Lately, we have seen how the head of the Arab channel Al
Jazeera, Wadah Khanfar, has been removed from his position without a trace or
word. This has led to several hypotheses that have put international opinion on
the track of possible causes for such a change in the world’s most popular and
relevant Arabic channel, owned by some of the most important fortunes in Qatar.
The channel had been accused of faking footage on several demonstrations and
rebellions in the Arab world, as well as clearly supporting those rebellions that
are currently going on in the phenomenon so called, the “Arab spring”.
Such accusations have been widely proved to be
insubstantial, even after Wikileaks exposed Mr Khanfar as an agent in service
of the American government. We could say that the Qatari leaders did not have
an option after the big noise and harm that these accusations brought over the
channel. However, it is undeniable that the support that Al Jazeera has shown
towards the revolutions in countries like Egypt, Syria and Libya, has made the
governments of these countries feel uneasy about the role that the channel is
playing in these events.
Taking in account that most power in Qatar flows from the
owners of Al Jazeera and similar businesses that have bloomed from the incomes
of petroleum, why should a country like Qatar, as autocratic as can be, have
any interest on supporting the rising of impending democracies in the region?
Well, the answer in my opinion lays on the idea of the Arab brotherhood. Qatar,
as the owner of most the economic and commercial power in the region (besides
the UAE), may have seen the chance to unite the Arab countries under one
purpose without losing any privilege they had before. They have the money and
the logistics but we are to wait if this will be enough for the rest to follow
them. At least, this should cause more than a restless night amongst occidental
countries and global powers.
Source: The Economist, Sep 24th 2011
Even your article begin with the fact that: "the Arab journalist for the channel Al Jazeera, Wadah Khanfar, has been removed from his position without a trace or word", I agree with the focus of your summary about petroleum issues and the current and future politic position of Qatar. To me, Qatar is developping and stablishing an strategy for its future relations with other countries. That's why I found interesting your particular analysis between the influence of Al-Jazeera and Qatar interests.
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