The latest annual conference organised by Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) opens in Amman, Jordan, on December 6th, bringing together hundreds of media professionals and academics to debate the state of the Arab media. Here, ARIJ Executive Director Rana Sabbagh sounds the alarm over increasing attacks on free speech in the Arab world, “the one gain that protesters believed they had secured at the start of upheavals that erupted in much of the region in 2011”.My own general view on the "Arab Spring" protests and insurrections is that in Egypt they were in part engineered by Western regime change operatives who merely wanted to create a more Western model of benign governing: a neoliberal oligarchy with a "democratic" facade, but that commands all sources of information and indoctrination to keep the masses in ignorance, and loyal to the regime.
However, somewhere along the way, their allies in the Medieval kingdoms of the Gulf Cooperation Council would have none of it. They had their own ideas about government, and they are now imposing them everywhere they can in their area of influence. This, of course, complicates the rule of the Empire and has resulted recently in confusing twists and turns of Empire policies and actions. But, that is what happens when you crawl in bed with strange bedfellows.
The author ends the article with an extremely naïve question:
...why do the Arab media prefer to sit on the warm laps of the powerful instead of serving their society as the watchdogs they should be?This can only happen when people are able to rid their societies of ruling classes.