Wadah Khanfar: Speaking Truth to Power in the Middle East and North Africa

As Director General of Al Jazeera Media Network from 2008 to 2011, Wadah Khanfar was in a unique position to observe war, uprisings and revolution in one of the most turbulent regions in the world, the Middle East. He is now President of Al Sharq Forum, an independent think-tank dedicated to developing long-term strategies for political development, social justice and economic prosperity of the people of the Middle East. Wadah Khanfar joins Sydney Ideas for a conversation about the rapidly evolving nature of our news consumption, its relationship to the complex world of political strategy and diplomacy in the Middle East and North Africa, and the complexities of identity and representation in this situation. Response by Zainab Jasim, PhD student at the University of Sydney, researching aspects of Al-Jazeera's coverage of the Arab Spring. Co-presented by the Department of Arabic Language and Cultures and the National Centre for Cultural Competence at the University of Sydney Presented by Sydney Ideas on 16 March 2017: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2017/wadah_khanfar.shtml