Before discussing media in North Africa, it is essential to approach the seminar's title from an ideological and historical perspective. We must rethink the notions and concepts we use and the reasons for their use, ensuring they serve our objectives and the reality we are collectively constructing. From the outset, this conference is defined by the term "South". The term is not a geographic concept; it is defined in opposition to "the North," which is also not strictly a geographic concept but rather represents Western domination over the world. Therefore, before we talk about media from a Southern perspective in the African or North African region, we must first understand what we mean by a Southern understanding of concepts—the South as a source and framework for understanding information and concepts.
The South is defined by its opposition to what we call Northern concepts, the Northern narrative, and Northern domination, which can also be termed Western domination. This Western domination did not only manifest through colonialism, wars, and imperialism, but also through how the history of our peoples was shaped. The reality we wish to cover and transmit as media professionals has been shaped by a history of military intervention, economic and social exploitation, and Eurocentric knowledge production. My focus here is on knowledge production from a Eurocentric point of view. We have all been taught in schools that most academic institutions are related to the academy. If we look at this term from a formal institutional standpoint, it traces back to Plato's Academy, which, within Western Hellenic knowledge production traditions, is considered the first well-established institution for study and knowledge creation.
However, a brief historical assessment shows that the first institutions were established thousands of years earlier, with archaeological evidence dating back to c. 3800 BCE from Iraq, as well as from Africa, China, and Asia, which contradicts the Eurocentric view that knowledge began and developed with the Greeks. It is also important to note that Plato's Academy was a center only for the rich and not for the poor, an ideological point we should remember. The initial reason for its establishment was to serve knowledge production for its own sake and prevent the poor from accessing it. I am highlighting this history to help define what we understand as the South, because the concept of the academy was introduced to our peoples by colonialism. Since then, it has been considered a normal, natural institution that produces knowledge for our people, and its influence on our elites and population persists to this day.
The narrative that all cultures' history traces back to the Greeks, then to Europeans, and then to what is called the West, is a politically driven narrative known as the Aryan model. The Aryan model of understanding knowledge is based on the perception that the history of humanity was made by European whites. In opposition to this, much contemporary knowledge production from a Southern point of view has begun to develop a model that considers knowledge a human-constructed process extending beyond the Greeks to all Middle Eastern cultures, such as those in Mesopotamia, and to Far Eastern cultures, especially China and India. This is critical when discussing the perception of the South today, as it is also a perception of history. As I mentioned, this history is driven by two politically-defined distinctions: one where history started with the Greeks and was dominated by whites, and a counter-history, which we are now shaping, that recognizes history goes back many thousands of years before the Greeks and is a continuation of peoples' processes of understanding themselves, their reality, and building their welfare.
This leads to a discussion of how media in our region has been shaped by this Eurocentric viewpoint. The region I am speaking about is North Africa. While North Africa has existed for thousands of years, with the latest archaeological evidence showing the oldest known origins of humankind are from Africa, its political sense was defined by colonialism. The existence of countries like Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Mauritania is a political decision of colonial forces. After these countries gained independence, their people needed tools to build their prosperity, economies, societies, and knowledge production. At the media level, many institutions were created that were mostly linked to the post-independence regimes, serving a post-colonial agenda that reflected the peoples' aspirations to build a modern society. This led to the emergence of new media outlets and printing houses in North Africa.
Egypt was one of the main sources of media outlets and production facilities, playing a special role in the development of media across North Africa. Egypt primarily focused on a Pan-Arabist press agenda that was anti-colonial and anti-imperialist, but from a Pan-Arabist perspective that was somewhat detached from the real origin of the problem, which is the question of capitalism. Egypt saw a flourishing of media and publishing houses, including about 200 short-lived newspapers and 15 magazines. The Arabic-speaking world is also linked to other countries in the Middle East and Near East, which have their own history of media development, particularly Lebanon, which was very rich in media creation. At that time, media was either state-owned or party-owned, with parties using it as a means of organizing, making propaganda, getting their political message out, and mobilizing people for their own objectives. Notable examples were the Lebanese paper media outlets As-Safir, An-Nahar, and Al-Liwa’. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, this media sphere faced financial and political challenges, which led to the collapse of many party-related media outlets by the end of the last century and the rise of what is called independent media.
The term "independent media" is itself critical because its independence is questionable. Much like non-profit organizations that often serve the interests of the parties behind them, the emergence of so-called independent media was merely Western-funded corporations trying to leverage the New World Order that emerged after 1990. These outlets, funded by US and British corporations, aimed to make the Western narrative dominant in North Africa and our region. While considered independent, they served an agenda linked to their funding parties. These media outlets included The Independent, Newsweek, and others related to organizations in Egypt like Al-Ahram, in Kuwait like Al-Watan, and in Saudi Arabia like Al-Hayat and Asharq Al-Awsat. These outlets, which had dominated the Western narrative, were later challenged by the development of communication tools as more people gained access to the internet, providing them with more sources of interactive information beyond traditional media outlets. This led to the collapse of print media and the emergence of electronic news websites. The first electronic websites in the region were online versions of print media, but new media also developed, especially in the Middle East, such as Elaph. This online newspaper was started by a Saudi Arabian media professional who is considered the "Rupert Murdoch of the Arab world" and who also worked for Asharq Al-Awsat.
These new media outlets were further promoted by the emergence of the Al Jazeera channel, which became a significant source of information for the Arab-speaking world. Al Jazeera served not only as a source of information but also for mobilization during the Arab Spring, shaping the perceptions of many activists with its Muslim Brotherhood agenda. It also supported pro-Arab Spring regimes, for example, in Tunisia and with what happened in Syria, which drove many other countries and regimes to produce their own media outlets similar to Al Jazeera. Ultimately, numerous media outlets have been created, all driven by specific agendas of different entities, whether countries or parties. For this reason, we believe that to shape the world of today, we need to have our own media assets. We need to collaborate and build solidarity to create the self-image that we wish to build together for the future and prosperity of our people.
(Transcribed from recording and edited.)