US and the World

Nationalist vs nationalist

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Al Jazeera: Out-Foxing Fox

Here's an interesting concept presented by Kristof in a balanced column that looked at what went wrong in Iraq and sums it up in one word - hubris - a word that has, of course, been used by others.

The column concludes:

The gulf between the American and Arab realities is the subject of "Control Room," a powerful documentary by Jehane Noujaim, an Egyptian-American. She looks at Al Jazeera's coverage of the war, offering a sobering reminder that there are multiple ways of perceiving the same events.

President Bush's narrative for the war was: "Altruistic Americans risk their lives to topple evil dictator and establish democracy and human rights." The Arab narrative was: "The same Yankees who pay for Israelis to blow up Palestinians are now seizing Iraqi oil fields and maiming Iraqi women and children."

I'm not a big fan of Al Jazeera, which tends to be emotional and nationalistic. As U.S. Lt. Josh Rushing astutely notes in "Control Room," Al Jazeera is the Arab version of the Fox News Channel: "It benefits Al Jazeera to play to Arab nationalism because that's their audience, just like Fox plays to American patriotism, for the exact same reason — American nationalism — because that's their demographic audience and that's what they want to see."

If the Arab world is going to break out of its self-pitying self-absorption, it's going to have to understand American attitudes — and it could do worse than switching its televisions from Al Jazeera to Fox. And if the Bush administration is going to turn Iraq around and engage the Arab world effectively, then it must try harder to escape the echo chamber and understand the Arabs — and it could do worse than switching from the reassuring euphony of Fox to Al Jazeera.

Mr. Bush might even pledge that from now on, he won't invade a country before learning how to pronounce its name.  

And I couldn't help being appalled that Bush could not even pronounce Iraq correctly as he went to war, killing its men, women, and children.