Haitham Sabbah in the Media; Blogging in the Arab World

The full interview:


[Q1. It’s a reality that Arab dissent is growing through blogs, the easiest and cheapest way to collect thoughts and people, and to avoid for a while regimes’ censorship. Tunisia seemed to me a sort of country of birth, but the river of information/communication through blogs was really spreading specially starting this year, between February and March, when Arab bloggers were observing with a lot of attention all the political activities allover the region. Not only the so called Cedar revolution in Lebanon, but were spreading information (pictures, also) about dissent in Cairo (Kefaya et alia), with a growing attention to referendum and police violence, electoral campaign in August and presidential elections; talking about Syria, Kuwait, Bahrain dissent; disseminating the net with artistic samizdat. Can you explain this phenomenon from your point of view?
A1. The phenomenon is a natural inclination of maturity that wanted to make a clear position of the humble citizens of Middle Eastern, by taking the responsibility to represent the truth as they live it and see it, not as the west received it from what the majority of the Arabian bloggers, a biased anti-Arab, anti-Islam media.

Of course, presenting the truth as they live it and see it is not necessary counted as pro local governments and regimes, and not necessary against them, but in most cases resulted that blogger try to achieve the following:

1. Have a new window to represent the Arab countries, from within its people.
2. Anonymous (as most of them think they are) blogger, where no one can question him or hold him accountable for what he claim against, or for the country he represent. In other words, this created an attraction for the blogger to be free to reveal as much of their identity as they choose, unlike the public media
3. Correcting, and in some cases introducing the point of view that you never see on western media
4. Open new channels of discussion with formal and non formal identities inside ones country as well as outside
5. Get attention and support from international media as well as NGO’s for cases that one day were impossible to cross the borders of the room or the country they toke place
6. Mobs organization and unofficial groups’ space for declarations that are not permitted by the local governments and societies they live in. An example of that could be gays, or religious extremist, both of which are rejected widely within the Arab society
7. The unlimited topics and means of presentation that defeats the old Arab media style, which unfortunately is not showing any tendency of developing towards representing the pulse of the citizens rather than the rules by which they have to live within as dictated by their governments
8. The commercial and out-of-culture entertainment media, which in all cases was and still is a copy of imported foreign values that do not represent the Arab culture in general, and the refusal to accept that as the face value of the moderate citizens, hence the Arab bloggers
9. The emergence of few organizations who have sprung up to protect and to fight for the human rights in these countries, encouraged to have an extension of activities through bloggers who in all too many countries, face clampdowns on their freedom of expression
10. Another attraction of blogs in Arab world is the feedback, with readers of blog entries able to post their comments directly to blogs, thus hearing the hidden local news as well the opposite point of view that will never have space or means to appear to the public
11. War blogs and bloggers as a tool. This is conceived by some Arab bloggers, specially the depressed ones who feel that they have no chance to fight the war against their enemy (whoever and whatever that enemy is) face to face, due to the external and internal boundaries that govern his society
12. At the same time the online technology for setting up blogs has become increasingly user friendly, and is free

Q2. Arab blogs are not only political. Which kind of social and cultural reality do they represent, or at least show to us? Are they a sort of would-be butterfly constraint inside her “prison” but quite ready to fly, or it’s a short-term net-phenomenon?
A2. Arab blogs are like all other blogs. Yes the age of Arab blogs is small when compared to the USA blogs for example, but we have to keep in mind the fact that the majority of The Arab blogger community is overwhelmingly youthful, with many of them being students or aged 20-40. Youth is one of the striking characteristics of bloggers in the Arab world. Whereas in the USA for example many bloggers are long-established journalists, commentators and political troublemakers, such personalities in the Arab world do not yet generally have blogs.

Maybe this is partly because younger people have fewer inhibitions about mixing their writing about politics with contributions on more personal matters. It seems as if there are more English than Arabic-language blogs, and in the Maghreb there are of course many French blogs.

Therefore, what they represent is what modern reality of their social and cultural life is. I don’t agree to describe them as being in prison and ready to fly, no, they are what they are. However, unfortunately this is not what the West perceives about the Middle East. Being it a matter of heritage or a result of biased media, westerns still think that Arabs means camels, tents and 1001 nights.
Q3. I saw a debate in the Arab blogosphere on the language. What’s the inner meaning of this debate. Is Arabic used also as a sort of ideological mean? English and French are only seen as a colonialistic heritage or represent something else? What do you think, finally, about the typical mix normally used by younger and educated Arab generations?
A3. I don’t believe that is true. Yes, most if not all the early Arab bloggers had no choice when they started but to use the English as their blog language. But as I said, there was no choice. Arabic blog engines and tools were not available then. But I also don’t blame them, the Arabic bloggers in considering this as a colonialistic heritage, specially that famous blog tools such as blogger.com does not by default support writing in Arabic, even they don’t list Palestine Territories in the list of countries as when one register for a new blog!

On the other hand, I believe English blogs of Arabic bloggers has different objective than those written in Arabic, and that is the reach to the west in most, and the first language of some for those who live outside the Arab world.
For decades, there were no open channels between the East and the West. Blogs was and still is a great opportunity for Arab with bilingual skills to reach other around the world. To start a process of “learning to unlearn” on the non-Arab mass, so that the old believes and values perceived about Arabs, their culture and society are corrected and/or updated, and to represent an alternative point of view than that presented by local and foreign official views. It is very essential mind opener tool.

At the same time, Arabic blogs are also essential tool for open discussion between Arabs. A tool that never existed before to share ideas, to form a position, and to organize a move. Arabs in general never got the chance to live a democratic life locally or regionally. Hence, I believe that Arabic blogs will also help transfer of knowledge and strategies directly and indirectly will help in the long run to empower the Mobs. The recent Egyptian elections, and the reaction of Arab blogger (Arabic and English) from Egypt and outside, is a good example although it might have not made a big difference on the Elections process, but I think will be more powerful next elections, not only in Egypt, but in all Arab countries.
Q4. If we speak about the age of civil and political bloggers, many of you are very young. Do you agree that the bloggers are the sons of Al Jazeera revolution? At least from 2000 Al Aqsa intifada, they are digesting information not through anachronistic national State television channels. Do you think that Al Jazeera and her tv sisters were the necessary food for these blogs to grow and spread? Do you think that this is their way to show that they are ready to use not-conformistic information through the communication channels they have? In a word, through Blogs? Is there anything Al Jazeera and her tv sisters taught to bloggers in the way they do also information?
A4. In fact I think the contrary is true. Al Jazeera has learned from Arab Bloggers and followsuited by opening their English website, which is a great success by the way to the Arabic media. In fact I guess this success encouraged them to take the decision to open the English TV channel of Al Jazeera, which should be live early next year as they claim.

On the other hand, and as was mentioned before, most of the bloggers are very young. And to tell you the truth, Al Jazeera is not so much famous TV channel between this generations. However, that maybe does not apply to the political bloggers, which are not by the way that young. But, did Al Jazeera revolution have an effect on Arab bloggers? Yes it had, and probably will continue to do, specially that most if not all Arabs see it as the first open-debate channel that touch on taboos, similar to what Arab bloggers do touch on.

Having said all that, sometimes one has the impression the young Arab bloggers cannot believe the attitude of the older generation and especially figures of authority locally and internationally. And these are often challenged on Al Jazeera, but do not represent the Arab bloggers views, which mean that it does not represent the mass educated and ignored young generation. In fact, I believe that young generation has no presentation in the Arab media “revolution”, except few, very few Arabic newspapers articles here and there, on the other hand, much more attention from the western media, and this interview is an example :-)
Period.
They were only four question, I answered in four pages :-)

Anyway, please feel free to answer above questions and add correct me if I’m wrong…

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