third world tv

A report from a Syrian returning to war-torn Aleppo, Syria, for family reasons. He complains that the Middle East is saturated with commercial, religious and political propaganda, most of it broadcast from overseas. The effect is to disorganise the locals and keep them ignorant of what is happening, and the creation of many splinter groups. The author wonders if governments in the west would tolerate the same disorganising effect that they seem to promote and accept for countries in the 'third world'.

ALEPPO: My father spent two days in hospital in Aleppo and I stayed with him. At night I clicked through the channels on the hospital supplied television.

It took me 2 nights to surf all channels, which were 911 in total (what a number!). Some of them had no signal. But I was surprised about the quality and variety of the channels.

Almost 75-80% were religious channels! 80% of them are related to Sunni Islam (Wahhabis, Muslim Brotherhood ... etc). The rest were Shi'a, Arab Christian, and other minorities from here and there.

Around 15% or so of the total were regional channels, for either new entities or future ones to come. That was even more interesting and surprising for me.

Each important city in the Arab world has it's own tv channel, even if it isn't working or has no signal. They have all booked a place for future use. From Misrata in Libya, to Deir-ez-Zour in Syria, all have their tv channels.

They are not national channels. They are broadcasting from God knows where. Most of Yemenite tv channels were out of order, except the few supported by the Saudis, which came over loud and clear. There was a channel for Darfur in Sudan, many for Kurdistan. There were channels with names purporting to be Aleppo: one with the so-called opposition, the other is pro Syrian government. And so on.

Most of the non-religious channels fell into the entertainment category. Most featured trashy music and commercials, dating, and a couple of Hollywood movies, all subtitled in Arabic. There was one National Geographic in Arabic from Abu Dhabi (UAE).

Among those hundreds of channels, there were very few really entertaining and useful ones. Very optimistically, I might consider perhaps 23 tv channels informative, national or "resisting" the mainstream media propaganda. Overall, I mostly watched only 5 channels over thse two nights with my father in hospital.

I started to wonder about all these trashy channels.

It occurred to me that soon each family will have its own tv channel, flag, national anthem, currency, tiny militia to protect their leader, and borders to define their entity. Each building or neighborhood, each clan and tribe, each sect and domination, each ethnicity and community will have its own channel.

All of these 911 channels are broadcasting from abroad. Many are located in Britain or Israel, funded by the Saudis or other fanatics from all backgrounds.

No wonder crazy people are joining terrorists and ISIL and Nusra, brainwashed by these 24/7 tv channels, each one showing them paradise, that they are correct and righteous, while the others are infidels and wrongdoers, therefore they deserve death penalties.

Many channels combine politics with religion, notably some of the new Libyan regional ones.

This phenomenon seems to give life to cliches: Divisions into divisions; Divide & Rule; ; Religion is the opium of the peoples and nations. All these famous phrases came to mind as I watched the parade of televised nonsense.

I'm wondering why don't we have similar remarkable tv channels in Europe and North America. For instance, why isn't the Vatican broadcasting in Irish to Catholics in Ireland encouraging them to fight for their independence, interviewing Irish Catholics who present a "peaceful and moderate opposition" abroad, pushing and polishing their agenda from within their community, referring affectionately to their villages and cities? Why aren't there French channels for French Canadians, Russian channels to support Russian Orthodox Americans? Would it be allowed? Would it be possible?

Could Arabs of Montreal in Canada or in Marseille in France establish their own independent states? Don't they have rights as minorities, after all?

Might the UN create sanctions against France for refusing land and an identity to such a state? Might we one day see NATO or some similar multinational army invading France from overseas to defend the rights of minorities in France or similar secceding communities in other countries?

I know it sounds like a fantasy when I speak of such possibilities in the western world, because this fantasy works only against people of the 'third' world, to keep them divided, and redefine them as minorities and ethnic groups.

Did you know that the whole world is broadcasting Arabic language channels? Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, the Netherlands and Germany, France, BBC, India, and many U.S. channels!

But there are hardly any useful and informative regional channels in the Arab world, broadcast in English and other international languages. Aljazeera English does not count, since it is just another propaganda source.

Anyway, time to go now. We may have more than a thousand tv channels at home, but we have no electricity to watch any right now!
Maybe that's better!