Al-Jazeera launches channel for pre-schoolers

[Mrs. Sharon B. Hodge]

Al-Jazeera launches channel for pre-schoolers



DOHA (AFP) – Al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab network known for hard news coverage of Middle East conflicts, said Sunday it has launched a channel for pre-school children.

The channel Baraem, which means buds in Arabic, started broadcasting on Friday, said Al-Jazeera's Mahmud Bouneb.

It offers its target audience -- aged between three and six -- educational and cultural programmes, unlike Al-Jazeera Children launched three and a half years ago for children up to 13 years old.

"Baraem, unique among some 550 channels in the Arab world, addresses pre-school-aged children, their parents and their teachers, with the ambition of contributing to the formation of the identity of the Arab child," Bouneb told AFP.

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/news-room-al-Jazeera-English-studio-h...
The news room at al-Jazeera English studio headquarters in Washington, DC. Al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab network … photo


Baraem produces 15 percent of its broadcast material, while the remaining 85 percent is aquired, said Bouneb, who heads Al-Jazeera Children.

"The aim is to gradually increase our production to affirm the Arab identity of the channel, as with Al-Jazeera Children, which at its launch produced only 30 percent of the programmes, but now produces 60 percent," Bouneb said.

"Our channel produces, or co-produces in Malaysia, Britain, France, Canada and Arab countries, including Qatar," he said, adding Baraem's launch would free up space on Al-Jazeera Children for children aged seven to 15.

Baraem is owned by the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, a public body created and headed by the wife of Qatar's Emir, Sheikha Mozah Bent Nasser al-Masnad.

I did have a chance to see the children's television programs in places that have already launched similar programing in other Arab nations over the last 15 years. This one particularly stayed in my mind, for good reason. A cute sweet little girl was standing up walking and singing as more children sat on the floor to listen to her. They were not smiling.

Fumbling around trying to get the subtitles to work, I was shocked and appalled at what the little girl was singing about. She was singing about how great it was to be a hero suicide bomber. She sang about Allah giving them 100 virgins in heaven. She was scarcely old enough to even know what that meant.

She also sang about slitting the throats of the infidels, and killing every Jew and every American because they are all evil devils, and it would be doing a favor for Allah. After her song the other children stood to their feet with a closed fist up in the air chanting death to the Americans; death to the Jews, and my Allah be praised as we fill hell with their bodies.

It worked well as a brain washing tool in the other Arab countries, and they teach the children hatred as soon as their language develops. They are taught to stay away from the Jews because they eat little children. The children never have a chance to find out what life is like without in intense hatred. This type of indoctrination has been working
well. Buy the time they reach adulthood they have heard death to the Jews, and death to the Americans many thousands to times, and they grow up believing that this is their purpose in life.