Anti Colonial Leader Now Holds Neo Colonial Coat Tails

Anti Colonial Leader Now Holds Neo Colonial Coat Tails

                                                                                               Saeed Naqvi

Did Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru fight British colonialism? If they did, is it not ironical that New Delhi should be seen to be supportive of the French neo-colonial effort in Mali? New Delhi has in hush-hush tones said that it would release $100 million to the government in Bamako, coinciding with the French arrival in that country to protect Africans from Africans.

This maybe a flawed reading of the picture. It is just possible that the funds are part of the Indian effort to make an impression in Africa.

It is the timing which is odd. As in several African countries, India is trying to get into infrastructure developments like laying of power transmission lines. But through whom will this money be disbursed in Bamako, Mali’s capital?

After all, the legitimate government of Mali was ousted in a coup d’état in March 2012.

President Toumani Toure was forced into hiding. Harsh sanctions from Mali’s neighbours followed the coup. Renegade soldiers who staged the coup, suspended the constitution and left a vacuum in the North. The Tuareg tribes, with reinforcements and arms from a disintegrated Libya, took hold of the North. They announced an independent nation. Clashing with this demand was the call by yet another Islamist cluster, Ansar Dine, demanding Shariah law in North Mali.

This extremist lot set about unspeakable destruction of 15th century shrines and religious texts preserved in the archives in the historic town of Timbuktu. It was desecration every bit as barbarous as the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan. That would have been a wonderful occasion for New Delhi to hold France’s hands to help stop the monumental sacrilege. That did not happen.

In any case, the interim government holding onto Bamako by the skin of its teeth, knows nothing about agreements New Delhi may have had with the ousted government. There will hopefully be a legitimate government in Mali after the elections which are due in July. That is when New Delhi’s check will be encashed. The announcement of help at this juncture must, therefore, be seen as a morale booster for the French whose President has just been to India.

The real purpose of the Indian gesture maybe something fairly straight forward: to find its feet in a continent rich in minerals (Mali has uranium) and where the Chinese have stolen a considerable march on all other competitors.

It is not generally understood that the streak of extremist Islamism noticed here and there along the Sahel region owes its origin to the same location – Afghanistan. Episodes like the Iraq war, pointless savaging of Libya, externally aided civil war in Syria have only helped in multiplying extremist cells.

Once the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989, preparatory to the fall of the Soviet Union, the Wahabized Mujahideen looked for work first in Kashmir and subsequently all along the Middle East, specifically in Egypt and Algeria. There is a tendency not to notice the global media’s role in unwittingly promoting terrorism worldwide.

Operation Desert Storm and later the Occupation of Iraq came across as victory to Western audiences but as national humiliation in the Arab street. Indeed, the street in all Muslim enclaves, including the ones in India. Remember George Bush was not allowed to address a joint session of Parliament in New Delhi. Instead he was given a picnic at the old fort.

Operation Desert Storm, the first globally televised war, ended in February 1991. The sense of humiliation resonated elsewhere, including Algeria. By the time General Elections took place in Algeria in December, 1991, the highly motivated Mujahideen from Afghanistan were already multiplying their cells in the former French colony. They must have helped in stoking anti secular sentiment. Little wonder, Islamic Salvation Front won 188 out of 231 seats.

An unnerved West, with the French in the lead, leaned on the Algerian Army to scrap the election results. It is that kind of seething rage which is lurching from state to state and whose anger has been fueled by the West including the French in Algeria, Iraq, Libya and Syria. How they extricate themselves from Mali will be watched by all, including the Indians who have made a modest appearance on their bandwagon.

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The Post Afzal Guru Still Before The Storm?

The Post Afzal Guru Still Before The Storm?

                                                                         Saeed Naqvi

A powerful incident like Afzal Guru’s hanging lifts the scab from earlier wounds, exposing raw nerves. Experiences one had pushed into the deepest recesses, begin to surface.

When I joined the Statesman as a cub reporter, my effort at house hunting taught me one of my earlier lessons: Muslims have difficulty finding houses. Even in the 60s? Sadly, the problem has grown worse. But my faith in the secular fabric was secured by senior colleagues, Kuldip Nayar and Bikram Singh who persuaded a delightful Mr. Gupta to rent us his house in South Delhi.

And now, in the context of Afzal Guru’s hanging the mind ferrets out Kashmir related memories.

Writing my earliest articles on Kashmir, I chanced upon a rare document. Maulana Azad mostly drafted his letters to his cabinet colleagues in Urdu. These were translated by his staff. In an inspired moment, Director of National Archives, Dr. Rajesh Kumar Pruti published the original in Urdu.

In a 1953 letter to Jagjivan Ram, Minister for Communications, then Education Minister Maulana Azad writes:
“As many as 53 persons from Jammu and Kashmir apply for a clerical post and only one is appointed. The rest are from outside the state. This baffles me. Obviously those in charge of recruitments are not sensitive to the fact that such instances complicate our stand on the question of Kashmir.”

“As you know, Communications and Defence have been transferred from the state to the centre. We are asked mockingly that if this is the way Kashmiri Muslims are going to be treated by the Communications and the Defence Ministries, then what hope will there be for these people if other departments are transferred to the centre? How do we respond to this charge?”

In another letter the Maulana is even more blunt:
“The state government has been complaining repeatedly that Kashmiri Muslims are not recruited by the State Posts and Telegraphs department. Jobs are given only to non-Muslims.”

He concludes in another letter:
“If this is the result of a department having been transferred to the centre, then how will Kashmir ever have the confidence that its future is secure with India.”

President of the Congress in its crucial phases, a friend and confidant of India’s first Prime Minister, erudite, an intellectual, has, within six years of independence, been reduced to a supplicant, imploring cabinet colleagues to stand by the promises they had made to the people of India. There are other letters which are even more pathetic.

How “appeased” the Muslims had been, came out in bold relief in the Sachar Committee report in 2006. They had in the years since independence been pushed into the ranks of the most marginalized. The Maulana would have shed tears of blood.

There was minimal breast beating at the report but no more. To do anything dramatic would only invite the appeasement slur. And appeasement would cause many to walk out on the Congress.

It was in continuation of this understanding, that the locks of the Ram Janmbhoomi temple were opened to please the devoted Hindus. The Supreme Court verdict on Shah Bano was upturned to appease the conservative Muslims. With the Hindus and Muslims so yoked (went the thesis), the Congress bandwagon would roll.

It did not. In fact the bandwagon collapsed largely because of the Congress ambivalence on the Mandir-Masjid issue. The Congress collusion in the demolition of the Babari Masjid was seen by the minorities as a great betrayal. They walked out on the Congress en masse. The party crashed to 140 seats in a house of 545. Gone, for good, were the days of absolute majorities.

Meanwhile, global events were to complicate the internal communal picture. Pakistan had stolen a lead in being enlisted as a frontline state in the post 9/11 war on terror. This was galling for New Delhi, having been a victim of cross-border terrorism for decades. In this context the December 13, 2001 attack on Parliament turned out to be an event which boosted India’s stature as a serious participant in the war on terror.

In the vocabulary of the global war on terror, Muslim became indistinguishable from “Jehadi”. This distortion was carelessly embraced by the Indian establishment, picking up young innocent Muslims on terrorism charges, training police guns only in one direction in all riots, arresting Akbaruddin Owaisi for his intemperate speech but hesitating on Praveen Togadia of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. Togadia in his speech had boasted of the Muslim killed in a series of riots. He had virtually produced a macabre catalogue.

And now, finally, having spared the killers of Rajiv Gandhi and Beant Singh (that would destabilize Tamilnadu and Punjab) they have taken a gamble on Afzal Guru because the valley of Kashmir is well covered with military presence. How will the aftermath playout.

The new middle class on the make is exposed to mobilization by that effective pulpit, 24X7 channels. Those who see themselves as victims get their diet of retaliatory vitriol and morale boosting rhetoric from the Urdu press.

For the moment, the two tectonic plates are moving parallel to each other. Should they ever meet, it will be with a cataclysmic impact.

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France In Mali – Tragedy With Much Comic Relief

France In Mali – Tragedy With Much Comic Relief

                                                                                     Saeed Naqvi

The embarrassment France has faced in its Mali expedition cannot be allowed to cast a shadow on President Francois Hollande’s two day visit to New Delhi beginning next week. Since he will be landing in India, with his partner, Valerie Trierweiler, exactly on St. Valentine’s Day, they may like to have a few private moments at the Taj in Agra. But when he makes a pitch for the $12 billion Rafale Jets being sold to India, rival defence dealers will alert A. K. Antony’s team about the French air force image in Mali.

What happened in Mali?

Well as early as October 11, Hollande announces there would be “no men on the ground, no engagement by French troops” in Mali.

On January 8, Le Figaro publishes an opinion poll which clearly establishes Hollande’s popularity plummet like it never has for any French leader.

On January 11, a panic stricken Presidency decides to fly out troops to Mali. What is the immediate provocation? The French did nothing when the splendid 15th century monuments in Timbaktu were being dismantled.

On this occasion the reason given is that the militants of Ansar Dine had taken Konna and would proceed towards the capital Bamako. But Bamako is 700 kms of open country from Konna. Is a full fledged invasion by France required to handle a mere hundred or so militants? What happened to a joint African Force?

Whatever, the logic for the intervention, it reflects on the mental health of the French nation that approval ratings for the President improve as soon as France is seen to be involved in action which conjures up images of colonial authority.

Having been rushed into action without any notice, the troops are confronted with an extraordinary situation: there is no pre positioning of assets for an overseas expedition. There is no logistical infrastructure. Indeed, the nation which is in the Defence market in India, had to lean on Britain to supply C-17s to airlift men and materials to Mali.

A very reluctant Britain loans two C-17s, one of which breaks down in France. Canada is implored for help. A Canadian C-17 also breaks down as soon as it participates in the ill starred expedition.

The next scene is custom made for a French Film maker: 400 troops in Mali are falling over each other for the first right to sleep on the hundred or so cots that are available. Men with guns on the ready are sent out to neighbouring towns to purchase 400 mattresses. And yes, in a mosquito ridden country, the troops are also short of mosquito nets.

Another problem is refueling. The Algerians have allowed their previous colonial masters to overfly their territory to reach Mali. But flying to Mali and back from France is a distance long enough for planes to require refueling. In this department too the French are wanting. So Danes are commandeered for refueling technology, but they want payment for fuel confirmed well in advance.

Elements in the US establishment have not forgotten strong French opposition to American unilateralism in Iraq. Americans spot great irony in French unilateralism. They delay their Drone surveillance.

French analysts like Olivier Zajec of Le Monde have a ready response to this line of thinking. France supported the rapid strike needed to topple the Taleban regime in Afghanistan soon after 9/11. But it was careful not to place too many French troops on the ground. Why? Because it has limited interest in a far-off region. By contrast, several thousand troops were deployed in Ivory Coast as part of a successful Peace Keeping Force.

Zajec proceeds to blame France for its “tragicomic” mixture of rhetoric and action in Libya, which, in the ultimate analysis, opened the gates to all and sundry – criminals, nomadic Tuareg tribes and Al Qaeda affiliates to destabilize all of North Africa.

After sending out confusing signal for months, France may well have chosen the worst possible moment for intervention. Because its procrastinations allowed a whole range of potential opponents to mingle and be jointly prepared just in case the French did intervene. Knowing the terrain well, the Militants–Tuareg combine has simply slunk away, leaving troops in a blind hunt for targets.

The West African summit in Abidjan on January 19 has announced an International Support Mission for Mali. West African countries have promised 3,600 troops. The despairing French troops on the ground will be training their binoculars on the horizon, waiting for these reinforcements to arrive before they are bogged down in slush which is unavoidable once the rains arrive in the coming month or two. That is when the enemy will strike.

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Media Setting Up Rahul – Modi Contest For TRP Ratings

Media Setting Up Rahul – Modi Contest For TRP Ratings

                                                                                                  Saeed Naqvi       

Conventional wisdom being forged by lobbies is veering around to the view that there shall be either a UPA-III or an NDA-II after the 2014 General Elections. In which case why this high decibel clamour for Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi as prime ministerial candidates for the BJP and Congress respectively?

Ofcourse such a facile scenario would simplify matters for the talk show hosts, the TRP hunters: just place faces in those six boxes on the screen and trigger a daily diet of prime time cacophony, as riveting as a street brawl.

The channels miss the point that there is so much else to clarify to their viewers in the run upto the 2014 election that naming of Prime Ministerial candidates at this juncture may be a trifle premature.

For example, several states have to face the electorate this year, by end November. Please analyze these states. These include four states in the North East, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Delhi.

If the congress in Delhi, under Sheila Dikshit’s leadership, wins for the fourth term, only a very perverse system would keep her out of higher office. This line of thought will immediately be challenged by Congressmen themselves, in whose ranks ironically we may find Sheila Dikshit too. The Congress principle at this stage is that the first right of refusal for the Prime Ministerial slot belongs to Rahul Gandhi.

All of this, as I have indicated earlier, is premature for a simple reason: UPA-III entails a coalition. Who the coalition partners will be and what bargains they strike will depend on the hand the electorate deals out to the players at the table.

Shrill demands for Narendra Modi as Prime Ministerial candidate is equally premature in an era of coalitions. If the BJP in its deep heart’s core is inclined to field him as its candidate for Prime Minister, the situation will clarify of its own accord when Modi does or does not campaign for his party in the coming state elections.

Modi and Rahul are distinct political entities. Modi is an extrovert who intimidates and repels prospective coalition partners; Rahul, an introvert, is, on current showing, shy of coalitions. This aversion to coalitions is being rationalized as a tactic to wait, even beyond 2019, when the electorate will become so disenchanted with coalitions that it will produce a Parliamentary majority for the Congress. What underpins this enchanting pipedream is the purposive manner in which Rahul’s team proposes to build the party brick by brick.

Reconstruction of the party edifice visualizes ruins, like Macho Picho, on which masonry is being undertaken. A more valid image for the Congress in disrepair derives not from architecture but from gynaecology. The caste parties now in play were once inside the Congress womb. How does a weakened mother fight her own children?

The Congress led the nation to independence representing a federation of interests behind a programme for freedom. Purshottam Das Tandon and Abul Kalam Azad were in the same party. During an election in the 60s, S.K. Patil and Krishna Menon were Congress candidates from separate constituencies in Mumbai. Patil represented big business while Menon was more on the fringe of the Communist Party. Over a period of time, this diversity had to break ranks and find independent political platforms.

Let us not forget, barely twenty years after independence, in the 1967 elections, Indira Gandhi lost power in eight states. A weakened Indira Gandhi, split the Congress in 1969, throwing a cordon of Left of Centre Congressmen around herself and thereby creating a distance from the conservative party bosses in the states.

It was this conservative streak which mingled with the RSS and socialists under the banner of the Bihar movement led by a retired Gandhian, Jay Prakash Narayan. An unnerved Indira Gandhi declared the Emergency, and later proceeded to lose the elections.

Before the emergency, the press maintained a balanced, adversarial attitude towards the establishment. The theory was something like this: In a democracy, people elected the government. The government could represent the Centre, Right or Left. The media’s job was to respect the people’s verdict, report objectively, and accord “critical support” to the government elected by the people. The emergency destroyed this balance and the distortion continues.

Political parties which do not ponder this question will have abdicated power and placed it in hands exposed to influences, both within and outside.

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Will Western Intervention For Africa’s Minerals Also Check Mate China?

Will Western Intervention For Africa’s Minerals Also Check Mate China?

                                                                                                                           Saeed Naqvi

Dated: 25.01.2013

The escalating conflict in Mali can best be understood if we pick up the narrative from NATO action in Libya.

Just when the Europeans were salivating on Libya, the Americans showed an early aversion to another adventure, after Afghanistan and Iraq.

The International Herald Tribune published a quarter page cartoon. Hatted European gents are sipping Campari under an umbrella. Uncle Sam, looking rather like a butler, reports, “there’s a fire next door”. One European, snapping his fingers, orders “don’t just stand there. Go put out the fire”. So, the US and NATO came in.

There were a dozen reasons why Qaddafi had to be killed. One of these was the Libyan strongman’s extensive influence in all of Africa, from the 70s when wars of National Liberation were in vogue. His influence extended from the remarkable intellectual Hasan Turabi in Sudan to the somewhat thuggish Charles Taylor in Liberia and beyond. Turabi was imprisoned. Taylor, ofcourse, was tried for war crimes and jailed. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, with a Postgraduate degree from the US, (Like Mikheil Saakashvili in Georgia) was installed President in 2006 for two terms of six years each. She has proceeded to outsource all logging and mining businesses. Democracy is on the march.

Likewise, when I turned up at El Fasher to see relief operations in Darfur, I expected to meet Africans since the African Union was managing relief camps. Instead I was introduced to Col. George D’Vione, a Frenchman who greeted me with great authority. He was as surprised by an Indian journalist in Darfur as I was meeting a Frenchman wearing an African union hat. It turned out he was representing the European Union on the AU’s ceasefire commission for Darfur.

Earlier I had met Brig. David Richards in Sierra Leone. He proceeded to become Britain’s Army Chief. Years ago Mrs. Thatcher’s son Mark Thatcher was placed under house arrest in Cape Town for attempting a coup in Equatorial Guinea with the help of Africans aching to be recolonized.

More recently, UN envoy for Western Sahara, Christopher Ross, has been making ominous statements. “It would be a serious miscalculation to believe that the status quo can last. “He said the threat to the status quo came from “extremists, terrorist and criminal elements in the Sahel region”.

In other words, the arrival of the French in Mali could well be the beginning of link ups across the oil and mineral rich regions stretching from Sudan across Chad, Niger, Mali, Mauritania and Western Sahara where the Polisario movement will derive strength from the reverberations. The Moroccan Monarchy will watch with anxiety how direct French intervention in the region will affect Rabat’s claims on Western Sahara. The Polisario, with support from Algeria, also has claims on this strategic stretch. Christopher Ross will obviously give the status quo some movement.

The United States launched its war on terror in Afghanistan in November 2001. The targets were Al Qaeda and its Taleban affiliates. Eleven years on, Islamic terror is striking at American troops in what is called Green on Blue or insider attacks.

The secular, efficient dictatorship of Saddam Hussain was destroyed and “Islamism” took over, including its terrorist variants. Likewise, Libyan secularism was replaced by the kind of extremism which resulted in the US ambassador being assassinated in Benghazi. Meanwhile, howls of protest are coming from the direction of those earlier opposed to the Assad regime in Syria and who now see Al Nusra, an Al Qaeda affiliate, gaining the upper hand among Syrian opposition.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is all over Yemen, mutating as al Shabab in Somalia. There already is Boko Haram in Nigeria linking up with Ansar Dine in Mali.

In the Mali chaos, no one is talking about the 15^th monuments destroyed in Timbuktu, vandalism on a scale reminiscent of the Bamyan Buddhas or even the looting of the great museum of Baghdad.

In the near future, there will be a line along the Sahel which will divide Africa into Muslim North and Christian South, with adjustments here and there. First, the Darfur model maybe tried: bring Arab Muslims and African Muslims into conflict.

Toss in the hundreds of tribes on both side of the religious divide, and there will be enough confusion to distract the Chinese who have stolen a march on all the others who are looking for Africa’s mineral wealth.

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What Political Profit From The Dhule Riots?

What Political Profit From The Dhule Riots?

                                                                         Saeed Naqvi

“Tumne ghar chora, chalo tum
to mohajir ho gae;
hum yahan haazir rahey
aur ghair hazir ho gae.”
(You left your homes and became mohajirs in Pakistan. We chose to be present here and find ourselves absent)

It was callous of those who tossed up this satirical couplet to relieve the tension in that room in Aurangabad. The elderly gent at the far end, took out his handkerchief to wipe his misty eyes. A young man in his late 20s, editor of an Aurangabad Urdu daily, Asian Express, said he could publish it as the song of the Muslims of Dhule. The riot affected town is in North Maharashtra, three hours drive from Aurangabad, where six Muslims youth were shot dead by the Police on January 6. Several were injured.

Muslim youth in riot hit areas, or districts where they have been held by the police for years on suspicion of terror and later found innocent, will obviously be alienated from the rulers. This much is obvious. But what is not obvious to the government, as it was not to me, that youth in their anger will locate an icon, a hero, a declamatory Rambo on a pulpit.

So, from district to district, city to city, video images of none other than Akbaruddin Owaisi, ranting to a thunderous applause are being transmitted on mobile phones.

Among a group in Dhule, I raise my hand. “Please stop this…..this is dangerous, inflammatory speech…….it can create riots”. A dark man with leathery skin regards me sternly. “Where were you or the government when Bal Thackeray was spewing venom, without a break for decades…..they didn’t have the guts to arrest him”. A pause. “And they arrested Akbaruddin because he is a Muslim, a soft target?”

Dhule, not far from Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, was on the fateful day preparing itself to watch the third India-Pakistan cricket match. Briefly, the buildup to the riot is as follows.

A Muslim auto driver has an argument with Kishore Wagh, owner of a restaurant in Madhavpur near Machchi bazaar in the heart of Dhule. The issue is simple: nonpayment of a Rs.30 bill. Wagh hits the driver on his face with a ladle. Bleeding profusely. The injured reaches the Police Chowki, a 100 yards away, where the constables take no note of his injuries.

The driver returns to the scene with a dozen or so youth, only to find that the crowd near the restaurant has also swelled. Stone pelting begins from both sides. The Police Chowki, like a kiosk, is in the middle. The constables have run away. The Muslim mob pulls out the furniture and papers from the Chowki, make a pile on the road and set fire to it. The mobs on both sides have multiplied.

By setting fire to the Chowki, Muslims have already expressed their lack of confidence in police fairness. This is not surprising. In the earlier riots of 2008, the police had shot dead 11 Muslims. Police behavior on this occasion follows the same pattern. Police arrives, facing the Muslim mob. Its back is towards the community it feels more secure with. As the sky is filled with missiles from both sides, the police opens fire. Six Muslims are shot dead. Muslim houses and shops, within a stone’s throw from the police formation, are looted and gutted almost under Police supervision. All of this is available on videos in popular circulation. This is a technological advance in these riots. No one can tell lies.

When a State Reserve Police camp is permanently settled in Dhule, why is the police force so late in coming?

In a town with such a large Muslim population, would it not have helped if there were some Muslims in the force?

If you have five Muslims in a force of 300, “the five Muslims are in effect Hindus by another name” says a Hindu social worker. They have to be in a sizeable enough number to be able to influence the majority of the force, he says.

In the standard operating procedure, the police is less trigger happy with the bolt action 303 rifles. The new Self Loading Rifles (SLRs) are meant more to secure the borders than for urban riots. Why did the Police use these?

Muslims here are overwhelmingly, weavers, bangle sellers, paan and beetle nut sellers, petty shopkeepers. Ansaris, Maniyars, Tambolis are common names.

In a municipality of 55 members, 16 are Muslims, affiliated to all the mainstream parties in Mumbai. These councillors are virtual middlemen for state leaders, in whose electoral interest they try to keep the local flock. Sadly for them, the youth has lost faith in these “bought” corporators. That is the political dimension of these riots. Which of the corporators will deliver votes for Mumbai politicians – the profit of riots? Remember, Corporation, Assembly and Parliament elections are round the corner.

Supposing, SP Deepak Deshpande were to reach out to the youth who are the growing power, he has no means of doing so. He can only go to the sixteen corporators who alas, have no hold on the youth. The youth, not just in Dhule, is growing angrier by the minute. It is savvy on the social media, transmitting Owaisi’s rhetoric to its counterparts elsewhere. “The government, police, electronic media are against us; for them we are ghair hazir, not there” says a young man with a trimmed beard. “We have the Urdu press and the social media.” He asks me threateningly “you think these two will always move parallel to each other and not clash with a Big Bang?” This is not the language of a Mullah nor of the politically untrained.

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Al Gore - Al Jazeera Alliance Runs Into An American Wall

Al Gore - Al Jazeera Alliance Runs Into An American Wall

                                                                                                  Saeed Naqvi

Amazing how Al Gore did not anticipate the resistance to Arab intrusion into the American mind space. The Nobel Laureate and Vice President under Bill Clinton, is learning truths about American liberalism the hard way. He thought he would introduce intellectual variety into American discourse by bringing the world’s fastest growing TV channel, Al Jazeera into an alliance with his very own Current TV in California. But his intentions are being challenged.

On January 2, Gore outlined the purpose of his mission: “to give voice to those who are not typically heard; to speak truth to power; to provide independent and diverse points of view; and to tell stories no one else is telling.”

Just in case someone thought Gore was taking the risk of exposing American mindscape to Arab influences, the Current TV’s spokesman Stan Collender, rushed to clarify: “This is a pure business decision that is based on recognized demand.”

It was a promising business model. Current’s viewership would be boosted considerably. Recent estimates promise that Al Jazeera’s novelty, plus its unparalleled professional and technical qualities would add an audience of 40 to 50 million viewers. It has the potential to grow even more.

Established global channels like CNN, ABC, CBS (even BBC is global, after all) would run for cover with their turf having been opened to competition from a channel owned by a man with the deepest pockets who ever took interest in the media, the Emir of Qatar.

Gore must have received something of a shock when America’s second largest TV operator, Time Warner Cable Inc, snapped its ties with Current as soon as Gore’s channel stuck a deal with Al Jazeera. Now the new channel named “Al Jazeera America” will have to find alternative cable outlets.

Robert Thompson, Professor of TV and Popular Culture at Syracuse University said it bluntly: “There’s a fair amount of paranoia when it comes to Al Jazeera”.

Jimmy Schaeffler, a pay TV consultant, elaborated: “people associate Al Jazeera with the Muslim world or the Arab world or the Islam world and they have problems with that.”

The surprise is that in the past two years Al Jazeera has been the toast of Washington. Hillary Clinton quoted it. CNN and BBC have been relying on it to boost their credibility whenever they had to telecast spurious news during the Libyan and Syrian operations.

I have not mentioned Al Jazeera’s coverage of Afghanistan and Iraq. This, because during those two military operations, Al Jazeera was on the opposite side, it reported the truth. It did not slant stories the way the US and its allies notably Saudi Arabia would have wanted it to.

The channel truly is a media phenomenon everyone likes to have an opinion on. But not many have cared to acquaint themselves with the circumstances in which it was launched.

The BBC, which ran its Arabic channel in collaboration with Orbit Communications, owned by the late Saudi King Fahd, had to close down its Arabic Service because the House of Saud would not permit a documentary on executions under Sharia Law to be telecast.

Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa, who had serious differences with Saudi Arabia, invested $150 million to launch Al Jazeera in 1996. The Sheikh hired the BBC staff which had been fired by the BBC in pursuance of a new business model.

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990, CNN became the world’s first global channel which brought Operation Desert Storm right into the drawing rooms. A year later, BBC World Service TV was born. To break this Western monopoly on the media, focused excessively on the Muslim world, Al Jazeera was launched.

The West was livid. Intellectuals like Fouad Ajami, Professor of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, a vocal supporter of US occupation of Iraq, complained in a New York Times article, that Al Jazeera’s hero was Osama bin Laden. He was hopping mad that the channel had perfected “the sly game of mimicking Western norms of journalistic fairness while pandering to pan-Arab sentiments.” Why is the Professor bilious of that score?

For its sins, Al Jazeera offices in both Kabul and Baghdad were bombed by US helicopter gunships. A journalist was killed, several wounded, a senior correspondent was incarcerated in Spain.

When the Arab Spring began to topple dictatorships, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, in sheer panic, came out of hospital in Europe, rained 135 billion on his population to douse incipient rebellion, extended his hand of friendship to Qatar and, since both were scared of the Arab Spring, the credibility of Al Jazeera was placed at the disposal of the West first in Libya and now in Syria.

It was during this period that Al Jazeera was transformed, by Western caprice, from enemy during Iraq and Afghan wars to a reliable ally in recent adventures. Riding this crest of popularity in the West, it found its way into Gore’s favour. What happens next will be worth watching.

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