مجد سورية الأسير وعار الإعلام والإعلاميين

وائل عبد الرحيم

يُحاكم في سورية قياديو إعلان دمشق للتغيير الوطني الديمقراطي المعتقلون منذ أشهر بتهم سياسية عوّدنا نظام الحكم في سورية على تضمينها أبعاد الارتباط بالخارج والعمالة، رغم ضحالة هذه المزاعم والادعاءات.
والحال أن من يحاكم في سورية هم كوكبة من نساء ورجالات الشام الديمقراطيين الوطنيين، ونخبة من الكفاءات الشريفة التي تضرب جذورها في العمق السياسي التاريخي للشام، والتي لم تصبها لوثة السياسات الكبيرة، فاستمرت تعضّ على الجرح وتوائم خطابها الرافض للديكتاتورية والفساد مع رفضها الذوبان او الارتهان لحسابات الدول.
هذه المعارضة في 'دمشق الشام' هي معارضة مبدئية، ولعلّ مواجهة نظام حكم سليط اللسان يزخر خطابه باتهامات التخوين والخيانة ويتربع على عرش القضايا الكبرى تستدعي من مناضلي إعلان دمشق ورفاقهم من الناشطين الوطنيين في سورية تأكيد الطابع المبدئي للمواجهة.
هذا كله مفهوم، ومفهوم ايضاً ان يستشرس النظام الذي يفاوض الإسرائيلي، ويسعى لنيل رضا الأميركي، في الدفاع عن نفسه فيستعيد اساليب البطش والتنكيل الأمنية.. لا حاجة لتبيان الرابط بين الديكتاتورية والفساد، بين القمع وبين إقصاء المجتمع السياسي السوري عن نقاش القضايا الكبرى، هذه القضايا التي تكتسب هالة القدسية في خطاب التخوين، ويُمنع النقاش فيها حينما ياتي وقت التفاوض والصفقات الكبيرة منها والصغيرة.
لكن.. ما أريد ان الفت النظر إليه، هو الغياب شبه التام للإعلام العربي ولا سيما الفضائيات عن إيفاء هذه القضية حقها.
فإذا كان مفهوماً ان الإعلام الرسمي في الدول العربية يتجنب 'التدخل' في شؤون 'الأشقاء' كي لا يتدخلوا هم في شؤونه أيضاً (!)، إلا ان الإعلام 'الخاص' او المستقل لم يشذّ عن هذه القاعدة.
'الجزيرة' مرتهنة بالكامل إلى علاقتها بالنظام السوري وارتباطها بالأخوان المسلمين في الوقت نفسه، وتغيب عن التركيز على الاعتقالات إلا كجزء من تحصيل حاصل حيث تفرض أبسط قواعد المهنية ان لا يتم تجاهل الخبر.. لكن لا البرامج تتناولها ولا التغطيات الطويلة التي عوّدتنا عليها هذه المحطة. فالتغطية خجولة.
اما 'العربية' فتقترب من هذه المسألة بقدر ما تتلاقى مع نفخها المستمر لتضخيم حجم تحالف عبدالحليم خدام – صدر الدين البيانوني الموغل في حساباته الإقليمية والدولية والبعيد عن تمثيل التطلعات الحقيقية للمعارضة الوطنية السورية في الداخل.
البي بي سي التي أطلقت تلفزيونها العربي، تزاوج بين 'حياديتها' المعلنة وضعف إمكانياتها المالية لتبعد عمّا يثير غضب الأنظمة، وهي التي تفخر بانها بدأت الإرسال مبكراً ذات صباح لتغطية إطلاق الأسرى اللبنانيين من سجون إسرائيل، تتغاضى عن واقع أنها محكومة بمراعاة اضطرارية (مراعاة تهزّ ضميرها المهني!) لمتطلبات العمل في الدول العربية.. فلا تريد مشاكل ولا قطع علاقات، وفي الوقت نفسه تعزف معزوفة القومية العربية الإسلاموية البلهاء بأموال دافعي الضرائب في بريطانيا.
العار في كلّ ذلك، انه وعلى الأقل منذ اعتقال فداء حوراني ورفاقها في نهاية 2007 لم يخرج برنامج تلفزيوني واحد على الأقل على أثير هذه الفضائيات للحديث عن هذه القضية.
هو عار ليس فقط على ممولي هذه الفضائيات، بل على العاملين فيها وعلى كبار محرريها، لأننا نعرف كلنا كإعلاميين ان ثمة هامشاً من الحرية معطى لهم.
لكن ما العمل حينما يكون الإعلامي ضابط نفسه قبل ان يضبطه الاخرون؟
الم يحن الوقت للتفكير جدياً بكسر حلقة الاحتكار والحصار والنضال من اجل إعلام عربي حرّ مرتبط بقضايا مجتمعاتنا وليس بالسياسات الضيقة لبعض الدول، او بالنزعات الشخصية لبعض 'كبار' مثقفي إعلامنا في الداخل والمهجر؟

The Arabs at the Olympics

By Joseph El-Khoury

The Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games famously commented that the Olympic Spirit was not about the winning but rather the taking part. This was certainly a noble comment from a noble man. But throughout their history the performance of national teams has become a way for nations to send a message to the international community or assert their economical or military might. Ever since the Berlin Olympics in 1936, the games have become intertwined with politics and ideology. The Nazis determined to prove the superiority of the Aryan race were stunned by the dazzling performance of Jesse Owen and the black members of the US Athletic team. From the 1950s the Soviet block turned its gymnasiums into Olympic medal factories, as the cold war turned steamy in the stadiums. With the communists crumbling, the Americans felt that their new status of only superpower in a unipolar world should be reflected in the medals table. This was short-lived and the quiet display of Chinese financial, organisational and presentational skills in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics was an omen of the emergence of a new sporting superpower.

The Arabs did take part in the Olympics, with various degrees of dedications. Without taking anything away from those athletes who gave it their best shot, the outcome was a meagre tally of eight medals. This is for a combined population estimated at 340 million people. With the exception of Bahrain, the countries of the Mashreq appear to have adopted De Coubertin’s mantra literally, avoiding any noteworthy success. The countries of the Maghreb fared substantially better, specifically if we take into consideration their socio-economic context, showing a culturally inexplicable affinity for Judo. The medal standing at the closure of the 2008 games was as follows:

BAHRAIN

MEN ATHLETICS 1500m GOLD Rashid RAMZI

TUNISIA

MEN SWIMMING 1500m F/STYLE GOLD Oussama MELLOULI

ALGERIA

JUDO MEN<90kg SILVER Amar BENIKHLEF
JUDO WOMEN<52KG BRONZE Soraya HADDAD

MOROCCO

MEN’S MARATHON SILVER Jaouad GHARIB
ATHLETICS WOMEN’S 800M BRONZE Hasna BENHASSI

SUDAN

ATHLETICS MEN’S 800M SILVER Ismail Ahmed ISMAIL

EGYPT

JUDO MEN’S<90kg BRONZE Hesham MESBAH

In the final analysis that same socio-economic context cannot be solely responsible for the poor performance at the Olympics and other Sporting competitions when countries like Jamaica, Cuba and Mongolia outperform Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Libya. We have to come to terms with an underlying malaise running within Arab society, a lack of self belief and what can only be described as an ‘eternal loser’ mentality. The state, viewed mostly as an apparatus of oppression does not view sport as a priority. Nonetheless, small practical measures can be implemented at reasonable costs. Individual countries need to focus on sports at which their citizen traditionally excelled, while a broader strategic plan is required at the regional Arab level to improve the general quality of competition. And for once we cannot blame the Israelis for our misery. They managed a unique Bronze Medal in Sailing.

An Arab sporting ‘Nahda’ is required before 2012. Is there a Sport Psychologist in the house?

Peaceful Palestinian Walks disturbed by Zionism

By Bachir Habib

On the second of August 2008, the title of an opinion article in the Jerusalem Post caught my interest. Titled “The ‘Economist’ Rewrites History” by Zalman Shoval, former Israeli ambassador to the United States it accuses The Economist of revisionism only because it positively reviewed, under the Arts section, a book called Palestinian Walks, Notes on a Vanishing Landscape, written by Raja Shehadeh, a Palestinian Lawyer and founder of Al Haq* organization in 1979.
In his book, winner of the Orwell Prize 2008, Shehadeh describes the change in the landscape of the hills surrounding Ramallah through seven walks he took in the area. His lyrical description of the “Biblical Hills” comes as a perfect justification of the prize awarded to the author and his book. The seven walks counted were not made within a year or two; they are spread at least over two decades. That’s exactly why the reader, while turning the pages of this book, is taken through the geographical changes to the hills and their surroundings over a troubled time, where political and military events had the strongest impact on transforming the peaceful nature of what Shehadeh calls the “Highland Hills of Palestine”.
Shehadeh’s perspective is also interesting in the way he shows how the function of the hills surrounding Ramallah changed over the generations. From a place where Palestinian men used to escape the hot summers, working the land and building Qasr (round stones structures built without concrete dotting the land where farmers kept their produce and slept on the open roof), the hills now fulfill a security function, but this time for the Israeli settlers building outposts to better control Palestinian areas. Shehade’s journey and description of this change of function intersects with the Israeli architect Eyal Weizeman’s thesis called "The Politics of Verticality", where the latter develops the idea that the Israeli architecture has played an important role in the conflict for the past six decades. Weizeman’s more recent work has focused on the way the Israeli outposts are built in a South African “apartheid” style.
Shehade’s book is Art, contrary to what his Excellency the ambassador pretends. How can art not relate to politics in that part of the world where the historical artistic patrimony is transformed daily by political conditions? In that specific sense the book is politically potent. Even if its formal relation to the political sphere is subtle, using hints and questions that push the reader to seek political answers elsewhere.
This last argument is probably one of the reasons why Shehade was awarded the Orwell prize. He doesn’t impose political conclusions nor affirms ideological positions. A fact he comes across as a very harsh critic of all Palestinian factions and militias, simply by counting the number of times he came close to being shot dead by armed Palestinian militants on his walks, or the abuse he suffered, he who founded an organization to protect Palestinian rights, at the hands of those who pretended to protect him.
In its review to Shehade’s work, The New York Times Book Review found that: “Few Palestinians have opened their minds with such frankness”. Such acclaim disqualifies totally Shoval who showed nothing but hatred and racism in his judgmental article published in the Jerusalem Post. Nowhere was that more obvious than in the disdain he showed “a certain Raja Shehade, portrayed as a lawyer and a writer…” As if he, a government official, did not know that Shehade is well known to Israeli tribunals as a lawyer who defended the Palestinians against land expropriation practiced by Israel. Shoval’s position is in fact against anyone who dares looking at the Israeli – Palestinian conflict from an angle that questions long-established Zionist myths. That is why he accused The Economist of re-writing History.
His Excellency knows well enough that if this book achieved fame, it is because Shehade does not play political games. Instead, as an experienced professional lawyer, sticks to the hard facts. A concept that the seasoned diplomat obviously struggles with.

*Al-Haq is the West Bank affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists - Geneva, and is a member of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN), the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Habitat International Coalition (HIC), and the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO).