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17 Dec 2013
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At an event to launch English subtitle service for Arabic TV news by Al Arabiya<br />
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<strong>Princess Rym Ali calls to change Arabs’ “negative stereotypes” in western media</strong><br />
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To mark the relaunch of the Al Arabiya News website and the 10-year anniversary of the Al Arabiya News Channel, Al Arabiya News Global Discussion was held on Saturday November 30th 2013, attended by a distinguished group of intellectual, political and media international figures.<br />
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Speaking at the event, HRH Princess Rym Ali, founder of the Jordan Media Institute (JMI), has called on Arabs to fight discrimination, saying it is not the West’s role to correct “negative stereotypes” about the Middle East region. “I am aware of the negative stereotypes portrayed in Hollywood. It remains our duty to fight every word that is anti-Arab or discriminating against us,” Princess Rym said.<br />
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Below is the speech of HRH Princess Rym Ali at the event:<br />
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Your Excellencies,<br />
Ladies and gentlemen,<br />
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Thank you for being here this evening and thank you for inviting me to this event.</p>
<p>I’d like to start with a personal story, having been an Arab reporter in a Western news network.<br />
In 2003, after a few days of shock and awe in Baghdad, my crew and I were expelled. I went to Amman and was asked to stay there and report about the humanitarian aid that was going into Iraq.<br />
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My green-eyed, blonde, American producer and I found the place where truck drivers refuel on their trips to Iraq.<br />
Being the one who spoke Arabic, I was the one asking questions about the situation.<br />
The first gentleman I interviewed immediately turned to my producer and began talking with her.<br />
I took the microphone to him and asked him whether he could talk me, and he replied, “no, I want to talk with the person who will be doing the report and appear on tv”. No matter how much I tried to convince him that it was me, he would keep turning to my producer and explain to her his view on things.</p>
<p>I went back to Iraq a couple of weeks later. As you may remember the situation then was extremely volatile in Baghdad, so CNN had hired a security company to escort us on some of our shoots. I was asked to go and cover a raid somewhere. As I waited for the rest of the crew to gather, I was chatting with our drivers, in Arabic. When the security people arrived, they told me to go and sit in the back of the 2nd vehicle and started shouting “where’s the talent?” - I wasn’t sure whether they meant me but the producer assured me they did so I stuck my head out and said that was me. Again, they told me they were looking for the actual reporter. I assured them it was me. They apologized, sorry about that, we didn’t think so “because we thought you were Arabic” …</p>
<p>These amusing incidents, while not malicious in any way, shape or form, were just very revealing of the stereotypes that many of us continue to promote within our societies, at the workplace and everywhere.</p>
<p>Like many of you, I am aware of the negative stereotypes portrayed in Hollywood, but also of the discrimination in covering Arabs or Arab affairs in some Western news outlets.</p>
<p>It remains our duty to fight every word that is anti-Arab or discriminating against us.</p>
<p>But I would also urge against seeing a systematic plot everywhere. It is my experience that there is also a lot of innocent or naïve ignorance about who we are. And here we have another duty, that to inform the other about whom we really are and help them stay away from stereotypes.</p>
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To a degree, that means making sure a proper and accurate image of who we are, is reflected in every possible field: sports, cuisine, art, the media, everything.</p>
<p>This means the role of culture within our societies should come first and not be relegated to the backburner as is the case in some countries.</p>
<p>So usually, when I’m asked why we’re given a bad reputation, my answer is, to ask in turn: whose responsibility is our image, at the end of the day, is it not our role to work on our image as Arabs, rather than expect the West to take up our battles?</p>
<p>But truly changing stereotypes and misperceptions goes beyond just projecting a desired image and expecting it to be “bought.”</p>
<p>There is a tendency to use shortcuts: paying a PR company is a well-known practice everywhere, East and West alike.<br />
But realities inevitably take over and audiences on both sides of the cultural gap are now much more media savvy so that there is a limit to which one can blame the media for creating tensions. Needless to say serious political issues, like the Israeli Palestinian conflict, among others, are hurdles that cannot be wished away by more positive images here and there.</p>
<p>For us to establish a two-way communication that is based on mutual respect and knowledge of the other, I believe that we need to start at the roots:</p>
<p>In the West as in our region, primary education is an obvious place to begin with, not least because today’s children are tomorrow’s consumers but also producers of content via social media. And then, of course, efforts are to be made within the various traditional media, and that includes news and entertainment.</p>
<p>As far as our region is concerned, I would suggest that a good starting point would be to bring back a better knowledge of our own history, as well as the teaching of philosophy, which no longer exists in some high school curricula.<br />
We expect the West to recognize the debt of gratitude they owe Arab civilization when we do not do so ourselves.<br />
In many Government curricula, the Arab thinkers from the heyday of Arab civilization have been removed and our children are left to learn about limited bits and pieces glorifying the Muslim Empire’s conquests.<br />
While we know, as recorded by the Muslim scholar Al Hashimi at the time, that the Islamic world flourished during the Middle Ages thanks to freedom of thought.</p>
<p>There is also little acknowledgment or pride taken in the great diversity that we host.<br />
But it is only after we teach our children about diversity and we embrace it within our own societies that we can confidently be open to dialogue with others, without feeling threatened by anyone in any way.</p>
<p>I went to a French school and had private Arabic lessons with a tutor who was very good in grammar but who insisted on telling me how the Arabs had invented everything. Of course, at school, we were taught that most inventions and discoveries were made by Europeans. It was confusing. But I learnt through that that there are always both sides to a story and the truth is usually somewhere in between – which turned out to be very useful when I became a journalist btw…</p>
<p>It’s a shame that many Western news outlets are closing their international bureaus, but it is also an opportunity for our local journalists to cover our region.</p>
<p>When I worked as a journalist in the field, I tried to report on people in the region not only as Arabs and Muslims, but as mothers, fathers, children, in short: human beings.</p>
<p>Many Western journalists came to our region with great good will and desire to understand. I always felt there was probably more that could be done to help them understand who we are, as Arabs, and today, more is being done.</p>
<p>If we look at our image as Arabs in the movie industry for example, there is little point in hoping that big blockbuster movies will be “kind” to us and make us look good; which is why today, we’re seeing efforts throughout the region to tell our own stories – and it has been extremely encouraging. </p>
<p>It is certainly worth investing in local movies and helping the quality of what is done increase, rather than paying a big foreign production to tell our stories for example.</p>
<p>To bridge the communication gap we need to have people on both sides convinced of their mutual appreciation and understanding of one another.</p>
<p>The fact that in recent years Western networks have spent considerable efforts in covering the Muslim pilgrimage, like the Hajj, has, I believe, done a great deal to demystify at least some aspects of a religion that is seen with suspicion by so many. Likewise, I believe that travel and even cooking shows that take us around the world have the capacity to open communication channels a great deal.</p>
<p>We Arabs were once known for our culture of story-telling. I would love for a young filmmaker to write his or her version of the Great Arab Revolt that does not necessarily revolve exclusively around the mythical figure of Lawrence of Arabia – much as I like that film personally and enjoy watching it again and again, and as proud as I am that it was shot in Jordan.</p>
<p>We do need to re-appropriate our narratives, as Edward Said wrote. But, today, that doesn’t only mean wrestling them from the remaining orientalist thinking. It means wrestling them also, at least in some countries, from government discourses where a lack of freedom of expression has prevented us from truly owning our own stories!</p>
<p>And that is, to a degree, what social media has achieved, centuries later: the re-owning of our narratives – except it offers such a plethora of narratives now it is a little confusing!</p>
<p>But when it comes to news, and facts: aside from the big regional and international satellite channels, Al Arabiya being one of them, where professionalism is the norm, we are often left wanting when it comes to local news coverage.</p>
<p>Many government channels are still reluctant to transition into proper public media channels, which would help reflect a better diversity both in discourse and representation of their people.<br />
This is also very damaging, because it gives the image of a monochrome society, with little to say for itself.</p>
<p>But I am not in government, I am in journalism education. So I’d like to end with a few remarks on that topic because journalism education can play a crucial role in re-balancing the misperceptions and bridging the cultural gap.</p>
<p>There has been so much funding poured into various aspects of media training in the region, over the past decades.</p>
<p>I believe, however, that we have to be very demanding with even as little as a two-week training course, when it comes to content.</p>
<p>And here, as in all fields of education, we should make sure that no media course involving technology or technical skills for example is devoid of a minimum of human sciences, as well as cross-cultural understanding.</p>
<p>At the Jordan Media Institute, we believe that no training is too good when it comes to educating journalists, since there is too much at stake.<br />
We have introduced a course of cultural studies to help students who will have to grapple with covering religions, cultures and international relations, better understand the world in which we live.</p>
<p>So I would like to end by saying that placing humanism at the core of journalism education is not a luxury but a necessity. Because it is by truly celebrating humanity in all its ethnic, religious and cultural diversity that we realize how powerful humanism is, as a force that brings us together.</p>
<p>I would like to salute our hosts for this event, because of the vision put into the re-launch of the Al Arabiya website and the plan to offer translations of regional stories: it should truly allow much better communication through the media.</p>
<p>Its English website, launched 5 years ago, and re launching now, is just as essential as it offers people around the world an opportunity to hear our stories from our perspective, and in a professional manner.</p>
<p>Congratulations on your re launch!</p>
<p>And congratulations to Dubai for being the first Arab city to host the World Expo, an event that is sure to help bridge cultural gaps on a large scale.</p>
<p>Thank you for having listened…</p>