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!.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKEjT4t-e-Q[/youtube]

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…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqOIOwPdwjc[/youtube]

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.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDJVUnX0rwQ[/youtube]

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!