Making waves on air
The suspension of an Egyptian political talk show raised questions about freedom of expression on TV. Gihan Shahine and Hanan Sabra go behind the scenes
The most popular political talk show on Egyptian television, hosted by veteran media anchor Hamdi Qandil, has been suspended after being on air for five years. The last time Qandil appeared on his talk show Ra'is Al-Tahrir (Editor-in- Chief) was right before the US and Britain launched their invasion of Iraq. At the time, Qandil had been heatedly slamming the failure of Arab regimes to support Iraq and prevent the invasion. The programme, broadcast for the first time in 1998, was taken off the air during the war on Iraq, and has not appeared again since.
Did Qandil overstep the mark or did he simply clash with the red tape of the state-owned television channel?
Qandil does not want to talk about it. "I will not dwell on trivial details because it is not actually my programme that matters here," he snapped. "The issue here is the freedom of expression in Egypt."
Mohamed Abdel-Moneim, director of Ra'is Al- Tahrir, told Al-Ahram Weekly that Qandil took a three-week leave of absence during the Iraq war. Qandil thought it wise to take the programme off the air at a time when public anger was soaring, and he was not willing to make "any compromise". Qandil travelled to Lebanon to interview Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah, but the interview was not screened on schedule.
"We thought it had simply been postponed, having received no official information to the contrary," Abdel-Moneim said. But when Qandil returned from yet another period of sick leave, he was shocked to find that camera reservations for an interview with Saudi Prince Talal Ibn Abdel-Aziz had been withdrawn without prior notice. Qandil was told he had to get permission from Information Minister Safwat El-Sherif to resume the programme.
"That was no logical justification, of course," Abdel-Moneim said. "Qandil always went on long vacations in summer and he never needed permission to pursue his programme schedule."
It had never actually been plain sailing for Qandil. The censors continually found material to cut from his scripts, but the 66-year-old media personality always managed to negotiate with the minister and obtain a reasonable compromise, continued Abdel-Moneim. "So instead of boycotting American products, for example, Qandil would be asked to mention 'boycotting the enemy's products'," Abdel-Moneim explained. "But we always maintained a good balance."
Soheir Hafez, deputy director of the news bureau at the Egyptian Radio and Broadcasting Union (ERTU), said straight out that the "TV is state- owned and thus represents the views and policies of the government. We do not seek scoops as much as truth."
Why the programme was no longer tolerated, however, remains unclear. TV officials are keeping a lid on the matter and it remains to be clarified whether it was the political content of the programme or the interview with Nasrallah which engendered anger.
Qandil was quoted by the Nasserist Al-Arabi newspaper as saying that "no one would have cancelled the [Editor-in-Chief] programme had his latest interviews been with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon or US Defence Minister Donald Rumsfeld."
But, according to Nawal Mokhtar, deputy head of ERTU's news sector for programmes, "Nasrallah was not the issue, because he had appeared on previous occasions on Qandil's programme." Was it Qandil himself then? "No," Mokhtar insisted. "Qandil's programme was one of the best and most popular of all programmes on TV, and he never abused the exceptional margin of freedom he was granted, nor did he breach the media code of ethics." In fact, Mokhtar claims that the programme was "not actually axed". "We are currently in the process of revising our new TV schedule for the coming period and Qandil's show may very well be part of it."
This aside, however, the suspension of Qandil's programme has no doubt opened a Pandora's box vis-à-vis freedom of expression in Egyptian and Arab media. Many political analysts tend to regard the suspension of Qandil's programme as part of a comprehensive policy change in the media following the war on Iraq.
In a country where the majority of print and broadcasting media is state-owned, many people were surprised at the amount of freedom which Qandil enjoyed for almost five years. Qandil's show largely voiced the public resentment of domestic government policy as well as US foreign policy with regard to the Middle East, which assured the programme the highest ratings of all Egyptian shows.
It was US foreign policy, however, that had been the object of Qandil's censure of late. Qandil, an avowed leftist, would allude to US support of Israel, sometimes standing in front of a Palestinian flag, with a kuffiyah permanently draped over a studio chair. Qandil adopted rhetoric that defiantly, but diplomatically, called for popular boycott of and resistance to US hegemony, despite an opposing government stance.
During the US war on Afghanistan, Qandil voiced the largely unspoken bitterness of the Egyptian street. He criticised US humanitarian aid to Afghanistan as "fattening the Afghans before having them slaughtered".
Qandil's cynical tone was matched by his sharp wit.
But, as anti-US sentiment reached its zenith, Qandil gave his politically-starved audience what they wanted. Having declared his hatred for US policy, as opposed to US citizens, he was quoted some years ago as saying he was proud to know "that [my] programme is responsible for more than 50 per cent of anti-Americanism in Egypt."
"It is such a great loss that Ra'is Al-Tahrir was taken off the air," lamented, Salah, a Qandil fan. "It was the only liberal programme voicing the sentiments of the street on local TV. We never missed an episode; Qandil was very professional and courageous. It's no wonder he was gagged."
Qandil was also involved in running Egyptian television under former President Gamal Abdel-Nasser. After Nasser's death, he got a job with the United Nations in Europe, where he was exposed to Western media for 25 years. So when ERTU decided to compete with the Qatari news satellite Al-Jazeera, whose freedom of expression threatened to draw viewers from Egypt's 20 satellite channels, Qandil seemed the best man for the job.
"At the time, real efforts were made to develop Egyptian media and break the stereotypical mould of TV," said Gamil Mattar, director of the Arab Centre for Development and Futuristic Studies, and a prominent political commentator. "But there were also external pressures to liberate the media; Egypt also wanted to show it was taking steps in that direction."
However, the post-9/11 world saw major changes to media policies at international level. With America drawing a sharp line between those "with or against" the US, many countries had to revise their agendas within that context, according to prominent Al-Ahram columnist Salama Ahmed Salama.
"The US fear of terrorism dealt a serious blow to the freedom of expression in all international media," Mattar concurred. "Egypt was against the war on Iraq but not a participant in it, and therefore media policy-makers probably thought it prudent not to air a politically-charged programme like Qandil's, which they feared would further incense public opinion." This attitude adopted by the state media, however, could also backfire.
"Just like street protests, such balanced liberal programmes like Qandil's provide an outlet for public anger which would otherwise build up and explode," opined Salama. "Intimidating liberal views also serve to boost the current wave of anti- Americanism, the explosions in Saudi Arabia and Morocco being cases in point."
Today, with the US pressuring for political, educational and media reform in the Middle East, it remains to be seen how state-owned television channels will change their agenda. "The US has now moved from their hard-line policy -- the killing of the journalists during the war on Iraq being a case in point -- to a diplomatic policy of containment," argued Salama. The extent to which change will occur, he believes, will depend on the professionalism of broadcasting corporations and their resistance to US demands, while mentioning that Al-Jazeera and the Saudi Arabian channel Arabia have attained a "good compromise". "For Arab countries the solution is to have independent channels that remain distant from rigid representation of government policies," Salama suggested. "Otherwise, freedom will remain no more than just talk."
Mokhtar concedes the ERTU is in the process of updating media policies "in accordance with the new world order and the rise of the US as the single world superpower".
"We will adopt a new political rhetoric to better reach 'the others'," Mokhtar explained. "We can tackle US double-standards on the Middle East in an objective way."
On the future of Arab and international media, Mattar provides a grim prospect. "The red lines of freedom we have now will pale into insignificance beside the massive restrictions that will be imposed on the media for at least another four years, until the roadmap has been negotiated and the Palestinian issue resolved," Mattar predicted.
