For the past nine months since we started, we have been meeting weekly and working on coming up with a general theme, developing the content and forming partnerships with local organisations in Jordan, fundraising , recruitment , and all that comes with organising a conference. We had good days and very overwhelmingly tiresome ones, but we enjoyed it, enjoyed every aspect of it, and we certainly loved the company of each other. The conference has finally materialised, we have a full set of panelists, one of them is the very impressive and talented young director of this forum, who will discuss with the young leaders from the U.S and the Middle East a variety of issues concerning cultural and educational exchange programmes, the situation in Iraq, youth cyber-activism, and U.S foreign aid initiatives. here are the panels and the respective panelists..

Youth Language, Culture, and Student Exchange Programs

• Alain McNamara, Executive Director of the Jordanian-American Commission for Educational Exchange (Fulbright)
• Osama Alshurafa, Director of Qasid Institute for Classical and Modern Standard Arabic
• Lina Arafat,Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) Office in Jordan
• David Mees, Cultural Attaché, US Embassy, Amman

American Foreign Policy in Iraq: Effects on Jordanian Society

• Dr. Mahjoob Zweiri, the Centre for Strategic Studies, the University of Jordan
• David Greene, Political Counselor, American Embassy in Jordan
• Zainab al-Suwaij, Executive Director, American Islamic Congress
• Hala Sarraf , Founder, Iraq Health Aid

Youth Cyber-Activism

• Marc Lynch, Author of The New Arab Public and popular blog site, AbuArdvark.com
• Nicholas Seeley, Editor-in-Chief, JO Magazine, Jordan
• Esra’a Al Shafei, Director, Mideast Youth
• Ahmad Humeid, 360East.com

American Foreign Aid Programs for Political Reform

• Kathryn Stevens, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Jordan
• Nadia Busnaq,Director of Family Centre for Counseling and Guidance
• Anne Peters, US Fulbright Scholar and Doctoral Candidate, University of Virginia
• Sa’ed Karajah, Legal Advisor

Twenty-five young Americans and 25 young Middle Easterners will gather for three days in Amman to develop a set of recommendations on U.S foreign policy and political reform in the region, that will be distributed to governments in the region and in the United States. Two of the participants from each of the conferences will be elected to attend a one week siminar in Washington DC this July, and meet with decision makers in Capitol Hill and the State Department.

The conferences in Rabat and Cairo took place on the last weekend of April , and the first weekend of May respectively.The Conference reports from both conferences are available on POMED’s website , and more information can be found on the websites of both of our sponsor organisations POMED and AID.

I will definitely write more in the coming days about what I hope will be a wonderful experience.

Founded by Locas Welch, Soliya utilizes 21st century technology to bring students from the West (mainly the United States and Western Europe) and the Arab world in a credit worthy online interactive class of conflict resolution, where students see and hear each other through web cams and headsets, and engage in facilitated dialogue sessions on topics selected based on a curriculum set by the universities in partnership with Soliya. Universities in the U.S and Europe include Harvard University (US) , Georgetown University (U.S) , University of Amsterdam (Netherlands) , University of Bergen (Norway) and Dublin City University (Ireland) , in the Arab world AlAkhawayn University (Morocco) , University of Bahrain ( Bahrain ), University of Jordan ( Jordan), American University of Beirut (Lebanon) and American University in Cairo, see complete list here.

I will be working as a volunteer with Soliya facilitating sessions next semester, it’s an experience I look very much forward to , and will definitely be sharing it here.

We will start an online training for the facilitators next week, we were given articles and texts as reading materials for the training that I’m enjoying reading so much.

I leave you now with an approximately 6-minute report that CNN made on Soliya, it gives a very good insight about what Soliya is all about, in case you don’t have time to read on its website!.

Amira,the Middle East coordinator at Global Voices, an amazing person I got to know recently, and definitely very proud of knowing! invited me to write periodical digests of what goes on in the Jordanian blogosphere for Global Voices.

I got my first one published today, so check it out and tell me what you think:-)

I’m very happy to join the family of volunteers from the MENA region at Global Voices, and I look forward to writing more digests about what happens in the small yet very vocal blogging community of Jordan

Here are some details..

Online Community Manager

Do you live and breathe the blogosphere and practically live on the Net? Do you have a track record of creating and growing online communities? Do you have a talent for engaging and retaining readers online? Do you excel in communications and technology?

Knight Foundation seeks an Online Community Manager to be based in our Miami , Florida office, reporting to the Vice President of Communications.

Play a key role in creating a vibrant online discussion community for Knight Foundation and shape it into the premier digital presence focused on journalism excellence, communities and systemic, transformational change. Help establish the foundation as the leading provocateur for community transformation in the digital age. This position serves as Knight’s eyes, ears and – in cooperation with other Knight staff – voice in the blogosphere. You will attract, facilitate and moderate user-generated content on all foundation web sites. Your goal will be to increase awareness about the foundation’s mission among bloggers and build and sustain engagement of Knight’s online community.

You will discover, edit and craft cutting edge, thought-provoking content on transformational change in communities and journalism. You’ll be responsible for convening online discussions and social networking activities that increase visibility for and support the foundation’s mission. You will play a leading role in the experimental foundation presence on virtual online communities. You’ll be the foundation’s point person for the needs, opportunities, trends and current digital, web and electronic media issues in the communications and philanthropy fields.

Knowledge of journalism and communications, especially digital media is essential. You should have excellent writing skills and passion about social innovation, journalism and entrepreneurship. You should be a social network builder; be energetic, positive, and able to create an online presence with a recognizable tone and style; be viewed as a thought leader in the blogosphere. You must have an understanding of current web, computer and multimedia systems, techniques and processes at a level that gives you proficiency in creating and managing Web 2.0 content.

A bachelor’s degree in a related field and a minimum of two years of directly related work experience is required.

To apply, please send your resume, salary history and links to examples of your work to: careers@knightfdn.org.

Watch the Youtube video about this position at www.kflinks.com/ocmanager

For more on the Knight Brothers’ foundation and transformational change,

go to http://www.knightfdn.org/

They posted a video on You Tube describing the work environment at Knight Foundation…

After e-mailing with Marc Fest, the communication director at the Knight Foundation, he informed me that applicants can be of any nationality, but they need to have a work permit to work legally in the U.S, so if any of you are interested and eligible, you should apply!

I apologise for taking more than week, but I had lots to catch up with at work..like you wouldn’t believe it! and there is also a conference that I’m taking part in organising in the spring next year that needed my immediate attention!

Anyhow, I arrived to Beirut on Friday night,it was the last day of the week,I was happily surprised to see the city so lively, see people out with their friends and family, despite the current instability in the country.I can’t believe though, that just as I came back from my trip, turmoil erupted again with the assassination of army general Francios Hajj!!. I went out with some friends myself and had a nice quick dinner at Zaatar W Zeit, a well known Lebanese fast food restaurant opposite to the American University in Beirut (AUB), then we headed to a party!.

I spent Saturday morning and afternoon wandering around the streets, trying to take pictures whenever possible to share them here, though sadly the city was annoyed by any camera flashing in most parts!, understandable since it is passing through a difficult time, here are some of the pictures I managed to take after asking police officers politely if I could take them!

The conference began on Sunday morning,December 9th, by an honorarium for Gebran Tueni, , an outstanding press freedom advocate, who was assassinated about a year go!It was held at Biel International Exhibition Centre in Beirut.The hall was full of people from various parts of the political and religious spectrum in Lebanon as well as representatives of international organisations, It was broadcasted live on major satellite TV channels in the region.

The event featured a variety of renowned figures from Lebanon, such as Ghassan Tueni (Gebran’s father) and the owner of An Nahar newspaper, singer Magida Al-Roumi delivered quite and emotional speech about her late friend Gebran, and his contribution to building reputable and free press in Lebanon.Gebran’s young daughter Nayla, delivered a very impressive speech addressing important issues about the future of Lebanon!.

Then we moved on to the first session, it was titled “Backsliders and Usual Suspects – the Latest Government Policies that Affect the Press”, that was rather a very intense panel featured journalists from Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania, and Lebanon, who spoke about government policies taken against journalists, it generated quite hot discussions some of which were very interesting and informative, and with that session our first day came to an end.

The second day began with a very interesting session, in my opinion at least as a business oriented person, that was titled “Combining Editorial Independence with Commercial Success”, it featured the owner of my favourite newspaper in Jordan (Alghad),Mohamed Alayyan, a man I was very happy to meet!

His speech was very successful and informative, he was very specific and presented Al-ghad newspaper’s story in a very interesting way, though as expected people were more interested to hear about ATV than the newspaper!!, one funny thing happened was that a journalist from Mauritania accused him of being too commercial in his approach, something I found funny,because the panel topic was about “commercial success”, so in my opinion, it was professional of him to stick to the panel topic and not waste the audiences’ time by talking about irrelevant issues or over elaborating simple facts, like what some panelists did.

The session also featured another interesting journalist “Nadia Al Saqqaf”, the editor-in-chief of the Yemen Times, an independent newspaper published in English, she was also the winner of the Tueni Award for freedom of press last year, she gave an interesting example of commercially successful journalism, despite the fact that it only caters for the “elite” as she referred to them, and also for western residents in Yemen.

And then came our panel!, titled ” “Blogs, an Alternative Way of Telling the News “, before I talk about this panel, I must say I was a bit disappointed by the sudden changes that had occurred half an hour before the session started, we were informed by the moderator that one panelist , representing IT department at As-Safeer newspaper was added officially to the panel , and also two more people had short interventions to make during the session, a blogger from Lebanon, and a journalist from Tunisia, he also informed us that the time allowed for our panel was shortened due to the reason that the previous panel took more time than it should have!!.

As I initially intended to talk about Mideast Youth, it’s campaigns and even merchandise, as well as podcasts and videos, talk about 7iber.com, Global Voices online, and Soliya, I was left with very few minutes due to the sudden changes to do my presentation, and had to skip alot of facts and details.Despite that, I heard very good reviews from the organisers about the panel , and they were very pleased with my intervention.

The panel also featured Ahmed, a very interesting blogger from Saudi Arabia, he was interviewed by many international news outlets before, he spoke about the reality of blogging in Saudi Arabia, I found his presentation very interesting, he’s a very progressive and cultured person that I’m glad I met.

Wael Abbas, the third panelist, spoke about blogging in Egypt , and and the problems it is currently facing with the system, we all know that this year was a very bad year for bloggers in Egypt, with detentions, imprisonments, and many other cases of containment. He won the Knight award this year , and delivered speeches in different parts of the world including the U.S, Mexico, and Europe. He was also interviewed by CNN, Aljazeera international, and BBC world, as well as many internationally known news agencies such as the International Herald Tribune.

The representatives of An Nahar and As -Safir newspapers, presented a counter argument saying blogs are unprofessional in the way the present news and facts, they are unreliable , and they can not sustain financially, the only good thing they said about blogs was that they occasionally link to articles from newspapers’ websites which creates traffic for those newspapers!

I met an American woman there named Frances AbouZeid, she’s married to a Lebanese from whom she got her last name, she was the head of Freedom House in Jordan for three years, and she told me about a really interesting project she’s working on jointly with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC) and the Jordan National Television (JTV), it is a TV show that will spot the light on social problems in both Lebanon and Jordan, and try to suggest solutions by learning from both countries experience, I personally look forward to watching it when it comes out on TV, which she said would be in around February.

I couldn’t attend the last panel unfortunately, as I had some business to attend to for the company that I work for. In the end it was a very interesting conference , I met amazing people there.Despite the sudden changes, the organisers have done a very good job organising it, It was my pleasure meeting them and getting to know WAN up closely, and I would like to thank them for their kind hospitality and warm welcome, I would also like to thank again everyone who had helped me with materials for my presentation , Elisheva, Amira, Lina, Reem from Soliya, and indeed Esra’a who was behind my participation.

Alexandra, a young impressive journalist from Sweden who covered the conference for Daily News Egypt, an independent newspaper published in English affiliated with the International Herald Tribune, had this to say about it.

Also Ahmad ( the Saudi blogger) shared his views about the conference here.

My Presentation will be on Monday December 10th about Blogs as alternative news outlets in the Middle East, I will bring up live examples of blogs that are popular and known to be good sources of news, Mideast Youth, 7iber.com, and Global Voices online will be the main blogs I’ll be talking about. Thanks again to Esra’a and my other wonderful friend Elisheva who also helped with materials about Mideast Youth , and also thanks to my good friend Lina who provided on 7iber.com and to Amira, whom I’ve got to know very recently for helping with regards to GVO.

Beirut has a dear place in my heart ,I visited the city on different occasions, last time I was there was in May, 06, two months before the 33-day war started!.I remember people were very optimistic about the future!, they were looking forward to a fruitful and economically productive summer!!.I would see construction cranes everywhere in the city, a good indication of how the city was in dynamic change!,but the summer came and with it came a war, a war that depleted the country’s resources and left it with even a greater dept than it had!

In a country, were tourism represents the spine of a fragile economy, such a war was hurtful to a damaging extent,as tourism went down to unprecedented and certainly not expected levels,which in turn resulted in higher levels of unemployment and higher levels of inflation.

I leave for Beirut tonight, and it’s facing a new challenge, the challenge of electing its new president,it has been causing a huge divide among various political forces in the country which led to it being postponed many times, and no one knows really when will they reach a final decision it!

I’ll write more when I arrive and certainly when I come back, but I leave you now with some pictures from my last trip there.

Also, when I come back, I’ll be talking about two new initiatives in my life, the first is called Soliya, and the second is Global Voices Online, but more on that will come later!

Masoud was born and raised in Kuwait where he received his primary education at an American school, he later graduated from the American University in Cairo.

According to the article,his popularity is rising exponentially and has reached enourmous levels amongst youth in Egypt, he composes songs that they download on their mobiles, they also download vidoes of him from You Tube.He loves playing music, watching films, and enjoying life, he even qouted Bob Dylan, Metallica, and Pearl Jam in an interview the newspaper had with him!

I’ve never been a fan of religious television,and to be honest I don’t think I’ll ever be!, though reading the article made me really want to look him up on you tube to see who he really is as I had not heard of him!.Here is a video I found of him lecturing a mix of Arab and western audiences in English.

I think I can relate to him sort of, as both of us were born and raised in Kuwait and we both received our primary education at western schools there, where one would grow up in a completely different environment than children educated at public schools, would listen to the type of music , normally Arab kids wouldn’t know of, I remember when my cousins here in Jordan would be listening to popular Arab singers , me and my siblings were loving the hard rock bands of the eighties like Metallica, Guns’N’ Roses, Def Leppard, and many many others!

That given, I can understand to a great extent why he’s being influenced by western figures even in his religious preachings, though I still found it a bit surprising!

Anyhow, the candidate I supported ‘Aroub Soubh‘ didn’t make it!, sadly, none of the women candidates who ran in the capital made it to the parliament,all the women that won came from rural areas and depended primarily on their tribal support!, a fact that was very disappointing to me and to many enlightened Jordanians I have talked to!.

Surprisingly, the Islamic movement won only six out of the 22 seats they were running for, a fact that revealed an interesting shift in the movement’s political status and popularity among Jordanians.Candidates who won came from mainly business and economic backgrounds, for example, two of the big clients of the company that I work for won in two different districts in Amman!,this obviously shows that Jordanians have finally come to realise that our economy and development is what should matter the most!.

Now we have a new parliament and a new government, I just hope that both the legislative and executive branches develop a common ground of understanding and work together effectively on realising the challenges facing us and towards creating a more prosperous and sustainable economy for our growing country.

Six candidates were present at the debate, four of whom were Muslims out which were two women, and two were Christians. As such division would be unnecessary in an ideal situation, it is worth mentioning here that under the current election law, which is based on one person one vote!, out of the 110 seats in total for the lower house of parliament, there are 27 quota seats assigned to women and religious and ethnic minorities as follows..

Nine seats are assigned for Bedu in their districts , and an equal number of seats for Christians distributed nationally

In order to ensure participation of women in the parliament, the election law has set aside six seats for the women who, countrywide, receive the highest percentage of votes in their districts. If a woman wins her seat outright, it is not considered part of the quota.

There are also 3 seats dedicated to Circassians/Chechens in certain districts in Amman and Zarqa.

The one person one vote system makes it difficult for one party to hold control of the parliament,as constituents can only vote for one candidate running in their districts, they cannot choose to vote for a party list of candidates, it was devised to insure intellectual diversity within the members of parliament.Something, some people might say contradicts with the fundamental aspects of democracy, as it’s the rule of the majority! ,though a closer look into the political situation in Jordan could reveal otherwise.

As the Islamic movement constitutes the only powerful party that is strong enough to influence politics, according to survey published by the Centre of Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan (CSS) the majority of Jordanians don’t see the Islamic movement as a party they would belong to or completely support!, so it would be unfair for those people if the Islamic movement won the majority of seats in the parliament, just because it’s the only organised political movement in the country!.

There are many parties in Jordan that have various agendas from socialists and leftists to centrists, liberals, and right wing, but the problem is that these political forces are small, weak, scattered and disorganised that they don’t influence national politics. On several occasions, his majesty the king would encourage parties that had similar ideologies to form congregations for Jordan to have a democratic system that ensures fairness and representation of the whole Jordanian society. In a functioning democracy, you would find two strong parties competing on a national level, like the Democrats and the Republicans in the U.S, the Conservatives and the Labours in Britain, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats in Germany,unfortunately that is not attainable still in Jordan. Sadly, those small parties, are happy with being dysfunctional and weak that they don’t act to gain more support from the people and gain more influence on the national level.

Anyhow, back to the debate now….

On the way in to the auditorium we were handed papers to write any questions we wished to ask the candidates, we were informed as audiences that not all of our questions would be picked for time constraints!.

The debate was moderated by two journalists from two reputable and widely read newspapers, though I wondered if they or even the candidates understood the concept of debating!.Correct me if I’m wrong, but debating as I understand it, is that two or more people who have different visions about a certain topic come to debate them before audiences to prove themselves right and the others wrong!, I was absolutely shocked that the questions were tailored in way that made it difficult to bring up differences between the candidates, despite the fact that they were very different in their political ideologies, they ended up agreeing on most of the issues . Here is a bit about each candidate that present at the “debate”…

Dr. Ruhhayel Gharaybeh, is a prominent figure in the Islamic movement, he is running as a member of the Islamic Action Front (IAF) , he’s the spokesperson of and assistant of the secretary general of his party.

Aroub Soubh, is the media person that I wrote about her and her campaign in the previous post

Samar Haj Hasan, Aroub’s direct opponent and competitor over one of the quota seats assigned for women.She is an accomplished woman and business entrepreneur, she currently runs a company that provides training and professional consultation.

Ghazi Mushrabash, a business man of Christian background competing over the Christian quota seat assigned for the capital Amman.

Theodore Al-Deer, also a business man of Christian background and competing over the Christian quota seat assigned for Amman.

Dr. Sery Nasser, a sociology professor at the University of Jordan, who even though running as an independent, seemed very nationalistic to me!

I was particularly impressed with Theodore Al Deer as he spoke eloquently about various political and social issues, even though due economic reasons, he joined the work force after finishing high school and could not pursue high education!.

The debate questions varied from those which touched upon internal issues about economy, unemployment, and education to those that addressed the foreign concerns of Jordan like the peace process in the Middle East, and the situation in Iraq and Lebanon.

As I have been following closely the presidential debates in the U.S among Democrats, and among Republicans for the primary phase, I must say the setting itself makes a lot of difference, when candidates stand before the audiences and not be seated, it shows readiness and preparedness from the candidate’s side to engage in the debate and respond to the audiences’ questions. the questions are tailored to touch specifically and not generally upon what concerns the American citizen, like the war on Iraq and the status of troops there, health care, education, and indeed immigration, you see candidates differentiating themselves from their opponents by laying out concrete agendas that tackle these issues and provide solutions, something was lacking in the “debate” I attended and is also lacking in most of the candidates’ agendas.

One surprising factor at the “debate”, was when one of the moderators indirectly asked Samar Haj Hasan about the coverage her husband’s publishing house (JO publishing) provided for her campaign, which was a controversial issue by itself…

In its November edition, JO magazine made what seemed as interesting coverage of women candidates, their campaigns, and their chances of winning.., a good friend of mine was involved in preparing that coverage, and as it was intended to equally present the women candidates and their agendas, the magazine’s owner (Samar’s husband) decided he wanted his wife to go solo on the cover and to give her a better image than the other candidates, something that was upsetting to the other women candidates particularly Aroub, who tried to bring it at the “debate”, but was shut down by the moderators in a very inappropriate and rather rudemanner !!.

The “debate” concluded without any of the candidates providing concrete solutions to the problems they were presented with nor being challenged with their agendas, except for one question that came from an audience and directed to the Islamic candidate (Dr. Gharaybeh) about his party’s stand from non-Muslims taking up leadership positions in Muslim predominant countries like Jordan, he responded well enough I must say, explaining that his party saw nothing wrong in non-Muslims taking up leadership position as citizens in the country.

The following day, Aroub invited me to attend an election event at Albalad theatre , in which she met constituents and explained her agenda to them, and engaged with them in a question and answer session , people who knew and worked with Aroub were present to give their opinions about her and they chose to support her. I invited some of my friends from the U.S- who currently live here in Jordan- to the event, though little did they understand!!, as their Arabic is slowly progressing , and most people spoke in Jordanian colloquial Arabic!.

I have nothing really to share from that event except for some pictures…

I will dedicate the next post to talking about the results of the elections, which will take place tomorrow, so I hope the there will be something pleasant and interesting to write about!

Realising that youth in Jordan constitute the majory of the population,candidates this course are using what used to be unconventional approach in previous courses to reach out to young voters in particular. According to an article published yesterday in the Star weekly newspaper by Blake Ellis -an American writing for the Star- more than 15 candidates have Facebook support groups ,some of whom use them to interact with constituents and respond to their questions!.

Here are some of the most interactive support groups on Facebook. Interestingly, they are all running in the same district, the third district of Amman, which is the biggest and certainly the most influential in the kingdom!.

Three weeks ago, I exchanged Facebook messages with one of the candidates running in the third district of Amman ‘ Aroub Soubh‘, who then invited me for coffee to talk in details about her election agenda and campaign strategy. I must admit, I sensed real energy and dedication in her, as well as reason and awareness of the challenges that are facing our country regarding economy, youth unemployment, women and children, and indeed education, she’s realistic enough to know the Jordanian parliament cannot achieve the unification of Iraq or resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, so she’s focusing her agenda on internal matters that concern our society as a whole. She later invited me to a “public debate” with her opponents and an election event where she met constituents and explained her agenda and what she hoped to achieve by joining the parliament, which I will bring up in my next post.

The following is her campaign announcement, translated to English by her campaign office.

Why Positivity (Ejabiya) ???

Simply

It is the opposite of negativity

It might be that negativity became one of the building blocks for the individual in our society; which starts since the early childhood and stays until one is old. We keep on complaining and then search for a reason for our complaints or better still, searching for someone to blame…

I do not want to sound negative when talking about negativity, but I talk about it out of the positivity I am aiming for…

The youth’s complaints around me about job opportunities that are not found…
And the students’ complaints about the superior hard exams’ questions…
And the parents’ complaints about their children…
And the managers about their employees…
And of course, the employees about their managers…

Not to forget mentioning the massive increase in prices and taxes and… and …and
What is the alternative for complaining???

I wanted “Positivity” to be the Slogan for my campaign as I strongly believe that I will not be the candidate you are looking for if I was not Positive….

And I will not be the member of parliament who serves her country if I was not Positive…

Positivity means not to let despair control our will…
To always have alternative solutions for our problems…
And not to allow despair to sneak to our thoughts…

Despite of what we are observing around us, and despite the problems surrounding us… economically, socially and politically, we still owe big dreams, and with positivity we can change…

I do not claim perfectionism and that I always feel positive, however, I always aim for this!

To be positive in my home, with my children and family…
To be positive at my work…
To be positive with the people who I disagree with…
To be positive in my society…
To be positive in my world…

I want the youth to be positive in changing, it is not enough to dream about positivity and to ask older people to do it, it is the time now to create it…

I do not claim that I have magical solutions, and that I will do miracles, but what I know and can do is that I will be with a different vision, different performance and dedicated hard work…

Woman’s Positivity

The Jordanian woman is a partner of the man in his concerns…

She suffers from high living cost, bureaucracy, unemployment and unequal opportunities….

And if she didn’t share such concerns with the man equally, then she usually bears larger amounts of concerns and pressure…

All what I am aiming for is for the man and the woman to be partners for the better and worse…

There is a high oppression towards the woman; however, she is participating in it, even if with a small proportion…

She has to be stronger and more aware to obtain her rights and to be an effective partner…

Partnership in nationality

(Jordanians)

Meaning that any Jordanian man or Jordanian woman as stated in article (6) of the Jordanian constitution; all are equal before the law. There shall be no discrimination between them in regards to their rights and duties; the working woman pays taxes as much as the man pays; she belongs to the country as much as the man belongs… she sacrifices for it as much as the man does…

So on what basis does the man alone hold a monopoly over the Jordanian nationality and inherits it to his wife and children?

And how come do the foundlings obtain the nationality and at the same time the legitimate son of the Jordanian woman doesn’t???

Furthermore, how come some Arabs obtain the Jordanian nationality for an amount of money and at the same time the son of the Jordanian woman doesn’t???

When will the time come for the laws to be in agreement with article (6) of the Jordanian constitution regarding Jordanians’ equality???

And till when Jordanians will remain divided into levels and degrees… some enjoy rights that others can’t have???

And when will be the time for the Jordanian laws to harmonize with the international bill of human rights which refuses discrimination on grounds of sex???

The international bill of human rights stipulates the woman’s political rights; her right to a nationality and transferring her nationality to her children. While the world has concluded the debate about the first generation of human rights … and started discussing the fourth generation of human rights… some are still having the debate of the first generation rights…

Today… as we are living in 2007… there is still discrimination in our beloved country!!!

We have to start considering a real partnership between the man and the woman… a partnership reflected by the unbiased laws and legislations… not by the slogan and banners…

Child’s positivity:

With the children I have started … and with them I will continue…
I tried to open a studio … and dedicate a “happy time” for them …
The children of Jordan have granted me their love and positivity, and in turn I have passionately given them my unconditional endless hardworking…

Children gave me the chance to be among them, and live their happiness through participation… they made me happy that they grew up and kept me within them…

How delighted I am that they are supporting me today in my campaign… they have became young men and women… to grant me their trust as youth as they used to be when they were young children…

Our children deserve more from us…

They deserve from us to think and care for them at the time we are expanding our cities and extending the concrete cement blocks that kill the space around them… not leaving a space for them to play except for in front of the cars tires…

They deserve from us laws and institutions that protect them from exploitation and abuse… so that not to see them standing on the traffic lights, or begging in front of mosques, or working at car stations…

Our children need our protection now… we are the ones who are going to be in need for this protection if we didn’t ensure it to them today…

Youth Positivity:

Only youth “is the hope”… this is my belief…
I don’t need to imitate youth in order to understand them…
Our youth have a lot of knowledge and a lot of expertise…
Our youth are vivid … full of positivity…
Their positivity sneaks into all the “faraway” and “nearby” countries… through their journey in searching for chances to achieve their dreams …
And their country remains in search for entrepreneurs…
They are present over there… but in another place…

Youth needs an effective actual participation in all fields, not for a decorative unreal one…

My project is theirs…
I don’t want youth to think of migration…
I want Jordan to be the project of each young Jordanian…

The young Jordan in the strong Jordan that is able to face the challenges of development, and keeps pace with the new era’s demands after perceiving the past’s positive culture and heritage.

Expression positivity:

For one to feel injustice for some time is not an issue… but the problem is when one can’t express refusing this injustice…

The Freedom of expression and speech!!!
And the freedom of access to information!!!

A right for every human being…

Aroub is a media person, she was first introduced to Jordanians through her children television programme ‘Waqt Al Farah’ ( Happy Time) which aired on Jordan national television in the nineties up until the year 2003. After that, Arab Radio and Television network (ART) bought the rights to the programme and started airing it on its children channel. She currently works at ATV, which I brought up its dilemma in previous posts.

Comparing Aroub to her direct opponent Samar Haj Hasan ,who’s also an accomplished woman and business entrepreneur, I felt Aroub could relate more to the average Jordanian than Samar could; Aroub is a product of the public education , she went to community college before she had the chance to go to university, Samar on the other hand received her education at an expensive private school and then was able to earn a university degree from an American university in Switzerland.

As someone who is a product of the private education, knowing what it means to be provided with opportunities that open up your mind, burnish your skills, and prepare you to face life’s challenges and deal with them efficiently and effectively, I found that someone like Aroub managed to open up her mind, burnish her skills and engage life’s challenges with little opportunities was absolutely admirable!

The first screening was for ” Driving to Zigzigland” , a film I brought up recently on MEY, but it still hasn’t come out on DVD yet! And the second one was for no other than “Reel Bad Arabs” .

After each screening, we would facilitate a discussion with the audience, which was primarily consisted of American scholars and students, about the content of each film. The discussions were really interesting, and we received a great feedback about them from ACOR’s management that we will hopefully keep organising screenings there in the future.

On her blog, Emma provided a very interesting look into both films, she also posed three valid and important questions-in my opinion- about Reel Bad Arabs that I encourage you to take a look at.

For instance, I’m a big fan of South Park, and my favourite character is Tweek. I would love to know who’s yours!

I will not talk any further about it, as to be honest, there is alot of editing needs to be done,before I can safely say that it’s complete, editing that needs alot of time and engergy, energy that I can hardly find these days as I work 10 hours a day, 6 days a week!

But I will definitely allocate sufficient time at some point in the near future to edit it and hopefully post it on you tube and of course here;-)

I would like to thank Pulp magazine, and particularly its editor-in-chief Jawad Al-Anees for this kind gesture.

Up until recent years, Jordan’s broadcast industry was entirly run and managed by the government of Jordan.Though since the dawn of the century Jordan has witnessed the opening of a plethura of private radio stations mostly focusing on music and entertainment, but we haven’t had good quality private television broadcast in Jordan until today. Mohammad Alayyan- a Jordanian entreprenuer, and the owner of Alghad newspaper- decided to change that reality and launch what hopefully will be the first good quality and up to high standards private TV station in Jordan known as ATV (Alghad TV).

ATV was scheduled to launch on August 1st, 2007, yet something mysterious happenned that suspended the long awaited TV station. On August 1st, and as ATV’s Mohammad Alayyan and its managing director Muhannad Alkhatib were holding a press conference to officially announce the launch of ATV, the Audio-Visual Commission of Jordan informed them that the channel still needs to complete some financial and technical documents in order to be allowed to launch!.

Jordan has been wondering eversince that happened, why on that particular day did the Audio-Visual Commission choose to inform ATV with its technical and financial incompletion??!.

Alot of rumers have come out about insiders from ATV wanted to hinder the broadcast! and internal corruption prevailing within it!, yet we actually don’t know where the truth lies!

I visited ATV last week and learnt that all the employees were given a 10-day paid leave until September 1st, hoping by then the suspension would have been revoked!

here is what some of the Jordanian bloggers had to say about this issue…

ATV still not allowed to broadcast
Why did ATV miss it’s launch yesterday?
The Audio-visual Commission

Driving to Zigzigland is a day in the life of a Palestinian taxi driver in the “city of Angels”. Bashar, an aspiring actor from the holy city of Jerusalem decides to move to Los Angeles- where the film industry is as big as it gets in the world- to pursue his career,he arrives there, he gets married and starts looking for roles to play in “good old Hollywood”, he’s turned down as every role he’s offered, is a role he would never accept to play!! . So, he starts driving a taxi in LA to make a living, the conversations and the quite funny encounters he has with the passengers throughout the film are so interesting!.

I met with the executive producer Anas Khalaf,a young gentleman from Syria, at a conference on prospects of film development in the Arab world last June. He said Driving to Zigzigland happened to be the very first Palestinian-American film produced cooperatively between the U.S and Palestine, and as the film has not come out on DVD yet, they are holding screening for in various parts of the world such as India, Europe, the Middle East and indeed the United States.

I leave you with the trailer of the film as it was posted on You Tube…

This time and in continuation with what I have started in that post, I decided to meet with a young gentleman from the United States by the name of Charles Carver.

Charles Carver, a student of International Relations, came all the way from Austin-Texas along with 30 other students from different parts of the U.S to Jordan to enroll for a semster at the University of Jordan, learning Arabic, and other area studies such as; Economics, International Relations from Middle Eastern Perspective, and Islam in Modern Contexts, part of a programme organised by the Council on International Educational Exchange, shortly known as CIEE.

His passion lies in photography and journalism, as well as traveling and experiencing different cultures.

Charlie currently writes for magazine in Jordan, which is a pop culture magazine published in English, his articles focus on social issues concerning the youth of Jordan, from student council elections to drug abuse and underground life.

Last month, he wrote a very interesting article about the underground culture of heavy metal music in Jordan, in which he dispelled the myths spreaded about the assoaciation of heavy metal music with satanism or devil worshipping.

I thought it would be interesting to link to it, as also Esra’a brought up the issue in her last podcast interview with the DJ from Saudi Arabia, so I contacted Pulp magazine and they were courteous to send me a soft copy of the article to link to Underground and Loud P1 , Underground and Loud P2 , I hope you find it interesting to read!

I leave you now with the interview I made with Charlie, along with pictures of sights he visited in the Middle East, enjoy!.

• You have been in Jordan for about 8 months now,being an American, what were the ups and downs of your stay here?

Well at first it was the weather that got me down, I had no idea that the winter rain was almost continuous for 3 months, that was quite shocking because I only packed a light jacket. Thankfully the weather since then has been beautiful, I’ve heard complaints about the heat, but where I’m from I can safely say that it is much hotter during the summer. Nothing other than that was entirely unexpected, I expected to be ripped off by cabbies for the first month, to be looked at with those eyes that seemed to say “aysh?” But I would have to say that my experiences have been overall quite glowing, touring the countryside and meeting all sorts of interesting people, not to forget the ability to smoke a cigarette almost anywhere I feel like.

•How did you find the youth population in Jordan, have you made friends here?

Youth are similar all over the world, some have more money than they know what to do with, others have more simple pleasures. Something relieving about the youth here in Jordan that separates them from other places, is they seem to be, in general, more receptive to foreigners than for example, my experiences in Europe. I’ve made quite a few friends here, it was hard at first to branch out away from the other expats because it was easy to find similarities with them. But Jordanians reputation for hospitality definitely applies to the youth here, they’ve always been willing to help and are very nice.

• You’ve written for Pulp magazine for about 2 months, how do you evaluate your experience writing for a Jordanian magazine?

Well, I think it almost goes without saying that freedom of the press isn’t the priority it is back in the states. There have been times when my frustration with what can be printed makes me want to scream bloody murder and generally through a fit, but then i just have to accept that this is the way things are and i’m not in any position to change the system. Pulp has been great, they have been more open to tackling subjects that are often considered too taboo to print here. I have found it a good outlet for me, as I like to write about the often unseen image of the Arab street seen by the west, that of the young people doing what young people do best, being normal and having fun. I think the image that the west has is that a young man in this part of the world is just another potential terrorist, which is sad. Working with Pulp has shown in very clear terms that the majority of the younger generation just want to have fun, and we work hard to show this, and that even this society’s misconceptions about the youth are unfounded.

• Your article in Pulp’s July edition-which we are linking to here on our blog- tackled heavy metal underground culture in Jordan, what made you decide on the topic,and what feedback have you got from the critics and readers?

Continuing with the theme of dispelling the rumors and other here say that put young people here in a bad light, heavy metal has been targeted as being a source of the the downfall of youth here. There are countless rumors about them, ranging from drug use, to satan worship, to even crazy wild orgies. I just wanted to show anyone who read the magazine that these were all unfounded and were the product of fear or misunderstandings. I have only had a little feedback from the article, mostly positive, the bands themselves and a website dedicated to the local metal scene encouraged their members to pick up the magazine.

• Having lived in Israel for 2 months also, how do you compare your stay in both countries as even though they both lie in the Middle East,they are very different from each other!, and how do you see the future and prospects of peace in the region?

I think that Israel and Jordan are quite similar on some levels, for example, no one waits in line in either country, people are generally after the same goals in life, living well and being safe. Unfortunately, they both seem to be similar in who they blame for their problems, Israelis like to blame Arabs and Arabs like to blame Israelis. Israel, like Lebanon and many other Arab nations, is a society that has very distinct divisions within itself. There are movements in both countries that are large proponents of peace, but equally there are groups that see total war and conquest as the only way to achieve this goal, there are groups that could care less about the fate of the nation and only care about religious zealotry. I don’t think we’ll see anytime in the near future a true peace, what we will see is moments of hot a cold political situations occur periodically.

• You have dated a girl from Jordan, how did you find the experience, given you both belonged to very different cultures.

I wish I could say that it has been easy, but this society’s view on dating, especially between a foreigner and a local girl is not well looked on. My girlfriend and I have become quite frustrated by constraints placed on us here, even though she grew up with this culture, she has not wholly accepted it. We have had to try our best to keep our relationship secret, we even tried to keep it from our close friends for a short period of time. You never know when word of us might get to the wrong person, who decides to ‘correct’ the situation. I like sometimes to think romantically about the situation, that love transcends all boundaries and cultural barriers, and in our case it has in many ways. Realistically, because we are both young professionals with a less oriental view on how our relationship is viewed here, we’ve come to realize that keeping everything as low key as possible is for the best, maybe not what we would prefer, but a necessity none the less.

• You have enrolled for a semester learning Arabic at the University of Jordan’s Language Centre, how do you see higher education institutions in Jordan compared to those in the U.S?

Universities here require some major overhauls, there seems to be a push to just pass students through without making sure that the graduates retain a level of education that is on par with European or North American schools. Jordanians graduate, then look for jobs, but often lack the skills that gainful employers are looking for. With so many young people in Jordan and so many universities to accommodate their education, it’s sad that they are being turned over so quickly. I’ve heard officials talk of Jordan’s greatest investment being the education of the children. And it is a great investment, there are a plethora of universities here. Unfortunately the focus seems to be on the investment aspects of running a school, not on the quality of education, this isn’t a unique problem to Jordan, but a large one. There is of course the politics of university professors and administrators that is always in tension, but i think this is fairly normal for a place of higher education.

• Being at UJ’s Language Centre sure has given you not just a Jordanian experience, but also an international one, as many students from all over the world come to Jordan and enroll at the language centre to learn Arabic, how do you see young expatriates like yourself coming here to learn what seems to be a difficult language?

I’ve been really impressed with my fellow students, some people speak such amazing Arabic that it has been hard to think that I would ever evolve to their level (I’m still waiting). Some people came because they just thought Jordan was a weird place to visit or had an academic interest in the region, others because they had family connections with the region, and others who came because they either hope for a career in politics or the military.

• Last but not least, where do you see the situation in Iraq going, will there be tangible progress in the mere future?

When the war started I don’t think most people in America knew the difference between a shia and shizou, a sunni and a sandwich, or a kurd and a (well you get the point) I would say that the only good thing to come out of this whole war has been that the common American now takes an interest in the goings on of the Middle East. This is probably a step in the right direction as the region has often been neglected by foreign powers and has had to solve it’s own issues alone. Probably the Middle East was one of the few areas of the world that hardly noticed that the Cold War had ended, there was no real affect here. I would like to see Iraq fall under a nationalist umbrella, but their history seems to lead them away from such feelings, and I think that the violence caused by the divisions in their society will continue and possibly worsen. I recently read that the US generals and ambassador to Iraq are drawing up plans to remain until 2009, so I don’t think any progress will be made in the near future, I can hope that one day they’ll all wake up and say, “what were we thinking killing each other, lets build a viable country” but i don’t think that will happen for many years.

The following is the link to the programme, if you happen to be a fim-maker from the gulf and would like to develop your skills and enhance your work, this is your chance, don’t miss it!!, we certainly do need young film-makers from the gulf region!.

http://www.aljazeera.net/nr/exeres/eafd247c-c446-4a3e-b01e-981bb07817b7.htm

Also, if you have friends that are interested in such things, don’t forget to tell them!.

I wish I could apply myself, but unfortunately applicants must have gulfi citizenship!, if they could change it to born in the gulf other than being from the gulf then I would be eligible.!

EuroEnglish
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty’s Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase-in plan that would be known as “EuroEnglish”: –

In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”.. Sertainly, this will make the sivil sevants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favor of the “k”. This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with the “f”. This will make words like “fotograf” 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent “e”’s in the language is disgraceful, and they should go away.

By the 4th yar, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”. During ze fifz year, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaning “ou” and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.

ZE DREM VIL FINALI KUM TRU!!

I will support my articles with pictures from their trips, I hope you guys find it interesting to read…

I begin the series with an experience a friend of mine had while living in Jordan Ramsey Tesdell who’s parents are Norweigians but he was born in the United States and for that he’s an American….I guess!

When Ramsey decided to go back to the states after he had spent about a year writing for the Jordan Times, and of course trying to learn Arabic,he and his flatmate- Edward Stallard, an English teacher at a private school in Amman from England- decided to do something unexpectable of any westerner to do in the Amman, they went down to downtown Amman on a Friday morning brought stuff that they needed to get rid of after they’d done packing , they put them on a blanket in the middle of downtown and started selling them to the people there!!, bargaining with the buyers and competing with other street vendors in the area…!!

I leave you with Edward’s own description of the experience as he shared it on 7iber.com enjoy!

This is a slideshow of the original nominees posted on You Tube,the nominees varied in time and style, from the relatively modern architecure of the Eiffel Tower in Paris to the Ancient Pyramids of Egypt, they all were truly fascinating, and they certainly deserved to be called wonders of the world.

So take some time and enjoy the wonders of civilisations..

And this is a picture of the winners all together..

I’ve always been fond of architecture, it simply captivates me!,there is nothing more beautiful than the wonders of such a beautiful science.I’m very happy and proud that Petra got elected as one of the 7 wonders, and the fact that it ranked second on the list of winners after the Great Wall of China made me even prouder!,yet I can’t help but worry about the impact such an election might have on the state of economic inflation that Jordan has been suffering for about 4 years .

The aptly named Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) of the Economist magazine ranked Amman the most expensive city in the Arab world in its Worldwide Cost of Living Survey of 2007!!.

Economists call Inflation and Unemployment the 2 great Devils in the world of economy, if you control one of them, the other will go out of control, yet, in Jordan, we have a high level of unemployment in parallel with unjustified inflation!!, which causes a dilemma for the average Jordanian!!.

I just really hope that we will be able to exploit the benefits of this election and utilize them in creating employment opportunities for the youth of Jordan, primarily in the tourism sector, and monitor carefully the impact it might have on inflation.

I was planning for this post to be about the election of Petra as one of the new 7 wonders of the world, and how I think that will impact Jordan’s tourism industry and the Jordanian economy. Though, I was just watching the BBC, where they aired an interview with music producer Waseem Mahmoud and two young singers from the group, who emphasised the role of the Muslim community in Britain in fighting and deconstructing terrorism by acting and campaigning, so I thought I would share this with you today, and write about Petra in my next post tomorrow!

The screening will take place tomorrow (Saturday, July,7) at 6:00 P.M. Following the screening, Stine (Assistant at the Dialogue Centre) and I will moderate a discussion about the issues raised in the film such as identity, racism, multiculturalism..etc.

If you happen to be in Amman these days, and would like to attend the screening, and take part in the discussion, send me an e-mail on mohammad.azraq@gmail.com .We would be delighted to have you.

Note: English subtitles will be provided.

Alan Johnston was kidnapped in Gaza 114 days ago. His case received international attention, people from New York to Bangkok , Sydney to Beirut were having vigils calling for his release.

A month after his kidnapping, BBC, Sky News, CNN, and Aljazeera, joined forces in a common broadcast to highlight his plight.

Today is not just happy day for London or the BBC, it’s a happy day for everyone that believes in the power of journalism in the world at large, today marks the triumph of word and picture over sword and capture.

Parts of the lectures were dedicated to watching short documentaries and analysing them from the director’s point of view.

The selection of films varied in time and topic, from World War II and concentration camps , to a wedding in the westbank city of Ramallah!

As we all have heard about the tragic terror attempts that took place recently in Britain particularly in London and Glasgow, I thought I would share with you a film that we watched and analysed part of our training course called “London Can Take It”, it was produced by independent film maker Quentin Reynolds during World War II, when London was under daily strikes from the German Air Force.

It’s very short (9 mintutes), yet it’s very expressive.. I encourage you to take some time and watch it.

I visited Britain a little less than 2 years ago, it amazed me how a country so small in size was so great to an extent it was called “the Empire where the sun doesn’t set”. It produced scientists such as my idol Sir. Isaac Newton,whose scientific findings and theories profoundly transformed our lives,had it not been for him, we wouldn’t have enjoyed many things that we currently take for granted like cars and airplanes. He once said :”If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants”.

London could take it when it was under heavy bombing, I believe London will take it again and will stand taller and greater than any of those bloody terrorists.