Mainstream Media Coverage on Tunisia: Short, Bittersweet, and Overly Deficient

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Jul 23, 2012 Tunisia
[Screenshot of Al Jazeera English`s Tunisia section.] [Screenshot of Al Jazeera English`s Tunisia section.]

Mainstream Media Coverage on Tunisia: Short, Bittersweet, and Overly Deficient

By : Wafa Ben Hassine

We all know that after former Tunisian president Ben Ali packed his bags, Egyptian Mubarak and Libyan Gaddafi soon shared similar fates. One was hospitalized for political and moral exhaustion, the other killed in what was a Hollywood-worthy (but slightly gorier) scene. Suddenly, the short-lived spotlight on Tunisia was quickly shifted to Egypt and Libya. The heavy news coverage in Egypt and Libya continues till this day. Tunisia was pushed back to, at best, starring on the headline tickers. The relative international media blackout on Tunisia-related issues, however, can put all parties at a disadvantage. What is at stake here?

Some considerably difficult challenges lie ahead for Tunisia`s rocky transition to democracy. One would think that with all the talk—usually airy and empty—revolving around democracy, especially in the Western world, audiences would be interested in tracking one small country`s ambitions to build a pluralistic society; a country with relative geo-strategic importance perched on Africa`s crown bridging Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Admittedly, keeping out of the headlines does ring in a few benefits for Tunisia. With the exception of the Islamist-Secular dynamics with which the media seem to be overly preoccupied, sensationalism has been kept out of general debates. Further, the Tunisian government, along with civil society, has been afforded the opportunity to go about its business without deeply influential foreign commentary like what we see in Egypt and Libya. Yet, Tunisia being out of the limelight is no new trend. From the early days of the revolts in mid-December, few major news organizations took the movement as seriously as recent history has come to show us. A little before mid-January, however, news started breaking on a more regular basis on major international networks such as the BBC, France24, and others. The small, stable country long described by Westerners as a secular, quiet country, was in up flames. It merited the attention, it seemed, if only as a reminder to Western governments: "Your dictators are not here to stay.”

Sure enough, once the country edged back into stability, news coverage on developments in Tunisia nearly halted.

It is well-accepted in Tunisian folklore that the less attention one receives, the more successful the respective experience will be. “The evil eye is not easy,” it is said, and should be taken seriously. What is most alarming in the lack of media attention may reveal an undercurrent of interest-driven coverage in corporate media channels and another undercurrent of racism/otherness within the audiences consuming the news. The question, as most folks reading this probably realize, is: what news makes money? The second question is: why?

The natural resources (read: oil) Libya has, and Egypt`s proximity to Israel, are two major factors that augment the level of coverage the two countries receive. One factor is material and reads dollar bills, the other is geo-strategic. Tunisia, with nary a natural resource to even sustain the country, does present a crucial interest of study in all countries and academics in the world. The plunge in news coverage on Tunisia exacts a heavy toll on academic efforts in the field of nation building and democratization. The country can be seen as something of a testing vacuum for democracy and Arab sociology. There are several reasons for this.

The country is small, and has a relatively shorter list of "external factors" contributing to the ascension or descent of sociopolitical order—little foreign intervention contributed to Ben Ali`s fall, and most foreign governments took long enough to release statements endorsing the uprisings. It has been demonstrated time and time again that there is little vested interest in the country. Thus, organic movements can have a genuine chance to flourish. It is the perfect atmosphere, then, to put democracy to the test. 

Every Constituent Assembly debate should be recorded, transcribed, followed, and reported on, for every one of them reflects the societal nuances that are found all over the region. In constitution drafting, every word, letter, and conjugation should be noted. In the enumeration of presidential candidacy prerequisites, should the word "candidate" be conjugated in the female or male version? The market`s pulse—and how it changes depending on what type of economic system the country eventually adopts—needs to be monitored. What does it mean to go from a closed to an open market in North Africa? How will it contribute to the boom of exports, or the deterioration of the local currency? The conclusions that could be reached from such questions are crucial to our understanding of the modern world.

The honeymoon-reporting phase is over for Tunisia. The euphoria of deposing a long-ruling dictator has ended months ago—a sentiment which could not be more acutely felt than in the country itself. 

Even when Tunisia does receive media coverage, it is plagued by constant comparisons with its neighbors. More than anything, apple-orange comparisons with Egypt and Libya rob audiences of understanding the social and economic nuances and contours between the countries. The countries’ diverse colonial history, for instance, impacts modern-day economics and legal frameworks. The Tunisian legal code is a near carbon copy of the French, which influences the methodology the constitution is being written in today. Egypt’s history with the Muslim Brotherhood is decades older than that of Ennahda’s, and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is a factor that cannot be ignored. Yet, a plethora of attractive factors still beguile media giants into treating the "Arab Spring" countries as a monolithic entity, with Tunisia receiving an honorable mention of "starting" the trend.

There is more to the news than trendy appeal. There is more to the news than national interests. Serious and regular reporting about Tunisia’s internal challenges is absolutely necessary for our understanding of democratic development and post-Ben Ali North Africa as a whole.
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Jan 9, 2012 Lebanon
Maya Mikdashi By :
Maya Mikdashi

American Elections Watch 1: Rick Santorum and The Dangers of Theocracy

One day after returning to the United States after a trip to Lebanon, I watched the latest Republican Presidential Primary Debate. Unsurprisingly, Iran loomed large in questions related to foreign policy. One by one (with the exception of Ron Paul) the candidates repeated President Obama`s demand that Iran not block access to the Strait of Hormuz and allow the shipping of oil across this strategic waterway. Watching them, I was reminded of Israel`s demand that Lebanon not exploit its own water resources in 2001-2002. Israel`s position was basically that Lebanon`s sovereign decisions over the management of Lebanese water resources was a cause for war. In an area where water is increasingly the most valuable resource, Israel could not risk the possibility that its water rich neighbor might disrupt Israel`s ability to access Lebanese water resources through acts of occupation, underground piping, or unmitigated (because the Lebanese government has been negligent in exploiting its own water resources) river flow. In 2012, the United States has adopted a similar attitude towards Iran, even though the legal question of sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz is much more complicated and involves international maritime law in addition to Omani and Iranian claims of sovereignty. But still, US posturing towards Iran is reminiscent of Israeli posturing towards Lebanon. It goes something like this: while the US retains the right to impose sanctions on Iran and continuously threaten war over its alleged pursuit of a nuclear weapon, Iran should not dare to assume that it can demand the removal of US warships from its shores and, more importantly, should not dream of retaliating in any way to punitive sanctions imposed on it. One can almost hear Team America`s animated crew breaking into song . . . “America . . . Fuck Yeah!”

During the debate in New Hampshire, Rick Santorum offered a concise answer as to why a nuclear Iran would not be tolerated and why the United States-the only state in the world that has actually used nuclear weapons, as it did when it dropped them on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki- should go to war over this issue. Comparing Iran to other nuclear countries that the United States has learned to “tolerate” and “live with” such as Pakistan and North Korea, Santorum offered this succinct nugget of wisdom: Iran is a theocracy. Coming from a man who has stated that Intelligent Design should be taught in schools, that President Obama is a secular fanatic, that the United States is witnessing a war on religion, and that God designed men and women in order to reproduce and thus marriage should be only procreative (and thus heterosexual and “fertile”), Santorum`s conflation of “theocracy” with “irrationality” seemed odd. But of course, that is not what he was saying. When Santorum said that Iran was a theocracy what he meant is that Iran is an Islamic theocracy, and thus its leaders are irrational, violent, and apparently (In Santorum`s eyes) martyrdom junkies. Because Iran is an Islamic theocracy, it cannot be “trusted” by the United States to have nuclear weapons. Apparently, settler colonial states such as Israel (whose claim to “liberal “secularism” is tenuous at best), totalitarian states such as North Korea, or unstable states such as Pakistan (which the United States regularly bombs via drones and that is currently falling apart because, as Santorum stated, it does not know how to behave without a “strong” America) do not cause the same radioactive anxiety. In Santorum`s opinion, a nuclear Iran would not view the cold war logic of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) as a deterrent. Instead, the nation of Iran would rush to die under American or Israeli nuclear bombs because martyrdom is a religious (not national, Santorum was quick to state, perhaps realizing that martyrdom for nation is an ideal woven into the tapestry of American ideology) imperative. Santorum`s views on Iran can be seen one hour and two minutes into the debate.

When it comes to Islam, religion is scary, violent and irrational, says the American Presidential candidate who is largely running on his “faith based” convictions. This contradiction is not surprising, given that in the United States fundamentalist Christians regularly and without irony cite the danger that American muslims pose-fifth column style- to American secularism. After all, recently Christian fundamentalist groups succeeded in pressuring advertisers to abandon a reality show that (tediously) chronicled the lives of “American Muslims” living in Detroit. The great sin committed by these American Muslims was that they were too damn normal. Instead of plotting to inject sharia law into the United States Constitution, they were busy shopping at mid-western malls. Instead of marrying four women at a time and vacationing at Al-Qaeda training camps in (nuclear, but not troublingly so) Pakistan, these “American Muslims” were eating (halal) hotdogs and worrying about the mortgages on their homes and the rising costs of college tuition. Fundamentalist Christians watched this boring consumer driven normalcy with horror and deduced that it must be a plot to make Islam appear compatible with American secularism. The real aim of the show, these Christian fundamentalists (who Rick Santorum banks on for political and financial support) reasoned, was to make Islam appear “normal” and a viable religious option for American citizens. Thus the reality show “All American Muslim” was revealed to be a sinister attempt at Islamic proselytizing. This in a country where Christian proselytizing is almost unavoidable. From television to subways to doorbell rings to presidential debates to busses to street corners and dinner tables-there is always someone in America who wants to share the “good news” with a stranger. Faced with such a blatant, and common, double standard, we should continue to ask “If Muslim proselytizers threaten our secular paradise, why do Christian proselytizers not threaten our secular paradise?”

As the United States Presidential Elections kick into gear, we can expect the Middle East to take pride of place in questions pertaining to foreign policy. Already, Newt Gingrich who, if you forgot, has a PhD in history, has decided for all of us, once and for all, that the Palestinians alone in this world of nations are an invented people. Palestinians are not only a fraudulent people, Gingrich has taught us, they are terrorists as well. Candidates stumble over each other in a race to come up with more creative ways to pledge America`s undying support for Israel. Iran is the big baddie with much too much facial hair and weird hats. America is held hostage to Muslim and Arab oil, and must become “energy efficient” in order to free itself from the unsavory political relationships that come with such dependancy. Candidates will continue to argue over whether or not President Obama should have or should not have withdrawn US troops from Iraq, but no one will bring up the reality that the US occupation of Iraq is anything but over. But despite the interest that the Middle East will invite in the coming election cycle, there are a few questions that we can confidently assume will not be asked or addressed. Here are a few predictions. We welcome additional questions from readers.

Question: What is the difference between Christian Fundamentalism and Muslim Fundamentalism? Which is the greater “threat” to American secularism, and why?

Question: The United States` strongest Arab ally is Saudi Arabia, an Islamic theocracy and authoritarian monarchy which (falsely) cites Islamic law to prohibit women from driving cars, voting, but has recently (yay!) allowed women to sell underwear to other women. In addition, Saudi Arabia has been fanning the flames of sectarianism across the region, is the main center of financial and moral support for Al-Qaeda and is studying ways to “obtain” (the Saudi way, just buy it) a nuclear weapon-all as part and parcel of a not so cold war with Iran. Given these facts, how do you respond to critics that doubt the United States` stated goals of promoting democracy, human rights, women`s rights, and “moderate” (whatever that is) Islam?

Question: Israel has nuclear weapons and has threatened to use them in the past. True or false?

Question: How are Rick Santorum`s views on homosexuality (or the Christian right`s views more generally) different than President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad`s or King Abdullah`s? Can you help us tease out the differences when all three have said that as long as homosexuals do not engage in homosexual sex, it`s all good?

Question: Is the special relationship between the United States and Israel more special because they are both settler colonies, or is something else going on?