![]() In Saudi Arabia, you need to attach yourself to the right prince. Khashoggi was an ambitious young reporter who knew that to rise in Saudi journalism you don’t need professionalism, courage, or ethics. Khashoggi: Eager to please (April Brady/Project on Middle East Democracy) He was presumably tortured and killed (some say his body was tossed from a plane over the “empty quarter” desert in Saudi Arabia). He kidnapped As-Sa`id from a crowded Beirut street in 1979 and delivered him to the Saudi embassy there. He was unrelenting in his attacks against the Saudi royal family.įor this, the Saudi regime paid a corrupt PLO leader in Beirut (Abu Az-Za`im, tied to Jordanian intelligence) to get rid of As-Sa`id. He authored a massive (though tabloid-like) volume about the history of the House of Saud. Khashoggi-contrary to what is being written-was never punished by the regime, except lightly two years ago, when Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) banned him from tweeting and writing for Al-Hayat, the London-based, pan-Arab newspaper owned by Saudi Prince Khalid bin Sultan.īy historical contrast, Nasir As-Sa`id was a courageous secular Arab Nationalist writer who fled the kingdom in 1956 and settled in Cairo, and then Beirut. Some writers suffered while Khashoggi was their boss at Al-Watan newspaper. There is no journalism allowed in the kingdom: there have been courageous Saudi women and men who attempted to crack the wall of rigid political conformity and were persecuted and punished for their views. Khashoggi was a loyal member of the Saudi propaganda apparatus. Human Rights Watch’s director described him as representing “outspoken and critical journalism.”īut did he pursue those absolutes while working for Saudi princes? David Hirst in The Guardian claimed Khashoggi merely cared about absolutes such as “truth, democracy, and freedom”. It’s been odd to read about Khashoggi in Western media. ![]() The Washington Post, for whom Khashoggi wrote, and other Western media, have kept the story alive, increasing the pressure on Riyadh to explain its role in the affair. The disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist, in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last week has generated huge international publicity, but unsurprisingly, little in Saudi-controlled, Arab media. I understand that it’s out of my control, but in the end, Pepe is whatever you say he is, and I, the creator, say that Pepe is love.Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist, who disappeared in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last week is not quite the critic of the Saudi regime that the Western media says he is, writes As’ad AbuKhalil. Before he got wrapped up in politics, Pepe was an inside-joke and a symbol for feeling sad or feeling good and many things in between. The problem with Pepe is that he’s been stamped a hate symbol by politicians, hate groups, institutions, the media and, because of them, your mom. It’s a nightmare, and the only thing I can do is see this as an opportunity to speak out against hate. But I know this: It’s completely insane that Pepe has been labeled a symbol of hate, and that racists and anti-Semites are using a once peaceful frog-dude from my comic book as an icon of hate. Or just another famous person sharing a Pepe meme because it’s cool (like Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj did in the past). ![]() Or perhaps it was a more sinister nod to some fringe, racist groups that used Pepe as a mascot for their agenda. A smug Trump-Pepe was shared by Trump himself on Twitter in the beginning of the election race, a move I assumed was a nod to young voters. I was thinking, Memes rule!īut that was before 2016, a time when our culture evolved to include Internet culture in this election (mostly to seek out the Millennial vote). As the copyright owner, I was licensing a bunch of things like indie video games, card games making official clothes, a plush toy and I was excited by my plans for the future. Kids write me to ask how his name is pronounced ( Peep? Pee-pee? Pep-pay?). Moms write me to say how much their kid loves Pepe. I have a stack of Pepe fan art sent to me by school children. To zillions of people, mostly kids, teens and college-dwellers, it meant many things, but mostly it was a big joke. ![]() The frog face has gone through thousands of user-made Internet incarnations, expressing rage, smugness, violence, happiness, coolness and, most notably, sadness. That was the beginning of the meme, circa 2008.īefore this election, Pepe the Frog spent years mutating online into the many-faced Mickey Mouse God of the Internet. Users online started cut-and-pasting Pepe’s heavy-eyed, froggy face and the phrase “feels good, man” and shared it on Internet message boards as a quick visual description of how they were feeling after an event. ![]()
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