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=> Interesting interview transcript

Posted by Habibi (Guest) - Tuesday, August 10 2004, 23:34:23 (CEST)
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From Bill Moyers' NOW
August 6, 2004

BRANCACCIO: ... first, we talk to a filmmaker who turns her documentary eye on journalists and it's not a pretty picture. Her name is Jehane Noujaim and her unique voice comes from her ability to move easily between two worlds.

Born in Egypt to an Egyptian father and American mother from Indiana, she moved at the age of 16 with her family to the United States. Her documentary CONTROL ROOM is about Arab and American coverage of the war in Iraq.

Journalists hold a special responsibility as truth-tellers. But the truth can shift depending on where you're standing. No one knows that better than Jehane Noujaim.

BRANCACCIO: I just saw some new polling done by Zogby International looking at attitudes towards the United States in the Middle East. And just taking a look at Egypt, for instance, in 2002, 76 percent of Egyptians surveyed had unfavorable views towards America.

Now in 2004, it's up to 98 percent of Egyptians view the U.S. unfavorably.

NOUJAIM: Uh-huh. I think it's very difficult for us to sell a foreign policy to the Arab world that's not trusted, that hasn't been seen as fair towards the Middle East. And that's what it focused on. Because I don't think that the motives of the U.S. are trusted.

When they entered into Iraq, I don't think that, I mean, the general opinion in the Arab world was that the U.S. was going for the oil, that's it. They didn't think that they were legitimately going after somebody for weapons of mass destruction or anything like that.

They see the U.S. saying, "Well, we want to bring democracy to the region," yet for so long, they've supported all of these un-democratic leaders, including our President in Egypt, including, you know, many other leaders in the Arab world that are seen as puppets of the U.S. Government.

And then you have what's considered to be the kind of blind support of Israel without any kind of consideration of the Palestinian issue. And I think that's the major… that's the root of the anger towards the United States.

BRANCACCIO: Just want to drill down a little bit in this. I mean, here's… among the many concerns is my dying wish would be that Israelis and Palestinians would find happiness somehow. But then you worry that what underlies a lot of resentment in the Middle East towards America may go deeper than that.

You saw that in the Control Room in your film, when you're talking to Hassan Ibrahim, the BBC-trained journalist. There's this section.

[VIDEO BEGINS]
IBRAHIM: Ok. You are the most powerful nation on earth. I agree. You can defeat everybody. I agree. You can crush everybody. I agree. But don't ask us to love it as well.
[VIDEO ENDS]

BRANCACCIO: He seems to be making the point that the U.S. is resented because of its power, because it's essentially number one. That's not something that is a matter of public policy Americans are likely to want to change, and so there's gonna be this resentment about that.

NOUJAIM: I think that what you're hearing from Hassan is that. It's that, look, you know, here you are, the most powerful nation on earth, what we have is our ability to think for ourselves about how we feel about that, or how you're using that power.

I think that people feel like here you have the United States, we consume a lot more than the rest of the world for our size. We produce a lot more garbage than anybody in the rest of the world for our size. And we're affecting people who are halfway across the world.

Our tax dollars are paying for bombs to go to Iraq, to go to Afghanistan, and yet we don't actually know how these people really feel. And there's that acute sense there that people feel like the United States doesn't care, that it doesn't care how their invasion or how their foreign policy is affecting us.

And so all you can do in that situation is to say, "These are my feelings about it. I can't do anything about it. But I'm allowed to have my own perspective on what the U.S. is doing." And that's what you're seeing in these polls.

BRANCACCIO: But mixed in with these attitudes are contradictory thoughts. As you see it in your film, Samir Khader, the senior editor, is talking about, he's very critical of the United States. I mean, certainly he's on the record as being critical of the United States. But there's an interesting place in your film where he talks actually quite affectionately about the United States in terms of his aspirations for his children.

[VIDEO BEGINS]
KHADER: To change the Arab nightmare into the American dream. I still have that dream. Maybe I will never be able to do it, but I have plans for my children. When they finish their high school I will send them to American to study there. I will pay for their study and they will stay there.
[VIDEO ENDS]

BRANCACCIO: His goal is to change the, as he puts it, the Arab nightmare into the American dream. Hello. Jehane, he aspires toward our values. At the same time, there's all this antipathy.

NOUJAIM: Sure. I mean, I think that it's the difference between the love for what the United States stand for — for freedom, for democracy, for freedom of speech, for voting rights — versus what the United States is doing abroad in their foreign policy. I mean, I think that what Arabs see is that democracy so far has been limited to inside the United States.

But those same values are not applied in their treatment of countries outside of the United States. But what you see with Samir is a sentiment that you see across the Arab world. I mean, it's very interesting. The picture of the American Embassyin Egypt, it's right next to my father's office in Egypt.

And kind of the blockades against possible terrorist attack. They've now blocked like six streets around the embassy. But you still see the lines around the embassy of people that want to get visas. That people that wanna go to the States. That people who want to send their kids to be educated here. Because this is seen as a land of opportunity.

And so I think that, you know, I go back to the fact that there's just a very big difference between what people feel about the United States and what they stand for, and about what the government of the United States is actually doing in the Arab world.

BRANCACCIO: But, a lot of people in the Middle East don't understand the fact that America may have a more complex reaction to the situation than is appreciated there.

NOUJAIM: I definitely agree. I think that part of the responsibility actually of Al Jazeera is to bring the complexity of the American reaction and the American feelings towards the Arab world to the Arab world by Al Jazeera.

BRANCACCIO: Are they pulling that off? They're pretty anti-American.

NOUJAIM: They interesting in this way, because they show the destruction of war. But there is something that, you know, wouldn't automatically think is something that is pro-American when you first to listen to it. But actually the results of it ends up being something that is supportive of the United States. And this came about when I was asked how is Al Jazeera covering the Abu Ghraib prison abuses.

BRANCACCIO: These atrocities in the prison.

NOUJAIM: Right. And Samir Khader was with me doing interviews at the time.

He's a senior producer at Al Jazeera. And he said, you know, we're actually broadcasting four hours a day live of the the questioning that's happening of Rumsfeld, of these officials. It's being shown live on Al Jazeera four hours a day. And the reaction of people in the Arab world when they watch this on Al Jazeera, well, we have these atrocities happening and being committed, this torture. It's happening across all Arab prisons.

I mean, most people in the Arab world know this.

But when an Arab official of the level of Rumsfeld or these guys that were on put on trial ever be held accountable for it? No. They can't imagine an Arab official being held accountable. Yet here they were watching this person very high up in the American government, Rumsfeld, being questioned.

This was democracy in action. This was showing that people can make mistakes. Governments can make mistakes. The military can make a mistake. But at least in a democracy, people are held accountable for it.

And so this kind of programming on Al Jazeera can actually be much more of an advertisement for what the US stands for and for democracy than 20 programmings on the rebuilding of Iraq. Because somebody in the Arab world will look at that with cynicism and say, oh yea, well, they're rebuilding Iraq because, you know, they'll get the oil at the end of it versus watching the trial of Rumsfeld and these other officials is seen as, oh, okay. Well, they're being held responsible for the atrocities that happened in the prison. And that's actually a very positive, you know, a very positive effect that Al Jazeera can bring.

BRANCACCIO: But Al Jazeera, it's not some sort of neutral force for covering world events.

NOUJAIM: It's not… I think that the journalists there do have a point of view. They were very much anti-war. But much as they're against what the United States was doing in Iraq, they're also very much against Arab governments in the region for not fixing things in the Arab world. For not, working towards a better place for people to live.

And this is why they've been shut down in so many Arab countries. Their reporters have been jailed. Their offices have been… Jazeera's offices have been closed down. I think Samir Khader, who is the senior producer at Al Jazeera, said that he's not allowed into 15 out of the 22 Arab countries because he's an Al-Jazeera journalist.

He's not allowed to make the Hajj, the Muslim rite, the trip to Mecca because he's an Al Jazeera journalist. He's not allowed in Saudi Arabia. So you know, the Arab governments certainly haven't been very tolerant of criticism of themselves and of free speech.

BRANCACCIO: So Jehane, a number of your friends have wanted to or have traveled to the Middle East to understand the region better. Isn't that fairly rare?

NOUJAIM: I can be a convincing person. So…

BRANCACCIO: You've been dragging them to the Middle East?

NOUJAIM: Maybe I've been dragging them to the Middle East.

BRANCACCIO: Well, what is the tour of the Middle East that you give them? What are the stops on the tour?

NOUJAIM: I have a standard tour. And I do see with friends of mine that have traveled to the Middle East and people that I've met here that have gone abroad, their views of the world and the United States' role in the world is drastically different after a first trip abroad than it was when they were living in the United States.

I mean, we're an amazing country. We're a country that is called the land of the free, because it's where people from all over the world have come to seek freedom and opportunity. And you still see that image of the United States abroad.

But if we become this close-minded place here, where we don't understand other cultures, what's happening outside of our borders are we're effecting the rest of the world, I think that's extremely dangerous for us.

BRANCACCIO: Well, Jehane Noujaim, thank you very much for joining us.

NOUJAIM: Thank you very much for having me.

For more about Noujaim, see: http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/noujaim.html
Link for info about Al-Jazeera, see: http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/aljazeera.html

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