Last week, I was a witness to how language barrier could be used as a weapon to spread misinformation on social media. It all started when Mom showed me a video that she’d got on her WhatsApp. The video was of Fajir Al Saeed, the controversial Kuwaiti TV presenter who has a programme that could be roughly translated to: Owning it on her private channel. I’m not a fan of her, yet whenever Mom gets one of her videos, we both sit and watch in astonishment as she tears apart whoever is making the news that day — mainly public figures from the Arab world.
In this nine-minute-long video, she announces that COVID-19 pandemic is nothing but a “Chinese movie” used to fail Trump in the American presidency elections. According to her, if Trump manages to win again, then the world will be receiving a new virus from the Chinese as we are all: “just victims caught in the middle between the two!”.
Moreover, COVID-19 virus has an expiry date which is the end of the American elections. Now to the breaking news she’d like to share with the viewers: the WHO had declared that COVID-19 patients don’t need isolation and we — on the other hand — don’t need social distancing as the virus doesn’t spread.
To confirm the aforementioned statement, she plays a video that lacks Arabic subtitles, where a group of people are sitting on a long table with a hippie-looking woman introducing herself as professor Dolores Cahal, the president of an organisation called World Doctors Alliance. Prof Cahal announces that Corona is a seasonal virus that spreads between December and April and could be treated easily, so there is no need for lockdown, social distancing, quarantining or even face masks.
Then she goes on about being part of Freedom of Speech movement and asks viewers to take part in democratic peaceful movements in their countries to help remove politicians that are “causing more harm than good”. She invites the viewers to a march in Berlin that makes others realise that they could remove their masks and “welcome to their side of freedom!”.
Another man on the table with a German accent adds: “COVID-19 is not a pandemic but a “plandemic” and “we don’t want a “new normal” but a “better normal”. After this WHO claimed video, Fajir calls her friend to ask a question on air.
The conversation is comically absurd: “What did I tell you when we were last in Cairo? When you asked me when the pandemic would end? You said after the elections! You mean the American elections? Yes! Today is your lucky day as WHO had announced that we don’t need any preventive measures! You predicted that before everyone else, Fajir! You’re awesome! Okay switch on the TV and watch the programme! Bye!”.
Besides the presenter’s pompous attitude and condescending/mocking tone, I found the video worrying for other reasons. First, we Arabs are fans of conspiracy theories and what she said is technically correct (the vaccine was discovered a week exactly after the election results).
People would easily forget the millions who died worldwide and the long months of different drug trials that lead to this breakthrough discovery. Second, although the video wasn’t a WHO one at all yet it looks authentic to non-English speakers. This could cause mass confusion as many still doubt the efficiency of preventive measures followed in their countries. Not to mention its insensitivity to the families who lost loved ones in the pandemic. In my opinion, integrity is what media should be about, whether the news is sensational or not.
Rasha al Raisi is a certified skills trainer and the author of: The World According to Bahja. rashabooks@yahoo.com
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