Papers of Dialogue - 2 - 2013 - English

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April - June 2013 M A G A Z I N E

DE KERCKHOVE & ROSSIGNAUD The digital persona

SAMIR FRANGIEH New Media and the Arab Public Opinion

BAHRAIN

Pioneers in Social Networking

DIGITAL IDENTITIES

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April - June 2013 M A G A Z I N E

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DE KERCKHOVE & ROSSIGNAUD SAMIR FRANGIEH

New Media and the Arab Public Opinion

BAHRAIN

Pioneers in Social Networking

DIGITAL IDENTITIES

www.papersofdialogue.com

03 Editorial Roberto Iadicicco

Digital world 04 The digital persona Derrick De Kerckhove & Maria Pia Rossignaud

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08 The emergence of the individual: the Arab world’s true revolutionary outcome Interview with Samir Frangieh Nicole Hamouche 12 Euro-Med women: the high-tech backlash Suhair El Qarra

Papers of Dialogue: no 2 April-June 2013

Editor in chief: Roberto Iadicicco

Editorial team coordinator: Daniel Atzori

Marketing & Communication: Laura Brunetti (Coordinator), Patrizia Arizza

Photography: www.123rf.com (cover, 04, 16, 42) www.pictures.reuters.com (pages 08, 13, 25, 31 ) www.corbis.com (pages 11, 24 )

Editing and production: AGI – Via Ostiense, 72 – 00154 Rome – Italy papersofdialogue@agi.it

Consultancy: Global Services Incorporation Badaro Trade Center Building – Beirut – Lebanon a.tucci@worldenvironment.tv

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16 Bahrain News Agency: a pioneer in social networking Muhannad Suleiman

ROBERTO IADICICCO Editor in chief

20 Jordan’s high-tech miracle Zubi Al Zubi 24 The challenges of the digital youth Anna Prouse & Jacob Burke

Geopolitics 27 Egypt, two years after Ahmed Fahmy 31 Improving relations between Egypt and Iran?

Giuseppe Acconcia

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34 Understanding the mosaic of European Islam Maria Luisa Maniscalco

Cultures 38 Arab Christians, a history of dialogue Habeeb Mohammed Hadi Ali Al Sadr

Translated by: Roma Congressi

Publisher AGI SPA: Chairman: Gianni Di Giovanni CEO: Daniela Viglione General Director: Alessandro Pica AGI – Via Ostiense, 72 – 00154 Rome – Italy www.agi.it www.agi.it/english-home www.agiarab.com

42 Celebrating Dubai’s Heritage Rasha Al Maleh

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he digital revolution is rapidly changing all aspects of our life. The mass adoption of the Internet triggered a global democratisation as to the creation of multimedia content and citizens are more and more becoming ‘netizens’, active producers of knowledge and ideas. Social networks have already profoundly changed the way we interact with each other and the world, and the pervasive penetration of smartphones is causing a fundamental makeover in how we communicate. This phase is opening up unprecedented possibilities on a global scale. As Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen write in their book The New Digital Age: “Through the power of technology, age-old obstacles to human interaction, like geography, language and limited information, are falling and a new wave of human creativity and potential is rising.” In this issue of Papers of Dialogue we explore some aspects of these transformations, and of the new energies they are unleashing. As Derrick de Kerckhove, one of the leading thinkers of the Information Age, states in his article, together with Maria Pia Rossignaud, the interactions between people and the digital data around us are reshaping our identities, leading to “a radical reformulation of both the personal and the social contract”. This is further explored in our exclusive interview with Samir Frangieh, in which the Lebanese intellectual reflects on the Arab revolutions. He argues that new media are allowing people to affirm their identities, to the point that the emergence of the individual could be considered “the Arab world’s true revolutionary outcome”. The digital revolution is also contributing to the empowerment of Euro-Mediterranean women, as political analyst Suhair El Qarra explains in her contribution. On the whole, there are few doubts that the peoples of the Mediterranean and the Middle East are emerging as protagonists of the digital age. We also consider as case studies two Middle Eastern countries whose experiences are paramount. The first is Bahrain, where the state news agency has become a leader, among Arab and Gulf states, in social networking. Muhannad Suleiman, the Bahrain News Agency’s Director, narrates its success story. The second country is Jordan, which leads the Arab world in terms of high-tech start-ups. Zubi Al Zubi, chairman of the Business Department at the University of Jordan, explains how his country’s achievements in information technology demonstrate that developing economies can create thriving environments for innovation and entrepreneurship. In the last article of this section, we consider the challenges faced by the tech-savvy digital youth who played an important role in the Arab uprisings. This allows us to move to our next section, which focuses on geopolitics. The first article, written by University of St Andrews’ Ahmed Fahmy, considers the power relations between the political forces in Egypt.

The second, by Italian journalist and researcher Giuseppe Acconcia, analyses the possible rapprochement between Cairo and Tehran. Maria Luisa Maniscalco, professor of sociology at Roma Tre University, explores the complex reality of European Islam, through the prism of the different dynamics of integration. In the last section, dedicated to cultures, H.E. Habeeb Al Sadr, Iraqi Ambassador to the Holy See, looks at the importance of Christians in the Middle East throughout the centuries. Finally, Rasha Al Maleh, reporter for the newspaper Al Bayan, writes about the Dubai Marine and Heritage Festival, an event which tried to preserve and celebrate the Emirate’s unique history and traditions. We sincerely hope you will enjoy this latest chapter of our Papers of Dialogue.

Editorial

The digital persona

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Digital world

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The digital persona Derrick De Kerckhove & Maria Pia Rossignaud

Our identities and personalities are undergoing a process of radical reformulation as the Internet increasingly impacts our lives. The concept of ‘digital persona’ arises from the strong interaction between the persons and their digital data, in a global context marked by a shift from a society of persons to a society of networks.

t is a bit of a stretch to jump shift from the concept of digital identity to that of the digital persona1. Taken literally, digital identity is a rather simple affair; the term is acknowledged as merely describing the codes and procedures that verify that the user is truly the person or the entity genuinely associated with the current transaction.

But in an extended sense digital identity also brings to mind the kinds of profiles that emerge from a selection of cross-checked digital data. The selection can change so one can have as many “digital identities” as are needed for as many operations. Such data constitute an association of recorded habits and traits, i.e., an emerging digital personality that serves as ground for all the services proposed, from medical to commercial, and others perhaps less desirable2.

Some of these identities are more or less under one’s control, most of them not. One can manage one’s profile on Facebook, but not the ones that Facebook manages for us. Data mining plucks information from various databases, selected by the miner or simply collected from the available material in the open data sphere. That information can have, and often has, an impact on a person’s life. To the extent that profiling goes on largely unbeknownst to the profiled, the condition is reminiscent of the unconscious. Digital personas arise from the unpercieved unconscious digital ground just as psychological personas are deemed to arise from the very specific and individual psychological unconscious.

Although it has been proposed and defined by Roger Clarke, the “digital persona”3 does not exist as such. Indeed, there is no truly independent “person” out there that is constituted uniquely by digital data. But digital data extend personality traits and contribute to define the person. People carry their data as they carry their shadows. Or their masks. However the mask is usually meant to reflect a living person so a living person can indeed be endowed with a digital personality. At any rate, there is certainly a strong interaction between the person and the digital data about him or her. As Ivo Quartiroli observes: “The Net encourages us to have a personality that is “liquid,” ever ready to change shape as the flow of information pulls us in different directions.

Without a well-defined personality built by real relationships, mentors, and life experiences

combined with inner awareness, we identify loosely with transitory mental stimuli. Lacking a narrative and continuity, our personality is never well-defined and solid”.

In his enlightening book, The Digitally Divided Self 4, Quartiroli goes deep into the matter. Let’s follow some of his key arguments and think about how they might play out in different cultures equally affected by digital networks and social media: “Human relationships and direct contact, the most important elements in forming the personality, are more and more mediated by the Internet – where “friendships” can be established and ended by a simple click, and personal profiles, connections, and sites themselves can change, be born, and die capriciously. With this instability, it is difficult to develop authentic and long-lasting relationships which allow us to know our self more deeply through interacting with others.”

It is worth observing that the Internet in all its guises invites a quasi permanent “extrospection” rather than introspective tendencies and habits.

As I look out through the screen, my mind is focused outwards, my hands keep moving on the mouse and the keyboard. What people loose in depth, they gain in surface. Facebook (among others) compensates for the lack of temporal continuity by offering a spatial alternative: instead of cultivating oneself within, the internaut spreads out; there occurs a shift of emphasis of personality-building from an internal to an external process, a shift that has also been explored by Nicholas Carr in his famous article “Is Google making us stupid?”5. According to Quartiroli: “One of the appeals of Facebook is that it provides a neat and orderly way to integrate our various online sub-personalities. It is a collector of our object relations that offers us a feeling of a rounded, connected personality that is supported by the people in our friends list. With kids and teenagers spending so much time on social media, part of the process of personality construction takes place inside Facebook itself.

Their attachments and object relations – the very building blocks of personality – are being shaped

by Facebook which, not metaphorically, can reshape and manipulate their personalities”.

To support this suggestion Quartiroli offers this telling example: “As a “digital native” once told me in an email:

1 There is a site that offers digital identity services that calls itself ‘digital persona’ (http://www.digitalpersona.com/).

2 For example, Google has profiles on its users that enable it to improve its searching performance by giving priority to answers that correspond best to what it is already known about that user; Facebook collects user data to recommend potential friends that the profiled person might like. The profile guides the targeting of products and services to the user, but it can also provoke denial of access, of service or worse in case of information revealing features deemed inapropriate.

3 Clarke, Roger, The digital persona is a model of the individual established through the collection, storage and analysis of data about that person (http://www.rogerclarke.com/DV/ DigPersona.html).

4 Quartiroli, Ivo, The Digitally Divided Self: Relinquishing our Awareness to the Internet, Silens, 2011. Note that the Amazon site offers many impressive endorsements of the book (http://www.amazon.com/TheDigitally-Divided-SelfRelinquishing/dp/8897233007).

5 Nicholas Carr’s article in extensor is available here: (http://www.theatlantic.com/maga zine/archive/2008/07/is-googlemaking-us-stupid/306868/).

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Herbert Marshall McLuhan was born in Edmonton, Canada in 1911 and died in Toronto in 1980. For more than 30 years, he was associated with the University of Toronto. He was a theorist of communication, and widely regarded as one of the most influential intellectuals of the 20th century. His best known book is The Medium was the Massage: An Inventory of Effects, published in 1967.

His studies were paramount in the analysis of the influence of the media on human consciousness.

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“Paradoxically, for my generation’s sense of loss and confusion, what the Net offers is like an anchor.” Technology is taking charge of shaping our identities”.

A new kind of narcissism arises. Peering into the screen, Narcissus once again falls prey to a liquid mirror. But this time he really falls in love. He is not only seeing his image, he is actually building it. He becomes what he beholds.

“The psyche has a natural need for mirroring by others. In building a sense of identity, being seen and recognized as our real nature helps us recognize our true self. So sharing our lives online feels like being seen and understood, a reflection that most people do not adequately receive – either in childhood or later in life. On social networking sites and in chats there is a tacit agreement to give each other mostly positive feedback.

Derrick de Kerckhove is former director of the McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology at the University of Toronto and a full professor at the Faculty of Sociology of the University Federico II in Naples. He is author of a dozen books edited in more than 10 languages including Italian, Spanish, Polish, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. He is also research director at the Interdisciplinary Internet Institute (IN3) at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Barcelona.

Maria Pia Rossignaud is director since 2008 of Media Duemila, an Italian monthly about digital culture, business and government now in its 30th year. She is part time professor at the University La Sapienza in Rome, a consultant and promoter of research. Each year she organises “Nostalgia di Futuro”, a prize for excellence in digital practices and research.

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Marshall McLuhan

If not, we can quickly block a person from contacting us, removing anything that doesn’t support our expectations.”

Marshall McLuhan, well before Quartiroli and Carr had predicted that “electricity [would eventually] wipe out private identity”. Although he wasn’t clear as to what would replace the private person, it is now possible to venture a guess.

What is now happening to identity and personality is not merely the addition of new masks, it is a radical reformulation of both the personal and the social contract. As people become evanescent sets of images, texts, videos, they become networks of personas connected to other networks of personas. A society of networks, as Manuel Castells has defined the current social mutation, is taking over from the society of persons.

These networks are not merely local anymore.

Even public opinion is going global. Among the features of digital identities is that they are global. In cultures that do not put as great an onus on the individual, i.e. tribal ones, the Internet and cellular phones do not encourage narcissistic proclivities. New media emphasize dependance on community. Identity is claimed by groups. Networks expand and support communities well beyond the confines of the land and put them in touch well beyond the national and linguistic frontiers. Thanks to the Internet, reality is not created anymore principally in the United States, but everywhere.

A larger reality including the West and the East, the North and the South, is gradually rising in world consciousness.

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Interview with Samir Frangieh

The emergence of the individual: the Arab world’s true revolutionary outcome Nicole Hamouche

New media allow people to communicate independently without interference from the authorities and create a platform to assert one’s own identity. It is precisely the emergence of this form of autonomy that is essential to the Arab spring. As such, social media not only put people in touch with each other, but they also encourage individual responsibility.

Cedar Revolution Samir Frangieh, Lebanese politician and intellectual

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amir Frangieh, the ideologist behind Lebanon’s Cedar Revolution, cornerstone of the Arab Spring, talks to us about “the day following spring”. This became also the title journalist Riccardo Cristiano chose for his book, Il giorno dopo la primavera, a collection of interviews with Mr Frangieh. The current interview on the aftermath of the Arab revolutions falls within the scope of another revolution: that of social media and digital identities.

Much has been said about the role of social media in the Arab revolutions. What really set the tone for the 2005 Cedar Revolution was your Beirut Manifesto, which was relayed through traditional media in June 2004. It was a long appeal to people’s conscience, a call for

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revolution. Could it have been written and interpreted as it was through new media outlets? Aren’t traditional media more powerful than social media on their own and do these new tools merely feed into preexisting ones?

New media allow people to communicate regardless of the control of authorities, but that’s just part of it. More importantly, they allow people to assert their identity as individuals. They enabled the emergence of a type of independence which is the hallmark of the Arab Spring. We have begun to speak as people, rather than as a group.

Individuals are speaking as individuals, speaking for themselves, for the first time, and are learning to see themselves as fully fledged individuals in their own right. Before, the approach to politics

Lebanese Parliament

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President Barack Obama speaking at Cairo University

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New media help us establish a connection with one another within the Arab world. They help us find out what intellectuals in the Arab world are writing, they facilitate an exchange of views.

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always involved tapering, where a group is reduced to a party and the party to its leader. That could sometimes create caricatural phenomena, with at times, an underlying religious dimension.

Social networks engender public opinion. Egypt is one example: the country’s Islamist movement has reshaped itself into a political party while the product of its liberal movement is public opinion.

Despite the Muslim Brotherhood’s electoral victory, six months later social networks played a key role in shaking things up again. In the same vein, a Salafi MP, lawyer Mamdouh Ismail, was forced to issue an apology after he was bombarded with more than a million insults on his Facebook page for reciting the call to prayer during a legislative session. In Lebanon, social networks put pressure on the government to recognise Kholoud Sukkarieh and Nidal Darwiche’s civil marriage [the first in the country], and to consider the issue. Cyberactivism also crushed the proposal for a so-called “Orthodox law”, a largely confessional one, promoted by MP Elias Ferzli as a basis for the upcoming parliamentary elections. Public opinion is gaining clout, particularly in the Arab world. Is it enough to engender change? No, it’s crucial but, clearly not enough. We also need a real political system.

Isn’t the individual that you mentioned earlier,

already drowned in the virtual mass? What can virtual masses do, on the ground? Isn’t the new media spirit about reactivity and instantaneity? Can we build anything in that spirit and at that pace?

Before the advent of Facebook, I would have been considered a Zghortiote, a Maronite, Hamid Frangieh’s son… Thanks to Facebook people can view my picture, see what I like, read what I write and so on. You can look beyond the labels which are pinned on an individual. However, discovering individuals’ independence is not enough to foster change: what we need is a tangible link, not just a digital one. Empathy intrinsically involves someone else’s attention. That involvement allows a link to be forged, and, in turn, a common project to be born. For example, in Lebanon the March 14 Alliance bonded through opposition: the coalition was built with the objective of defeating the other.

When that’s the case however, it is that other one who takes the lead, not you, which, in itself is already a kind of weakness. Being against something is not a project in itself. There was that exceptional moment in Lebanon on March 14, 2005, but after that we began to tread water, because there was no plan for the future to fight for.

That’s why we need to think about what the plan is as a follow-up to the Arab Spring… In Tunisia, the Ennahda party tried to implement its plan, while the liberals didn’t have one of their own; hence their failure and Ennahda’s success. Be it Ennahda, or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt – whose plan is unfeasible – we would be heading toward a Muslim democracy the likes of which we witnessed during a certain period in Europe, Christian democracy.

You know something changed when a major player from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, talks about “relative secularisation”. Democracy in the Arab world now faces two challenges. The first is to build a system with nuances allowing the emergence of something other than the traditional political system or the Islamist system. The second consists in finding a way to merge pluralism and citizenship in a part of the world where different ethnicities and faiths live side by side: Kurds, Arabs, Sunnis, Shi’as and so on. In Iraq a civil war between Sunnis and Shi’as is on the horizon. The issue of reconciling citizenship with pluralism hasn’t been addressed yet. That needs to be done as soon as possible.

If new media contributed to organising protests

during the Arab Spring, can it also build an Arab citizenry?

New media help us establish a connection with one another within the Arab world. They help us find out what intellectuals in the Arab world are writing, they facilitate an exchange of views. You get to know people, you’re connected, you know what the other person is doing, you know what he is facing. That allows the emergence of an Arab opinion. For example, that’s how Father Paolo Dall’Oglio, an activist who promotes Islamic-Christian dialogue in Syria, got in touch with me. He had heard of my line of thinking through a website... But new media alone are not enough to define an Arab citizenry.

Their role not only involves forging links, but also generating accountability. They allow people to post live video footage. When you witness something, you become responsible, to a certain extent. You can no longer say you didn’t know about it. Thanks to mobile phones, people were able to tape the massacres which took place in Syria. Those crimes are right there, and there’s no denying they happened. What about Lebanon’s Hezbollah supporting a notorious criminal such as Bashar Al Assad, thus turning itself into an accomplice of sorts? Actually, many Shi’as within Hezbollah are not comfortable with that stance.

In your book, Voyage au bout de la violence, you said that the collapse of the regime in Damascus would represent the Arab Spring’s culmination. Do you still believe that? What will the post-Assad period look like? What about Saudi Arabia?

Everyone is talking about Syria’s Salafist group, the Al Nusra front, but it isn’t as serious as it might seem, due to its limited membership. There are four million Syrian refugees living outside Syria. Whoever takes over, their priority will be to bring back the refugees, not politics. As for Saudi Arabia, it’s going through a transition. It’s giving out mixed signals: on the one hand, Saudi Arabia played a part in quashing the Bahrain Spring; on the other, women have been granted access to the previously all-male Majlis Al Shura (parliament) – and with an even bigger quota than in Lebanon. The end of the regime in Syria will mark the end of Iran’s Shi’a destabilising politics.

Iran will no longer have the means to back up its politics should the Assad regime fall. That would bring the issue of regional peace to the fore again.

In 1972, Golda Meir said that peace will only be

achieved once Arabs will have upraised and once democracy takes root. Forty years down the line, this is happening... do you agree with her comment today?

This Arab Spring has, to an extent, marginalised Israel. The Arab world as a whole is now in favour of democracy. Israel is no longer nestled in that totalitarian bloc that was the Arab world. Israel can no longer claim it does not have any interlocutors. Those who are against non-secular regimes, that is the West, China and so forth, and the Arab world, can no longer support that sort of regime in Israel. Therefore, the Arab Spring poses a huge challenge for Israel. Regional peace is, especially now, a global concern, and of particular interest to the United States. During his first term, President Obama announced that he would fight that battle. So far, that commitment has not really been fulfilled; the big speech he delivered in Cairo in 2009 went unheeded.

Nicole Hamouche contributes to several publications of the Lebanese L'Orient-Le Jour press group, among them L’Orient Littéraire, a monthly literary supplement of L'Orient-Le Jour.

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Euro-Med women: the high-tech backlash Suhair El Qarra

From the northern to the southern shores of the Mediterranean, women face serious barriers that limit their opportunities in high-tech fields. However, recent trends show this now seems to be changing.

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editerranean women working in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), face a complex set of gender barriers. There are relatively few females in the IT industry. Their number has increased, but not enough. Research on the high-tech workplace shows the sector is not

Arab Media Forum, Dubai, UAE

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biased against different cultural or ethnic backgrounds, but gender stereotypes have always worked against women participating in this male-dominated field. Gender inequality is still the most common of the problems faced by many Euro-Med technical women.

Technology, as a culture, has often been

associated with masculine traits.

Many stereotypical male careers are simply a byproduct of unintentional bias among parents and educators in schools. People tended to discourage women’s potential by assuming that males are more competent in maths and science compared to their female peers. This is a tendency that may have limited women’s progress in traditionally male fields including ICT. Dispelling some of the stereotypical myths seems anything but an easy task, but changes can be made by companies. Women schedules should be flexible so that the demands of family life can fit in with their work responsibilities. We need a structured approach that fosters a culture focusing on the impact some technical competences can have on a woman’s career, and the economic opportunities that accompany it. Companies must acknowledge that encouraging women to build technology related careers isn’t only about gender equality, it is also about innovation, competitiveness, and workforce sustainability. In a global economy driven by innovation, gender diversity in ICT means a larger and more competitive team and the ability to create wider and innovative technology.

Unexpectedly, the high-tech boom of the last

decade has shown a trend reversal. As technology is woven into everything, women started to realise they were missing out on opportunities by not going into ICT. Technology careers became interesting and appealing to women as well. The youngest generations already think digitally. They are “digital natives” and have grown up with a different mindset: with a greater predisposition to high-tech jobs among women.

The continuing so called “Arab season” has confirmed among the youngest the importance of high-tech when it comes to dealing with issues such as health, media, mobility, energy and security. Muslims are also encouraged by their religious principles to strengthen technological knowledge and development: “Allah will raise those who have believed among you and those who were given knowledge, by degrees. And Allah is acquainted with what you do” (Surat Al-Mujadila [58:11] – The Noble Qur’an – ËôμdG ¿GBô≤dG ).

Over the last year, Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland has repeatedly emphasised the role of women in high-tech as a transformative force in contemporary societies.

He stressed their ability to be key drivers of economic growth in Europe and worldwide.

The young generation of women on the two

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The youngest generations already think digitally. They are “digital natives” and have grown up with a different mindset: with a greater predisposition to high-tech jobs among women.

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shores of the Mediterranean are aware that technology is an important tool that can be used to demand opportunities to lead and contribute to the revitalisation of their societies and economies.

Addressing the barriers to women’s participation in cities creates a situation where women’s potential is more fully realised. Households, communities and governments also reap rewards and benefits of Mediterranean women’s empowerment in the service and ICT sector.

Until now very few women in the ICT maledominated arena have been successful in becoming IT entrepreneurs. They are generally smart women with a strong personality who embarked on a high-tech career with passion and determination and are on track to become female models and mentors for future generations.

Tamara Abdel-Jaber, for instance, is one of the first female IT pioneers in the Middle East. Her company, Palma, has been recognised as one of the 30 fastest-growing companies in Jordan.

Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for Digital Agenda, has made the Forbes list of the world’s 100 most powerful women five times in the last six years.

Maria José Mirandam, NetApp drives country manager, from Spain and Bruna Bottesi, country manager, from Italy, have key roles in European field sales operations, IT and storage.

The Iraqi web-designer and naturalised Lebanese, Sukaina Al Nasrawi, in 2010 joined United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) Centre for Women after passing a highly competitive examination within the UN Secretariat.

Suhair El Qarra is an Italian-Jordanian political analyst of Palestinian origin. She was educated in Europe and the Middle East. Ms El Qarra is a member of the Euro-Med Women Network of the Council of Europe. She is also founder and CEO of “The Meta-Hybrid Project for Peace, Security and Social Change”, an international think tank that blends cultural mindsets through interaction and analysis.

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Tamara Abdel Jaber CEO of Palma

Since then she has been monitoring gender development within the Arab world. She believes that “technology can even make a difference by enhancing women’s socio-economic status”.

Technology is also used as a tool for peace keeping. Many projects have been developed among Israeli and Palestinian students, particularly women. The training is aimed at helping women find work in the high-tech industry, improving the status of Palestinian and Israeli women and helping to increase tolerance and understanding between their communities. Scientific cooperation between Muslims and westerners could contribute to international peace and security and reduce technological and nuclear threats.

Despite the quantitative shortcomings, high-tech female entrepreneurs seem to have all the requirements to encourage young generations to follow in their footsteps. Within a few years we will see more young women choosing ICT careers. At the moment they are a minority group who must daily demonstrate they can do just as well as men in the workplace. The irony is that their efforts to fight against gender-based stereotypes mean that women in high-tech tend to be wrongly labeled as unconventional because the field is still associated with masculine traits. The real high-tech gender backlash will happen once women are able to be themselves without pretending to just be one of the boys. It will happen when companies realise that their success depends on different roles and skills, and that women can bring a strong and innovative contribution to those roles.

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Bahrain News Agency: a pioneer in social networking Muhannad Suleiman

The agency has become a leading news agency in the Gulf and Arab states, and perhaps worldwide, thanks to its awareness of the role of modern media and the employment of social networking tools. Thus, it has managed to support communication and bridge the gaps between the authorities and public opinion at local and international levels.

ahrain News Agency (BNA) has continued its efforts to promote and develop the tools of the information business, while taking confident steps to reflect the radiant face of the Kingdom. It has achieved this through its desire to create openness which allows the modernization of public information facilities and is supported by the informed leadership of the state institutions.

The agency has become the leader at the Gulf and Arab states level based on this legacy and due to the increasing demand and reliance on modern media, particularly social networking.

BNA has succeeded in harnessing these

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networks and tapping into their potential to promote the achievements of the state and counter the misinformation campaigns launched against it. The agency has managed to support and ensure communication and bridge the gaps between the authorities and public opinion at local and international levels.

BNA is one of the leading institutions promoting social networking. The agency uses tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, among others, to achieve its aims. These include ensuring the highest levels of visibility, transparency, credibility, as well as enhancing community participation and raising public awareness.

World Trade Center, Bahrain

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Media City, Bahrain

The signature of the partnership agreement between BNA and AGI

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The agency is the only one that provides such coverage in Bahrain and also the only one that broadcasts graphic news.

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Bahrain News Agency

BNA has become a leading news agency in the Gulf and Arab states, and perhaps worldwide, employing social networking tools and being aware of the role of modern media. Its new website uses many services to keep pace with the latest techniques in the field of electronic media. The agency has also placed a “BNA Video” on various social networking sites and totaled over five million clicks on YouTube alone.

This, as well as a number of other services, is considered to be the first of its kind from news agencies in the region. These include “BNA Kids” – a pioneering exercise in youth participation in more than 50 public schools to help develop the

pupils’ knowledge of public affairs so that they can become news correspondents.

It was developments like these that attracted many people to become interested in the agency’s use of modern media. The number of daily visitors to the agency’s website rose from an average of 6,000 to about 22,000. Now the agency ranks first among the social networking sites. The number of Twitter viewers in Arabic, English and French, reached about 133,000 with an estimate of more than 66,000 tweets. The agency is preparing to launch its services in Italian in collaboration with the Italian news agency AGI as well as running its Italian website.

The agency has also launched live broadcasting of events and conferences on its website. The agency is the only one that provides such coverage in Bahrain and also the only one that broadcasts graphic news.

However, BNA went even further. Arab Ministers of Information have accepted its proposal to open one account for all the Gulf news agencies on YouTube. The channel will carry live broadcasting and link to the social networks. The agency has now been awarded the Gold medal for excellence and quality of services in the region by the Arab League Organization for Administrative Development.

The adoption of the proposal confirms the evolution of the experience and performance of the agency in information and media in general, and in social networking and electronic communication in particular. Neighboring countries now wish to benefit from BNA’s success and to build on the huge strides it has made. The agency is willing to help initiatives and projects launched by neighboring countries. The One Account Project on Twitter was considered by the Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council as the fastest project launched since its adoption at the 14th meeting of News Agencies Managers of the GCC States.

These successes go hand in hand with other concrete achievements. The Kingdom was chosen as the capital of the Arab media for 201314 during the opening ceremony of the 10th session of the Arab Media Forum, which was held in Kuwait with the theme “The Media and Peace”. This confirmed the leading role of Bahrain in the information world and the increasing prospect of freedom of opinion and expression. The Kingdom was also awarded the title of the capital of the Arab press by the Arab Youth Media Forum in 2012.

Bahrain will also host the First Media Forum of the GCC States this year, as well as the

21st meeting of Ministers of Information of the Gulf States. The Kingdom will also arrange exchange visits of graduate students from European and American universities, particularly from the colleges of political science, international relations and information. Bahrain is also to host a symposium on the “current changes and the role of news agencies in future”, next year.

Bahrain is also to host the Third Media Summit in 2014.

The agency has signed several memoranda of understanding and cooperation with its Arab and international counterparts to expand its scope and promote best practice. These memoranda reflect the visibility of the agency and the confidence of other news agencies.

These agencies hope to coordinate with BNA to build on its successes and benefit from its pioneering experience. The most prominent agencies that signed memoranda include those in Italy, Spain, Russia and India.

Muhannad Suleiman is the Director of Bahrain News Agency (BNA).

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Digital world

Digital world

Jordan’s high-tech miracle Zubi Al Zubi

The Hashemite Kingdom, a small country in terms of its population and economy, punches far above its weight when it comes to high-tech startups. It has the fastest growing information and communications technology sector in the Middle East and looks set to do well into the future.

King Hussein Business Park, Amman, Jordan

“H Zubi Al Zubi

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igh-tech” is a term that has traditionally been used to describe technologies at the cutting edge. Today it is generally used to refer to firms like Google, eBay and Apple. High-tech startups have historically thrived in the U.S., particularly in Silicon Valley, but recently high-tech companies have developed across the world.

In the rapidly-growing market, high-tech startups

are able to generate great wealth for the country where they are based. They are a valuable source of revenue so it is essential to consider what they can offer countries with more limited resources, such as Jordan.

Jordan leads the Arab world in high-tech startups even though it has a small population compared to other Middle Eastern countries. It had more than 35 internet and technology

startups in 2011, which outstripped the 11 in the United Arab Emirates, although they invested more heavily in startups at the time. Egypt, with a population more than 13 times larger, had only nine startups in 2011.

Jordan’s supremacy is likely to be partly due to its traditional strength in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector. This sector is the fastest-growing in Jordan,

H.M. King Abdullah II Ibn Al Hussein, Amman, Jordan

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Digital Cultures world

Nour Eddine Fatty

Office of Oasis 500, Amman, Jordan

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contributing 14 percent of GDP in 2010, the same as tourism. Jordan is the main telecommunications provider in the Middle East, hosting three-quarters of all Arabic content on the internet. Internet use in the Middle East is relatively low, 29 percent compared to 68 percent in Europe, but two-thirds of internet users are under 30, so this market is likely to continue to grow.

The Jordan Business website tells the story of many successful start-ups in the country. Among them are khodarji.com, founded by Nasr Shammout, an online site selling fruit and vegetables, and alhoush.com, a digital

marketplace for artists which is popular across the region.

The success of high-tech start-ups in Jordan has not come about by chance: King Abdullah II set goals for modernisation, and created incentives for entrepreneurs to develop internet-based businesses. Some high-tech startups were already thriving in the country, but a second wave of entrepreneurship was triggered by the new incentives.

It is predicted that Jordan’s technology industry could generate up to 4 billion dollars a year by 2017. Startups are likely to be important in creating job opportunities for the rapidly

growing population of unemployed university graduates.

The ICT Association of Jordan estimates that 5,000 Jordanians graduate each year with degrees in ICT, but only 3,000 find jobs.

The 18 startups registered in 2012 created as many as 2,000 jobs, and this could help prevent the drain of graduates to other Middle Eastern countries.

There remain a number of problems in creating and maintaining high-tech startups, despite Jordan’s achievements. Potential startups are often limited by a lack of assets, and by difficulty in getting venture capital. Banks have taken steps to make this easier by accepting much smaller deposits on loans. However, there are many rules and regulations that discourage new companies. If an entrepreneur loses 75 percent of launch capital in the first year the government can shut the company. Legislation passed in September 2012 gives the government the power to severely limit internet freedom, which could also be a barrier for ICT startups.

The success of Silicon Valley, an area less than half the size of London, has spurred many countries to look into the benefits of an area for high-tech companies. Advantages include ease of access for venture capitalists, the possibility of sharing infrastructure and major equipment, and creating a community of entrepreneurs and technology specialists. As a result, there is now the Silicon Wadi in Israel, Digital Media City in Korea and HITEC City in Hyderabad, among others. Jordan has adopted this model, on a smaller scale, by building business and technology parks. The King Hussein Business Park, on the outskirts of Amman, is home to Oasis500, the so-called “homegrown technology incubator”. Oasis500 is headed by Usama Fayyad, who was global chief data officer of Yahoo from 2004 to 2008.

Oasis500 provides five-week training courses

for entrepreneurs, as well as up to 15,000 dollars in cash in exchange for equity.

Between 2010 to 2012, the company raised 6 million dollars for early-stage financing, and invested in 55 companies, of which only three failed. The setting of Oasis500 at the heart of the Business Park has helped to attract firms to the thriving location.

Jordan has shown it is possible for a developing economy to build a thriving culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, as long as there is public and private support. High-tech startup companies are certainly not restricted to developed nations, and countries like Jordan have advantages in providing technology for its people and its neighbours.

Among the economic uncertainty throughout the world, Jordan has carved out a place for itself as a provider of high-tech.

Khodarji food online delivery company, Amman, Jordan

Zubi M.F. Al Zubi is the Chairman of the Business Management Department at the University of Jordan. He has been elected to the Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy in the UK.

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Digital world

The challenges of the digital youth Anna Prouse & Jacob Burke

In Egypt, a vanguard of young activists empowered by social media played a crucial role in the uprisings that led to the downfall of President Mubarak’s regime. These movements have now been largely marginalized, failing to play a role in the direction of the country’s future. However, despite their shortcomings, the ‘digital youth’ still maintains hope.

T Egyptians celebrate after the announcement of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s resignation in Cairo February 11, 2011

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he world watched in amazement as millions of Egyptians took to the streets in early 2011 to demand an end to the 29 year rule of Hosni Mubarak. After 18 long days, the protests turned into celebration as Egypt’s longtime intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, announced that President Mubarak had stepped down and handed power to the armed forces.

Joyous scenes from the centre of the uprising in Cairo’s Tahrir Square were broadcast around the globe. A sense of hope prevailed as it appeared that Egypt’s darkest days were in the past. The

uprising, ostensibly leaderless but driven by a vanguard of young activists empowered by social media websites, was hoped to lead to a new Egypt in which democratic norms and civil rights would be protected, rather than trampled upon, by the government. More than two years later, however, the youth activist community that spearheaded the uprising has been marginalised and had little or no say over the direction of post-Mubarak Egypt.

Ahmed Maher and Esraa Abdel Fattah were among the small group of protestors that first took to Tahrir Square on the morning of January 25, 2011. In 2008 the two friends had set up the “April 6 Youth Movement” page on Facebook to call for demonstrations to support striking workers in the city of el-Mahalla el-Kubra. Eventually the page began to serve as a forum for youth activists throughout Egypt to express their dissatisfaction with the Mubarak regime, and Ahmed Maher went on to help set up a group of activists by the same name. In social media websites such as Facebook, digitally savvy Egyptian youth activists found for the first time a relatively safe space to call for change, relatively being an important qualifier as many activists were detained, including the first two protestors. It was on the “April 6 Youth Movement” Facebook page, and other Facebook pages and social media websites, that the youth activist community organised the demonstrations that would lead to the downfall of the regime.

Egypt’s digitally connected youth activists were able to drive the uprising that led to Mubarak’s resignation, but they proved unable to translate their victory into success at the polls. Youth activists failed to gain the political sway necessary to play a role in determining the direction of their country’s future. The optimism within the youth activist community following the uprising quickly dissipated after the elections held between November 2011 and January 2012. The majority of seats went to Islamist forces, such as the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and the Salafist Al Noor Party, which had not supported the uprising or its ideals in the early days. The hopes of the youth activists were dealt another blow after the first round of the presidential election in May 2012. The two candidates who won the right to contest the final round in June were Ahmed Shafiq, the last prime minister appointed by Mubarak, and Muhammad Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s nominee. The youth activists were faced with a choice between a symbol of the Mubarak regime and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. They opted reluctantly for Mr Morsi – a man they perceived as the lesser of two evils.

He went on to win the election and became Egypt’s first democratically elected president. Mr Morsi promised to serve as a leader for all Egyptians in a bid to assuage the concerns of those, including youth activists, who feared the

Muslim Brotherhood would use the presidency to aggrandise its power. Since assuming office, however, Mr Morsi has overseen a campaign that many Egyptians see as an attempt by the Muslim Brotherhood to consolidate its rule over the country. The government issued a decree that granted Mr Morsi immunity from judicial oversight in November last year and rushed the adoption of a new constitution favourable to the Muslim Brotherhood in December. It has also used the legal system to try to silence criticism. More lawsuits have been filed for “insulting the presidency” during Mr Morsi’s brief tenure in office than during the entire Mubarak era, claimed prominent Egyptian human rights lawyer Gamal Eid. How did the youth activists who drove the 2011 uprising fail so catastrophically in elections, leaving themselves marginalised and their demands for democratic norms and civil rights unfulfilled?

Esraa Abdel Fatah said the failure of the youth activists in elections should not come as a surprise. There was no way they could have competed with the electoral juggernaut that the Muslim Brotherhood has been building for more than eight decades. They lacked the keys to the Muslim Brotherhood’s success: organisation and funding, she said. Ahmed Maher agreed that youth activists suffered from “a lack of experience in

An opposition supporter lifts a placards near Tahrir Square in Cairo February 7, 2011

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Egypt, two years after Ahmed Fahmy

‘‘

Social media remains a powerful tool, but the digitally empowered youth activist community has yet to translate that potential into a wellorganised political force that can compete for votes and win elections.

’’

Esra Abdel Fattah, Egyptian internet atcivist and blogger

Ahmed Maher, co-founder of the April 6 Youth Movement, Egypt

Facebook page for April 6 Youth Movement

organising for elections”. The Muslim Brotherhood excelled at the polls due to its experience of competing in elections, despite being ostensibly illegal since 1954.

Abdel Fatah and Maher believe that youth activists will one day be able to organise and raise funds to compete with the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups in elections, but with much dedication and effort. The April 6 Youth Movement is laying the groundwork for the formation of a political party. The movement is building a grassroots network and training its members so they can gain the expertise to develop a political programme and serve in office. Maher emphasised that a real political party is “at least three years away”. Until then, the movement will support the opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood as a pressure and lobbying group, and try to highlight the “unstable and unfair” nature of the political situation. Abdel Fatah, a member of Mohammad El Baradei’s Constitution Party, has taken a different route, believing that direct involvement in opposition political parties is the best route for youth activists to fulfill the goals of the uprising they spearheaded. “One of the biggest

Anna Prouse is a Principal at the strategy and design firm Caerus Associates.

Jacob Burke is a Middle East-based MENA Analyst at Caerus Associates.

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mistakes of youth activists was their failure to establish a unified political group directly after the fall of the Mubarak regime”, she said.

However, a lack of organization and funding is not the only challenge facing youth activists. Maher and Abdel Fatah admitted there is also a large disconnect between the mostly urban, digitally empowered youth activists and large swathes of the Egyptian public. Maher said that youth activists need to interact more with ordinary people and those in poorer areas who do not have as much access to social media or the internet. In particular, Maher said youth activists need to “go to the streets to touch the pain and problems” of ordinary people and address their needs, as the Muslim Brotherhood does with its social service programmes. Abdel Fatah argued that the predominately Cairo-based youth activist community needs to do more to visit villages and bridge the urban-rural divide.

Despite these challenges, Egypt’s youth activists maintain hope. Social media remain a powerful tool, but the digitally empowered youth activist community has yet to translate that potential into a well-organised political force that can compete for votes and win elections. Youth activists must step out from the cyber world they are comfortable with and appeal to every day Egyptians who are more concerned with feeding their families than lofty ideals. It remains to be seen if the youth activist community will succeed, but one things seems clear from talking with Abdel Fatah and Maher – they certainly will put up a fight. As Maher bluntly put it, “the revolution isn’t over”.

Al Ahram cover page of January 26, 2012

A

fter the historical events that swept Egypt in January 2011, three political forces struggled to fill the vacuum that followed the fall of President Hosni Mubarak’s regime. These are the state bureaucracy represented by the army, the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the secular forces which include liberal, leftist and revolutionary factions, but with no specific representation.

This analysis reviews three stages in the fight between these forces that provided the backdrop to the present ferment of the political world.

The First Stage: “El Salmi Document on Supra-constitutional Principles” In 2011 there was clear evidence of the superiority of the Islamists on two levels. The first was their ability to rally, mobilise and organise massive demonstrations. This proved

Al Masry Al Youm cover page of January 26, 2012

to the ruling armed forces that Islamists could not be ignored if the Egyptian State was to remain intact. The second level was the Islamist’s overwhelming victory – with of about 75 percent of the votes – in the first parliamentary elections held in Egypt after the popular revolution. The defining moment in the power struggle between the Military Council and the Islamists came when the council presented what the media called the “El Salmi Document”. This was intended to set up supraconstitutional, binding principles to ensure that no theocratic state was imposed to replace the Egyptian secular civil state if the Islamists took power. It would also grant the armed forces a semi-independent status, giving them immunity from the executive and the legislative. The army dropped its insistence on pushing through this document, and withdrew it, following the massive demonstration organised by the

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Islamists in Tahrir Square on 18 November, 2011. Liberal and leftist forces had joined the protest to express their anger at this proposal to give the military independence.

The Second Stage: Presidential elections The first round of the presidential elections was completed in May 2012 with two candidates in the crucial run-off. The first was Muhammad Morsi, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, who was supported by those who advocate an Islamic project in Egypt, including the Salafist force with its strong social and political presence. The other was Ahmed Shafiq, who represented the traditional forces in Egyptian society which were the main support for the political regimes that ruled Egypt following the revolution of July 1952. These were the prominent rural families, the remains of the National Party ruling during the reign of Mr Mubarak, as well as other non-organised sectors which believe the Islamist forces do not reflect the Egyptian multi-dimensional identity, which includes liberals and Christians. The runoff ended with victory for the Islamist candidate with a slim margin. This was despite the extreme mobilization efforts that ever since characterized the Egyptian politics and society.

So the election ended with victory for the Islamist force and with one of its most prominent leaders becoming president of the Republic. This is a position which holds power and authority that no other institution or force can match, as was established by the exercise

Tahrir Square Cairo, Egypt

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of power and political culture in Egypt during the rule of the July 1952 regime. However, the Islamist force only won by a slim margin, showing that overlooking non-Islamist forces would have a high political cost. This would be the case particularly if the Islamists decided to concentrate the power in their hands and establish an authoritatian model similar to the one the January Revolution was launched to overthrow.

The Third Stage: The Constitution Reconciliation between Islamist and civil forces failed during attempts to draft the new constitution. President Morsi had to issue a Provisional Constitutional Declaration pending the adoption of the new constitution. This gave him unprecedented powers, including refusing any appeals against his decisions. He was also able to dismiss the attorney-general, because he was suspected of supporting the previous regime.

The Constitutional Declaration provoked the judiciary, who called a strike. This encouraged the non-Islamist forces to form a broad coalition and call massive demonstrations against the Constitutional Declaration. They also wanted to block any attempt by the Islamists to unilaterally draft the constitution after the withdrawal of the civil political forces from the drafting committee.

Egypt witnessed waves of protest escalating sometimes into large-scale acts of violence.

Demonstrators rattled the gates of the Republican Palace and laid siege to it. The

Muhammad Morsi, President of Egypt

Muslim Brotherhood mobilised members to defend the palace, and this triggered clashes with many causalities among the civilian forces.

Nevertheless, the Islamists managed to hastily draft the controversial articles of the constitution and hold a referendum. The rate of participation was low, at about 30 percent, as a protest against the way the constitution was drafted. The non-Islamist forces believed the controversial articles would allow the establishment of a theocratic rule in Egypt. This would change the identity of the state, obscure pluralism and discriminate against those who did not belong to the Islamist groups and prejudice the rights of women, children and minorities. The constitution was adopted by 65 percent, but the fact remains that the legitimacy of the new democratic regime was fractured as far as some sectors were concerned. They believed that the regime represented a project of reduced scope, reflecting the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood in particular and the Islamist forces in general rather than the identity and interests of all Egyptians.

Muhammad Mostafa El Baradei, Egyptian opposition leader

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Improving relations between Egypt and Iran?

Giuseppe Acconcia

For decades, political divisions have jeopardized relations between the two countries. Today, however, after Morsi’s participation in the meeting of the non-aligned movement in Tehran and Ahmadinejad’s visit to Cairo, the relationship between Egypt and Iran seems to be improving in many areas.

Nevertheless, not everyone is happy about this rapprochement.

Egytpian Parliament

Future Perceptions It can be argued that Egyptian politics is governed by a critical balance of forces with the presence of the army as the state’s lifeblood and two major forces. These are the Islamist force, mainly the Muslim Brotherhood, and a coalition of conservative civil forces, which is the alliance that played the revolutionary role during the demonstrations of November and December last year. The Islamists may face more instability because of their inability to gain the acceptance of non-Islamist forces and because they are running the country in the midst of the worse economic crisis it has ever faced. This also exposes their cadres’ political and administrative limits in trying to rule a state the size of Egypt, and their inability to control important institutions such as the judiciary and the media, which may lead to yet more instability. All this is in spite of their opportunity

Ahmed Shahin Fahmy is a PhD candidate at the School of International Relations, University of St. Andrews in Britain.

He is the author of The Rise of Iran and the New Cold War in the Middle East: Security Structure Post-Iraq War, published in 2010.

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to win the coming parliamentary elections, or any election given the organisational gap between them and their competitors. However, this very instability may serve the interests of the civilian forces and their leaderships, like El Baradei and Sabahi. It is difficult to overlook the potential power of the military institution during times of crisis, especially because of its withdrawal from the internal political fight while upholding its image as the last defence line of state unity. The army will only be involved when the political or economic situation reaches the brink of the abyss – otherwise they will be watching the political scene from the sidelines.

In the coming years the political situation is likely to remain under the diminished control of the Islamist force. At the political level, the limits of their control will be at the fringes of the military institution and its traditional spheres of influence. At the cultural level, control would end at the boundaries of the liberal spheres of influence with continued skirmishes between Islamist and non-Islamist forces that represent no real threat to the new regime. No doubt these skirmishes will make it difficult for the regime to impose its will on society and politics.

In any case, it is well established that the saga of the major political transformation process that began in Egypt two years ago is not yet over, but may still be in its first stages.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, with Ahmed Muhammad Ahmed Al Tayyeb, Grand Imam of Al Azhar and President of Al Azhar University in Cairo

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I

‘‘

Egypt and Iran may decide to launch commercial flights to improve and normalise tourism but Cairo and Tehran still do not have diplomatic representatives and the two governments have different approaches on some major political issues.

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n February Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad attended the Cairo summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and visited Al Azhar, the centre of Sunni Islamic teachings. The visit was central to the rapprochement now underway between Iran and Egypt. The last official visit of an Iranian leader to Egypt was by a Pahlavi family member 34 years ago when relations between Cairo and Tehran were cordial. After the 1979 revolution that overthrew the Shah, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini excluded all the other protagonists, including liberals and socialists, in the upheaval from the Majlis, and enhanced the Shiite identity of the state. Since then Egypt has been extensively portrayed in Iran as one of its main enemies. This was mainly because the North African country was the first Arab state to recognise Israel. Former Egyptian President Anwar Al Sadat made his biggest mistake by signing the treaty of peace with the Israelis, according to the Iranian authorities.

Since then the countries have taken different paths. Egypt has been an important ally of the United States in the Middle East and grants from the International Monetary Fund were pivotal in the political and economic agenda of ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. The political ideology of the Islamic Republic of Iran was informed by anti-Americanism and rhetorical support for the Palestinian cause. This approach was taken to help unify the revolutionary front during the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988.

These political divisions jeopardised relations between the two countries by portraying Iran as the Middle Eastern leader of the Shiite community, and Egypt as leading the Sunnis.

After the 2011 Egyptian upheaval, however, the two powers appear to have become closer. The Muslim Brotherhood took over in Cairo, and only a few days after his oath as the Egyptian incumbent president, Mohamed Morsi, visited Tehran for the meeting of the non-aligned movement in August 2012.

However, a real rapprochement has not been achieved, according to Ramin Jahanbegloo, professor of Ethics at Toronto University. “The two countries have different visions on Islamic history, any kind of rapprochement is going to take time. Nowadays, there are improvements

that facilitate trips of Iranian tourists to Egypt, but the two countries appear still far [apart]”, he said. The Muslim Brotherhood, however, considers it a pragmatic decision to improve trade links with Tehran. Iran is seen as “a regional force that cannot be ignored”, said Egyptian Foreign Minister, Mohamed Kamel Amr. In addition, the Iranian leader had pledged to make a loan to the cash-strapped country.

“The political geography of the region will change if Iran and Egypt take a unified position on the Palestinian question”, said Mr Ahmadinejad. “My visit will give an impulse to strengthen the relationships between our two countries”, he said after meeting Ahmed Al Tayyeb, the Grand Imam and President of al-Azhar University. However, these intentions to strengthen relations have not yet borne fruit.

It is clear these are only the first attempts of a political rapprochement. Egypt and Iran may decide to launch commercial flights to improve and normalise tourism but Cairo and Tehran still do not have diplomatic representatives and the two governments have different approaches on some major political issues. Many analysts agree that the political divisions between Egypt and Iran remain frightening. The Iranian authorities unconditionally support Hamas in the Palestinian territories and President Bashar alAssad’s regime in Syria. In Egypt President Morsi is trying to promote Hamas-Fatah dialogue and was deeply critical of the Syrian regime’s use of violence. Egypt has joined calls for the Syrian government to be removed.

Even the early signs of dialogue have caused major concerns. Egypt has been forced to reassure the Gulf monarchies over its new ties with the Iranian authorities. “The safety of the Gulf countries represents a red line for our government”, Mr Kamel Amr said on the eve of the OIC Cairo Summit. The Egyptian foreign minister was referring to the tensions between Iran, on the one hand, and Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar, on the other. This began after the Gulf states sent troops to Bahrain to support the Al Khalifa Sunni monarchy. The Gulf Cooperation Council Countries fear that expanding ties between the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran, or a political alliance, could threaten the stability of the region. However, even the

United States seems prepared to accept improvements from the political, economic and diplomatic encounters between Cairo and Tehran. In March U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Jerusalem was said by some commentators to help produce a new balance in the Middle East by persuading Israel not to attack the Iranian nuclear programme.

Also the Egyptian Salafi movement strongly disapproved of Mr Ahmadinejad’s visit to the country and staged protest. Four people were arrested for throwing shoes at the Iranian president when he visited a market in Cairo.

Influential political Salafi figures asked Mr Morsi to confirm that Egypt was a “Sunni State”. Mr Ahmadinejad would be held accountable for “the Iranian regime’s responsibilities in killing women and children caused by the Tehran’s military and political support to the Assad regime in Syria”, said the Salafi movement’s spokesman for Al Nour, Abdel Moneim Al Shahat. Hardliner Mr Ahmadinejad’s historic visit has also been criticised by many moderate and conservative

political and religious factions in Tehran for renewing Egyptian-Iranian ties. It is reasonable to suppose that many conservative politicians, supporters of the Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei, waited for Mr Ahmadinejad’s departure to arrest the former general prosecutor of Tehran. Said Mortazavi was investigated for his part in the death of a large number of demonstrators in protests during Mr Ahmadinejad’s second contested election in 2009. Now as Mr Ahmadinejad finished his second and last presidential mandate, the new Iranian president could again jeopardise the rapprochement between Cairo and Tehran.

XVI summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, Tehran, Iran 2012

Giuseppe Acconcia is a journalist and researcher focusing on the Middle East. He covers foreign affairs for Italian, Egyptian and British newspapers. He obtained an MA in Middle Eastern Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, with a dissertation on the role of the military in politics in Egypt, Syria and Iraq.

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Understanding the mosaic of European Islam Maria Luisa Maniscalco

The Muslim communities in Europe reflect a multifaceted reality of ethnic, political, and religious perspectives. They express an effervescent pluralism which reveals different dynamics of integration, as well as finding a modernisation model of their own.

Grand Mosque Rome, Italy

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he almost 20 million Muslims living in Europe represent the largest religious minority in the region and the most conspicuous Islamic diaspora in the world1.

Their presence in Europe is mainly, although not exclusively, due to migratory flows and can be listed among the major and most significant events of the second half of the 20th century. It is no longer possible to think of the development of European societies without considering the relevance of their contribution. First-generation migrants always remained closely linked to their countries of origin, but nowadays migrants undergo an intensive Europeanisation process in which Muslims increasingly wish to become fully integrated and acknowledged.

The Muslim communities in Europe reflect the multi-faceted reality of the great Muslim ummah (community), with all its different ethnic, political and religious perspectives and their internal rifts.

This pluralism has hindered the creation of a homogeneous Islamic community in Europe as a whole and in individual states. These differences arise on different levels: alongside the believers there are people whose culture is Muslim but who do not identify with the “believers”. Some are decidedly secularised while others interpret religion as a cultural heritage and a symbolic dimension. Others experience their faith in a very personal way and want to integrate Islam in the same kind of European space and do not take part in religious or political associations.

In Europe, Islam is undergoing an extended identity crisis. It is expressing an effervescent pluralism that goes well beyond its traditional set-up – through religious movements and schools or on the basis of ethnic or national identity – that has triggered an internal competition to find a modernisation model of its own which can exert control over social models and lifestyles. The road to modern Islam (or to Islamise modernity) is strewn with confrontational clashes between ideas, models and ideologies.

Even the dynamics of integration are diversified in Europe, with a multitude of players on the playing field: individuals, groups and associations. Some groups act autonomously while others are networked, creating synergies but also sometimes friction and conflict. The world of Muslim associations is rich in initiatives, with the shared aims of many being to pursue new ways of expressing the Muslim religion, gaining more visibility and institutional and social empowerment, and to legitimise

1 All people coming from, or originating in, countries with a prevailing Muslim culture are statistically accounted for as Muslims. However, it should be noted that the figures are only estimates because in most European Union countries it is forbidden to count people on the basis of their religious beliefs.

Furthermore, these estimates vary greatly among them, although the figure of 20 million seems to be the most plausible. M. L. Maniscalco, L’Islam europeo. Sociologia di un incontro, Milan, Franco Angeli, 2012.

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Asmaa Abdol - Hamid presents on the Danish Channel DR2 a TV program called "Respect towards different thoughts and beliefs”

Geopolitics Cultures

Asmaa Abdol-Hamid TV presenter

Muslims as part of Europe’s historical, political and cultural heritage. These organisations are almost unknown in Europe, not because of a deliberate effort to conceal them, but because of scarce media coverage and the difficulty of including them in public debate, which prevents them from making a significant contribution.

Now modern communication systems have allowed them to establish a closely-knit

Grand Mosque Paris, France

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network, strengthening their connections and coordination. This trans-European network, which is developing despite the persistent soundness of its members’ national roots, will require greater commitment by European institutions to meet its requests, which do comply with European democratic standards and reasoning.

At an individual level, European Islam is staging a “silent revolution” with an increasing number of people committed to finding a lifestyle in harmony with their faith and traditions and playing an active role in society. Young people relate to Islam and Europe in a way that is different from preceding generations.

They are often citizens of a European country and this is where they were first socialised.

They are poorly acquainted with their families’ country of origin and often have little knowledge of the language or of popular culture. They have adopted lifestyles and patterns of consumption, sometimes reinterpreted in a creative way, that are very similar to the ones of their native counterparts.

They have also developed working and professional expectations in line with European models. It is precisely this characteristic that converts them into a group that is strategically relevant in developing a European Islam, an Islam capable of effectively contributing to guiding European societies through a transformation. European Muslim youth are developing an identity that, on a personal and relational level, is critical of the ethnic and traditional practices of the older generations.

The Muslim youths’ feeling of belonging to Islam takes shape in the connections between different processes. It develops in their relationship with the first generation’s ethnic type of Islam, their interactions with European societies and the influence of the different Islamic movements in Europe, plus the influence of transnational Islamic groups. They are driven by different desires: they want to be equal to their native counterparts but also to distinguish themselves by belonging to the culture system of their countries of origin. In addition, their pursuit of personal and social achievement is associated with their fear of standardisation. The condition of young Muslims can be interpreted as a conflict between dual loyalties. On the one hand, to the community of belonging – family, ethnic and or religious group – and, on the other, to the societies they live in. Also to a cultural and personal growth caused by their cultural “cross-fertilisation”.

Many European Muslim youths, while trying to integrate without being absorbed into the mainstream, reveal a capacity for cultural innovation mixed up with religious identification processes. By overcoming the binary – integration or rejection – logic, some of them are expressing original ways of producing and reproducing their culture. They are assessing the extent to which European culture models are valid and acceptable, and finding a way of ensuring Islamic values continue while leading a non-marginal life in the West.

In this historical phase European Islam is pursuing a place of its own in society. Concrete and deep-reaching problems may persist, but a large number of Muslims are well integrated in Europe and continue on their path towards development. European Islam holds a host of surprises for us which are sure to help our intercultural dialogue.

Arab World Institute Paris, France

Maria Luisa Maniscalco is a tenured professor of sociology at the Political Science Department of Rome University Roma Tre, where she directs a Master’s course in Peacekeeping & Security Studies and a PhD course in gender studies. She is also a member of the Scientific Council of the Euro-Arab Institute for the Dialogue between Cultures.

Papers of Dialogue | 37

Cultures

Cultures

Arab Christians, a history of dialogue Habeeb Mohammed Hadi Ali Al Sadr

I Pope Francis with Ambassador Habeeb Mohammed Hadi Ali Al Sadr

38 | Papers of Dialogue

t was our Lord Jesus of Nazareth, peace be upon Him, who started the dialogue with the west from Palestine through His appeals to the idolatrous Roman authorities. He called on them to join the glorious path of monotheism and high morality for the sake of their salvation. This dialogue was met by arrogance and intransigence and led to the path of pain, which was also the path of dignity and eternity. This motivated Christ’s disciples to follow His message by adopting dialogue, wisdom and logic as the means to deliver His divine message to establish love,

justice, virtue and peace. The Romans and their tyrannical emperor Nero repeated the same tragic scenario with Saint Paul and Saint Peter in 67 A.D. However, the commitment in principle to dialogue remained their desired option and the best way for the eastern Christians to maintain their missionary work. Some of the early dialogue between western Christians and those in the east can be traced back to the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. They had theological debates with their western counterparts to try to establish a common law on the roots of Christian belief, but this led to the eastern Copts and Jacobites coming to different views on the nature of Christ. This angered the Byzantine state which believed the doctrine of the twin nature of Christ, that of divinity and humanity. They used their knowledge, their theological literature, Syriac schools and the monasteries on the routes between Iraq, Syria and the Arabian peninsula, which were used by merchants, tourists and people from many countries and religions, to create dogmatic discussion in order to gain more followers of Christianity.

Since the emergence and spread of Islam, Arab Christians crossed the barriers of religious differences in their relationships with their Muslim brothers which were governed by “al kalima al tayyibah” [Good Word], mutual confidence, and

good treatment. This was through the covenant agreements between the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon Him, and the people of the Book, which began with the covenant of Medina in 622 AD and ended with the treaty of Najran. These established the tolerance and moderation adopted by the Islamic religion. The covenants also expressed the wish that the people of the Book should have full citizenship rights and manage their own affairs according to their own laws. This was also stated in the Holy Qur’an, for example: “Let the people of Injeel (Gospel) judge by what Allah has revealed therein. And whosoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed then such people are the fasiqun (the rebellious, those disobedient in a lesser degree) to Allah (Surat Al Maidah, 47)”. And Allah says: “And argue not with the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians), unless it be in (a way) that is better (with good words and in good manner, inviting them to Islamic Monotheism with His Verses), except with such of them as do wrong, and say (to them): ‘We believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you; our Ilah (God) and your Ilah (God) is One (i.e. Allah), and to Him we have submitted (as Muslims)’”. (Surat Al Ankaboot, 46). This allowed the Christian cultural heritage to flourish under the auspices of the Islamic state. The Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Ayyubid caliphs made them ministers, writers, physicians, teachers, and keepers of the Treasury.

Christians had translated into Arabic thousands of compilations and also into Greek, Syriac, Persian and Indian books in many branches of knowledge and the sciences. This cultural activity flourished in an unprecedented way during the rule of the caliph Al Mamoun, who established Dar Al Hikma for that purpose. The most important Christians who practiced translation as a major link between the east and the west were people such as Yuhanna Ibn Masawayh, Hunayn Ibn Ishaq, Qusta ibn Luqa and Ishaq Al Dimashqi. They proved that Islamic Arabic civilization could only have soared high in the west with the aid of two wings: one of them Islamic and the other Christian.

After the modern Arabic renaissance, Christian Arab translators again began translating arts and sciences from English and French into Arabic.

Arabs eagerly read these works, and were

influenced by them. Printing houses such as Deir Kozhaya were set up in Lebanon and in Aleppo in Syria in 1706. They also promoted European liberal concepts in their communities, which were suffering from injustice, tyranny, marginalization and backwardness. They did this by reviving Arabic heritage, and drawing attention to the Arabic language and its literature after centuries of deterioration. This was in addition to developing the educational and health sectors by setting up hospitals, schools, and universities to serve the Muslims before the Christians. They started publishing newspapers and magazines such as Al Ahram which was started by the Takla brothers in 1857, Al Hilal established by Jurji Zaydan in 1892, Al Diya started by Ibrahim Al Yaziji, Al Jamiah (The Alliance) by Farah Antun, Hadiqat Al Akhbar by Khalil Al Khoury in 1858, and Al Jinan by Butrous Al Bustani. The Arab press has borne the seeds of secular pan-Arab ideology, modern concepts and values such as justice, equality, separation of power, equity and the rule of law. They made these efforts because they believe that their racial identity as Arabs comes before their religious affiliation as Christians. Their religious partnership with the west allowed them to act as a qualified intermediary between the eastern and western civilizations.

Such environments gave Arab Christians the opportunity to establish associations and political

The map of the Madaba mosaic, Jordan

‘‘

After the modern Arabic renaissance, Christian Arab translators again began translating arts and sciences from English and French into Arabic.

Arabs eagerly read these works, and were influenced by them.

’’

Papers of Dialogue | 39

Cultures

...

Cultures

Gibran Khalil Gibran

Gibran Khalil Gibran was a Lebanese poet and artist. He was born in Bsharri, Lebanon, in 1883, and died in New York in 1931.

His writings are profoundly inspired by Christian spirituality and Sufi mysticism, and by authors such as William Blake, Friedrich Nietzsche and the Syrian writer Francis Marrash. His book The Prophet, published in 1923, was one of the bestselling literary works of the 20th century.

...

parties and to attract other Christians and Muslims to join them. This fueled feelings of nationalism, and mobilized popular action against the Ottoman Turkishisation policy and promote ideas of openness, enlightening, and reform, which they picked up from the Christian west. Examples of such associations were the “Literary Forum”, the “Young Arab Society” (Al Jamiiya Al Arabia Al Fatah), the “Association of the Covenant” (Jamiiyat Al Alahd), and the “Arab Ottoman Brotherhood Association”. These Christian movements qualified them to form half the membership of the first Arab Conference which was held in Paris 1913.

Arab Christians adopted the slogan of a “national identity” as a reference for establishing the institutions of the modern Arab state as a melting pot with inclusiveness, diversity, multi-culturalism, sectarian plurality and multi-ethnicity in the Arab world. Nasif Al Yaziji, Francis Marrash, and Adib Ishaq were among the first who called for this, however, after the end of the Ottoman state, the hopes of Christian Arabs to set up official Arab regimes based on western enlightened ideas and

40 | Papers of Dialogue

doctrines clashed with sectarian and tribal interests.

These stressed singularity and exclusiveness, which were the major features of these regimes in dealing with populations who were eager for freedom and equality. Christians felt frustration, injustice and concern, especially in the wake of growing Islamic fundamentalist trends among Arab communities.

This triggered waves of Christian Arabs immigrations to western countries early in the 20th century which continued until today. Christian Arab writers like Gibran Khalil Gibran, Elia Abu Madi and Mikhail Naima were among the first group of Lebanese immigrants to the United States of America. They amazed the western and Arab worlds with their wonderful poems, novels, and articles. Others took their place in the business community, such as Steve Jobs, a Christian Syrian who was famous for his computer inventions. Some reached the highest levels of the hierarchies of power, like Carlos Menem, who was Lebanese and became president of Argentine. But the flow of Christian emigrants left the Middle East with a significant decline in its Christian population, which threatened negative consequences. The Pope referred to these negative consequences on many occasions and warned against their impact. The Synod of Bishops for the Middle East, in October 2010, expressed concerns over this problem and stressed the need to address the problem. The Muslim Arab world suffered a great loss through this exodus by losing efficient, educated, loyal and reliable individuals who could lead reform, rejuvenation, cross-cultural interaction and dialogue with western civilization. However, the Christians in the diaspora did not confine themselves to their destination countries. They created cultural and communication links with their homelands, helping to shape the current diversified European community.

The western orientalists, Christian missionaries, and the archaeologists helped present the image of oriental civilizations to the west. Their great achievements are considered today an important reference for specialists in the Arab and Islamic affairs, though part of their writings are still subject to criticism by some eastern science and culture specialists. Now many precious monuments, obelisks, archaeological remnants, ancient Arabic manuscripts are on display in European museums and libraries and are visited by tourists and researchers from all over the world. This showed Europeans details of the oriental traditions and its pioneer human role. However, there were feelings of

bitterness and suspicion in the eastern Islamic world towards the intentions of the Christian west after the Crusades between 1096 and 1291. These were followed by more than six centuries of oppressive western colonization which took the resources and wealth of Arab and Muslim countries after the breakdown of the Ottoman state. Western culture then threatened Arab and Islamic identity. Islamic fundamentalists exploited these feelings and criticized western support for what they called the usurper country of Israel. The fundamentalists adopted extreme positions to fight thoughts coming from the west and question the position of Arab Christians, accusing them of advocating secular national state models and promoting European culture. Arab Christians were also said to be subordinate to the western Christians who opposed the spread of Islam and obstructed the establishment of an Arab state based on an Islamic perspective.

It is now necessary for the Arab Mashreq to hold on to the Christians in their Arab homelands and to establish links with Arab Christian communities abroad. This can be crucial for promoting understanding between religions and cultures.

Christian Arabs are faithful to the Arab Islamic civilization, which was the source of their knowledge and schooling. They digested the thoughts of this civilization, which shaped their conscience. Therefore, they are more qualified to play the role of building bridges of cultural tolerance among peoples and states. They are also more capable of promoting new patterns because of their skills and close relationships with the western world. They are also more competent in addressing and convincing western people, and clearing up misunderstandings about Arabs and Islam. This was especially true after the events of September 11, 2001, which led to unfair use of double standards about Arab and Islamic issues. The Arab Mashreq must invest in churches, associations, the media, and the Christian civil society organizations, at home and abroad to present its true position to the west and promote its image as a negotiator which is open to the views of other people and not the image of a fundamentalist insular Arab Mashreq which rejects the ideas of others and accuses them of blasphemy. It is God’s wisdom that peoples have different religions and customs, and if He wished He could have made all human kind to believe in one religion. But He wished this diversification would become a source of richness

and progress, rather than a source of strife and fragmentation.

We are sure that globalization and the huge advances in information and digital technologies will help bridge the gaps and remove barriers between cultures and religions. Today there is a softness in the tone of fundamentalist discourse and positions on eastern and western sides, except for some misguided groups who accuse others of not believing. There is also a positive change in impressions and unquestionable ideas taken for granted. This is in addition to the exodus from the east to the west with a strong wish for openness towards western scientific and cultural advances. Hundreds of thousands of students have been granted scholarships to study in western universities. This make us feel that there is a change in the western approach in dealing with eastern Islamic states, which replaces the expression of hegemony and superiority. It is now the era of promoting international relations based on investments and interests, mutual respect, and cultural, economic, and social openness to the goals of transformation and change in the Arab Mashreq. This can be achieved through popular will, in particular the will of young enlightened leaders who advocate the ideas of liberation and democracy.

The crisis-ridden world of today needs dialogue between civilizations and religions to achieve peace and coexistence and address the common challenges of poverty, disbelief, illness, starvation, illiteracy, suicide, environmental pollution, human trafficking and family disintegration. The west and east need to discuss establishing an international system of ethics and a framework for understanding, human conduct, interrelations between states and cultures, a framework such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which can establish principles on plurality and multi-culturalism.

It could also promote enlightened moderation and the acceptance of differences while guaranteeing rights and freedoms and combating all forms of discrimination and marginalization because of ethnic and ideological backgrounds. The system should be established by a UN affiliated agency that would ensure compliance with its provisions. The agency should also prepare regular international reports. Such initiatives can lead once again to the flourishing of monotheistic religions and human civilizations in the Arab Mashreq.

H.E. Habeeb Mohammed Hadi Ali Al Sadr is the Ambassador of the Republic of Iraq to the Holy See.

Papers of Dialogue | 41

Cultures

Cultures

The Heritage Village, Dubai

Celebrating Dubai’s Heritage Rasha Al Maleh

The Dubai Marine and Heritage Festival proposed different activities as a way to celebrate the Emirate’s unique legacy and to preserve its history. Visitors participated in folkloric shows, tasted popular foods and were reminded of the traditional relationships between Dubai, the sea and pearling.

42 | Papers of Dialogue

D

ubai used its parks, gardens and beaches on April 17, World Heritage Day, to allow everyone to interact with the past of the Emirates in the Dubai Marine and Heritage Festival.

Heritage and folklore Activities included water sports, sailboat racing, diving and pearling trips. There were shows that reflected the artistic heritage and the culture and history of the region. The most important aspects of ancient life in the Emirates was represented by places such as Umm Suqeim, Al Shindagha, Allisala and Hatta.

The festival, which included 23 activities, illustrated the commitment of Dubai Culture and Arts Authority to present heritage and its training workshops in a vivid and interesting manner. Exhibitions and field activities invited visitors to interact with what they saw by joining in handicrafts such as building straw huts (Buyout Al-Arish) from palm fronds, weaving “tallies” to decorate dresses and making rugs from weaved palm straw and basketry.

Visitors began arriving at the Heritage Village in

Umm Suqeim 2 before sunset to spend a few hours getting acquainted with the history and culture of the region. They were able to see folkloric shows, including folk dances, sailors’ lyrics and songs while paddling, pearling lyrics and tasting popular foods and delicious traditional dishes.

Expo 2020 The organisers of the festival applied international tourism standards, to complement the aspiration of Dubai to host Expo 2020. They organised a workshop for tourist guides, using 12 different languages, to train them in how to present information about the Emirati heritage.

Nasser Juma Bin Suleiman, Director of the Diving Village and chairman of the Organising Committee of the festival, said that the attention paid to the role of tourist guides reflected “the commitment of the authority to strive for excellence in making information accessible to all visitors”.

Legacy of Generations A book entitled The Legacy of Generations was published by Humaid Al Tayer for the festival, in cooperation with the Culture Centre of Dubai and Dubai International Marine Club. The book, which in the luxury edition included 20 medium size pages, contained many pictures of the maritime events sponsored by His Highness Sheikh Majid bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, chairman of the board from 2009 to 2013.

The introduction of the book said “if the past is the real legacy of people, whoever who seeks the present must not separate himself from the roots”.

Al Tayer talked in the book about the close relationship between the people of Dubai, the sea, and pearling, which was the first source of livelihood for the people. Dubai in particular, and the UAE in general, were commended for their efforts to preserve the history and legacy of their ancestors that combined heritage and marine sports.

Rasha Al Maleh is a reporter for Al Bayan newspaper in the United Arab Emirates. She is also the author of a short story book entitled Frozen Limbs.

Papers of Dialogue | 43

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