Shadow Media and Text-Selection Policy

The previous sub-section has shown that political ideology plays a significant role in the text selection policy for translation and reflects the ideology of the political parties to which the

two media agencies are directly aligned. This next sub-section investigates the motivations and ideology behind the text selection policy of the two selected Kurdish media agencies in the corpus of this study which position themselves so as to be free from political bias. They are the media agencies Xendan and Rudaw.

They are considered to be affiliated indirectly to the two Kurdish ruling parties. Sabir (2013) described both Xendan and Rudaw news agencies as shadow media for claiming independence while they are subservient to the two political parties PUK and PDK, respectively. The PDK has historically maintained a broad base of political allegiances, acting as a big-tent party ranging from tribal conservatives to socialists. Today this party is regarded as populist and nationalist. According to Reporters without Borders (2010, p.8), the term ‘shadow’ is “created to fill the gap existing between the partisan media and the independent media”. In this sense, the two agencies are referred to as semi-independent media which denotes that they are indirectly affiliated to the two political parties (p.9).

Xendan newspaper is an electronic newspaper which publishes in the two languages of

Kurdish and Arabic. It is one of the projects of Xendan Foundation for broadcasting and publishing which was founded in the city of Sulaymaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2004. It launched as an online daily newspaper in 2010 and is available at: http://www.xendan.org/, describing itself as free from party political bias and proprietorial influence. However, it is regarded as PUK-affiliated media and it is widely believed to be supported by the former prime minister of KRG, Dr. Barham Salih who is also a member of the PUK (BBC)36 . For instance, once SkyNews and the BBC held interviews with Dr Barham Salih regarding what was/is going on in Kobane, a Kurdish city, Xendan uploaded the videos of the two interviews with a translation summary of what he said. Likewise, when Adil Abdul-Mahdi al-Muntafiki, an Iraqi Shi'a politician, wrote an article in Arabic entitled, Talabani Resisted His Illness, as He Resisted

His Enemies (Back Translation), it was not only republished in the Arabic section of Xendan,

but also translated and published in Kurdish (A.7).

Rudaw is an online newspaper in Soraní. It is one of the projects of the Rudaw Media Company in Hawler (Erbil) which encompasses a website in four languages, Kurdish (Soraní

and Kurmanci), Arabic, Turkish, and English and a satellite TV station (Available at: http://rudaw.net/sorani). It is regarded as PDK-affiliated media and is widely believed to be supported by the current prime minister of the KRG, Nechirvan Idris Barzani who is an active member of the PDK. It is different from the other three agencies in terms of text selection-policy for translation, in particular commentary articles. Since it also publishes in English, few commentary articles are translated from outside sources as the text-selection for translation mainly depends on the English source from the same agency. Most of the commentary articles chosen for translation are written by David Romano, an associate professor of politics at Missouri State University and Wladimir van Wilgenburg, a political analyst. Their articles often present positive views on issues related to the current Kurdish government, such as, Looking at

South Kurdistan More Honestly37 and Media and the Kurds in Iraq38. When Wladimir van

Wilgenburg wrote a number of articles in favour of the PDK criticizing Gorran and the PUK for standing against the PDK in English, it was translated into Kurdish by Rudaw newspaper39. Even when he published an article in Al-Monitor, it was translated into Kurdish and published by Rudaw. The article, which is entitled Syria war brings al-Qaeda threat to Iraqi Kurdistan

(AE. 46), starts with “Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani has asked the Kurdish government to

form a committee to investigate Kurdish jihadists going to Syria for jihad”. Meanwhile, the article argues that most of these jihadists “came from Islamist strongholds inside the province of Sulaimaniyah, close to the Iranian border”. However, the translated version altered the second part against the PUK “ ننﺎتسدروک ﯽنﺎمتشین ﯽتێکەي ﯽﺗڵاەسەد رێژ ﯽنﺎکەییملاسیئ رۆز ەچوﺎن ﯽکڵەخ ەناوەئ یەﺑرۆز نەکەد ڵۆرتنۆک ەنﺎچوﺎن وەئ ﯽتێکەي ﯽنﺎکەیینمەئ ەزێه و.’’ (BT: most of those are from the more Islamic areas under PUK control and PUK security forces are in control in those areas/ are controlling those areas) (AKR. 46) (See chapter 6).

37_{http://rudaw.net/english/opinion/17072014} 38_{http://rudaw.net/english/opinion/17072014} 39_{http://rudaw.net/sorani/opinion/26092013?keyword=&isArchive=True} http://rudaw.net/sorani/opinion/300920131?keyword=&isArchive=True http://rudaw.net/sorani/opinion/161020131?keyword=&isArchive=True

The analysis in this sub-section has shown the relationship between the selected Kurdish media agencies of Xendan and Rudaw and the two ruling political parties of the PUK and the

PDK, respectively. The two agencies are described as shadow media for their indirect affiliation

to the two political parties. Similar to the partisan media, the analysis above has shown that the text selection policies for translation of the shadow media is informed by the ideology of the two Kurdish political parties to which the two media agencies are indirectly associated. It is also worth mentioning that while the Kurdish parties, including their affiliated media agencies, are in conflict with each other from the inside, when it comes to the outside relations they are all united in their attempts to develop the Kurdish issue (Watts 2010, p. x). In the field of translation, this reflects the selection of those texts that enable the Kurdish reader to gain knowledge about how neighbouring countries view them and their relationship to the Kurdish question in the area in general and in Iraqi Kurdistan in particular.

Similar to the analysis of the previous sub-section, the examples above are consistent with Birot’s (2012) argument that the text-selection policy for translation and publication depends on the existing agencies and their views in the Kurdish media. Likewise, they are regarded more as anecdotal rather than a detailed investigation to indicate that the policy of text- selection in Kurdish media is, to a great extent, governed by ideologically driven norms in the target culture. In order to identify which translational norms operate in Kurdish media, therefore, this study needs to investigate the text-selection in relation to the translators’ decisions on reframing the ST narratives in the TTs at text level as well. As Lefevere stated, (1992b, p.13), as kinds of ideological entrepreneurs still working within traditional patronage relations of production, media translators had to keep favour with these patrons. The translated texts reflect the translators’ decisions in terms of choosing between alternatives in particular in relation to lexical choices within these texts. Therefore, while it is clear, to some extent, why some texts are translated into Kurdish by different agencies, the way they are translated raises questions in relation to the translators’ voice and stance regarding the choices and reframing strategies. Finding answers requires an investigation of the way in which the translator’s voice and stance insinuate themselves into the discourse by alterations to the narratives that the translation brings about. This, in turn, may explain the translation’s associated tendencies in relation to mistranslations, explicitations, or manipulations of the ST messages for socio-