If we’ve had one thing impressed upon us all these years, it’s that diversity is a good thing.  Thanks to the intense efforts of a variety of groups, the era of the dead white male has come and gone in everything from economics to style.  Capitalism is good because it encourages open competition between a number of options and produces the highest quality goods at the lowest possible prices.  Benetton is wonderful because white or black, everybody looks fantastic in those pants. 

Indeed, having a variety of racial, ethnic, gender, economic, national, religious,  political, and sexual perspectives has become an indispensable talking point for any public institution, a proven marketing strategy private firms, and a necessary condition for any media representation.  This kind of imagistic lip service is all well and good for Benetton-esque brochures of diversity-powered Happy Town University, Inc. (Intel Inside!), but if diversity is so important, why do the powers-that-be cringe in the face of diversity of a more substantive variety?

In this land of First Amendment rights, where even a transsexual Nazi Eskimo can publish a book on DIY explosives and Howard Stern can lob meatballs at porn stars’ desperately clenching butt-cracks (there was a $2k prize) , nobody is supposed to be silenced.  Yet, as Al-Jazeera tries to launch its English-language 24 hour news network, there have been overt proposals here and elsewhere in the Western world to legislate against its existence and right to broadcast.

Set to operate from interlinked centers in London, Washington DC, Doah and Kuala Lumpur, the network has had to repeatedly set back its launch date due to technical difficulties and political resistance.  In the U.S., a recent poll by Accuracy in Media, a non-profit media watchdog, showed that the majority of Americans oppose the presence of the network on U.S. cable networks and would even support legislation barring Al-Jazeera from the airwaves.  To date no major cable provider has agreed to carry the channel. 

In Canada, the Canadian Jewish Congress has brought up other objections, based on unsubstantiated accusations that the network has ties to terrorist organizations and that the network, if allowed to broadcast, could threaten “the security and very physical existence of members of the Jewish community.”  I doubt that the opinion of U.S.-based Jewish advocacy groups is much different. 

This is unacceptable.  AJI is a well-funded, well-organized alternative to the currently limited group of dominant broadcasters, and those who would try to silence them are nothing more than agenda-driven ideologues with goals far outside public awareness and objective scrutiny in the news. 

Contrary to popular belief, Al-Jazeera International is structurally distinct from the original Qatar-based, Arabic-language broadcasting company; the company has hired American and Canadian journalists, among many other nationalities, to provide content and programming.  Far from being a jihadist, Muslim-centric organization, AJI employs a wide variety of well trained journalists from an eclectic mix of backgrounds (eat your heart out, Benetton).  Can David Frost really be accused of being a jihadist?

As well, nobody has ever proven that either Al-Jazeera or Al-Jazeera International is directly linked to a terrorist organization, and AJI, being partly based in North America, is even more far removed from the Al-Jazeera which was (wrongly) accused of broadcasting tapes of prisoners being beheaded.  Similarly, the fact that the network sometimes receives material from Osama Bin Laden is immaterial.  Why anybody is surprised that they should receive videos from Bin Laden is a mystery.  Should Bin Laden just hand the tapes directly to the CIA or leave them in a basket on the embassy steps?  Certainly anywhere besides the largest (and in some places, only) broadcasting company in the Arab and Islamic world, right? 

Accusations that either organization somehow intentionally fans the flames of hatred against certain ethnic groups are similarly unfounded and ridiculous.  Perhaps you haven’t noticed it so much on CNN, but certain people have legitimate reasons to have a less than sterling opinion of Jews and the Western world.  Does that mean that we simply shouldn’t talk to them and shouldn’t air their views?  Whether these views are “acceptable” or “correct” is largely irrelevant in reporting the news.  To accurately represent the status quo, we can’t simply shut our eyes and ears to the things we don’t like to see and hear. 

Donald Rumsfeld is representative of the usual objections against al-Jazeera.  Last year in the Washington Post, Rumsfeld accused the network of “false” and “inflammatory” reporting.  What, you mean like Fox News?  Or how about the Weekly World News?  How about Steven Glass?  And the New York Times’ veritable crusade against the Duke Lacrosse players accused of rape?  Then again, I suppose balanced research and transparency hasn’t been so much a hallmark of this administration.  Suppression of free speech and personal freedoms, however, has been a specialty, and anybody who would support unconstitutional legislation against Al-Jazeera is denser than a fruitcake at best and a raging fascist at worst.

Further, considering that all of today’s major media outlets are controlled by ten large conglomerates (AOL/Time Warner, Vivendi-Universal, Disney, Bertelsmann, Viacom, News Corporation, TCI, Sony, Philips/Polygram, General Electric/NBC), the resistance that AJI is facing takes a darker political tone.  If you can stomach the complaints about the “liberal bias” in American media, then why not welcome a new perspective? 

AJI is potentially the only news service that is in a position to report the news from an entirely different point of view, one not subject to the whims of a U.S.-based corporation.  Broadcast news media is controlled by a handful of giants, and many are directly beholden (to a limited, albeit undisputable degree) to an individual’s personal political preferences.  Rupert Murdoch and Tony Blair, anyone? 

Because it exists outside of any established framework, AJI could go a long way towards setting up a system of regular, easily accessible exchange for viewers in the West and the Middle East.  If the usual suspects succeed in quashing it, the chances for censorship and “inflammatory” remarks only increases, and we will find ourselves once again cut off from the very people that we are desperately trying to reach with accurate information.  Can we really risk further alienation and isolation in the Middle East?  Maybe if you have a stake in Defense Department spending.  For the rest of us, we have to fight the urge to typecast and expand our horizons.  Before it gets any worse.