Archive for Jordan
Syria and Lebanon go open source
A good news for the open source scene. Two great events are running -or going to run- this month in the Arab region. The first one it’s called the iFoss09 and it’s currently going on in Damascus, Syria at the SCS Center, Tishreen Park in Omaween Square. The programme is rich in events and as far as I know this is the first time that such topics are debated for the entire week and in such an institutional place. There is a growing interest in Syria for the open source related topics and a very active community made up of very young people that have a great enthusiasm over those issues. Ziad Maraqa, Creative Commons’ lead in Jordan, talked yesterday about the latest developments of CC in the Arab region, mentioning also the recent launch of the Al Jazeera Creative Commons repository which is generating lots of interesting debates all across the web. Watch out the Computer Science in Syria’s website http://www.csc-sy.net for future developments of this very interesting syrian techy community.
As for neighbouring Lebanon, Beirut is going to host Open Sesame, the first ever Arab barcamp on feb. 28th (the place is still in discussion but most probably will the very cool Rootspace of Dave Munir Nabti). Lots of interesting topics have been proposed like the “arabization of the web”, which is a core issue to be debated in the Arab world. The critical mass of Arabic content on the web is still very underdeveloped if you think about the great potential reach of the Arabic language (spoken by more than 300 millions people) and of a population which is made up mostly by youngsters. This young energy has to be “exploited” by the Arab people and it has to be turned in content creation and innovation over the Internet.
The Arab region has been -and, unfortunately, it is still- covered mostly in terms of conflicts, wars, violence, while there is much more going on. We have to encourage and support such events and all the energy coming out from them if we really want to change the Arab world and its bad -and wrong- image in front of the rest of the world.
Please, do join the organisation of the Open Sesame Barcamp, do propose topics and do come to Beirut on the 28th of feb. It will be a lot of fun and a lot of interesting issues will be debated by a young and vibrant Arab community.
Some side effects of the Gaza crisis
Jordan Prime Minister Nader Dahabi has formally apologized with Al Jazeera‘s Amman bureau chief Yasser Abu Helalah who was beated by the police, together with other Jordanian staff member of the channel, during a massive demonstration pro-Gaza on friday. Many Jordanians are Palestianians or of Palestinian origin and we can immagine to what extent the Gaza attacks are effecting them. Yesterday there were massive demonstrations all across the countries -one of them, in Amman, being organised by the Muslim Brotherhood is reported to have hosted more than 100.000 people- protesting against Israel and calling upon the abrogation of the 1994 peace treaty between Jordan and Israel.
With the hostilities continuing in Gaza and the anger of the “Arab streets” growing, this would reflect also on Arab governments that are reputed -now more than ever- to be guilty for what’s happening by the Arab public opinions, fostered by Arab TV channels or leaders like Nasrallah that is claiming Arab governments’ responsibility in this crisis.
Many Arabs are demostrating those days across the Arab world. They are expressing an anger that has always been there -an anger which is aimed at their own goverments as much as it is aimed at Israel-.
With the escalation of violence in Gaza, and if the Arab governments are perceived not to do anything for the Gaza people, the situation risks to become explosive fro many other Arab countries. The risk of destabilising all the Arab region is there.
Hasan Nasrallah said, in one of his last speeches, that the only “positive thing that we are witnessing in the Arab world during those days is that the Arab people are alive, are demostrating all across the Arab world, and they are putting pressure on their governments”.
Nasrallah reminded the Arabs, during the Ashura, that Chavez has expelled the Israeli ambassador proving himself to be more Palestinian that all the Arab governments.
First time for an Arab musalsal to win an Emmy International
Times are changing and the Arab media is starting to be considered a mature media system, if it is able to gain the prestigious Emmy International Award.
“Al Ijtiyah” (The invasion) is the first ever Arab musalsal (soap opera) to win such a famous and international prize, beating the very well known telenovelas as the Brasilian ” Paradise of the tropical forest ” which was in the final shortlist. “Al Ijtiyah” is the perfect example of a Panarab production: many actors come from Syria, the production company is from Jordan and the director Shawqi Al Majiri from Tunisia. As for the story, it is focused on Palestine: an impossibile love affair between a Palestinian man and an Israeli woman, the set being real events happened in the Middle East in the past years, like the Israeli raid and violent massacre of the Palestinian population of Jenin in 2002.
Placing the love story in a real setting and tackling political and social issues -the so called “hot potato”- is something that Arab musalsalat have been doing since the beginning of this TV genre, created in the early 60s thanks to former Egyptian president Gamal Nasser. But in the past years the popularity of the Egyptian TV drama is decreasing, being it very much “star-centered” and tailored on big actors/actresses without paying too much attention to other important details, like the scriptwriting of the story, the rest of the cast, the quality of the production, etc.
Now other minor industries are challenging the monopoly of Egypt in this genre: first of all, Syria which in the past years has produced lot of high-quality drama (like the work of Najdat I. Anzour). Now also Jordan and Palestine are doing their best to compete, and apparently with a lot of success.
Arab Telemedia, the production company who’s behind the Emmy awarded musalsal, is not new to quality drama production, and also not new to polemics. Few years ago they produced “Tariq ila Kabul” (The road to Kabul), a very high quality musalsal dealing with the history of Afghanistan, from the USSR to the American occupation, passing by the Taleban and Bin Laden. The soap was prevented from broadcasting when it was already on air on Panarab channel MBC.
“Al Ijtiyah” had similar problems: nobody among the Arab channels would have bought it for the very sensitive topic it was tackling, except from Lebanese station LBC which aired it in Ramadan 2007.
We all hope that, after getting this important international prize, the musalsal will be aired as all the other high quality musalsalat that have been produced in the past years in the Arab region and prevented from broadcasting.
Ammon news, a great grassroots experience in Jordan
I came to know this very interesting webnews project in Jordan called Ammonnews (the ancient name of Jordan’s beautiful capital Amman). One of the two guys who’s behind it is named Sameer Al Hayari, a very cool Jordanian in his forties who had this brilliant idea two years ago with his colleague Bassel Okoor. They both had a journalistic background, but they felt they would have need something more. A media which would have enjoyed less constraints, both in terms of freedom of expression and also in terms of distributing the news. And to publish “live” news, of course. It was 2006, in Jordan there was no such thing as a news webportal grassroots based.
I just met Sameer, he was sitting in Donner Cafe, the place in Amman where they usually meet up to write down stuff for the website. It’s like an office, an open office, where everybody gathers every evening to write down articles, smoke narghila and drink tea together. It’s like an open space, wireless of course, people keep coming and going, some of them sit at the table and write down pieces of news, some others drink tea and discuss about politics. Other people just come to bring fresh news, about what’s happening in town. Or they come to speak with Sameer. His phone is ringing like crazy while the websites is updated live. A modern, cool, networked newsroom!
Contributions come from the web and mobiles, from citizens that want to debate local issues, and from professional journalists that enjoy giving Ammonnews their articles for free. Why? Because the website has become the “place to be”.
“When we started we were just the two of us”, says Sameer while smoking narghila the oriental way. “We wanted to create something new, something fresh, and we just did it, without any funding, just with our pocket money and our passion. Our model was Detnews.com, so we asked the webmaster to design a website on the similar scheme. Then we asked our network of journalists’ friends to send us contributions, and little by little the site started to be well known. After one year of life, the former goverment shut down the website because of its free spirit in talking about politics. This provocked a huge phenomena, never seen before: people were just protesting cause the website has become so popular that the people wanted it to stay. So the government was pushed to re-open it”.
“After this, the website boomed and the number of contributors and readers increased very quickly. So we started to take advertising, mostly coming from local companies, and this has become our business model. Now we have ten people working for us, and we are doing very well. We will open an english service soon, inshallah!”.
Well, if you google them in Arabic, you will see that they has become a source for other news organisation, like Radio Sawa (the American radio station in Arabic) among the others. And all the people in Jordan take it as a reference for being informed about what’s happening in the country, also the government people are calling them to react to articles and debate about what they have published. It’s a virtuous circle between readers and news makers, professionals and amateurs, government and citizens.
I think Ammonnews is a great example of how a grassroot experiment can be born, become well known and find also a sustanaibility and a business model. And, again, it’s another good example of how Jordan is quickly moving forward to innovation and creativity. A place to watch out for future trends in the Arab region.
Ana wa Sameer in Donner Cafe, Amman
Ammonnews “office” in Donner Cafe, Amman
Jordan’s new exciting filmaking scene
I am currently out in Amman, Jordan and I am discovering an exciting forming filmaking industry. Jordan does not have a strong background in filmaking and movie industry (it has produced only a very few number of feature films), neither it is an oil rich country like the Gulf which is compensating the lack of tradition in the audiovisual industry with a good injection of money to create a new one.Indeed, it has a very promising future in the field of creativity in media.
A Jordanian animation company, called Media Plus, has just won the Silver Award at the Cairo Arab Media Festival with its cartoon series“Nahfat Ailetna” which tells a lot about Jordanian society in a very nice and entertaining way. But this is not the only good news for the country. Institutions like the Royal Film Commission are doing a great job to raise up a new generation of filmakers by providing training in the audiovisual field and by renting the film equipment to who wants to practise filmaking. The team of the RFC is all made up by young people, plenty of talent and energy.
Like Sarah, the lebanese young lady who teaches camera and filmaking. I attended her class today and have to say that I have rarely seen such an energy and a talent in teaching technical stuff. She was also enriching her lessons by quoting all sorts of films, from the “Russian Ark” by Russian director Sokurov to “L’Avventura” by Antonioni: films that I have rarely heard quoted in a similar course in Europe. I would really love to introduce people like Sarah to the ones in Europe who say -too often- that we should “train” the young ones in the Arab world, teach them how to use the digital technologies, etc etc. During the last Euromed meeting I attented in Cairo few days ago this attitude was sometime out once again, and I think it’s very bad that the people in Europe still have their eyes closed on what’s happening in the Arab world. Young people in the Arab world are gifted, talented and plenty of energy and creativity like Sarah, plus they know very well how to use digital media.
The group in the RFC is exactly proving this. They are active, plenty of talent, and they are trying to build up an industry and a new generation of filmakers in a very passionate way.
They also have a very cool movie library that they are trying to build up and a very cosy screening room where people will be able to seat and watch European movies as well as Arab, Asian, American, etc. This gorgeous screening room has been designed by two young architects, Jordanian of course. Keep an eye on this new generation of Jordanian people that will be booming with such a passion!
Joi Ito’s lecture on Creative Commons in Talal Abu Ghazaleh Business Forum
Joi Ito’s lecture has just finished couple of hours ago here in Talal Abu Ghazaleh Business Forum, Amman, Jordan. Joi’s speech was as usual full of insights, very much focused on innovation as the primary engine for economy and business to move forward. And Creative Commons was described as “an open source for content”, the tool which could speed up the innovation by allowing people to share ideas legally and safely in order to progress -culturally, scientifically, economically and humanly speaking- thru sharing.
(Joi speaking in Amman, the King of Jordan’s pic behind him)
This is a concept which would be key to develop in the Arab world, too. Some people in this Region do think that since copyright is not such a big constraint as it is in the US or EU Creative Commons may not be needed as a tool. Many people raised their hands to ask this question today in Amman. As Joi explained very clearly and wisely, since the world becomes more globalised and more connected, also the legal framework come to be similar. Btw, this is also happening in the Gulf, where many countries have absorbed the WTO rules on intellectual property. And since all the audiovisual media in the Arab world are originated in the Gulf, this is very much likely to reach the Maghreb and Mashreq very soon.
(Audience in the Talal Abu Ghazaleh Business Forum)
Jordan will be the first Arab country to have a CC license 3.0 ported hopefully in the very next months.
As Ziad Maraqa, one of the CC leads in Jordan, has underlined today, they had to face lots of big issues when translating the licences into Arabic and adapting to Jordanian copyright law. One of the most discussed change today was the translation of the word Creative Commons itself into Arabic, which many bloggers don’t see appropriate (see the discussion in the public forum). But, as Joi Ito underlined, the translation of the name Creative Commons is the most controversial issue in every jurisdiction according to the final users of the license:) Many other key topics as the use of the licenses in audiovisual media or in education have been discussed.
From left to right, Shadi Murtada from Abu Ghazaleh Company, Joi Ito, Ziad Maraqa CC Jordan lead.
The discussion with the audience was very lively and showed a great deal of interest. A good start for CC in the Arab region. Mabrouk!
Creative Commons conference to be held tomorrow in Amman
I am currently in Amman, Jordan to join the Creative Commons conference organised with Abu Ghazaleh company. Joi Ito, the Ceo -a very cool Ceo:)- is going to lecture here, followed by Ziad Maraqa, the CC lead in Jordan together with Rami Olwan. This is a great step for CC in the Arab world and Jordan is the first Arab country to have translated CC licenses which are now under public discussion. Lots of Jordanian bloggers have already blogged on this. I hope to see many people coming from different backgrounds, inshallah. For those of you who are in Jordan pls come to have a look!
Public discussion on Creative Commons just started in Jordan
The public discussion of the first Arabic Creative Commons (CC) 3.0 license draft started yesterday. Jordan will be the first Arab country to discuss version 3.0 which is a major step in the diffusion of the CC philosophy across all the Arab world. Creative Commons is an international non profit organization founded in 2001 by Larry Lessig professor of Law in Stanford and author of many important books about the sharing of creativity on the Internet. CC provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry.
It’s a major shift from the copyright “All Rights Reserved” philosophy to the more flexible “Some Rights Reserved”. This shift is not simply concerning the juridical sphere of legal rights. It goes towards the empowerment of users and creators, educators and artists, individuals and communities of individuals that want to share and learn one from each other in a legal way.
The copyright as a method to protect information goods (video, books, music, etc) was born in a “analogue environment” marked by scarcity of production and difficulty in the distribution process. These material obstacles have been clearly removed in the “digital environment” which is on the contrary marked by the abundance of information goods and by a very easy process both in production and in distribution. But the legal obstacle of “all rights reserved” remains within this changed framework preventing many new subjects to use this huge amounts of information goods to learn, create by themselves and share with the others.
In this perspective, the battle for knowledge sharing is key in the Arab world as it is in Europe and in the US.
Copyright might seem not a big issue in the Arab world, where piracy is widespread and openly tolerated (and many more urgent problems have still to be solved). But, indeed, Arab media is booming thanks to Gulf investments and cash: the Gulf itself is setting the trends and standards for the future of the media all across the Arab region.
Having a closer look to what is currently happening in that part of the Arab world, we will see that restrictions and persecutions on piracy issues have started, both in Saudi Arabia and in the UAE.
Copyright law is going to be enforced also in the Gulf, and this trend will go soon towards the Arab Mediterranean region.
So it is very key to start a debate on those issues right now. This is not a “technical” discussion happening among lawyers or geeks communities. It is very key for all the communities of individuals, particularly those who believe that the future of humankind lies in the sharing of knowledge and experiences. And the sharing of knowledge and creative works is the only antidote that we have against the alleged “clash of civilization”.
Mabrouk to Ziad Maraqa of Agip organisation, CC Jordan lead, and to all the others in the Arab team, for this first great achievement. Everybody in the Arab world is invited to join the discussion and to contribute to the debate at:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-jo/
