A thread. Why Khashoggi's last article was terrible: and why Western media liked his Post articles. 1) Notice that there is an Orientalist bent in his writings. He totally and absolutely absolves the West from any responsibility in the dominance of autocracy in the region when
all the tyrannies of the region (except Syria) are under the direct sponsorship of Western governments. He should know because when he spent his career spread the propaganda of Saudi regime, Western governments (all) were chief supporter and arms suppliers of the regime--as they
still are. 2) just as he was a loyal decades-long propagator of Saudi regime propaganda, he has become a propagator of Western propaganda without any question. Notice that he basically believes that West can liberate Arabs. 3) there is a clear Orientalist bent to his writings
in the post and talks about the damage that occurred to the "Arab psyche" which a translation of his lousy articles in the Post can cure. 4) he begins his last terrible article by references to ranking by Freedom House. He says not one word about the political nature of those
silly ranking and that the ranking came out of the Cold War propaganda and US effort to undermine communist regime. The ranking of Freedom House clearly rewards governments for being loyal to US agenda and puts Jordan and Morocco ahead of Lebanon--where you can criticize all
officials while in Jordan and Morocco there are laws to protect royals from even mild criticisms. 5) Worse, he even (very much like Kanaan Makiyya in Iraq) implies that Arabs are intellectually incapable of handling truth and democracy because their minds are spoiled, while
Khashoggi's articles (translated from Arabic into English and then back into Arabic) can help save the Arab people. thanks. 6) He mentions the case of Saleh Al-Shehi, who is a brave Saudi journalist. He worked for Khashoggi in Al-Watan and it was his articles not Khashoggi's
which rankled the Saudi regime. Al-Shehi was uncompromising. In fact, in an interview with a TV station based in Turkey from this year, Khashoggi talked about how he used to censor articles of Al-Shehi. And he in the article salutes Al-Shehi while in that lengthy interview
(see it on Youtube, and I posted it earlier) he in fact discourages people in Saudi Arabia from being courageous like Al-Shehi and calls on people to not oppose the regime inside the kingdom. He says that people should only criticize the regime if they leave the country. 7) He
then talks about how Arab governments control the internet as if the internet is free from obscuration and control in Western countries. His idea about the freedom contrast between "East" and "West" reminds one about the epistemological distinction "East" and "West" in
Orientalist writings. 8) Alas Khashoggi finds an exception to the lack of freedoms in the Arab world and he pays tribute to Qatari autocracy: "Qatar’s government continues to support international news coverage". But there is also foreign coverage in other regime media and
the problem is in the nature of the coverage. Qatari regime media especially after 2011 have become quite indistinguishable in the use of crude propaganda especially on AlAzeera Arabic. Khashoggo seems not bothered by how the Qatari regime intervened to censor a documentary
on AIPAC which was prepared by Aljazeera English teams of investigative reporters. 9) He then laments that media even in Tunisia and Kuwait focus on domestic issues but not of issues of concern to the larger Arab world. Well, it depends what media he is looking at. But his
Ikhwan sympathies comes across here and in 10) finally he remembers the media of Lebanon where all the media (minute one newspaper, Al-Akhbar) fall under the direct or indirect control of the Saudi regime (and a few follow Qatari regime like New TV while Al-Mayadin is close to
Syrian regime). Yet, he says this about the media of Lebanon: "has fallen victim to the polarization and influence of pro-Iran Hezbollah." Is he saying that the polarization of Lebanon is due to Hizbullah's influence? Were the civil sectarian conflicts in Lebanon in 19th century
also due to Hizbullah's influence? Hizbullah's influence over the media in Lebanon is minuscule and the overwhelming number of media produce daily propaganda against Hizbullah on behalf of Saudi regime and Western patrons. This shows you the biases of Khashggi (Ikhwan and West)
11) Khashoggi finally found the answer: the US funded propaganda of the Cold War year. This is his solution to the lack of freedoms in the Arab world: "During the Cold War, Radio Free Europe, which grew over the years into a critical institution". Do you see why he was an
agreeable token Arab writing for a paper which represented the propaganda of Western governments? Khashoggi wanted more US propaganda in the Arab world presumably to free Arabs. But why did he fail to mention the US propaganda TV, Al-Hurra TV, and US funding for other media?
Why does he not tell us why Al-Hurra TV failed to liberate Arabs? He concludes his article by expression hope that the translation of his articles into Arabic would liberate the Arabs. What about your decades-long articles on behalf of Saudi regime? Should we translate those
into English as well?
