One cannot effectively address the intricate subject of political, social and economic reforms anywhere in the world, without unwittingly stumbling on issues of relevance to freedom of speech and the sovereignty of the media. A free media is both a requisite and a product of a truly democratic society. This issue cannot be more applicable in the case of the Arab World.
The traditional role of media in the Arab World has been bound for generations as a tool of propaganda. Such a concept doesn’t only carry the negative overtone of propaganda as an instrument of mind control and a way to garner conformity and compliance. But some Arab countries, following their independence after often bloody yet successful drives for freedom, even toyed with the idea of utilizing the medium of mass communications (primitive as they were) to achieve national unity.
It was only a matter of time before propaganda reclaimed some of its more traditional roles that intended to stifle freedom, gagging the opposition while endlessly hailing the ruling elites. While it delivered amazingly similar results--as a tool of crowd control--to the craftier methods of propaganda utilized by some Western powers, including the United States during and after World War II, the style and presentation differed greatly.
Among Arab states, propaganda was anything but benign either. Although it was equally effective, it was crude and oppressive. The ’unruly’ segments of society were suppressed by violent means and had to operate underground. The Arab media seemed as if it was invented with the sole purpose of praising the ruler and the miracle of his mere existence.
Nowadays change seems inevitable. The mediums of communications have themselves changed. It was no longer possible to cut off an entire nation of its regional and international development. It was no longer feasible to convince the multitudes to expect little from their leaders, now that they had learned of international standards of governance.
Moreover, there is the rhetoric of democracy everywhere. The mere possession of the product of democracy is enough to enhance every aspect of an individual or even a nation’s well-being. The US administration has shrewdly chosen to pose as a bringer of democracy to the Arabs, for it knows too well that you can never go wrong introducing so murky a concept. Unlike the WMDs pretense, with a limited life span, the democracy pretext is ageless and largely immune to scrutiny.
Such reasoning--improved communication technology and accessibility coupled with outside political manipulation--compounded the already existing pressure on many Arab governments, forcing them to ease their overpowering control over the media, to accommodate the new reality. However, this should not suggest that the unavoidable change is not itself orchestrated to maintain the status quo of the highly contrasted relationship between the governing and the governed.
Undoubtedly, there is a transition in some Arab states in regards to the media. However, there is no evidence whatsoever that proves such a transition is in fact inspired by the realization that media freedom is a central component to political accountability.
The challenge facing some Arab governments is indeed formidable. The Arab populace can be suppressed to conformity, as history has shown, but they cannot easily be duped into it, especially as the connection between Arab peoples and their governments is marred with suspicion and mistrust.
Whereas one can comfortably observe the easing of the state’s tight control over the media in some Arab countries--evidently for the purpose of adopting more scientific control mechanisms--one can hardly be confident predicting the future of this transition. Although the people of the Arab World yearn for the freedom to express themselves and articulate their grievances unhindered and free of intimidation, the state has boundaries that cannot be crossed; for crossing these boundaries, it is believed, will compromise the ruling elite’s everlasting reign.
Consequently, scores of Arabic channels are now free to air uncensored hip-hop obscenities as well as vulgar and often violent American television re-runs. Arab audiences are free to select from among the thousands of products, mostly junk food and useless gadgets. Private television enterprises are equally free to duplicate high rating American shows such as “Survivor“, “American Idol“ and “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.“ However, serious and meaningful debate regarding the social, economic and political deficiencies facing the Arabs are largely absent, and for good reason, for they are likely to threaten the existing, delicate balance that delineates the relationship between the haves and have-nots, the rulers and the ruled, the oppressors and the traditionally oppressed.
Even the often called upon media examples, such as Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, to demonstrate that a considerable freedom course has been chosen, seem, in the eyes of many Arabs, to counter the status quo selectively and for a political end. Their worth would have to be questioned against the backdrop of social and political development in the Arab world, not simply as agitators, taboo breakers or anti this and pro that. Such designations no longer suffice if the Arab media is to distance itself from hidden political agendas.
Communication is obviously a two way street. However, in much of the Arab world, only governments and large businesses seem to enjoy the benefit of the mass media, with minimal space available for any contending views, whose task is to validate the media as all encompassing and democratic. Yet, if Arab media, in its current setting, is entrusted with the task of contributing to the quest of political reforms throughout the Arab world, the end product can be highly predictable, for the status quo shall continue under different a name and designation.
ZMAG.ORG

If you bomb our cities, Osama bin Laden said in a recent videotape, we will bomb yours. It was clear Britain would be a target ever since British Prime Minister Tony Blair decided to join President Bush’s “war on terror“ and his invasion of Iraq. We had, as they say, been warned. The G-8 summit was obviously chosen, well in advance, as Attack Day.
It’s no use Blair telling us, “They will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear.“ They are not trying to destroy “what we hold dear.“ They are trying to get public opinion to force Blair to withdraw from Iraq, out of his alliance with the United States, out of his adherence to Bush’s policies in the Middle East. The Spanish paid the price for their support for Bush--and Spain’s subsequent retreat from Iraq proved that the Madrid bombings achieved their objectives--while the Australians were made to suffer in Bali.
It is easy for Blair to call Thursday’s bombings “barbaric“--they were--but what were the civilian deaths of the Anglo American invasion of Iraq in 2003, the children torn apart by cluster bombs, the innocent Iraqis gunned down at American military checkpoints. When they die, it is “collateral damage“; when “we“ die it is “barbaric terrorism.“
If we are fighting insurgency in Iraq what makes us believe insurgency won’t come to us? One thing is certain: If Blair really believes that by “fighting terrorism“ in Iraq we could more efficiently protect Britain, this argument is no longer valid.
To time these bombs with the G-8 summit, when the world was concentrating on Britain, was not a stroke of genius. You don’t need a Ph.D. to choose another Bush-Blair handshake to close down a capital city with explosives and massacre its citizens. The G-8 summit was announced so far in advance that he gave the bombers all the time they needed to prepare. A coordinated system of attacks of the kind we saw Thursday takes weeks to plan; we can forget the idiotic fantasy these were timed to coincide with the Olympic decision. Bin Laden and his supporters don’t set up an operation like this on the off chance that France will lose its bid to host the Games. Al-Qaida does not play football.
No, this would have taken months--to choose safe houses, prepare explosives, identify targets, ensure security, choose the bombers, to plan the communications.
Coordination and sophisticated planning--and the usual utter indifference toward the lives of the innocent--are characteristic of al-Qaida.
Let us reflect on the fact that Thursday--the opening of the G-8--represented a total failure of our security services. These are the same intelligence “experts“ who claim there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq when there were none but who utterly failed to uncover a months-long plot to kill Londoners.
Trains, planes, buses, cars, metros. Transportation appears to be the science of al-Qaida’s dark arts. No one can search 3 million London commuters every day. No one can stop every tourist.
To go on pretending that Britain’s enemies want to destroy “what we hold dear“ encourages racism; what we are confronting here is a specific, direct, centralized attack on London as a result of a “war on terror“ that Blair has locked us into. Just before the U.S. presidential elections, bin Laden asked: Why do we not attack Sweden?“ Lucky Sweden. No Osama bin Laden there. And no Tony Blair.
INDEPENDENT.CO.UK

A Bosnian Muslim woman cries over the coffin of her son on July 10 in a factory hall in Potocari where 610 victims of Srebrenica massacre wait for the funeral. (Reuters Photo)

Five years ago, I stood on a hillside near Srebrenica and witnessed forensic experts from the Hague War Crimes Tribunal examine the decomposed bodies of scores of Bosnian Muslim men and boys who had been massacred in the valley below. Their corpses had been driven up that steep hill and thrown off the road.
It had taken five years, until that week in August 2000, to discover their bones scattered among the trees and bushes. No Bosnian Serb living in that area had reported their existence since July 1995, when an estimated 7,800 males perished at sites across eastern Bosnia.
Questions haunt me about the Srebrenica massacres, which the Hague Tribunal has determined constitute genocide. Maybe Srebrenica’s Muslim men and boys would be with us today and their families tearless had the United States and other key governments acted wisely during the late spring and summer of 1995.
What if all the threads of information about Bosnian Serb intent for the United Nations “safe areas“ of Srebrenica, Zepa, and Goradze had been properly analyzed in a timely manner and brought to the attention of senior policymakers before such intent was acted on? What if we had understood that the blockage of all humanitarian convoys to the eastern enclaves in June 1995 was likely a military tactic to isolate the towns further prior to ethnic cleansing rather than a logistical challenge to overcome?
For months we had been hopelessly bogged down in Washington and with Security Council members over two military plans for the future of Bosnia. One was to withdraw the much-maligned but vital UNPROFOR--the UN peacekeeping force in Bosnia--under cover of a temporary NATO military deployment. The other plan was to deploy a NATO or UN-led Rapid Reaction Force (RRF) to put real muscle behind UNPROFOR’s continued presence to fulfill its humanitarian mandate.
Endless talks continued over the surreal evacuation plan: Would NATO commit to replace UNPROFOR with a robust force and, if not, what happens to civilians while the safe areas and perhaps Sarajevo are overrun? And how to fund the RRF was debated: From UN assessments or unknown sources of voluntary funding?
What if the funding and policy morass over the RRF had been resolved much earlier and the multinational force deployed by early July?
When the Srebrenica assault began that month, we looked in vain for a credible military option to confront the aggressors--and none existed.
Helicopters and NATO soldiers simply weren’t positioned, as planned for the RRF, to get to Srebrenica in time.
Even one well-intentioned proposal to airlift soldiers into Srebrenica was pointless without the helicopters to do it. Any standing plan to extract the Dutch peacekeepers, never mind civilians, required weeks to activate. The Srebrenica genocide took a few days to accomplish.
When atrocities erupt, timing is everything.
What if, when it became known on July 12 that thousands of men and boys had been isolated for “war crimes screening“ and then just vanished, we had leaped to the educated guess that they might be destined for extermination?
Instead, we waited for another day’s reports to indicate whether they were still missing, and then we mused about their possibly heading to Zepa.
There was no concrete plan to prevent atrocity crimes at Srebrenica. In fact, there was no realistic plan to save any of the “safe areas“ from assault or atrocities.
David Scheffer, US ambassador at large for war crimes issues (1997-2001)
CSMONITOR.COM

Filipino students shout anti-Arroyo slogans from a school building during a rally demanding the resignation of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo at a government school campus in Manila, July 11. (Reuters Photo)

It is hard to find a satisfactory way out of the Philippines’ political crisis. Every avenue seems mined. But there is still a chance that this catharsis could lead to a change in the Constitution.
Until the July 8 defection of much of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s cabinet and calls for her resignation from former President Corazon Aquino and the Makati Business Club, the least bad option seemed to be for the president to stay in office--at least until impeachment by the Congress appeared likely or more damning evidence of ballot rigging emerged.
The dubious ouster of her predecessor, Joseph Estrada, in 2001 has returned to haunt her. Loss of support from large sections of the elite that engineered her assumption of power has undercut her biggest claim--that she could deliver competent government and desperately needed fiscal reform. Now if she tries to cling to power, she is, at best, likely to be a lame duck for the rest of her term, which still has five years to run.
Before then Arroyo would most likely be ousted either by impeachment, military intervention or the combination of mass protest, judicial and church activism and withdrawal of military support, which is the mix of forces that removed Estrada, despite the refusal of the Senate to impeach him.
It might seem best for her now to fall on her sword in the manner of President Richard Nixon. But Nixon had a clear and unquestioned successor. Arroyo does not.
So is there any possibility of a silver lining? There is one. Former President Fidel Ramos has advised Arroyo not to be railroaded into resignation but to offer to step down next year once changes in the Constitution have been pushed through. Ramos has long been in favor of a shift to a parliamentary system and a movement in that direction was attempted late in his presidency but made little headway as it was seen as a means of prolonging his power. Now, however, after years of political turmoil and ingrained political corruption there is a possibility of a consensus forming for such a shift. At the very least there could be a move to a unicameral legislature. Other changes being pushed for are a federal system, proportional representation and strengthening of the party system.
It is doubtful if such major changes could be achieved in today’s highly-charged atmosphere. They would particularly undercut the power of the 24 senators, an opportunistic collection of individuals often more interested in self-promotion than good governance.
However, there are ways of changing the constitution, and reform could be done quite quickly. The most straightforward is through the election of a Constitutional Convention. But it is also possible for the two houses of Congress to form an assembly to propose changes that would then go to a referendum.
The majority of Filipinos are believed to be sick of their politicians and would back changes in the system. But can the politicians set aside their battles for the spoils of office? It seems unlikely, but today’s impasse is so serious that radical steps to improve a system that has become an embarrassment to democracy are needed.
IHT.COM