What if Tunisia had a revolution, but nobody watched?
ethanzuckerman.com
ethanzuckerman.com
Josh Shahryar also had a great piece on Enduring America on Friday, after Ben Ali fled the country:
"Today, as dismayed as I was, I got an answer to my question: What happens when the media ignores a revolution? Sometimes,the answer is: Nothing. The media can help mobilize support for victims of earthquakes like the one in Haiti. The media can also help create an atmosphere where people can feel that they should care about those overseas. But, when the media refuses to cover a revolution, it really does not carry any impact.
That’s what people in Tunisia proved today by forcing their dictator to jump ship and leave the country. In a few hours, those US outlets who paid no heed will tell you how important it is that, for the first time in decades, a country in the Middle East has forced out an autocrat. Then you’ll have analysts telling you how important it is for US interests that this wave continues or maybe doesn't continue. There will be cute little graphs that Anderson Cooper can pull around on those big computer screens. Hey, it’s all going to be happening!
But this will be too late. The mainstream will not be part of the global wave of online support who witnessed a ground-breakingly inspirational event that will live on in memories for years to come and that could influence views on the Middle East, democracy, and human rights for decades."
More at http://www.enduringamerica.com/home/2011/1/14/tunisia-specia...
And we can all agree that Al Jazeera is 'media'
Some countries have just been in the news more, so have been noticed more and have more 'fans' or interested observers than others.
Even for the educated crowd here, if I said that the government of Sao Tome had been overthrown, that would be a lot less interesting than if I said the government of Libya had been overthrown.
Not to mention that tiny scrap of land about the size of New Jersey on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, where a local conflict has been keeping the world media drooling for 60 years.
It is also the only country from Northern Africa ("magrheb") which is secular, with all the ensuing geopolitical consequences w.r.t. terrorism of islamic ideology. That's one of the main reason why European union supported Ben Ali quite heavily (EU represented 2/3 of international trade for Tunisia).
Algeria might be considered more secular. When the Islamic Salvation Front won the first rounds of the Algerian elections in 1991, the military took control of the government in order to stop Algeria from becoming an Islamist state under sharia law, which caused the civil war. The Algerian constitution also states that no political party may be formed if it is "based on differences in religion, language, race, gender or religion". Still, 99% of Algerians practice Islam.
Tunisia encourages women working in official positionsnot to wear the hijab in public places. Same restrictions for men. Indeed, you could say that the rules is stricted than in France (the most violently anti hijab of my friends are Tunisian muslims). It is only of anedoctal value, but within most of my friends who are muslims, most of the ones not practising the religion at all (eating pig, drinking alcohol) are of Tunisian descendant.
You are the first person that I know who claim Algeria is more secular than Tunisia. I would be curious to know what you are basing it on, the fact that the military took control does not mean much: what matters is the society.
RE: Algeria, I have a lot of family there, and my immediate family travels back at least once a year. Overall it's a very liberal, secular country, especially compared to other Arab nations.
Also, there ARE european officials siding with the tunesian people: http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2011/january/eu-us-expr...
Though, in my opinion, if Catherine Ashton, EU foreign policy chief, says something, it only means that no one else want's to say it.
I'm not sure if you are purposely using an Adam Curtis-ism or not here.
In Curtis' "Power of Nightmares" he discusses the simplification of news to "good versus evil". This is obviously a huge oversimplification. Sometimes the "good" swap places with the "evil", the victims become the people committing attrocities. This causes a problem: the changeable nature of "who is the goodie?" doesn't fit in with simplified news reporting. To explain the role switch to viewers, a lot of additional information needs to be provided. This would kill ratings. He argues that this change has led to the death of tv news.
You can download the dvd here: http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares
It was the major multi-page article in all the Sunday Papers here.
As far as I know, the BBC News site for us yanks is identical to the version served to you in the UK. I don't believe bbc.co.uk uses geolocation content filtering or modification. bbc.com and bbc.co.uk appear to be resolving to the same address as well.
bbc.co.uk does have "Battles in Tunis as key aide held" as its top story as I write this, so it is not like Americans are blocked from seeking out information using the same sources as the rest of the world.
BBC America is just a TV channel; that's why that website is entertainment-based.
Spain: http://www.elmundo.es/
Germany: http://www.spiegel.de/
I suppose that the US media don't focus on news that are not on the national political agenda and they tend to be more focused on the inside.
(Admittedly, CNN would wait until after the revolution had a twitter page.)
It is. It is also that Tunisia is a former French colony.
[1] Distance between capitols according to Wolfram Alpha
That's not true, Bouazizi put his degree in front of his cart, which annoyed the authorities. So they confiscated his wares. No one really here have a license for selling fruits.
Edit: I'm a Tunisian (born and living here), if you have any question about the situation you can ask me.
I really hope that real change happens in Tunisia, most of the revolutions even though successful in short term do not bring the real change, because people falsely assume that removing a single dictator will change the course of a country, however its only the end of the beginning.
The hard part comes next where the society as a whole has to make a concerted effort to create independent political and economic institutions which keep check on each other. Most of the time, specially in Asian and African region, this step is forgotten and the only result revolution achieves is replacement of old dictator by a new dictator.
I saw it on CNN at a pizza place a few days ago.
Not saying that people shouldn't talk about it more, but whenever somebody says something isn't being covered by the "main stream media" I can usually show otherwise with a quick google search.
Often it is just code for: "Why aren't people caring about this issue that i care about?"
Not always the case, I'm just tired of hearing people say that.
It will definitely be interesting to see how long CNN and others covers the events in Tunisa moving forward.
[edited for clarification]
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/French_occupa...
I've been to Tunisia and was surprised that everybody knows French there, and I know there's at least one university with some good students, so it is not unexpected.
Was the NYT 2-3 weeks late in giving this story a focus? Were they just waiting to see if it would become relevant among the US wars and domestic political violence? Or did they get caught off guard until Al-Jazeera scooped them? Either way, it doesn't look like they egregiously sandbagged the story, they were just later to it than they could have been.