Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Rupert Murdoch Takes Time Off of Hating Muslims to Give Them TV


by Calvin Freiburger

As world leaders twiddle their thumbs, largely clueless about how to counter the nuclear ambitions of Iran, Reza Aslan reports on the Daily Beast that the Iranian regime fears its being undermined by an unlikely foe—Rupert Murdoch:

Farsi1, a Persian language satellite station partly owned by Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp, has become the most popular entertainment network in Iran, with nearly half of the country’s population (some 35 million people) tuning in daily to keep up with dubbed episodes of Fox favorites like 24 and How I Met Your Mother […] Maryam Ardabili, women’s affairs adviser to the governor of Fars province, summed up the government position: “There is no doubt that Farsi 1 is a tool of the extensive cultural onslaught [of the West] against Iran.” Mohammad Taghi Rahbar, head of the clerical faction in the Iranian parliament, accused Farsi1 of seeking “to destroy the chastity and morals of families and encourage young Iranians to have sex and drink alcohol.”

But there’s little the government can do about Farsi1 or any of the other satellite channels, like BBC Persian or Voice of America, that Iranians depend upon to keep from going crazy in a country in which government-sanctioned entertainment usually consists of watching 80-year-old turbaned men take turns reading from the Koran. Last July, the authorities tried to jam Farsi1’s signal, only to have the network begin broadcasting from a different satellite feed. “We jam them, they jam us in return,” admits Ezatollah Zarghami, chairman of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.

Farsi1 doesn’t offer political or anti-Iranian programming, though other stations do. During the Iranian election protests of 2009, many noted the role social media played in getting the truth to the outside world against the regime’s wishes, and apparently more conventional media is similarly useful in sending unapproved messages in, creating politically (and legally) incorrect content safely out of Iran’s reach. As explained above, stopping the signal is easier said than done, and Aslan also explains that the government isn’t all that interested in cracking down on satellite-dish ownership (which is technically illegal in the country), though that may change if stations ramp up the overtly dissident messages.

Any development in Iran that gives the ruling class headaches is a welcome one, especially if it undermines the region’s hardcore Islamist foundations and reaffirms the Iranian people’s desire for a freer life. Unfortunately, TV alone can’t topple a formidable police state unafraid to keep the populace in line by force.

Also unfortunate is the fact that Reza Aslan chooses to close what was otherwise an interesting, informative report with stale left-wing dishonesty:

[W]hat controversy exists about Farsi1 is focused on the main man behind the project, Rupert Murdoch, whose Fox News (if you can use that word) Network has turned anti-Islam hysteria into ratings gold. Fox’s popular evening anchors regularly spout the most vile and bigoted rhetoric against Islam and Muslims and the network’s experts are by far the loudest voices in America advocating war with Iran.

True to leftist form, Aslan apparently doesn’t feel he has to support his smears with any examples of said bigotry. We shouldn’t be surprised: talking about your lie as if it’s well-established, already-proven truth is standard propagandizing procedure for the leftist echo chamber.

Murdoch is no Zionist, but he’s certainly no friend either to Muslims or to the people of the Middle East.

Sure…unless you count his news outlets’ willingness to cover human rights violations perpetrated against Muslims, or Aslan’s own article showing that Murdoch is providing Middle Easterners choices their governments don’t want them to have. But other than that, Rupert Murdoch is positively a beast to Muslims!

That Aslan ignores all Fox News Channel’s reporting and commentary on behalf of Muslim’s rights around the world, choosing instead to viciously attack it because that coverage also reflects poorly on particular Muslims and aspects of Islamic theology, reveals just how twisted leftism really is, and how little it can be counted on to actually improve the world.

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Hailing from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, Calvin Freiburger is a political science major at Hillsdale College. He also writes for the Hillsdale Forum and his personal website, Calvin Freiburger Online

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