Al Jazeera History

History of Al Jazeera

I find this section of the article lacking.

The original Al Jazeera channel was started in 1996 with a US$150 million grant from the emir of Qatar.

In April 1996, the BBC World Service's Saudi-based Arabic language TV station, faced with censorship demands by the Saudi Arabian government, shut down after two years of operation. Many former BBC World Service staff members joined Al Jazeera, which at the time was not yet on air. The channel began broadcasting in late 1996.

Why did the emir of Qatar grant funding? What's the purpose, motivation or interest of the emir? Who founded Al Jazeera and why?

I think I can provide some background info and give you my analysis of the situation.

The current Emir of Qatar came to power in a bloodless coup in which he deposed his father. Since coming to power, the Emir has modernised and liberalised his country. Five US universities now have campuses in Qatar. Qatar has a population of less than 700,000, but sits on one of the biggest natural gas reserves in the world, which means that unless someone were to invade Qatar and/or steal its natural resources, the Emir and his country are likely to be awash with money. Qatar is home to one of the biggest US military bases in the region. It is also home to probably the freest, least-censored TV channel in the region. The US military base and Al Jazeera's Doha headquarters are really not that far away from each other. My own hunch is that this amounts to a balance of power. This massive US military presence and Al Jazeera's assured ability to get the word out both will make any potential regional aggressors think twice about doing something funny. Yet by being in the country, the US military is to an extent tied to the current Qatari administration, insofar as they now have a vested interest in not pissing off their host country too much. On the other hand, Al Jazeera's ability to get the word out also is an excellent way to reign in the US Tiger in their back yard. Despite this, or maybe because of this, there is strong evidence that suggests that the US at least thought about doing something funny themselves. See Al Jazeera bombing memo. I don't know if these decisions were made subsequent to that affair or beforehand, but I would note that Al Jazeera has located their international broadcasting centres for Al Jazeera English in very visible locations and close to seats of power -- cf. the maps linked from the AJE article. AJE's Washington centre is near the White House, their London centre is near the UK Parliament, the centre in KL is in the Petronas Twin Towers and bombing any of these centres, each of which are reportedly able to operate to operate independently, is going to make an attacker look really shitty on TV. Al Jazeera are quite right to be cautious, because the US has militarily attacked their bureaux before and killed Al Jazeera staff (in Afghanistan and Iraq), and there is strong evidence to suggest that the US knew exactly what they were doing. My own hunch is that the US felt stabbed in the back and wanted to "send a message", because their Qatari friends (=hitherto seen as the "good guys") repeatedly caught and showed them (the US) literally red-handed and reported on some of those 650,000 deaths that the US would rather forget about. In other words, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Co. knew that Al Jazeera made them look really thoroughly shitty, which they didn't see as legitimate criticism but as stirring up Muslims against them. Contrary to what they previously thought, this suddenly made them view Al Jazeera as the "bad guys", a notion which they have been largely successful in spreading throughout the Occident. May everyone decide for themselves whether that notion is factual and correct.

Who funded Al Jazeera and why? Well, 'who' is easy: the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. His wives --Shaikha Mariam bint Hamad Al Thani, Shaikha Mozah bint Nasser al Missned & Shaikha Noora bint Khalid Al-Thani-- presumably helped. Actually, I don't know for sure about Shaikha Mariam bint Hamad Al Thani and Shaikha Noora bint Khalid Al-Thani, but I know that Shaikha Mozah bint Nasser al Missned did a lot of work. Both Al Jazeera Sports and Al Jazeera Children's Channel are based in Education City, and Shaikha Mozah bint Nasser al Missned was very involved in establishing Al Jazeera Children's Channel, which is bankrolled by her Qatar Foundation. 'Why?' Well, my guess would be that Al Jazeera's existence serves the security, development, and education interests of Qatar, the Arab world and the Muslim world. IMHO it doesn't exactly hurt the interests of non-violent progressives worldwide (plus it makes folks like me, who love Al Jazeera English, very happy campers). Had the Emir of Qatar actually wanted to bolster his country's security and influence by force, he could easily have followed the military diplomacy model: buy shitloads of weapons and lobby really hard. There are countries that do that. He certainly had the funds to do that. He chose not to do that, and if you're asking me, public education, freedom of speech and fun & games are incomparably better options, even if the freedom of speech aspect has the power to occasionally embarrass those who continue to commit themselves to the military diplomacy model. Sure, Fox viewers now equate Al Jazeera with Al Qaeda, but, hey, there's always going to be dodoheads and nincompoops, right?

In any case, I don't really know how most of the above would fit into the article and in the absence of 3rd party sources, some of it would certainly be dismissed as original research. So I'm not adding this info to the article, but if it helps you by giving you a starting point to improving the article, then please by any means go ahead.