Yesterday, as i was looking around for any interesting magazines to buy, i came across hi, the Arabic-language American-backed magazine targeted at the Arab youth mainly and Arab brains generally in an effort by the American government to brainwash us and promote the US to us.
Anyway, the first thing that struck me was how cheap it was, it only costs 1 Tunisian Dinar (70 US cents), which kind of makes it the cheapest magazine i know of, but the paper is high quality thick glossy paper, the kind of paper other people usually use for just the cover. It’s also got a good amount of content, so it’s quite a thick magazine.
So i’m thinking that they’re actually losing money making this magazine, and that they never planned on making money out of it, it’s more of a long term investment, in which the final revenue is a generation of brainwashed Arabs.
Anyway, i bought it out of curiosity to know what’s in it and how the content is formulated.
And well, it covers a lot of stuff from music to fashion to sports to technology to anything that would interest their target readers. And in between all that, and in the articles themselves, and at the bottoms of the pages, and in their replies to their readers’ messages, it’s basically a bunch of US promoting messages and ideas making the US sound like a one big happy perfect tender loving country.
The one thing that seems to escape these people’s minds is that nowadays there’s a television or at least a radio in every home, and that by simply turning it on and listening to the news their whole effort will get flushed away by news of the US and it’s tyranny throughout the world.
I think Arab readers should buy the magazine anyway, as it’s dirt cheap and has some nice content, but they should be careful about the messages they’re getting out of it.
In short, here’s my prescription: Read it, then make sure you listen to the news just after finishing it 😛
Sounds like a very pathetic attempt to win Arab hearts. And it’s a pretty good example of how Americans just don’t get it. They are so completely blind to the effects of American politics. Come to think of it, the US make a brilliant area of study for anthropologists.
I just learned about Hi magazine. I live in the United States and cannot believe that our country is wasting 4.2 million dollars annually to “promote understanding.” Clearly our state department is clueless. The US can’t fix the boo-boos our government made by publishing a magazine that just emphasizes our consumerism, not our understanding.