not for the support and commitment by the State of Qatar. Its people and leadership have not only provided financial backing but have endured great international pressure to ensure the independence and integrity of our newsroom and staff.

I am fortunate to have had eight years working with an outstanding group of professionals. Today Al Jazeera stands as a mature organisation and I am confident that the organisation will continue to maintain its trailblazing path. It is then with this remarkable cohort of journalists, a strong organisation and exceptional backing that I leave Al Jazeera.

My most profound gratitude to all of you and to the loyal audience of Al
Jazeera.

Sincerely,
Wadah Khanfar

(published by Foreign Policy`s Blake Hounshell)

A lot of surprise erupted from this statement and astonishment circulated everywhere, including Twitter, where Khanfar responded candidly: Entertained by all the rumors of why I have resigned. #whatdoyouthink? 🙂

Palestinian-born Wadah Khanfar has been leading Al Jazeera`s operation for 8 years. Before becoming the Director General of Al Jazeera Network, Khanfar has been working extensively on the field as a journalist and a news correspondent for the Qatari-based network, covering South Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq. He was the Baghdad bureau chief for Al Jazeera Arabic channel at the time when he was chosen as the successor of Mohamed Jassim al Ali, who had managed the channel since its very beginning (except for a very brief interim).

Too many analogies with the current situation: Mohamed Jassim was a clever manager, who had been responsible for building the network from scratch. He was fired in 2003, after  being“named in documents procured by a British newspaper in Baghdad and which appeared to link him with Saddam Hussein’s intelligence service“.

Many had insinuated that a “spy paper” would be also the direct cause for Khanfar`s unexpected stepping down from the network leadership at a time when it seemed to be more soldi than ever, also for its close link to the Arab spring movement.

“Wikileaks` effect: Al Jazeera drops top executive”, titles Middle East Online, referring to the cable that was disclosed last August 30.

“A cable sent by the American ambassador, Chase Untermeyer, and dated October 2005, describes an embassy official’s meeting with Al Jazeera’s news director, Wadah Khanfar. According to the cable, the official handed Mr. Khanfar copies of critical reports by the United States Defense Intelligence Agency on three months of Al Jazeera’s coverage of the Iraq war”, says the New York Times.

“In at least one instance, involving a report on the network’s Web site, Mr. Khanfar said in the cable that he had changed coverage at the American official’s request. He said he had removed two images depicting wounded children in a hospital and a woman with a badly wounded face”.  

In this framework, a leak about a couple of pictures removed by Khanfar at the request of American officials would have generated all this chaos and obliged him to step down at the peak of his leadership.

Same as in Mohamed Jassim`s case, the collusion with a foreign power -whether Iraqi or American- would have pushed Al Jazeera`s board -notably the Qatari EmirHamad bin Khalifa al Thani  who established the network in 1996 and owns it since then- to sack high level employees like Khanfar.

Same as in 2003, there should be nothing so surprising about the fact that a channel like Al Jazeera has established a sort of “moukhabarati” relations in order to secure their news coverage . In a country like Iraq, and before the fall of Saddam Hussein, it was perfectly normal and therefore known and widely accepted that any news organization who wanted to work in the country should have established links and relations with the regime in a way or another. No relations, no news coverage. No news coverage, no work for the channel.

At the time, I was deeply in doubt about the main reasons behind  the sacking. I am still in doubt, indeed, right now when I hear things like that Wikileaks has toppled Al Jazeera. This sounds like admitting that we didnt know that Al Jazeera had links with the American government, which would be pretty naif. The US -led attack on Saddam Hussein`s Iraq in 2003 was started from the largest Middle East based US military base, which is in fact in Qatar.

In my book about Al Jazeera which was published in 2005 there is a whole chapter called: ” US or Saudi Arabia, who is the biggest enemy  of them all?”. At the time, Saudi Arabia certainly was, not sure if now. But the US has never been an “enemy” to Al Jazeera, despite what the average alleged anti-Americanism of the channel would let most of the people think.

I hardly believe that having a couple of pictures  removed from the website would  be enough to make clear that the US government has a say on Al Jazeera. I am sure US officials could have done something better to prove their power on the Qatari based network, and eventually required something bigger.

The all issue about Wikileaks and its cables is  something that in Italian we refer to as “il segreto di Pulcinella”, a secret that everybody knows about, while  pretending not to know.

Even the allegations made about Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim bin al-Thani (a member of the ruling royal family), i.e. Qataris might want to re-gain control over it after so many years, could be totally wrong. When Jassim al Ali was sacked, a former Palestinian news anchor, Adnan al Shareef, acted as general manager until they found the right replacement, which then happened to be Khanfar .Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim bin al-Thani could be just an interim director, while the right replacement is to be find.

So far there has been an alternation of Qataris (Mohamed Jassim al Ali and Ahmed bin Jassim al Thani) and Palestinians (al Shareef and Khanfar) at the direction general post at Al Jazeera. The fact that Jassim al Ali was a Qatari himself proves that so far Qataris have not been untouchable in the history of the alternation of power at Al Jazeera channel and they could even be sacked. This could diminish a little bit the worries of those who think that the take over of a Qatari -and member of the royal family- at Al Jazeera top management position would result in diminishing its credibility and reputation  (which are anyway already undermined by the way the channel has dealt or not dealt with the Bahrain file during the Arab spring).

Funny enough, I have to underline that Khanfar has released two TV interviews to explain the reason of his stepping down. Both of them, on Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English, carry exactly the same message: eight years are enough for a leader to accomplish his mission and his goals. The mission of Khanfar`s leadership would have been to turn Al Jazeera into a fully fledged international news network and this had eventually been accomplished, so it`s time to step down.

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In the Arabic “version” of the interview (released before the English one), there is also an addition irony in Khanfar`s words and a clear reference to the Arab spring movement: “eight years are enough for any person responsible, or leader or director to accomplish his goals” . Not only the use of the words “mas`uul , qayd, mudir” makes a clear reference to the symbols that “the people want to overthrow” in the Arab revolutions. News anchor Mohamed Krishane even starts to joke with Khanfar on the fact that Al Jazeera is with the people and has embraced the “vision of change” expressed by the Arab street.

 

 

The most relevant difference between the English and the Arabic interviews, though, lies in the direct statement and then in the question that the English anchor asks the former director general: “your replacement is a member of the Qatari ruling family..do you think this is gonna change something in Al Jazeera editorial policy?

This direct question in the Arabic version simply doesnt exist. No reference to Khanfar`s successor and his ties with the ruling family, and no mention of the royal family at all. Instead, Krishane formulates another statement which is absent from the English version:

” Some people think that this is the end of a phase or rather the beginning of the phase where there will be more openness towards different political point of views”. Without mentioning it, Krishane refers here to the alleged ideological proximity of Khanfar and many others from his staff (including Ayman Gaballah, who is also believed to have stepped down, although not confirmed yet) to the Muslim Brotherhood and the “inconvenience” this was provoking in international circles, especially in Washington.

But for me the most important part to be stressed on here is the difference between the style and the vocabulary used by the two channels, that proves that in the Arabic channel is still submitted to many of the non-written rules still valid for the Arab media in Arabic, like a sort of “apprehension” towards the ruling powers.

Having said that, and with all the issues that Al Jazeera Arabic`s coverage of the Arab Springs have raised, it is undeniable that under Khanfar`s direction the network has reached an immense amount of popularity and power all across the world. Only consider the situation Al Jazeera was in few years ago in the US and the current one, after “Demand Al Jazeera” campaign. Now Al Jazeera is an established network not only in the US, not only internationally (more channels will come soon, in Turkish, in Swahili, in Serbo-Croatian), but even in the social media sphere.

Khanfar was able to build a team of talented people, like Mohamed Nanabhay and Mooed Ahmed and all their staff, that would transport Al Jazeera in the social media environment turning it onto a powerful social media brand,too. This has culminated in Khanfar`s keynote last March at TED, the “must-be” of the innovation conferences worldwide.  Wadah has been always smart to delegate what he believed to be important to a team of dedicated talented people. And this is what happened to the New Media team. I think there is no other TV news network in the entire world which has such a good positioning in the new media world and social networks.

We don`t know that much about Ahmed bin Jassim al Thani. He has a profile on Linkedin, but zero connections, which doesnt sound too promising if Al Jazeera aims to maintain the competitive advantage it has gained on new media.

In order to understand the real reasons behind the change at the top of Al Jazeera, we will have to wait a bit. For the moment, it might be an interim position, or might be a part of the “nationalization” of the work market, especially at the top positions, which is happening a bit everywhere in the Gulf. It might also be the desire to “hold” the Arab spring phenomena more tight and keep it “under the control” of the Qatari elite, in order not to become counter productive for Qatari ruling power.

The funniest explanation has been given by Syrian state news agency though.On Tuesday, Sana published a news item titled “Khanfar`s resignation due to accumulated mistakes on personal and professional level”, condemning Al Jazeera`s “fabricated” coverage about Syria.

Another evidence, according to Sana, after Beirut bureau chief Ghassan Bin Jeddo resigned, that Al Jazeera`s coverage of the Arab revolutions is biased and unreliable.

Cosmic Conspiracy over Syria..

Amer and free thinking in Syria

Amer Abdelsalam has disappeared in Syria on August, 28. According to the Facebook group set by some of his friends, he was arrested by secret police. Till now, the circumstances remain unclear. What I know is that Amer has not been answering his phone for days. Each time I`ve been dialing his number I`ve got a different weird sound, which was not a good sign at all.

I`ve been knowing Amer for a while. He is a nice, peaceful person. He is a good journalist, somebody who cross-checks facts, asks questions, meets with people to understand situations before writing about anything. He is of a rare species, in Syria and everywhere else. He has also the very rare gift of being “secular” about facts, which for me means just judging the situation in a objective way, even if you belong to one side and you have your own opinion. Being “secular” means not being dependent on your “church”, whether this is a church, or a party or a man or a woman or a belief. Being able to analyse even  the negative sides of the people or the things you believe in. In the sense of free thinking, Amer is a “secular” person.

But on his I.D. there are too many “bad” identification signs: he was born in Dara`a, lives in Midan (central area of Damascus were  many protests have been held) and he is a journalist.

Three things that might mislead his fate in Syria.

Plus, even worst in such a situation, he is a free thinker.