Future historians may well write of the Middle East as pre- and post-Al-Jazeera. The Qatar-based TV station has for 15 years now operated as anything but a conventional media broadcaster. Its involvement in Arab politics, both domestic and regional, and its shaping of public opinion has led Al-Jazeera to challenge political taboos and create new spaces for media and political freedom that have of late culminated in its unreserved support for Arab revolutions.
In a relatively short space of time, Al-Jazeera has been a pioneer, breaking through some of the ceilings that limited political discussion and pushing the boundaries of information by providing live coverage of major developments in the Arab world and elsewhere. It is a platform for political and religious opposition groups in the Arab countries, it hosts Israeli spokespersons and embraces state-of-the-art broadcasting techniques. In short, it has become a role model for other Arab media, employing staff from almost all Arab countries, as well as a global brand.
Success breeds confidence, but it also attracts envy. Enemies of Al-Jazeera can be found in all corners of the world, from the more uncompromising of Islamist movements to American and Israeli intelligence gatherers. Within each of these, views can divide fiercely between those who see Al-Jazeera positively and those who don’t. Liberals who welcome Al-Jazeera as a beacon of freedom and progress in the Arab world confront others who accuse it of Islamism and religious radicalisation. Islamists who praise Al-Jazeera as a platform for their own views, have to adjust to the fact that it offers the same platform to Israelis. Al-Jazeera journalists are household names, but they also suffer the most harassment, imprisonment and fatalities.
Yet Al-Jazeera is neither a CIA nor Israeli tool, nor an Al-Qaeda mouthpiece. But it is the sophisticated mouthpiece of the state of Qatar and its ambitious Emir. The many and controversial sides of Al-Jazeera are a reflection of the similarly controversial facets of Qatar. The Al-Jazeera success story would not have been possible without its backing. The Al-Jazeera Project is integral to the nation-branding of Qatar and its foreign policy aspirations.
Why, then, is Qatar involved in such a high stakes foreign policy game? There is no clear answer, but a number of ideas are worth pondering. Upon the 1995 palace coup that deposed his father, the current Emir, Hamad Al Thani, faced rejection by both Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The elites of these two countries despised the ambitious young ruler and preferred his more timid father. The military coup organised the following year was suspected of having been orchestrated by the Egyptians and Saudis. The young Emir’s hostility to both was an immediate consequence. Al-Jazeera targeted the two governments for many years and brought diplomatic relations with them to a point of near cut-off.
With Qatar’s enormous gas resources, the Emir has been able to develop vigorous policies in all areas, including foreign affairs. He has also wanted to refute any belittling of his small island country and its half million indigenous population. Protecting himself and Qatar by hosting the biggest American military base outside the U.S., his strategy has been to cut out any regional third parties like the Saudis that might seek to exercise control over the smaller Gulf states. Qatar also created strong links with both Israel and many Islamist movements, including Hamas and Hizbuallah. It has been an aggressive and risky foreign policy, but the Emir clearly thinks that there was a regional leadership vacuum into which he could step. And his support of the Arab spring’s revolutions and the new generation of leaders being created would further strengthen Qatar’s position.
The Arab revolutions have been genuine uprisings of the people against decades of authoritarian regimes and their oppression and corruption. Their rapid spread caught almost everyone by surprise. For Al-Jazeera, this has been the moment to translate much of what it was already saying into being more specifically the voice of the voiceless. As for Qatar itself, this was to be its bid for regional influence. Media and diplomatic, and in Libya’s case even financial support was given to all of the Arab revolutions, other than in Bahrain where the Saudis and, more pointedly, the Americans drew a very sharp red line. But Al-Jazeera’s failure to support the small-scale Bahraini and Saudi protests also reflected the fact that Qatar already had too much on its plate.
Having had carte blanche from Qatar’s political leadership for its support of these revolutions, Al-Jazeera became fully engaged in live coverage of events in Tunisia and then in Egypt away from the eyes of local security, or by relying on social media networks streaming from the field. Al-Jazeera’s screens were filled with Arab masses conveying their demands to the world. Banned from their own local media and mostly on the run, revolutionaries used Al-Jazeera to reach out to their people and mobilise them. Cancelling its regular programmes, the channel was transformed into an around the clock workshop of live news and interviews, switching from one revolution to another. An Arabic sister channel to the main news one called Al-Jazeera Mubashir (Al-Jazeera Live) was devoted to live feed-ins from phone calls, text messaging or video clips. Accusations by falling regimes that Al-Jazeera wasn’t neutral are true. The widespread joke capturing this reports a conversation in hell between Egypt’s three former presidents, Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak. When they ask each other how they were felled, Nasser replies ‘by poison’; Sadat says ‘by assassination’; and Mubarak’s answer is ‘by Al-Jazeera’.