Sowar Magazine 22nd August 2:22 Project

Sowar Magazine launched a project where they had everyone in Lebanon
and the Arab World take a picture at the exact same time on 22 Aug @
2:22pm, the results are frozen in time slices of life, which tell
stories or egocentric versions of reality, where staged photo ops meet
with impromptu clicks, where the moving image collides with the still
life. In terms of archiving and memory, Sowar is able to tell where
you were at that exact time.

Vilks not welcome in Kalmar

The "round-about-dog" artist Lars Vilks stirs controversy again, this time in Kalmar.

Under the headline "Art Censorship", Swedish radio's Culture News programme today, Nov 24th, reports that the board of Kalmar Art Museum has turned down an idea to have a retrospective exhibition of Lars Vilks' art. It was the chief of the Kalmar Art Museum, Mr Klas
Börjesson, who suggested that the museum exhibit works by Lars Vilks from the mid-seventies to 2006. That would mean that the controversial Mohammed pictures would NOT have been included. But the board of the museum turned down the idea by implying that Vilks was not good enough. "No one else has done a retrospective on Vilks", said the chairman of the board dryly to Swedish radio.

Vilks' notoriety has thereby rendered him, and his fans, the possibility to always cry foul and hit people with "the freedom of expression"-argument whenever his works are turned down. Whether his art is any good or not, is today a secondary matter.

/SK

FOJO THE MELTING POT

Fojo has been holding seminars for many years now. A number of journalists from MENA have already taken part in this training course but together with colleagues from Asia, Africa or Latin America. In fact it is the first time Fojo gathers such a  big number of trainees exclusively from the MENA region. Journalists of different races and religions, from Algeria, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, Iraq and Jordan, meeting in a Scandinavian country, camping together for three weeks, exchanging experiences and thoughts. There have been moments of tension, moments of joy and moments of serenity. There have been discussions over themes that tore us apart and themes that brought us closer, even though we all agreed upon the fact that our difference is not a weakness, it is a richness. Thank you Fojo, you have been a real melting pot.
                                                                                                                                           ouarda lebnane

Iran joins Syria in Internet-paranoia

Friends,

Just as we are about to conclude our course in Journalism and Democracy, another step to limit Freedom of Expression and Thought is taken in the Middle East. 

"TEHRAN, Nov 19, 2008 (AFP) - Iran has blocked access to more than five million Internet sites, whose content is mostly perceived as immoral and anti-social, a judiciary official was quoted as saying on Wednesday. 'The enemies seek to assault our religious identity by exploiting the Internet,' Abdolsamad Khoram Abadi, an advisor to Iran's prosecutor general, was quoted by Kargozaran newspaper as saying."

Perhaps there is a little consolation in the fact that the Iranian leaders' move tells us more about their own fears than about the "dangers" of the Internet. The power of the people is indirectly sighted as the reason for the shutdown, although under the name of "cyber imperialism":

"In its latest edition, Sobh-e Sadegh, the publication of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, said, 'The Internet, satellite (channels) and text messages played an important role in colour revolutions in Serbia, Ukraine and Georgia.' The weekly said Internet search engines Yahoo and Google, BBC and CNN televisions and even international news agencies including 'Reuters, Associated Press, UPI, AFP and DPA' operated as 'tools of diplomacy conducted through media.' "

http://www.arabtimesonline.com/client/pagesdetails.asp?nid=25034&ccid=18

/Saam

Every step is a victory - Lao Tse

Image: Hokusai's Great Wave Off Kanagawa

And here we are, the first journalists from the MENA region, closing in on our last days of our Journalism and Democracy course tailor made for our countries and offered by Fojo. This blog is ours, for us to upkeep and keep alive. Hopefully it will serve as a harbor of safety from the raging waves of those wishing to combat our thoughts, our attitudes, our freedom of thinking.

But we know that whereas this is the end of the course, we also know that this is the beginning of something else - something greater and more enduring. We are full of hope, but of realism as well. And yet, and yet... Like Lao Tse said "every step is a victory." Yes, every little move we do will bring us closer. Sometimes we leap, sometimes we just trod very, very slowly. But in all cases, we must never standstill. So let us forge ahead and create a Mena el Aman for us and our fellow journalists from the region.