Many such unsigned letters were interesting to read. However, it was a policy that they be rolled into balls or turned into paper planes.

However, the other day I received a letter from a writer who signed himself as Al-Ajnabi (the foreigner in Arabia).

The contents, language and style reveals a well-read person.

Al-Ajnabi asks: Why is the emphasis of the paper always on Israel and its relations with its Arab neighbors, the United States and the Palestinian?

He inquires about the lack of reporting on injustice, repression and such other social wrongs that have taken place or are taking place in the Arab world. He criticizes some of the Arab policies, questioning their validity and usefulness. He talks of lack of tolerance in certain areas.

The lack of an open forum to discuss new political realities seems to have upset Al-Ajnabi who asks why the media is so tightly proscribed. He or she is distressed that he/she has to smuggle books in from London where the majority of books about the Arab world are written and published.

Al-Ajnabi believes that there are readers who wish to learn about the real workings of society and the community of nations.

I read Al-Ajnabi's letter more than a dozen times. It did provide me a chance to stop and do some soul-searching. It was not a harsh indictment of the media nevertheless it unveiled many aspects of journalism that have been relegated to the background.

Yes, Al-Ajnabi, the duty of a journalist is to illuminate and focus on the working of the society. It therefore makes the media the watchdogs or guardians of society against moral aberrations.

Yes, there have been instances where the Arab media has failed. They looked the other way when Saddam gassed his own people in Halabja. Some even denied the reports and accused them of being Zionist propaganda. A couple of years later these very papers published pictures of the dead bodies of the Iraqi dictator's victims.

Yes, Al-Ajnabi, the media was found wanting.

It is also a fact of life and history that the media in the Arab world did not play the role it was meant to. Caught in the East-West cold war the Arab states and their media themselves became victims.

It was easier to denounce, criticize and pontificate about others than taking even a cursory look at one's own situation - an act that could lead to eventual self-examination in one's own media. Instead, it revealed in self-glorification. It hailed and praised.

I cannot rationalize for Al-Ajnabi's sake or my own self why these things happened. Perhaps it was the euphoria of Arab nationalism, "patriotic" fervor and the succumbing to sloganeering that veered the media away from its course and prevented it from seeing the woods for the trees.

To Al-Ajnabi, I say, yes, the media did not live up to its responsibility. However, the media is part of society. Society became self-centered, aimless and cavalier - so did the media. 

And of course there were the sycophants, the greedy, the opportunists who showered praise on many for self gain. They would denounce those who spoke the truth or even attempted to voice reason and logic.

We do not like to dwell in the past. 

The world has changed. The censor board has became as extinct as the dinosaurs. In the age of the superhighway, to impede the flow of information is like a child trying to stand in front of a giant Ford truck.

The Arabs should learn how to manage information rather than control it. Any attempt to control would be an exercise in futility.

It is a new world with new challenges which we all have to overcome. We have to pinpoint the challenges, many of them very serious: scarcity of water resources, food security, environmental management, underemployment, etc.

Social changes should be reviewed and the media should offer a forum where different segments of society can air their views without let or hindrance.

Yes, Arab newspapers have, over the past four decades, given politics more than its fair share of coverage. It is time the emphasis on the real looking of both the society and the community be given importance.