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The Forum > Article Comments > How to lose your job at a Saudi newspaper > Comments

How to lose your job at a Saudi newspaper : Comments

By Fawaz Turki, published 24/4/2006

My last provocation was to write about the atrocities Indonesia had committed during its occupation of East Timor from 1975 to 1999.

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Fawaz Turki, a journalist living in Washington, asked questions already answered by him: those paying requests a music. However, this guy lives in the USA and has got some options.

What about Australia, where getting employment, if a professional especially, is just a sweet life-time dream for not belonging to an ethnic majority?
Posted by MichaelK., Thursday, 27 April 2006 12:48:13 PM
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GrahamY

Clearly Islam was the main influence in the author's loss of employment and clearly such censorship is wrong.

However, this form of censorship is not exclusive to Islam. Many years ago (I was 16) I worked for a firm of auditors, one of our clients was a Christian bookshop. I didn't know that I would be expected to join the staff members for prayer - when I refused, explaining I wasn't religious, a complaint was made about my 'conduct' to my employer. I didn't lose my job, but I was never sent to this client again.

I thought that the point of this article held a broader application and was relevant to the perils of censorship across the news media in general, such as Fox/Murdoch or Chinese control over internet and so on.

Now I see that it was all about Islam.
Posted by Scout, Friday, 28 April 2006 11:10:10 AM
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Surely, "Clearly Islam was the main influence in the author's loss of employment", Scout.

And what does influence an Australian reality?
Posted by MichaelK., Friday, 28 April 2006 12:37:05 PM
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Perhaps there is light at the end of the tunnel for the Arabic community.I was beginning to think that their aversion to logic was genetic.We don't here enough from people like Fawaz Tuki and more articles like this will stop people like from me from pre-judging all Muslims as ratbag religious nutters.
Posted by Arjay, Sunday, 30 April 2006 9:56:52 PM
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Thank you Arjay, I agree we do need some honest reflection from the Islamic community. But it appears that that Arab newspapers are only doing what happens in the 'west' only more extreme. After all if they were simply following Murdoch's example.....

I was also concerned that this thread would simply devolve into yet another Islam bashing excuse.

:-)
Posted by Scout, Monday, 1 May 2006 8:30:12 AM
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Fawaz Turki: Thank you, that was a calm, candid, important opinion to read. Please keep writing, explaining, informing.

& Staunch: Spot, as it were, on.

So many actors we read about in the middle east appear to sack, torture and lock up opponents quietly yet scream high school rhetoric in public. We're still hearing about America/Aust/France/Denmark/miscellaneous countries as the Great Satan/evil/whore/miscellaneous insults; and how somebody will smite/blow up/behead/misc threats ..us. Blah, blah, blah. Zzzz.

Outrageous censorship and bizarre speech there was a bit of a surprise to us here. Now it's pathetically familiar but still not taken very seriously. The intent is obviously taken seriously but the words themselves? Well, it's a lot of repetitive, false and inflammatory speech so there's not much use.

We'd like to take these closed regimes, their unhinged radicals, their proclaimed disdain for life and ludicrous use of xenophobic language seriously, but how? And, in the end, why? If they wished to be taken seriously by the world they'd yell less, ask more questions and think up a decent argument.

Anything that issues from the mouths of these propaganda units pretending to be popular governments or from newspapers pretending to be free press or all the shouting from scary zealots is to any other eye in the 21st century merely a sign of manifest weakness on their part.

Indeed, now even when poor old Osama BL "speaks" out these days it's too painful to listen to as "he" (or whoever it is) thrashes around inside his own ideological death throes. Who are the crusaders if not your own beheaders you idiot?

It's not important whether we, they or anyone else in this world has the might but whether what's claimed actually has some semblance of truth and usefulness and whether we may all speak and report it freely.

Luckily for us in rest of the world, most of the middle east's bully boys lose mightily on both counts of truth and utility no matter how often they beat loyalty and cooperation into their flock. This is because bullsh*t always, always loses. It just takes time
Posted by Ro, Monday, 1 May 2006 5:38:53 PM
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