Al Jazeera Channel as a Cause of the Arab Spring - Essay Example

Al Jazeera Channel was one of the Strong Factors and Causes of the Arab Spring Al Jazeera is a television channel owned and funded by the Government of Qatar and is currently available in various regions in the world. Initially launched as an Arabic news channel, Al Jazeera has been an important source of information for most Arab nations in the Persian Gulf since its establishment in 1996 (Hroub, 2011). The channel has grown to become very influential in the Arab World and in fact, it has been a major force in the recent revolutionary wave of protests and demonstrations occurring in Arab countries. The wave of Arab revolutions (also known as the Arab Spring) started in December 17, 2010, in Tunisia after a street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire near a government building protesting against confiscation of his wares by the police. This sparked a wave of protests which intensified in January 24, 2011 after the vendor succumbed to fire injuries. Ten days later, Tunisia’s president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, stepped down and fled out of the country. According to Hijjawi (2012, p. 2), Al Jazeera had not been allowed in Tunisia for around two years. Though the channel had no established network in Tunisia, it was the first international media to note the protests in streets in the country (Fromherz, 2011, p. 8). During the initial stages of the protests, Al Jazeera relied on bloggers from Tunisia to gather information, which was then compiled to provide accurate and credible news. As the protests intensified, Al Jazeera adopted an open cycle in which it broadcasted live news from Tunisia as they streamed online through blog sites. The local media had also been transmitting news both locally and internationally about the unrest in Tunisia. However, according to Hijjawi (2012, p. 2), its popularity had declined among civilians in Tunisia due to lack of adequate coverage of their concerns. As a result, Tunisians increasingly followed the revolution on Al Jazeera which was then hosted by friendly local TV stations. During the protests, Tunisians lifted placards praising Al Jazeera. With time, Al Jazeera became close to the hearts of Tunisians and as they saw it as mirror in which they were being represented. In fact, as Fromherz (2011, p. 8) explains, Al Jazeera became the closest channel to the hearts and minds of Tunisians. Generally, the channel helped them to believe in the revolution they had embarked on, which they succeeded. One remarkable thing about Al Jazeera during the Tunisian case was that it did not create deep awareness or a solid political culture in the country. Rather, it allowed Tunisians to have faith in their own thoughts, similar to the Egyptian case. According to Hijjawi (2012, p. 3), prior to the Egyptian unrest, Al Jazeera was unpopular among Egyptian households and in fact, it was practically absent on TV screens in Egypt. This was largely caused by the presence of numerous local TV channels which broadcasted local news with a great degree of professionalism. TV stations thrived under a high degree of freedom of information that used to exist in the country for a long time. However, the freedom suffered a strong and painful blow from the Egyptian government’s security apparatus a few days before parliamentary elections, two months prior to the boycott which began on 25 January, 2010. Local television stations were given strict restrictions regarding the channels to host and information to broadcast. During the period, Al Jazeera started gaining some ground in Egypt. According to Schattle (2012, p. 53), though Al Jazeera had been absent on Egyptian screens it had had been airing Egyptian features for five years prior to the revolution. The government of Hosni Mubarak regularly criticised the channel for airing documentaries of torture acts in Egyptian police departments. It also arranged talk shows regularly attacking Al Jazeera, with an intention to discredit it. To be precise, Al Jazeera gave Egypt the greatest coverage compared to all other nations in the Arab League. However, given that it was not popular in Egypt, it played a little role in mobilising people to the streets. The move to the streets was galvanised by young men and women of Egypt’s middle class who had set January 25 as a date of protest on Internet social sites including Facebook and YouTube. As protests intensified, the government of Mubarak ordered local television stations to obscure the events of the protests. Al Jazeera started broadcasting on NileSat satellite, the only way that the channel was viewed in Egypt. This satellite was interrupted by the Egyptian government, making it difficult for Al Jazeera to broadcast news in the country. Nevertheless, Al Jazeera managed to resume its broadcast through friendly local stations. As the protests continued, the channel increased its broadcast in the country and managed to touch the hearts of many Egyptians. The channel managed to imprint one idea in the minds of Egyptians that they lived in the shadow of a regime which defied time (Hijjawi 2012, p. 3). According to Sidlow and Henschen (2012, p. 272), Al Jazeera displayed Mubarak’s image after his speech on February 1, 2010 and described him “as an old president telling his people that he wants to die on Egyptian soil.” The channel kept reassuring the protesting Egyptians that it believed in them and in their struggle. Over time, Al Jazeera gained much popularity among Egyptians and they started giving much praise to the channel, just as Tunisians did. Generally, the channel was very clear in its support for the revolutionaries as opposed to other international and local stations that visibly wavered. After some time, Al Jazeera’s reporters based in Egypt were arrested and its offices and networks closed. Al Jazeera sent people secretly from Qatar to Egypt to work as reporters. For several days, it was unable to display images from the scenes and when it did, it relied on the work of amateur reporters (Hijjawi, 2012, p. 3). It sent reporters in all cities in Egypt, which helped to increase coverage. The channel’s reporters relayed information to Egyptians and to the world in any way they could. The channel also invited studio guests from Egypt whose contributions further inflamed the street protests. It worked hard to commit to the demands of protesters until the fall of Mubarak on February 12, 2011. The successful revolution was also a success to Al Jazeera. Similar to the case of Tunisia, Al Jazeera did not promote any particular ideology or party but kept broadcasting the events as if it represented the revolutionaries. Three days after the fall of Mubarak, Libya’s opposition party, the National Transitional Council (NTC), led civilians to protest against the dictatorial regime of Colonel Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi. The opposition also called for Al-Jazeera, which responded immediately and took a stance for the people against Gaddafi. The channel started airing news and events from the country and hosted television channels from Egypt which covered the trends of the unrest. It managed to mobilise public opinion just as it did in Tunisia and Egypt. In coalition with other major forces, Al Jazeera led to a successful revolution in Libya, which ended with the death of Muammar Gaddafi. In more recent cases of Bahrain, Yemen and Syria, the trend has been the same for Al Jazeera. In these countries, Al Jazeera has made full use of social media by gathering feeds from protesters who take footage on their mobile phones, Facebook postings and Twitter feeds (Hamiyyeh, 2012). In all these cases, Al Jazeera has managed to mobilise crowds, giving them confidence to rise against oppressive rules. References Fromherz, A 2011, Qatar: A Modern History, I.B. Tauris, New York. Hamiyyeh, H 2010, ‘“Aljazeera” Channel Merchandises the “Arabic Spring”: From Bahrain to Syria,’ accessed 27 March 2012, from http://www.english.moqawama.org/essaydetails.php?eid=13982&cid=269 Hijjawi, A 2012, ‘The Role of Al-Jazeera (Arabic) in the Arab Revolts of 2011,’ accessed 27 March 2012, from http://www.ps.boell.org/downloads/Perspectives_02-10_Aref_Hijjawi1.pdf Hroub, K 2011, ‘How Al-Jazeera’s Arab spring advanced Qatar’s foreign policies’ Autumn 2011, accessed 27 March 2012, from http://www.europesworld.org/NewEnglish/Home_old/Article/tabid/191/ArticleType/ArticleView/ArticleID/21877/HowAlJazeerasArabspringadvancedQatarsforeignpolicies.aspx Schattle, H 2012, Globalization and Citizenship, Rowman & Littlefield, London. Sidlow, E I & Henschen, B 2012, Govt (with Political Science Coursemate with EBook Printed Access Card), Cengage Learning, Washington DC. Read More