AFIDORA symposium 2006 @ French Parliament: the 2 most visited Arabic websites are "moderate", says Jean-Pierre Filiu
I attended today the 2006 symposium of Middle Eastern geopolitics think-tank AFIDORA, which took place at the French Assemblée Nationale or Parliament (sponsored by Member of Parliament Richard Dell’ Agnola, a connoisseur in international affairs and also a humble person, a rare enough attribute among politician circles to be underligned).
Great stuff, excellent speakers. I had co-founded 4,5 years ago this non-profit organization, left it about 6 months ago, and I’m glad to see the team doing extremely well under the leadership of Steve, Jean-Luc, and newcomers such as Mohammed, Nicolas, Tina, etc.
I was getting more and more used to attending high tech events (Internet, software, telcos, etc.) recently, and I have to say that I enjoyed a lot refreshing my memory and updating my analyses on current world geopolitics.
Apart for marketing the existence of now-pretty-well-known in France AFIDORA, I chose to blog about the event because one of my major conclusions for the day is that the impact of new information and communication technologies (the media, the Internet, etc.) is everyday more significant in Arabic-speaking people’s representation of the Western world.
As a matter of fact, one of today’s lecturers, namely expert of the Arab world Jean-Pierre Filiu and author of Mitterrand and Palestine, reported:
- the importance of Bluetooth mobile technologies for dating purpose (!) in some shopping malls in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Dubai; funny enough to be blogged I guess;
- more relevantly, an Arabic websites worldwide ranking. Number One is IslamOnLine, a website aimed at Arabic and English speakers willing to understand Islam better. Number Two is Al-Jazeera, a 10-year (like Google) start-up in the media industry that has been growing well up to being today a top brand worldwide.
Although these facts wouldn’t necessarily make me change my mind – and become an optimistic, about the future of the Middle East, I have to say that having two rather “moderate” websites (Al-Jazeera, although sometimes broadcasting border-line vehemently anti-West speeches, is the only Arab TV where women commonly appear dressed the European way and where real debates actually happen) coming on top instead of ignominious websites of TVs such as Al-Iqraa (I just had the homepage translated by my Palestinian friend Michal over MSN Messenger, and it’s really really a shame) is good news.
Addendum December 10th 2006: no real sound connection with this post, but since we’re already in the Middle East, have a look at Ouriel’s post over here. Ahmadinejad is a verbal and physical danger that has to be fought in some way.
Related posts:
- Jean-Louis Bénard, founder of Brainsonic, came to teach us computer architecture yesterday
- BMyKey.com: your French real estate hunter
- Minutes of the IE-Club lecture at Microsoft France on European Rising Stars of the Internet
- 2 IDEAS start ups in opaque alarm:clock French Top 10
- Visited the ST Microelectronics (ex-SGS Thomson) manufacture in Crolles
Economics, Education, Entertainment, Entrepreneurship, Europe, Friends, Globalization, Google, Internet, Israel, Organization, Public policy, marketing, media
Thanks for the buzz Jay. And good night, I am sooo tired…
‘night Steve
I am a research assistant at the Centre for Urban and Community Research at Goldsmiths College, University of London – and I am presently working on a project to map initiatives to combat racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia in France. Thus, I have stumbled across a link to AFIDORA but the website appears not to be accessible!? So I googled a bit and found a few of your articles on AFIDORA – and I was hoping that maybe you could help me with a bit of information or maybe you would know when the webiste will be up and running again – because the short piece on AFIDORA at wikipedia is obviously not going to be of any use… I would love to know things such as contact details for AFIDORA, number of members or volunteers, objectives and aims for the think tank, impact and popularity…
Thanks ;o)
Maria
Hello Maria,
Thank you very much for your kind message. I’d be glad to help if I can. I left AFIDORA in September 2006 after 4 years there, 4 years during which I learnt a lot every single day.
I hope AFIDORA is the right organization for you to talk to, as it focuses on analyzing the geopolitics of the Middle East through a factual, not geopolitical, angle. So no real direct connections with xenophobia in France.
To briefly answer your questions:
- Contact details: I forwarded your message to Jean-Luc, Steve and Karim who should write to you shortly.
- number of members or volunteers: I don’t know anymore, but I’d say between 10 and 25 active members + something like 100 ‘friends’ of AFIDORA.
- Objectives and aims: To foster debate using facts and analysis rather than passion and ideology. AFIDORA publishes balanced research articles on the Middle East and organize top-notch events with the very best available speakers.
- Impact and popularity: very honourable brand recognition in Paris.
You’re welcome,
Jeremy
Thank you very much for your swift reply, Jeremy. Seems like a very interesting organization… AFIDORA may be on the border of what I really need for the research project but I think it is a too novel and important group to leave out… besides I am operating with 100s of anti-racist/anti-anti-Semitic/anti-xenophobic groups in France, it is nice with something a bit different ;o) So thanks again…
M