Mr. Internet, Tear Down That Wall!

The Aspen Institute held an event in Washington today entitled, "Digital Statecraft: Media, Broadcasting and the Internet as Instruments of Public Diplomacy in the Middle East." Elie Khoury, Chairman and CEO, Quantum Communications, a leading advertising and communications firm in the broader Middle East; and Chairman and CEO, M&C Saatchi, Middle East & North Africa made the trip from Beirut to discuss modern public diplomacy.

He led with a comparison of the Berlin Wall - a symbol of East-West divide for so many years - to today's East-West relations, though today's "East" is the Islamic world. On September 11, 2001, a wall of separation was erected that senselessly divides our species.

When talking about public diplomacy, we have to ask, are there enough tools to make it successful? Do these tools work with Islam? Do we have to wait another half century to see successful results? Does television reach enough people? Radio? The internet? Can Western media play a public diplomacy role?

Mr. Khoury said, "All can reach one, one can reach all."

Even with censorship, quality and pertinent information will eventually get to people thanks to new media. There are 65 million internet users in the MENA region despite the fact that only 1% of online content is in Arabic.

Khoury added that of all websites that are run in the Middle East, only 20% of them are related to Islam, contrary to what the West might think. He lamented that a few psychopaths (my word, not his) have hijacked Islam and use the Quran as a substitute for the Communist Manifesto. See, we all dream the "American dream," no matter what our nationality. You have to remember Americans come from everywhere else. Aside from a tiny minority, most human beings want control over their own destinies, a safe place to raise a family, and the freedom to pursue whatever makes them happy. But there is an imbalance in the world, between haves and have nots, and once when Adam Smith was the promise of having, then followed Marx, Lenin, and Nasr. Arab socialism failed the Arabs, and some have turned to radical Islam.

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

New media, social media, whatever you would like to call it, gives us this amazing, amazing opportunity to skip government run public diplomacy and have direct interaction with each other. Isn't it time we start talking TO each other rather than passively-aggressively complaining about each other?

Event Roundup

Safadi Foundation USA and Project on Middle East Democracy held an event entitled "The Role of New Media in Promoting Reform in the Middle East: The Case of Lebanon" last Friday. You can read about the event on POMED's blog here.

POMED-Safadi Foundation USA Event

You're Invited: New Media and Reform in the Middle East: The Case of Lebanon

Safadi Foundation USA and the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) present:

New Media and Reform in the Middle East: The Case of Lebanon

The year 2009 witnessed an explosion of Internet-based activism in the political cultures of the Middle East. From the so-called Iranian "Twitter Revolution," which helped Green Movement activists mobilize and organize their protests on the streets of Tehran, to the recent imprisonment of prominent bloggers in Egypt and other countries, the Internet has finally become a force to be reckoned with in Arab politics.

The use of information and communication technology (ICT) in the Middle East has been a transformative tool in strengthening civil society and expanding the outreach of independent voices. In her remarks concerning Internet freedom last month, Secretary Clinton noted the power of the Internet and new technologies in helping to bridge divides between people of different faiths and help expand dialogue.

What types of U.S. assistance are needed to empower young reformers committed to non-sectarian politics? What is the role of ICT in promoting inter-faith dialogue and peace building? Can ICT help organize young voters in advance of the upcoming municipal elections? What is the direction of new media training in Lebanon?

Please join us for a discussion with:

Jared Cohen, Policy Planning Staff, U.S. Department of State

Elias Muhanna, Blogger, QifaNabki.com

Moderated by: Mona Yacoubian, Director, Lebanon Working Group, United States Institute of Peace (USIP)

Friday, March 5, 2010
11:00 AM
Rayburn House Office Building
Room 2255

Please RSVP here or by email to: rsvp@pomed.org

Safadi Foundation USA is a non-partisan registered 501 (c) (3) public charitable tax-exempt organization dedicated to promoting a national and strategic framework for Lebanon's development.

CONTACT: Lara Alameh of Safadi Foundation USA, +202-349-0890, lalameh@safadifoundationusa.org

Internet Freedom

Secretary Clinton's internet freedom speech she gave this morning in DC.

Does the media ignore civil society or is it the other way around?

The Daily Star posted an article yesterday about how NGOs are asking journalists why the media ignores their work. The French-based Medecins du monde held a roundtable discussion on this exact topic. Many reasons were given, including:

• Western NGOs are seen as complicit in their governments' pro-Israel stance
• Challenges resulting from having to protect humanitarian workers' safety
• Information overload

There are additional reasons for the lack of NGO coverage in the media that have nothing to do with the West. The fact is, much of Lebanese civil society sprung up in the nineties in the post-Taif environment when Lebanon was trying to get back on its feet. Two decades have not yet passed for many NGOs, and two decades is not enough time to institutionalize anything, especially when another conflict breaks out in the meantime. With so many new organizations in the country, many of them simply haven't built the capacity for public relations.

NGOs might be ignoring media, rather than the other way around. Because they have not been around that long, many don't understand how to develop media relations or the importance of publicizing their work through the press. Often, the NGOs themselves are politicized, which can hurt their ability to get mainstream media coverage and narrows the range of their coverage to those news sources that are inline with their own view, even if the NGO is doing work that helps more than just one confessional group.

Good media relations are imperative to the success of an NGO's mission. Not only does it serve to raise awareness about an organization's activities, but it can help connect donors with fundraisers and connect experts to the organizations that need them.

NGOs can look beyond traditional media, too. Blogs and social networking sites are effective ways to spread awareness about an organization and its activities. However, they do not replace traditional media. Newspapers, whether in physical or virtual form, are the most widely read news sources, and television news enters far more homes than any blog or Facebook site do.

So what do you think? Does the media ignore civil society, or is it the other way around?

I suspect it's a little bit of both.

Lebanese blogs added to blogroll

Developing Lebanon realizes the important role that new media plays in civil society, and blogging is just one tool used to communicate information. Not only are we working on a comprehensive link list of all civil society organizations that operate in Lebanon, but we are creating a blogroll of all Lebanese blogs to publicize the independent voices of Lebanon. If you are in Lebanon or have a Lebanon-oriented blog that you would like to add to the list (in any language), please email us your link. Our blogroll, which is located below our civil society list, shows the most updated blogs at the top of the list and includes a link to the latest post.

We would love if you would add us to your blogroll, too.

Setting up.

This site under construction. Until it's ready, enjoy this video on digital activism.