Team Arab: al-Jazeera and the flaggingof everyday Arabism during the 2008
Beijing Olympics
CHRISTOPHER PHILLIPS
Queen Mary, University of London, UK
ABSTRACT. The linking of living rooms across state borders by al-Jazeera and otherpan-Arab satellite television channels has prompted claims that a ‘new Arabism’ thatundermines state nationalism is emerging. Until now, analysts have mostly focusedon the ‘hot’ Arabism in the news coverage of politicised events such as the Israel–Palestine conflict. This article offers a new dimension by suggesting that as importantto satellite television’s construction and reproduction of Arab identity is the everydaydiscourse found in less overtly political programmes such as sport. To demonstrate this,it offers an analysis of al-Jazeera’s coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics showing howthe broadcasts address viewers as a common Arab audience who are simultaneouslyencouraged to be nationalistic towards their separate nation-states within a given ‘Arabarena’ of states with whom they should primarily compete. This suggests that newArabism should in fact be considered a ‘supranationalism’, not a revived Arab nation-alism as it simultaneously promotes Arab and state identities in tandem. Finally, it aimsto expand our understanding of ‘everyday nationalism’ by adapting Michael Billig’stheory and methodology of ‘banal nationalism’ in British newspapers to facilitate thestudy of sport on supranational Arab identity on satellite television.
KEYWORDS: Al-Jazeera, Arab identity, everyday nationalism, Michael Billig,Middle East, sport
Television in the Arab world has undergone a dramatic transformation in thelast two decades. While Arab viewers used to be limited to a few stale govern-ment channels, the advent of satellite television has allowed al-Jazeera and itscompetitors to offer audiences from Morocco to Oman hundreds of highlypopular stations. Arabs from different countries are now able to watch thesame shows simultaneously, creating a common public sphere that crossesstate boundaries. This linking of living rooms has prompted claims thatal-Jazeera and others are creating a ‘new Arabism’ through television (Lynch2006: 3; Telhami 1999: 55–7; Valbjorn 2009: 142). In contrast, others dismissthis Arab revival as merely ‘skin-deep’ (Dawisha 2003b: 40; Kraidy 2005: 1;Salamandra 2003: 2). This article aims to contribute to this debate in two ways.Firstly, it redefines new Arabism as a supranational identity, rather than anationalism, which simultaneously promotes a political and cultural Arab
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ENASJ OURNAL OF THE ASSOCIATION
FOR THE STUDY OF ETHNICITYAND NATIONALISM
NATIONS ANDNATIONALISM
Nations and Nationalism •• (••), 2012, 1–23.DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-8129.2011.00541.x
identity alongside, not in opposition to state nationalisms as some charge(Rinnawi 2006: xiii; Tatham 2006: 22). Secondly, it explores the everydaymechanisms that pan-Arab satellite television uses to promote new Arabism,not just in the coverage of political news and conflict that currently dominatesthe literature but also in sporting events, such as the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Most recent scholarship on satellite television and Arab identity hasfocused on how satellite news channels have reported explicitly politicalevents, with a particular emphasis on conflicts and crises. The coverage ofconflicts in Israel–Palestine (Rinnawi 2006: 98–125), Iraq (Lynch 2006: 11) andLebanon (Valbjorn 2009: 140) has typically been used to illustrate how Arabidentity is strengthened by transnational satellite television. This article takesa new angle, arguing that as well as building Arab identity through the report-ing of conflict and crisis; news channels such as al-Jazeera also promote Arabidentity in their less overtly political content such as sport in a more implicit,routine and everyday manner. It utilises and expands upon the theory andmethodology of Michael Billig. In Banal Nationalism, Billig (1995) argued thatin the democratic ‘satisfied’ nations of the West, national identity is sustaineddaily by state institutions such as newspapers ‘flagging’ identity in a banal,everyday manner (Billig 1995: 6). This study proposes that the same can besaid for Arab satellite television. It suggests that al-Jazeera and its rivalspromote Arab identity not just at times of crisis in its politicised ‘hot’ Arabistnews items such as the Israel/Palestine conflict but also in more routine,everyday content such as the weather bulletins and sport (Hutchinson 2006:298; Mihelj et al. 2009: 70).
To illustrate this, the article case studies al-Jazeera’s coverage of a majorsporting event: the Beijing Olympics in August 2008. Although this is notstrictly an ‘everyday’ event, occurring only once every four years to muchmedia fanfare, the discourse used is typical of that which addresses the audienceas if speaking to a single homogeneous Arab whole in an everyday manner.Such an analysis offers a more rounded picture of how new Arabism is beingreproduced than the crisis and conflict-centred analysis of other works. Emu-lating Billig’s approach, the article offers an illustrative sample of al-Jazeera’sevening sports bulletins during the two-week event rather than a systematicsurvey of all Arab satellite television during this period (Billig 1995: 110). Tomy knowledge, this is the first application of Billig’s theories about the dailyreproduction of identity to the widely discussed phenomena of Arab satellitetelevision, and it is hoped that the results can open the way for more detailedstudies in the future. It is intended to offer three key main contributions to thestudy of Arab identity. Firstly, it suggests that al-Jazeera promotes an Arab‘imagined community’ even in its coverage of more routine events such assport: a mechanism that I term ‘everyday Arabism’. Secondly, this everydayArabism does not undermine but rather supports and entrenches individualArab state identities in tandem with Arab identity (Halliday 2000: 48). There isa duality to the discourse in which viewers are addressed as a common Arabaudience, yet at the same time, encouraged to be nationalistic towards their
state within a given ‘Arab arena’ of states with whom they should primarilycompete. New Arabism is thus revealed to be a supranationalism rather thannationalism as state identity is still reinforced. Thirdly, from a theoretical andmethodological perspective, Michael Billig’s approach is shown to be adapt-able beyond the national newspapers of the democratic Western nations heinitially envisages to the transnational television of the historically undemo-cratic modern Arab world.
Satellite television and new Arabism
Transnational Arab satellite television stations, broadcast over internationalsatellites to an Arabic-speaking audience in various states, have grown dra-matically since the early 1990s. In contrast to older analogue stations thatpedagogically aimed their content at a nation-state audience (Abu-Lughod2005: 7), the growth in popularity and availability of satellite dishes creatednew stations such as al-Jazeera that, though funded and located in the Persian/Arabian Gulf, sought larger audiences from further afield. This remarkablegrowth prompted scholars to note a revival of Arab identity that others hadpredicted would fade following the failure of Nasser’s Arab nationalism in the1960s (Ajami 1978/1979: 355; Faksh 1993: 425). Shibley Telhami coined thephrase ‘new Arabism’ to describe how ‘intellectual elites have found a way ofasserting their political power independently of the state’ using satellite televi-sion to bolster Arab identity (Telhami 1999: 57). Marc Lynch concurred thatal-Jazeera and rivals such as Al-Arabiyya, Lebanese Broadcasting Corporationand Abu Dhabi were creating a ‘new Arab public’ that ‘should be defined notterritorially but by reference to a shared identity and a common set of politicalarguments and concerns’ (Lynch 2006: 22). Khalil Rinnawi went further toargue that this public space, which he terms ‘McArabism’, was weakeningnation-state orientation (Rinnawi 2006: 9).
These advocates of new Arabism distinguish it from the unionist old Arabnationalism of Nasser. While Nasser’s Arabism was state-led, new Arabism ismarket-driven, with the desire to sell a television product determining theagenda rather than ideology (Rinnawi 2006: xv; Telhami 1999: 57). MortonValbjorn compares Nasser’s Sawt al-Arab radio broadcasts, which spreadNasserite propaganda across the Arab world in the 1950s and 1960s, withal-Jazeera. He sees the former as ‘. . . an ideological tool wielded by a greatregional power’, while al-Jazeera is ‘. . . a commercial, quasi-independentstation driven by market demand and based in tiny Qatar’ (James 2006;Valbjorn 2009: 164). Sawt al-Arab was a monological, one-way source ofpropaganda, but al-Jazeera is dialogical, without one uniform view, seen in itsheated discussion shows.
However, the independent and commercial nature of these channels isexaggerated. Though al-Jazeera and its competitors appear to be market-driven, none operate at a profit and depend on wealthy owners, such as
prominent businessman Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, the Saudi Arabian ownerof the Rotana music channels (Sakr 2007: 15). The nature of ownership limitsindependence. Al-Jazeera may seem ‘quasi-independent’ but its funding andlocation in Doha ensures the Qatari government is rarely criticised (Sakr 2001:207). Content is not entirely market-driven as states use channels as instru-ments of international relations. Al-Jazeera is used by Qatar to gain notoriety,promote its version of regional politics and criticise its rivals, while its maincompetitor, Al-Arabiyya, was launched in 2005 by Saudi Arabian businessmenprimarily to counter the attacks Riyadh faced on al-Jazeera (Cochrane 2007:1; Shapiro 2005). State prestige thus drives satellite television as much asmarket forces. New Arabism may be more commercial than the old Arabism,but it is far from independent of state governments.
New Arabism is also considered more Islamic than Nasser’s Arabism(Hinnebusch 2005: 154). While old Arabism was secular (Rogan 2009: 287–317), Valbjorn sees ‘an Arab-Islamic identity as the common reference point’in new Arabism, highlighting the presence of Egyptian Islamist Yusufal-Qaradawi on al-Jazeera (Valbjorn 2009: 164). Lawrence Pintak suggeststhat al-Jazeera journalists, who give airtime to Islamists such as Qaradawi andsupport Hezbollah and Hamas, are at the forefront of promoting an Arabism-Islamism synthesis (Pintak 2009: 202).
However, Islamism’s role in new Arabism is exaggerated. The satellitemedia has linked together Arab and Muslim identity, but this is more culturalthan political (Lynch 2006: 4). The ‘growing Islamic dimension in today’sArab identity’ is not Islamist (Valbjorn 2009: 164). The vast majority of talkshows are hosted by non-Islamists, and though Qaradawi is popular and wellpublicised, his show, ‘Sharia and life’, is the exception, not the rule. Similarly,Hezbollah and Hamas are given space for their nationalist conflict with Israelrather than for their Islamist agenda. Even though there has been a shift inpopular politics towards Islamic-influenced political parties, particularly sincethe 2011 Arab Spring, Arab satellite news channels largely reserve politicalspace for those moderates who are not challenging the status quo of the statesystem. Historically, more radical Islamists preaching in mosques for anIslamic universalism have opposed Arab nationalism (Sivan 1997: 26). NewArabism might have afforded a greater place for Islam in its discourse thansecular old Arabism, but it is too much to call it ‘converged’ with Islamism.
A final feature of new Arabism that distinguishes it from old Arabism is itsworldview. Pintak argued that the ‘dreamy’ political unitary Arab nationalismhas been abandoned for a new ‘multi-faceted Arab self ’ that does not speak ofrealigning borders (Pintak 2009: 211). This acceptance of state sovereignty(Mellon 2002: 1–13) and recognition of Arab identity alongside not instead ofstate identity is a key distinction with old Arabism. New Arabism should beconsidered a different type of identity to Nasser’s Arab nationalism, thoughmany of the claims made by its advocates are exaggerated. It is less overtlystate-led, though states continue to hold the controlling levers of satellitemedia stations, ensuring they can not be truly independent. Islam has a more
prominent role, though this is more cultural than overtly political. Finally,new Arabism accepts and endorses the role of the state and does not seek Arabunity while simultaneously strengthening the Arab community by subjectingviewers to the same media content.
Defining new Arabism
Can we still call new Arabism Arab nationalism? Most scholars who discussnew Arabism focus on media studies and afford little place for nationalisttheory. Pintak briefly referenced Anthony Smith to claim that Arab journalistsare ‘border guards’ who provide new national symbols and myths for theArabs (Pintak 2009: 193). Rinnawi mentions Benedict Anderson to suggestthat new Arabism is an imagined community (Rinnawi 2006: 7). However,nationalist theory is mostly absent from these discussions. As a consequence,definitions of new Arabism appear confused. Telhami described it as a ‘tran-snational movement’, a sentiment echoed by Lynch, who described his NewArab Public as ‘transnational’ (Lynch 2006: 22; Telhami 1999: 57). Valbjornreferred to ‘non-statist political Arabism’, which he categorises as the latestevolution in Arab nationalism (Valbjorn 2009: 148). Pintak seemed cautious touse the term ‘nationalism’, but does see the actions of journalists as shapingan emerging ‘imagined’ Arab watan (homeland) (Pintak 2009: 193). Finally,among the most imprecise is Rinnawi, who at different times refers to his‘McArabism’ as a regional identity, a regionalisation, a new pan-Arabism, aregionalism and nationalism (Rinnawi 2006: xiv, 7, 148).
So is new Arabism nationalism, transnationalism, regionalism or some-thing else? Adeed Dawisha argued that after Nasser failed to unite the Arabsin one state, what remains is solely a cultural bond and hence not nationalismbecause it lacks political goals (Dawisha 2003a: 8). Dawisha shared the view ofseveral theorists who saw nationalism as only political (Breuilly 1993: 3).Motyl and Hechter similarly argued that nationalism is primarily a politicalideal, aiming at statehood (Özkirimli 2005: 20). Applied to Arabism, thisnarrower definition of nationalism would fit Dawisha’ theory: that the onlyArab nationalists were unionists such as Nasser (Cleveland 1971: 92). Withoutthis political dimension, what is left is merely cultural and can not be nation-alism (Dawisha 2003b: 24–41).
However, some theorists argue for a cultural definition of nationalism. YaelTamir claimed the right to self-determination is based on culture rather thanpolitics (Özkirimli 2005: 20). Indeed, the common culture and language of theArabs is the cornerstone of satellite television’s new Arabism. Can one sepa-rate culture or politics from nationalism? Nationalism involves ‘the culturali-sation of politics and the politicisation of culture’ (Özkirimli 2005: 21–2). It istherefore insufficient to claim Arabism today is purely cultural as no culturalidentity can be completely depoliticised. New Arabism is deeply political asseen by the focus of the Arab media on foreign policy. On the one hand, new
Arabism is more flexible than a purely cultural identity and allows Arabs toquestion its meaning. On the other, it provides a political lens through whichviewers are expected to see their world (Lynch 2006: 4).
So new Arabism is both political and cultural but does not seek unity. Incontrast to old Arabism, its discourse not only accepts the existence of theArab state system; it simultaneously reinforces it alongside Arab identity asshall be shown. Today’s Arabism is not nationalism as it does not seek to alignthe national with the political community. The Arabs are an imagined com-munity in the Andersonian sense as they ‘will never know most of theirfellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of eachlives the image of their communion’ (Anderson 1991: 6). Yet this imaginedcommunity is not that of a nation, which must be ‘imagined as both inherentlylimited and sovereign’ (Anderson 1991: 6). Though the community is limitedto Arabic speakers (in contrast to a religious imagined community, such as theIslamic Umma, which can be expanded and joined), it is not sovereign butrather ruled over by various governments.
So what kind of imagined community are the Arabs as promoted by newArabism? Several terms have been used such as ‘transnationalism’, ‘regional-ism’ and ‘supranationalism’. Transnationalism refers to activities that crossstate boundaries, such as human migration, information and money.1 NewArabism has a transnational component, with transnational satellite televisionbroadcasts crossing state boundaries; but this description seems too weak todescribe the political and cultural attachment generated. An alternative defi-nition could be regionalism. Yet new Arabism is aimed at a linguistic commu-nity that does not necessarily occupy a single region. The discourse is as muchfor Arabs abroad as for those in the Arab world (Miles 2005: 390). Further-more, not all inhabitants of the ‘Arab region’ are Arabs: Kurds, Berbers andArmenians are partly excluded by the discourse.
‘Supranationalism’ is used to describe the feeling of European identity aswell as the integration of governing structures (Checkel and Katzenstein 2009:1). Is new Arabism therefore a supranationalism such as Europeanism(Delanty 1995: 1–34; Tibi 1999: 102)? On a practical level, supranationalismdescribes state behaviour in pooling sovereignty, not widely seen in the Arabworld. Moreover, European states had established their own sense of nation-alism before pooling their sovereignty and forming the European Union (EU),and the idea of Europeanism came afterwards (Delanty 1995: 1–34). The Arabworld saw the reverse (Kumaraswamy 2006: 63–73). Consequently, perhaps,the Europeanist supranationalism is institution-led and has not disseminatedwell to the masses (Checkel and Katzenstein 2009: 1). New Arabism, in con-trast, is media-led but institutionally weak. Yet despite different startingpoints, Arab and European supranationalism aspire to the same things. NewArabism has the mass sense of commonality that Europeanists dream of, whilemany New Arabists aspire to the infrastructural supranationalism seen in theEU (Tibi 1999: 102). No definition is perfect, but ‘supranationalism’ seems tobest describe the aspiration of new Arabism. It does not seek to make the
imagined community sovereign, and hence, national, but it does promote asupranational identity that binds Arabic speakers together. Arabism has there-fore evolved. While old Arabism was a failed nationalism, new Arabism is awidely felt supranationalism.
Michael Billig and everyday Arabism
So how is this supranational imagined community reproduced? Previousobservers of new Arabism focus primarily on ‘hot’ issues. They illustrate thatthe content of al-Jazeera and similar channels during conflicts such as the IraqWar encourages new Arabism. However, the vast majority of pan-Arab televi-sion, whether news or entertainment, is not about conflict in which producerscan construct a clear delineation of ‘them’ and ‘us’. Indeed, these authors donot consider how Arab identity is sustained during these ‘in-between’ times thatmake up the vast majority of television content (Billig 1995: 6). This articlesuggests that the approach of Michael Billig’s Banal Nationalism can beadapted to explain how new Arabism is reproduced by satellite television evenin everyday content such as sport, disconnected from conflicts and crisis.
Billig’s (1995) work focused on the reproduction of the nation in Westernstates. He claimed that nationalism is not only the property of those strugglingto create nation states or right-wing politics (Özkirimli 2000: 199). He high-lighted the outpouring of national feeling during the 1982 Falklands War inBritain to emphasise that nationalism in established Western states is also aliveand well. He insists that such displays are not a ‘temporary mood’ but ratherare sustained every day by the institutions of state, noticeably the press, able tobe called upon when needed. By employing a discourse analysis of newspaperheadlines in Britain on a random day, he illustrates his point. He shows hownewspapers of all political leanings reinforce the reader’s sense of belonging toa British nation (Billig 1995: 10).
Billig’s study marked a shift in the study of nationalism (Skey 2009: 336).While theoretical debates had mostly focused on the origin of nationalism,Billig highlighted the ‘tendency to treat the nation as a given both in everydaylife and social theory’ (Skey 2009: 339). This prompted subsequent studies thatexpanded upon or critiqued Billig’s conclusions and assumptions (Cram 2001:44–6; Crameri 2000: 145; Edensor 2002: 11; Jones and Desforges 2003: 271;Tzanelli 2006: 484). This study aims to add to this growing body of work.
This article expands upon Billig in three ways. Firstly, it shows that televi-sion broadcasts prove more suitable to analyse banal nationalism than Billig’spreferred newspapers in the Arab world. Analysing newspapers in Britain isviable because literacy and circulation rates are high. The most popular news-paper in the UK, The Sun, has a readership of one in twenty.2 In contrast,newspaper readership in the Arab world is much lower. In Syria, for example,the most popular daily, al-Thawra, has a readership of one in 360 (Hammond2005: 102). Literacy levels in Arab countries remain lower than the Western
countries investigated by Billig. The UK has a literacy rate of 99 per cent yetMorocco has a literacy rate of 52 per cent in some areas (The World Factbook2011). In the Arab world, newspaper analysis will therefore only reflect what acertain class of people reads.
In contrast to newspapers, Arab television viewing figures are high (Sakr2001: 20). In Algeria and Saudi Arabia, up to 90 per cent of households haveaccess to satellite television, and in Jordan and Syria, it is over half (Sakr 2007:2). Reportedly, satellite dishes have, in some cases, replaced traditional jewel-lery as preferred wedding presents for nomadic Bedouin (Miles 2005: 36). Toconduct a fair assessment of how a discourse spreads across society in anyArab state therefore, analysing television broadcasts rather than newspapersseems more appropriate.
The second expansion on Billig’s work proposed here is that his theory isapplicable beyond Western democratic nations to the, until recently, largelyundemocratic Arab World. Billig’s study centres on the question, ‘how is itthat citizens of Western states don’t forget their nationality?’ and answered itwith banal nationalism. He argued that the spread of democracy consolidatesbanal nationalism (Billig 1995: 94). Yet why can non-democratic states notreach a level of consolidated banal nationalism too? Billig said he introduced‘the term “banal nationalism” to cover the ideological habits which enable theestablished nations of the West to be reproduced’ (Billig 1995: 6). But what ofnational and supranational identities in the global South that have themselvesbeen established for half a century or more?
Billig seems to assume that in states without democracy and/or anindependent press, dissemination of identity is more deliberate. The state-controlled media in undemocratic countries is presumed to be too overt in theidentities they flag. Yet there are two faults with this assumption. Firstly, statecontrol of media in the Arab World has been in place for decades and citizensin these countries have faced overt identity flagging for so long that it couldnow be everyday and normal. Secondly, particular to the Arab case, it does nottake into account the growth of transnational television. In short, it is perfectlypossible for state-controlled undemocratic media to flag identity in an every-day manner that is considered normal by the citizen, and in the Arab World,there are now numerous non-state media that can ‘flag the homeland daily’.
The final proposal of this article is that Billig’s framework can be expandedbeyond just national identities to illustrate how other identities can be ‘flaggeddaily’. Some have critiqued Billig for brushing over sub-national identitiesflagged in Britain (Rosie et al. 2004: 327–44), but he also neglects to look atsupranational ties flagged, such as European identity (Billig 1995: 126; Cram2001: 238). Some authors have begun to examine the reproduction of supra-national ties such as Europeanism (Downey and Koenig 2006: 165) or cosmo-politanism (Szerszynski and Urry 2006: 113), but it is an area that requiresgreater investigation.
As will be shown with the case of al-Jazeera during the 2008 Olympics, thenew Arabist discourse flags to ‘the Arabs’ a certain worldview: that they
should care about each other’s news and celebrate their common culture. It isnot that the channel states that the Arab audience all belong to one suprana-tion in an overt manner but rather that just as with Billig’s British newspapers,it addresses the audience as if they all belong to one common sphere. Thisarticle does not assume that what is viewed by Arab audiences is necessarilyaccepted. Indeed, a further criticism of Billig’s study was that he assumed anaudience that uncritically absorb media messages (Madianou 2005: 7). It iseven harder to assess audience impact in the Arab world than in the UK asresearch is notoriously difficult. The few private surveys that have been con-ducted were utilised here, but it is acknowledged that many can be criticisedfor their limited scope. This article therefore seeks only to assess what is viewedby Arab audiences, not how they interpret it or feel about it.
Methodology
The summer Olympic games might appear an unusual subject to analyse howArab identity is flagged everyday given that it is, by nature, not everyday butoccurs only every four years to great fanfare. Nor is ‘the world’s biggestpeacetime event’ (Toohey and Veal 1999: 1) strictly apolitical. A substantialliterature has discussed the significance of Olympic games and how they havebeen used for political purposes (Hill 1996: 2; Toohey and Veal 1999: 1).However, at the same time, as an international event and institution it ispredictable, structured and ‘normal’ and how media bodies such as al-Jazeerareport it (Dayan and Katz 1992: 1–10) differs greatly from its coverage ofconflict and crisis that have dominated the literature on new Arabism (Miheljet al. 2009: 70). Although all media are spun to reflect a certain editorial line,coverage of conflict and political news is done so more overtly than everydayitems such as sport (Herman and Chomsky 1994: 1–14). In terms of theOlympics, this media manipulation is all the more nuanced precisely becauseviewers do not expect the politicisation of an apparently apolitical event,carefully filtered by the media (Toohey and Veal 1999: 3). Al-Jazeera’s cover-age of the 2008 Olympics, as shall be shown, is no different, and there is a clearfiltering process applied.
However, al-Jazeera’s coverage of the Olympics does offer a window intohow the channel reports sport, a less explicitly political subject than theconflicts that have been the subject of previous studies of new Arabism.Though the Olympics itself may not be everyday, the way it is presented toviewers – as if they are a single Arab audience that should care about thesuccess of Arabs – does suggest a framing that will continue once the gamesare over. Moreover, this framing appears so routine and normal to suggestthat this ‘Team Arab’ approach is typical of the way that all sport is reported(Mihelj et al. 2009: 70). Therefore, though the event may not be everydayitself, the discourse used appears typical of al-Jazeera’s framing of events toinculcate a sense of Arab identity (Downey and Koenig 2006: 70–1).
The methodology employed in this experiment was designed to mirrorMichael Billig’s newspaper sweep, but with necessary adaptations to allow fortelevision broadcasts being the unit of analysis. Billig analysed every headlinein every national British newspaper for its banal nationalist content on a single‘typical’ day. In theory, the same could be done with Arab satellite television,and a researcher might compile a transcript of every broadcast on the 470+channels over a twenty-four-hour period (Kraidy and Khalil 2009: 3). How-ever, this would present too much data to be reasonably analysed, and it isquestionable whether the results would vary much more than that of a singlecase study. As with Billig, who chose a single day to illustrate his theory in thehope that future researchers would go into greater depth, this article presentsthe coverage of one event to highlight everyday Arabism in the hope that futureresearchers will used it as a basis for a more extravagant survey at a later date.
Al-Jazeera broadcasts seemed the most obvious choice for the case study.There is, admittedly, a degree of al-Jazeera fatigue within media studies analy-sis (Kraidy and Khalil 2009: 3). However, writers such as Rinnawi and Miles,who focused their analyses on political news, look largely at content suchas coverage of the Israel/Palestine conflict. There has been little interest in thereporting of sport on al-Jazeera such as the Olympics. Similarly, very fewhave framed their analysis with nationalism theory and none yet have linkedthe everyday reproduction of Arab identity with its content. Moreover, theQatar-based station is the most watched station in the region according tosurveys and appears an appropriate case study to illustrate how satellite tel-evision helps to reproduce Arab identity (Miles 2005: 379; Rugh 2004: 231;Sakr 2007: 13).
In contrast to Billig, who selected only one day, the experiment was designedto offer a broader illustrative sample of the Olympic coverage. Ten days of thetwo week-long event were chosen at random between 13 and 24 August 2008,offering a good-sized sample, allowing concentrated analysis. Rather thancover a full twenty-four hours, just the prime time slot of six hours between 1800and 0000 Mecca time Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) was recorded. Thiscovered the period of time in which the most viewers were watching their dailynews (Amin 2008: 73), including those Arab states two hours behind, such asMorocco. Within this slot, there were two main news programmes: ‘ThisEvening’ (‘Hatha al Masaa’) at 1900 KSA and ‘Harvest of the Day’ (‘Hasad alYawm’) at 2300 KSA. Each usually had a five- to ten-minute sports bulletincovering the day’s events from Beijing. Occasionally, a third sports bulletin,Sport (‘Riyada’), was shown at 1800 KSA, and on a few occasions, the newsprogrammes reported live from a crisis and hence cancelled the sports bulletin.The analyst transcribed the headlines of the sports bulletins displayed on theseprogrammes. While it can not be proved how much attention was paid by theaverage viewer, it is fair to assume say that they were aimed at the general public,not specifically sports fans, and fairly reflect the discourse of al-Jazeera.
The sample broadcasts were analysed both qualitatively and quantitativelyusing aspects of content and discourse analysis, in a manner regularly used in
media analysis (Bauer 2000: 131–51; Gill 2000: 172–90; Nötzold 2008: 127–9).Of principal interest to the quantitative assessment was the number of head-lines and items that focused on the successes or failures of Arab athletes. Thiswas then contrasted with the number of headlines and stories about non-ArabMiddle Eastern athletes, non-Arab Muslim athletes and non-Arab, non-Middle Eastern and non-Muslim athletes, referred to here as ‘the rest of theworld’. This method was chosen as it appeared to be the television equivalentof Michael Billig’s analysis of the order of newspaper headlines. Billig paysattention to content in his study. He considered the order in which news ispresented, describing it as ‘news apartheid, keeping “home” news and foreignnews paginally separate’ (Billig 1995: 118). Such consideration is transferred tothe analysis of al-Jazeera’s broadcasts, considering the order of importancegiven to stories. This is an example of the news being filtered by journalists.The results of this analysis can be seen in Tables 2 and 3 and are discussedlater.
The qualitative analysis was intended to focus largely on deixis. The focusof Billig’s analysis is the ‘deixis’ of discourse found in newspapers, which hedefines as ‘the ways sentences are anchored to certain aspects of their contextsand utterance’ (Billig 1995: 109). However, during the course of the research,it was soon discovered that in contrast to Billig’s analysis of British newspa-pers, al-Jazeera rarely used the typical deictic terms – ‘you’, ‘we’, ‘us’, etc. – inits headlines or in most coverage. This perhaps reflects the supranationalnature of the channel’s audience, with no clarity about who ‘we’ or ‘us’ couldbe, given the multiple layers of identity of the Middle East. Therefore, a slightadaptation was required to shift from deictic words to the alternative wordsused by al-Jazeera broadcasters to ground their stories in a clear identitynarrative. As shall be illustrated, the term ‘Arab’ was most frequently used tohighlight to viewers which athletes they should find most interesting. Names ofArab state nationalities also proved a keyword frequently used to groundreporting, though often after ‘Arab’ had first been mentioned. The use of theword ‘Arab’ in stories and its juxtaposition with the use of state national labelstherefore proved a suitable alternative subject of study to the largely absentdeictic words.
Flagging ‘the Arabs’
The remainder of the article discusses the results of this analysis. In terms ofdiscourse, it is the use of the word ‘Arab’ in al-Jazeera’s Olympic coverage thatoffers the clearest example of Arab identity being flagged. When reporting onthe performances of athletes from the Arab world, the reporters repeatedlydescribe ‘Arabs’ or refer to ‘the Arabs’. While the competitors’ state of originwas also mentioned, by emphasising the commonality between the athletes andthe wider Arabic-speaking audience from different states, we see a clear senseof Billig’s flagging.
On 13 August, for example, after an Algerian boxer won silver and anEgyptian Boxer won bronze, the bulletin headline was ‘New medals for Arabsin Beijing’ and not ‘New medals for Algeria and Egypt in Beijing’.3 The itemdid go on to say the athletes’ country, and so did not undermine state identityas Rinnawi claims, but it was the athletes’ Arab character that producersthought would attract maximum attention. Such flagging sends the messagethat the viewers, such as the athletes, are ‘Arab’ and should take pride in theachievements of ‘their’ competitors, even if from a different state.
This discourse was repeated throughout al-Jazeera’s Olympic coverage,particularly when discussing several athletes from Arab states. On 20 August,following the success of two Algerian, two Sudani, two Bahrainis, a Saudi anda Kuwaiti athlete in the qualifiers for the 800 m men’s semi-final, the headlineannounced ‘8 Arabs have qualified for the 800 m men’s’ semi final’.4 Similarly,the success the next day of four of these was presented as ‘4 Arab competitors’reach the final.5 In the same bulletin, on 21 August, the qualification of aBahraini and two Moroccans for the women’s 1500 m final was headlined as ‘3Arab competitors also [qualify]’.6 Again, though the athletes’ names and stateswere subsequently listed, the priority headline was the success of ‘Arabs’.
The use of the word ‘Arab’ was not simply a time-saving device. Althoughit allowed the newsreader to deliver a snappier headline, the use of the word‘Arab’ elsewhere suggests that choice of vocabulary is more attuned to keepthe broad-based audience engaged. This was illustrated in the recurrence ofthe word ‘Arab’ in reporting individual successes. The gold medal taken byTunisian swimmer Oussama Mellouli on 17 August was reported later as ‘theArabs’ first gold’7 of the games, and in a summary on 24 August, a reporthailed it as the ‘first gold for Arabs in swimming’ in Olympic history.8 Thougheach bulletin mentioned that the swimmer was Tunisian, the priority was notto state the equally true ‘Tunisia’s first gold’ or the ‘first gold for Tunisia inswimming’. As with Oussama Mellouli’s gold, the bulletins took the individualsuccesses of athletes representing Arab states and presented them as if all theathletes were representing a single Arab team. On 19 August, after a Bahrainitook gold in the 800 m, they announced ‘The Bahraini Rashid Ramzi wonArab countries another gold’.9 Similarly, on 24 August, a Moroccan silver waspresented as ‘the Moroccan Jaouad Gharib has won a new Olympic medal, theeighth for the Arabs, by finishing in second place in the Marathon’.10 Again,the athletes’ state was pronounced while simultaneously suggesting a commonArab goal in the competition.
Presenting athletes as a combined ‘Team Arab’ was also highlighted in themedal tables displayed at the end of most bulletins. Usually, only the top fivecountries in the medal table were displayed, but on days when Arab states wonmedals, a second table illustrated where these states were overall. Table 1replicates this ‘top five’ table, labelled ‘bilad Arab’ (Arab countries), whichkept a tally on the total number of medals for ‘the Arabs’. The table alsoencouraged competition between the different Arab states. This helps illustratehow Arab supranationalism is being flagged in tandem with, not against, state
nationalism. They encourage state pride and rivalry between the states butalso flag that it is these states with which the Arab audiences should feelcompetition. Sudanese viewers should feel a greater sense of competition withMorocco than with neighbouring Ethiopia. Moroccans should compete morewith Kuwait than neighbouring Spain. The New Arabist discourse allowsviewers a state identity but within a wider supranational Arab arena aroundwhich they should orientate themselves.
Team Arab as proud winners
The discourse and use of the word ‘Arab’ is not the only way in whichal-Jazeera’s coverage of the Olympics flagged Arab identity. As crucial wascontent. Michael Billig’s ‘news apartheid’ (Billig 1995: 118) can be seen in thepresentation of the bulletins. Arab successes, particularly medals, were givengreater priority than news about competitors from non-Arab countries.Table 2 displays the subjects of the headlines (defined here as the first twostories in the bulletin), dividing them into four categories: headlines aboutArabs (Arab), non-Arab Middle Eastern (mid-East), Muslims from non-Araband non-Middle Eastern states (Muslims) and from non-Arab, non-MiddleEastern, non-Muslim countries (rest of the world). Table 3 displays the generalvolume of stories about the same four categories of athletes. As can be seen,the number of headlines about Arab athletes is disproportionately higher thanthe number of stories about them. While only 16 per cent of all stories wereabout Arab athletes, those items made up 38 per cent of the headlines. Moreo-ver, that number was probably made lower by the general failure of Arabs atthe Olympics, and the statistics were slightly skewed by several days whenthere were next to no Arab successes to report. On days when major successesdid occur, the four days recorded when Arab athletes won medals (13, 18, 19and 24 August), the headlines were dominated by those events (67 per cent, 75per cent, 50 per cent and 100 per cent, respectively).
Though the 360 athletes from Arab states won only eight medals, eachvictory was given major priority by al-Jazeera. On the days when Arab athleteswon gold, such as the Bahraini 800-m runner Rashid Ramzi on 19 August,
Table 1. Example of medal table from 24th August 2008
their achievement was the first headline on each bulletin.11 These were deemedmore important news than the golds won by non-Arab athletes. Similarly,though al-Jazeera tended to pack its bulletins with stories about the variousgold medals that had been won in Beijing that day, on days when one of theremaining six Arab silver or bronze medals were won, this was always eitherthe first, or, occasionally, the second headline. Table 4 case studies 13 Augustwhen two Arab boxing medallists were given the first headline spot ahead ofthe news that the American swimmer Michael Phelps had broken the world
record for the number of gold medals achieved by a single athlete. The audi-ence was being informed that the achievement of two ‘Arab’ medals in oneday, neither of which was gold, was of more importance to them than theindividual achievement of one American swimmer. Some may argue that withits audience’s perceived anti-American feeling, the al-Jazeera producers choseto relegate the news of American success. However, the numerous reports onMichael Phelps that were featured in subsequent bulletins, on days when therewere no Arab successes, would question this.
The trend of putting Arab achievements on a higher pedestal than non-Arab achievements was extended to non-medal successes, such as qualifica-tion. The qualification of the Moroccan Hasna Banhassi for the final of thewomen’s 800 m on 16 August was given the second headline at 1800 and 1900that day, behind only the world record-breaking Jamaican Sprinter UsainBolt’s gold in the 100 m.12 It was considered a greater priority to viewersthan gold medals for an Ethiopian 10,000-m runner, a Russian walker, a
Table 4. Sports stories on 13th August 2008
6:00 pm sports stories:1. Silver for Algerian and bronze for Egyptian in judo2. Michael Phelps gold medal record3. Gold for Chinese female weightlifter4. Injured Hungarian weightlifter5. Gold for US cyclist6. Gold for Chinese shooter
7:00 pm sports stories:1. Silver for Algerian and bronze for Egyptian in judo2. Michael Phelps gold medal record3. Gold for Australian female swimmer4. Gold for Italian female swimmer5. Gold for Chinese female weightlifter6. Gold for US cyclist7. Gold for Chinese shooter8. Olympic football fixtures9. Volleyball results
11:00 pm sports stories:1. Silver for Algerian and bronze for Egyptian in judo2. Victory for Moroccan boxer in round of 16, defeat for Algerian boxer in round
of 163. Phelps gold medal record4. Gold for Australian female swimmer5. Gold for Italian female swimmer6. Gold Chinese female weightlifter7. Olympic football fixtures
Ukrainian shooter and a Chinese badminton player. Similarly, on 21 August,when the four previously mentioned Arab 800-m runners reached the men’sfinal, this was the headline at 1900.13 The second headline was about the threeArab women qualifying for the 1500 m women’s final. It was not until thethird story that a gold medal was reported: the 4 ¥ 100 m Jamaican men’srelay team.
In an Olympic games that could be considered a poor one for the Arabstates collectively, even comparatively obscure victories received coverage. On15 August, the Algerian Abdelkader Chadi was given the fifth headline forreaching the quarterfinals of the 57 kg men’s boxing.14 Similarly, the next day,another boxer, the Tunisian Walid Cherif received a mention for reaching thesame stage in the 51-kg category.15 Again, these stories were not surrounded bystories of non-Arab athletes reaching quarterfinals or qualifying for finals.Instead, they were sandwiched between stories of gold-winning athletes fromnon-Arab countries. The message of this content choice is quite clear: minorsuccesses by Arab athletes should be as important to the viewer as majorsuccesses by non-Arab athletes.
Team Arab loses quietly
A noticeable feature of al-Jazeera’s content was what went unreported. Incontrast to many national television channels, such as the British BroadcastingCorporation, which show empathy not only for its nationals’ winners but alsofor its losers, al-Jazeera did not have the same attitude towards defeat as it didvictory. The successes of Arab athletes, even the most minor ones, were givenpriority over seemingly greater non-Arab triumphs, yet the defeats were rarelymentioned. Though there were many Arab athletes competing each day in theOlympics, only success was reported. As can be seen in Table 2, one day, 14August, there were no stories of Arab athletes in any of the sports bulletins. Onanother, the 22nd, though there were stories about Arab competitors, theywere repeats of previous days’ events. Yet on the 14th, the Egyptian handballand volleyball teams were defeated, and on the 22nd, the Egyptian AyaMendany finished eighth in the women’s modern pentathlon, Egypt finishedlast in a round of synchronised swimming, a Qatari man was defeated in thesixteenth round in 80 kg tae kwon do and an Emeriti woman was defeated at67 kg tae kwon do preliminaries. Yet none of these defeats were deemedreportable, even though there were no other Arab victories to report in theirplace. Instead, non-Arab successes were the main topics covered.
Though the station did tend to report qualification to semi-finals and finalsfor Arab athletes, their fate was left largely unmentioned if they failed toperform. Hussein Taher a al Saba, the Saudi long jumper who finished elev-enth in the men’s long jump final on 18 August was, for example, ignored. Thesame fate met the Qatari Rashid Shafi al-Dosari when he finished tenth in themen’s discus final, despite representing al-Jazeera’s parent state. Throughout
the games, the hundreds of Arab athletes who failed to get beyond qualifyingrounds, and even those who made it quite far but without achieving a medal,went unreported.
There were a few exceptions. For some reason, the defeat of Tunisia’s WalidCherif at the 51-kg boxing quarterfinal was deemed worth reporting in a waythat the Saudi long jumper and Qatari discus thrower’s arguably more impres-sive achievements were not.16 There are some suggestions North African pro-ducers in al-Jazeera might push a Maghreb bias. A more interesting case is thatof the Bahraini Rogaya al-Gassra, who attracted international attention forbeing the first female athlete to compete in a hijab. On 20 August, al-Gassrafinished sixth in the women’s 200-m semi-final, failing to reach the final. Givenprecedent, al-Jazeera should not have considered this worth reporting.However, it was the second headline on both the 1900 and the 2300 bulletins.17
It can not be explained for certain why this athlete in particular was singled outas the one figure with whom al-Jazeera’s audience were asked to give sympathywhen so many more were not. It is possible that due to the hijab, she was theArab world’s most high-profile athlete, and hence, public interest was highirrespective of her performance. Whatever the reasons, it is clear that theal-Gassra case was the exception to al-Jazeera’s general disinterest in defeatrather than the rule.
This unwillingness to report Arab defeats might question the extent of theeveryday Arabism that al-Jazeera’s Olympic coverage displays. It certainlysuggests a kind of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ Arab identity: one that only wants toidentify its audience with their fellow successful Arab athletes but not whenthey fail. However, all this demonstrates is that the five-minute sports bulletinsdo not necessarily have the same level of blind patriotic loyalty that might beencountered on a nation-state television channel. This might be an issue oflimited time, or it might be consumer choice, with the perception that itsaudience does not want to hear of failure.
However, the idea that Arab identity is somehow ‘cold’ at times of defeat isquestioned by an extended edition of the sports bulletin broadcast on 18August entitled: ‘The Arabs at the Beijing Olympics: the gold and the featuresof weakness’.18 In this section, the host asked why it was that ‘the Arabs’ hadonly managed one gold medal (at that time, the solitary gold won by Tunisiain swimming) and yet so much failure. He interviewed Kamal Darwish, arepresentative from the Sports Education College in Cairo, to explain whyArab athletes had performed badly. He probed about a lack of state fundingand facilities. Though Darwish was Egyptian, the debate was conducted toencompass the problems facing athletes in the entire Arab world. The pre-senter maintained the Arab-wide tone with questions such as ‘Could we see anArab Michael Phelps in 10–20 years?’ The existence of such a debate supportsthe idea that al-Jazeera flags Arab identity even in the ‘in-between’ times. Evenin defeat, something they do not like to display, the questions raised are not‘why has Egypt performed so badly?’ or ‘Why has Algeria underperformed’,but general questions about why ‘the Arabs’ are weak.
Though addressing an Arabic-speaking audience, al-Jazeera’s news coverageis generally that of a regional broadcaster. Its news items on Greater West Asiasuch as Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Israel are almost as numerous as itscoverage of the Arabic-speaking areas (Halliday 2005: 130). As such, it ispossible that analysts of the channel might believe the identity it is flagging tobe Middle Eastern or Islamic, rather than ‘Arab’. To an extent, this is true.Though this experiment did not focus upon news headlines, it stands to reasonthat if repeatedly exposed to news about Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan,al-Jazeera’s audience might eventually come to view them as contiguous withthe more distinctly ‘Arab’ local conflicts. However, its Olympic coverageshowed clearly that al-Jazeera’s prime interest is in the competitors from Arabstates and not in athletes from neighbouring non-Arab countries or in distantnon-Arab Muslims.
The three non-Arab states closest to Doha and neighbouring the Arabworld – Turkey, Iran and Israel – had more success than their Arab contem-poraries at Beijing. Turkey collected one gold, four silver and three bronzemedals. Al-Jazeera’s viewers, however, were not made aware of this as all buttwo were unreported. As can be seen in Tables 2 and 3, barely 3 per cent oftotal headlines and 2 per cent of total stories concerned non-Arab athletesfrom the Middle East. The silver won on 15 August by a Turk in the women’s10,000 m was briefly mentioned in an aside within the main item about awinning Ethiopian.19 It was not judged to be worth reporting in its own right.The gold won by Turkey in the 66-kg men’s wrestling on 20 August wasfeatured but only as the seventh item in only one of the two sports bulletins.20
Turkey was given no special treatment on account of it being either Muslim orlocal to the Arab world and received nowhere near the same coverage given tothe Arab medallists. A similar story was seen with Iran, who won one gold andone bronze. The bronze passed unreported while the gold, achieved in men’stae kwon do on 22 August was featured only as the seventh story that day.21
Unsurprisingly, Israel’s solitary bronze medal went unreported.In contrast to region, the role of Islam as a unifying factor between audience
and athlete was not totally marginal in al-Jazeera’s Olympic coverage. Onseveral occasions, in reports about Arab athletes’ successes, among the fewimages displayed were shots of the victors praying. This was seen, for example,after the victories of the Algerian and Egyptian boxers on 13 August, thequalification of Walid Cherif on 16 August and the gold medal won by RachidRamzi on 19 August.22 This might be an example of al-Jazeera’s producerstrying to appeal to viewers’ religious sentiment, using Islam in the same way asthey use Arab identity to encourage viewers to identify with the athletes. Thisreinforces the notion discussed earlier that it is largely an Islamic culture ratherthan a political universalist Islamism that is promoted by new Arabism.However, as the cases of Iran and Turkey showed, there is no similar attemptto draw lines of identification and solidarity with other non-Arab Muslim
athletes. As Tables 2 and 3 demonstrate, less than 3 per cent of headlinesfeatured Muslims from beyond the Middle East, and only 1 per cent of stories.The unreported successes of Muslim states such as Kazakhstan, Azerbaijanand Uzbekistan illustrate this. The achievements of Muslim athletes who wonKazakhstan two gold, four silver and seven bronze medals went unreported.23
The same goes for the Muslims who won one gold, two silvers and fourbronzes for Azerbaijan and one gold, two silvers and three bronzes forUzbekistan. The lack of interest in these athletes is because religion is not themarker of the New Arabist identity used by al-Jazeera to bind its audiencetogether: they are not Arab and therefore not deemed of sufficient interest.
Conclusion
Since this study was conducted, the Arab world has turned on its axis, beinggripped by a wave of popular anti-government unrest that has been termed the‘Arab Spring’. In its early phases, much was made of the role of satellitetelevision in spreading the revolt from Tunisia to Egypt and then beyond, tothe extent that some labelled it the ‘al-Jazeera revolution’ (Pintak 2011: 1). Yetto those who have investigated the phenomenon of new Arabism in recentyears, such as this article, the spreading of rebellion from one Arab state toanother was no surprise. Although the rebellions’ causes in each state haveparticular social, economic and political roots, new Arabism can help explainthe contagion-like nature of their spreading. For over a decade, satellite mediahave linked the Arab world together as a supranational imagined community,everyday building Arab commonality alongside individual national identities.That an Egyptian would be inspired by Tunisia’s revolution and demand thesame democratic rights should be expected: they have come to be treated as thesame by their media and so come to have the same expectations.
This analysis of al-Jazeera’s coverage of the 2008 Olympics has shown thatthe supranational identity being promoted on satellite television goes fardeeper than the political news coverage that most advocates of new Arabismhave suggested. New Arabism is being flagged in an everyday manner even insport and other less overtly political content – a phenomenon I term ‘everydayArabism’. State identity is not being challenged, however, and Arab identityis flagged in tandem with, not undermining, national identities. This articlehas further shown that Michael Billig’s methodology can be applied to theArab world to demonstrate how new Arabism is being reproduced by pan-Arab satellite television. It offers some new adaptations to Billig’s originalthesis. It shows that television proves as suitable a media to analyse as news-papers in semi-literate developing societies such as the Arab world and that aform of Banal Nationalism can be found away from the democratic West andthat authoritarian structures are still capable of reproducing identity in aneveryday manner. Finally, it shows that identities beyond the national, in thiscase, supranational Arab identity, can be flagged daily and warrant furtherinvestigation.
Of course there are limitations to this study. This was only one case studyof one sporting event on one channel. Other channels might well have reportedthe same events differently. There is certainly a case for a more widespreadstudy in the future. Similarly, a greater emphasis on the responses of theaudience to this banal flagging is needed, perhaps through qualitative inter-viewing or surveys in order to assess how successfully Banal Arabism is repro-duced. However, this one case study does suggest the presence of a certaindiscourse on al-Jazeera, and it tells us much about the everyday nature of newArabism. Above all, it supports the notion that new Arabism should be seen asa supranationalism rather than nationalism as it allows state identity and Arabidentity to exist in tandem, and there is no attempt to push for political unity.It is hoped that in the more open climate brought about by the Arab Springthat this investigation can open the way for more detailed studies of everydayArabism across the Arab world in the future.
Notes
1 ‘transnationalism’ Dictionary of the Social Sciences. Craig Calhoun, ed. Oxford UniversityPress 2002. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. London School of Economicsand Political Science. 11 December 2011 http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t104.e1710
2 ‘August ABCs: National daily newspaper circulation figures’, The Guardian 5 September2008, available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/table/2008/sep/05/abcs.pressandpublishingaccessed on 20 January 2011.
3 ‘Harvest of the Day’ (‘Hasad al-yawm’), al-Jazeera, 2300 KSA, 13 August 2008.4 ‘This Evening’ (‘Hatha al masaa’), al-Jazeera, 1900 KSA, 20/ August 2008.5 ‘This Evening’ (‘Hatha al masaa’), al-Jazeera, 1900 KSA, 21 August 2008.6 ‘This Evening’ (‘Hatha al masaa’), al-Jazeera, 1900 KSA, 21 August 2008.7 ‘Harvest of the Day’ (‘Hasad al-yawm’), al-Jazeera, 2300 KSA, 18 August 2008.8 ‘This evening’ (‘Hatha al masaa’), al-Jazeera, 1900 KSA, 24 August 2008.9 ‘Harvest of the Day’ (‘Hasad al-yawm’), al-Jazeera, 2300 KSA, 19 August 2008.
10 ‘This Evening’ (‘Hatha al masaa’), al-Jazeera, 1900 KSA, 24 August 2008.11 ‘Harvest of the Day’ (‘Hasad al-yawm’), al-Jazeera, 2300 KSA, 19 August 2008.12 ‘This Evening’ (‘Hatha al masaa’), al-Jazeera, 1900 KSA, 16 August 2008.13 ‘This Evening’ (‘Hatha al masaa’), al-Jazeera, 1900 KSA, 21 August 2008.14 ‘This Evening’ (‘Hatha al masaa’), al-Jazeera, 1900 KSA, 15 August 2008.15 ‘Sport’ (‘Riyada’), al-Jazeera, 1800 KSA, 16 August 2008.16 ‘Sport’ (‘Riyada’), al-Jazeera, 1800 KSA, 20 August 2008.17 ‘This Evening’ (‘Hatha al masaa’), al-Jazeera, 1900 KSA, 20 August 2008; ‘Harvest of the Day’(‘Hasad al-yawm’), al-Jazeera, 2300 KSA, 20 August 2008.18 ‘Harvest of the Day’ (‘Hasad al-yawm’), al-Jazeera, 2300 KSA, 18 August 2008.19 ‘This Evening’ (‘Hatha al masaa’), al-Jazeera, 1900 KSA, 15 August 2008.20 ‘Harvest of the Day’ (‘Hasad al-yawm’), al-Jazeera, 2300 KSA, 20 August 2008.21 ‘Harvest of the Day’ (‘Hasad al-yawm’), al-Jazeera, 2300 KSA, 22 August 2008.22 ‘Harvest of the Day’ (‘Hasad al-yawm’), al-Jazeera, 2300 KSA, 13 August 2008; ‘Sport’(‘Riyada’), al-Jazeera, 1800 KSA, 16 August 2008; ‘Harvest of the Day’ (‘Hasad al-yawm’),al-Jazeera, 2300 KSA, 19 August 2008.23 Of the two Kazakhs who won gold, at least one has a Muslim name: the winner of the 69-kgmen’s Boxing, Bakhyt Sarsekbayev. The other winner, of men’s 94-kg weightlifting, Ilya Ilin couldpossibly be of Russian and therefore of Christian or Jewish origin.
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