In the case of Al Jazeera, it is easy to isolate cause and effect. When the current Qatari emir, Sheik Hamad Bin Khalifa Thani, replaced his aging and conservative father in a bloodless coup d'etat five years ago, he moved immediately to show how quickly change can come. He sanctioned elections for a new municipal council, ordered creation of a constitution and moved forward on natural gas deals that had languished for 20 years. Other connections are more subtle. The need to diversify economically has the region reexamining its trade and education policies, looking for ways to increase foreign investment and ensure that public schools spend more time on academic basics and, by implication, less on religious studies.
Every country is different.
Once people accept it, it becomes the norm. In some ways, however, popular acceptance has lagged behind official policy. The Kuwaiti emir's decision on women's suffrage still faces a potentially divisive parliamentary debate and women candidates in Qatar's first municipal council elections found little support among women themselves. All of them lost, and one candidate said she was told bluntly by other women that they would not vote for her because she did not wear the traditional veil. And in contrast to Al Jazeera's bold regional presence, the local media in Doha are still feeling their way.