The Gulf blog

Al Jazeera mark II 6, May 2014

It has been known for some time that Qatar has been planning to launch a new news channel based in London. Half of the ‘Al Arab Al Jadeed [The New Arab]’ venture began on 30th March 2014 with the news website, while the expected TV channel is still in the works. Many have puzzled as to why Qatar, which has already spent untold billions on its main broadcaster, Al Jazeera, would sink money into another venture, while other have mocked the decision.

The driving force behind the whole venture is Azmi Bishara. The colorful Doha resident who has seemingly been influential behind the scenes in Doha for some time now and is the head of the Arab Centre for Policy Studies, which is in the process of expanding to become a Masters degree-awarding institution. Under Bishara’s leadership, AL Arab Al Jadeed is thought to provide a counter weight to Al Jazeera Arabic, which unabashedly tows a pro-Muslim Brotherhood line. Despite the mockery, there is a certain logic to this. It strikes me as perfectly sensible for Qatar to attempt to balance out its image as a slavish Ikhwan-supporting state, for that is how it is viewed by some, though the truth is inevitably much more nuanced.

Aside form Al Jazeera, Qatar has long sought to boost its ‘soft power’ – to use the hackneyed phrase – using media. Aside from Al Jazeera, one of the ways that it wanted to boost the Libyan opposition was by establishing  Libya al-Ahrar TV station. Qatar is also believed (or rather rumored) to be behind a range of other media ventures elsewhere in the Middle East, such as the Al Jadeed channel in Lebanon. Qatar’s elite clearly feel that as a small country with a minimal ability to project power because it is such a physically small place, using its key resource – cash – to buy asymmetric soft power is a wise investment. This is not such a bad calculation.

As for the more conspiracy minded notions that Emir Tamim is pursuing this Al Arab Al Jadeed venture because his hands are tied when it comes to altering Al Jazeera because it was started by and is somehow still under the ‘protection’ of his father, Hamad bin Khalifah Al Thani, there are more persuasive (and likely) if less entertaining reasons afoot. Firstly, purging Al Jazeera may be too vocal or obvious a sign that Qatar has given in to the Saudi-led tub-thumping, some of which has allegedly demanded that its coverage be altered. Clearly Qatar needs to give some ground, but it wants and needs to do this in as quiet a way as possible. Clearing house at Al Jazeera, though I have argued that it would be a beneficial idea overall, would understandably be an obvious sign of change. Secondly, it is practically impossible to change bureaucracies. They have a profound inertia all of their own. Even in Qatar where the Emir is relatively unconstrained, the leadership has shown over and over again that it prefers to duplicate bureaucracies rather tackle them head-on. Hence the creation of the Supreme Councils over the years to actually make meaningful, effective institutions as opposed trying to reform the old bureaucracies in charge of the same fiefdoms.