Category Arab

Three Days in Cairo

When I boarded the plane for Cairo, my first impression was that Egypt Air seriously needs to consider a rebranding. The brand is tired and outdated, and it does not live up to the country’s reputation as a tourist destination that attracts millions of visitors every year.

But speaking of first impressions, I have to say I was taken aback when the customs officer checking my passport upon arrival shamelessly asked for a bribe with a big smile on his face. I decided to act as if I had no clue what he was talking about; a tactic that I’ve had come to use several times during the trip to avoid situations like this. The officer repeated his plea a few times more but finally relented and gave me my passport.

The 2-day workshop was interesting and informative. I have already read a lot about the experience of bloggers in Egypt, but listening to the bloggers themselves speak about it was refreshing and inspiring. My favourite speaker was Alaa Abdelfattah of manalaa.net, who impressed me with his presentation and comments, not to mention his dark sense of humor. Alaa said that we must focus on the social effect of technology and not the technical effect, which means it is not enough to say that blogging made it easier for people to publish online but the real question is what kind of effect this technology have on people’s lives.

Another interesting idea was that sometimes it is necessary to break the laws, especially repressive ones, in order to change them. This idea was underscored by the words of attorney Hamdi El Assuoti who applauded bloggers and activists. “By defying some of these laws, you have given lawyers a bigger margin to move and challenge these laws at courts and change the way some judges look at laws which limit freedom of expression,” he said.

The session I took part in focused on activism in the GCC countries. I could have talked about my blogging experience, but I preferred to talk about other examples of using the internet to support human rights issues in Saudi Arabia. Most of my talk was based on the work of my friend Khaled Al Nassir who was supposed to speak at the event but had to cancel his trip at the last minute. The other two speakers, from Oman and UAE, also talked about similar issues and personal experiences. The public discourse and the struggle for human rights and freedom of expression in the Gulf is probably still in its early stages compared to the rest of the Arab World, but I think that activists here are making good strides in that field.

In addition to exposure to good ideas and sharing personal experiences, events like this one is always a good occasion to meet amazing people like Mina, Rawdha, Amr, Anas, , Nora, and Abdullah; and I want to thank all of them and everyone else for the great time in Cairo.

Outside the workshop room, my Egyptian friends have been nice enough to hang out and show me the city. Ahmed and Courtney took me to Zamalek where we met the one and only Sandmonkey. Later on we went to Wist Al Balad, which is the area where activists do their activism.

At the end of the 2nd day, HRinfo.net invited all participants for a lovely dinner at the Greek Club. The service there was not exactly great, but having all those great people on one table was absolutely more than great. After the dinner, I went with some friends to Khan Al Khalili where I have to say that I was haunted by seeing poverty manifested in that “in your face” manner, something that I’m not used to. I don’t mean that we don’t have poverty in our country, but in order to see it you need to visit certain areas and neighborhoods and it is not something that you encounter on the streets on daily basis. It is a pity that a country which used to play a leading role in the enlightenment and progress of the region and have many great resources is languishing because of poor leadership and corrupt politics.

On my third day I went to see the Giza Pyramids, but I didn’t have much fun there because I had to go by myself as everyone else has either left or was busy with work. Later I went with a friend to Sequoia where we had lunch and enjoyed cool breeze of the Nile. My departure was not all that different from my arrival: the last custom officer checking my passport before boarding the plane to Riyadh also shamelessly asked for a bribe with a big smile on his face. I played my “no clue” card again. The officer asked what was wrong with me, to which I said: “yes, it’s you!”

Cairo Here I Come!

I’m flying to Cairo this Tuesday to participate at a workshop organized by the Arab Network for Human Rights Information aka HRinfo.net, which is blocked in Saudi Arabia btw. The two-day workshop will focus on human rights and the internet — how activists can use the net to promote human rights and how the net can help the activists to do a better job.

I will be meeting some friends like fellow blogger Khaled Al Nassir and Wael Abbas, the Egyptian A-list blogger whom I’ve met in Beirut last year. I will also be looking forward to meet Gamal Eid, Ahmed Gharbia and Abdelmenim Mahmoud as well as the famous couple Manal and Alaa.

As I have to be back right away for school, I won’t have much free time to spend in Cairo, but any pointers on what I should do and what I should see are highly appreciated. I’m thinking about having a meet up with bloggers so if you are interested please let me know.

Back from Beirut

The good news is: my presentation did not end up in a disaster. The bad news is: I did not have time to see the city. But overall it was a good trip: I met many great people and I have had fun.

On the first day we attended the 2nd Gebran Tueni Award ceremony, a big event witnessed by hundreds of dignitaries and guests. We enjoyed touching speeches by Nayla Tueni, Majida Al Roumi and others, and I was especially moved by Majida speech which demonstrated the anger and frustration of Lebanese people with the current political deadlock. The award was given this year to Michel Hajji Georgiou, a senior political analyst at the French-language daily L’Orient-Le Jour in Lebanon. He told us during the dinner party that night the he had to sell his car because he has been afraid of being assassinated by the pro-Syrian elements.

Except for one Saudi guy working for the LBC and has been living in Beirut since 1994, I was the only participant from Saudi Arabia and the GCC. Interestingly, many people came to me after the panel and said they could not believe that I was Saudi. I can tell that many in the Arab World have a certain stereotype for the citizens of this country. Anyways, I’m really glad that the session turned out to be fine and that many people liked it.

As I said earlier, I did not have enough time to go out and enjoy the different parts of the city, but I got to hang out with friends in Al Hamra, have breakfast by the Rawsha rock, and had a walk in Ashrafia and Solider. Beirut is a beautiful city, but because it has gone through a lot, it looks bruised and tired. I suspect that tourists would enjoy seeing the army everywhere searching their bags and asking them to stop taking pictures of the city’s landmarks. Let’s hope things would get better before the summer season.

Finally, I want to thank the organizers for inviting me to be part of this event and I hope to see them again in Beirut next year. I also want to thank fellow bloggers Wael Abbas and Mohammed Azraq, as well as Mahmoud Abdelfattah, the best moderator ever :-) Last but not least, I want to thank Alexandra, Hala, Maha, Mustapha, Sherif, Yumna, Rana, Zina, Adel, Virginie, Fadwa, and all those who made my first visit to Lebanon fun but I forgot their names.

P.S. The first picture is inspired by Roba.

Off to Beirut

Next Saturday I will be flying to Beirut, Lebanon to participate at the 2nd Arab Free Press Forum, a media conference organized by the World Association of Newspapers and An-Nahar daily. The conference will provide an overview of the latest press developments in the Arab world, from obstructive government policies, to case studies of newspapers that combine editorial independence with commercial success, to the rise of blogging and the role blogs play on the Arab media scene of today.

I will be speaking on the second day of the conference on a discussion panel titled “Blogs, an Alternative Way of Telling the News.” I’m humbled to be joined on the panel by Egyptian A-list blogger Wael Abbas, Jordanian blogger Mohammed Azraq, and Wadih Tueni, IT Manager of An-Nahar. The panel is moderated by Egyptian human rights lawyer Mohammed Abdelfattah.

It will be my first time to speak in a conference so I’m excited and nervous but I’m also looking forward to it. I hope I will be able to update the blog from Beirut, but I read that using the internet in Lebanese hotels is outrageously expensive. If any of you will be in Beirut at the same time and would like to meet up, drop me a line and we will see if we can pull something off.

Arab Summit = Long Weekend

The best part about the coming Arab leaders summit in Riyadh is that the government have decided to give students and employees two days off in order to ensure the smoothness of traffic in the city as some major roads are to be blocked.

Now coming to my expectations of the summit, I would say “not much.” I mean it would be great if our leaders could do something about the political deadlock in Lebanon and the civil war in Iraq, but this seems very unlikely to happen, despite the speculations about a Saudi package engineered by Arabia’s Kissinger. The situation is all too similar to the latest GCC leaders summit: big speeches and big ambitions, but nothing that actually touches the lives of citizens or something they would look forward to.

Most probably I would be leaving Riyadh to enjoy the long weekend in Bahrain or to spend some time with family and friends in my hometown.

The War of Hearts and Minds

Except for the Bush administration, almost everybody believes that the United States are losing the war in Iraq, if they have not lost it already. But there is another war the Americans are losing, one that some people, inside the administration and outside it, consider more important than the military battle: it is the war to win the hearts and minds of Arabs.

Have you ever heard of Hi Magazine? The answer is probably not. The magazine, launched in 2003, was targeted at Arab youth in order to give them a glimpse into living the American dream. The magazine proved to be a failure, and had to shut down after less than three years of the first issue.

However, Hi was not the only example of American failure to communicate with the Arab public. Al Hurra is still unable to attract even a small fraction of the audiences of Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, and I wonder if anyone in the region listens to Radio Sawa. After the failure with the old media trio, only one medium is left in Uncle Sam’s bag of tricks: the internet.

According to an official at the U.S. Department of State, they are looking now for methods to use the internet to communicate with Arab youth, and they are tackling questions such as: what kind of websites appeal to this large demographic group that represent over 60% of the population in the region? Are they interested in news, sports, entertainment, blogs, social networks, or photo and video sharing? I would say any of these topics can be of interest to them, but only in one condition: it needs to be done right. And based on previous experiences in this field, the Americans just don’t know how to do that.
I believe that they are genuinely interested in reaching out to people here. They even send some of their top officials and advisers to talk with influential as well as regular people in the region. But when it comes to taking actions they utterly fail.

The failure in choosing the proper method of communication is not the only problem though. Another major problem facing the Americans here is that most people simply don’t trust them anymore. Several years of foolish and biased foreign policy in the Middle East have made people turn down anything coming with a “Made in USA” label. They just can’t expect anything good to come out of the U.S. administration.

So, what the Americans to do in their endeavors to boost more understanding between their nation and the Arab World? First, they should stop wasting resources on hopelessly failing projects. Instead, they should focus more on cultural exchange programs on different levels. Also, instead of launching their own projects online, they might consider using and supporting some of established websites to deliver their messages.

You don’t always need a standalone website to market an idea and spread the word about it online. Many good ideas on the web gained popularity depending exclusively on word of mouth. Governments, organizations and companies can make a big buzz by small gestures on the internet. Here is a few examples:

– Sponsor a competition on a community website.
– Ask a blogger for a slot as a guest blogger on his website (if you have something interesting to say, most bloggers would agree to do this).
– Support a non-profit organization.

Issues of ethics, credibility, and conflicts of interests should be clearly addressed and handled very carefully here. It could be very difficult for all parties included to deal with these issues in such situations, and therefore they should do their best to ensure transparency while maintaining a certain level of quality and respect.