Abderrahim Foukara, Al Jazeera's U.S. translator

How do you convey to the world the American ideal of free speech or curious turns of phrase like "stump speech" and "gerrymandering"? Abderrahim Foukara does it daily, as Al Jazeera's bureau chief in Washington. I first met the Moroccan-born journalist at the 2008 Republican convention, where he told me that he had explained John McCain as "maverick" to his Arab-language audiences as a bird that flies a distance from the flock. Now, at a parlous moment in the relationship between there and here, I asked the man who reports U.S. thinking to the Arab world to do some illuminating in the other direction.

Patt Morrison

September 26, 2012