POMED Conference

Day 283

I stumbled upon a press release for an intriguing conference in March that was taking place in Amman at the end of May. It seemed right up my ally as far as my Fulbright research project (more on this further down) and I knew it had the potential to be a really interesting and worthwhile experience. I was not disappointed in the least.

Co-hosted by Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) and Americans for Informed Democracy (AID), the three-day conference was billed as "We are Connected, But are we Communicating?: American Foreign Policy and Jordanian Society, A Dialogue." That left a lot of room for interpretation, and left me skeptical that this may turn out to be another high-minded and well-intentioned conference that produced a lot of generalizations and not much else. I decided to risk it, and what played out really surprised me in its depth and breadth. The conference, part of POMED's three-part series after unique iterations in Morocco and Cairo (full description here), brought together 50 young Jordanians and Americans to hear panelists, discuss issues, and ratify policy recommendations to be presented by one elected Jordanian and American participant to various NGOs and the appropriate respective government officials. Panels consisted of:

- U.S. Department of State Cultural and Educational Exchange Programs
- Youth Cyber Activism: Tool of American-Jordanian Communication
- American Foreign Policy in Iraq: Effects on Jordanian Politics and Society
- American Foreign Aid Programs for Political Reform/Democracy Building

The second panel had obvious draws for me, personally, regarding my research. To my delight, the panelists included Marc Lynch, GWU professor of political science and international affairs, renowned scholar and author on digital Arab news media (insightful articles available at Arab Media & Society), and popular blogger at Abu Aardvark. It also featured Line Ejeilat, columnist for JO magazine, co-founder and contributor to the unique 'citizen journalism' project 7iber, and prominent Jordanian issue-blogger. Lina later presented a workshop on citizen journalism in general, and both the panel and workshop generated a lot of discussion and debate around the viability of new media, internet press freedoms in Jordan, and concepts like 'bridge-blogging' and web 2.0.

In a greater sense though, the conference en toto really impressed me. Like Tunis, participants were extremely bright, well-spoken, and highly-analytical. So much so that the debate surrounding the final group policy recommendations was simultaneously exhausting and highly rewarding. The other Americans included fellow Fulbrighters (from Jordan and beyond), and an assortment of interesting folk who either found themselves in the region for academic or professional purposes or traveled from the States to expand upon their regional studies or international relations work at American graduate degree programs. The Jordanians were equally impressive; a collection of students and young professionals that really invested themselves in the weekend's program and in presenting the crucial Jordanian POV counterweight to even the most culturally-immersed Americans.

Our linguistic barriers were steadily broken down through official translators and a genuine effort from both sides to meet each other half-way in communicating (although, in general the Jordanians' English was far better than our Arabic--where it existed--so the real kudos goes to them for sure).

With an eye to practicality (aided especially by the insights of a U.S. House of Representatives junior staffer), our policy recommendations were mostly specific, timely, and thought-provoking. I don't agree with all of them--some kind of impractical ones still made the democratic cut. And we were all, however, appropriately skeptical about their chance of actually being implemented through lobbying in either country. But in a larger sense, in light of the fact that the conference could generate so much and so deep of discussion around them and the more general themes, the fate of the recommendations themselves seems like a small footnote in the success of the conference as a whole. We also pursued various strategies to remain connected, and communicating, despite geographic and cultural distance. If the conference demonstrated anything, its that even in an era of overblown cultural and religious differences and discourse on a 'clash of civilizations,' there remains an incredible amount of shared ideational ground between young Americans and young Jordanians.

For my own part, I'm taking some of the lessons of the conference to heart in applying to volunteer at American University this fall with Soliya, a non-profit that provides training and technology to facilitate video-teleconferencing sessions between American and Jordanian university students around an assortment of themes relevant to the "Arab world-West relationship," and all the baggage that phrase may imply today. The idea is to keep the dialog started at conferences like the POMED Amman weekend going, to build bridges and tear down walls and hopefully create a space where genuine discussion can take place outside of greater political, cultural, and media-inspired misunderstanding. It's a bit lofty, I will admit, but if the POMED conference taught me anything, it's that lofty ideas, embodied by passionate and open-minded youth, can have real longevity and practicality beneath and beyond their rhetorical or conceptual beauty.

So here's to high hopes and all the leg-work necessary...

Night(s) in Tunisia

Day 283



One undisclosed perk (among others) of a Fulbright scholarship to the Middle East is the opportunity to meet your fellow regional Fulbright fellows in a pan-Middle East/North Africa research conference. Well, two conferences actually. U.S. Department of State and IIE divides the MENA folk in half, dispatching a group to Tunis and a group to Amman. Fortunately, the Jordanian Fulbrighters all had the chance to travel to Tunisia (which I will call "little Europe" compared to Jordan), and likewise with the Tunis folk to Jordan.


It was a particularly good opportunity for me to socialize among, learn from, and network with the other regional Fulbright groups, seeing as I missed the pre-grant orientation session in DC for a summer immersion program in Irbid. The three-day conference hosted speakers and divided us up into presentation panels by research topic, enabling an exposition and (occassionally heated) discussion of our projects. Some travel time was built in as well, so outside of the quaint beachside Sidi Bou Said host town and nearby capital Tunis, many of us traveled North and South to take in as much of the Tunisian experience as possible. Not to mention our opportunity to wine and dine with the US Ambassador to Tunis at a reception at his private residence.


I am reluctant to go into heavy detail about the conference (mostly because it was so long ago, whoops), but here are some take-away thoughts:

-The people your US tax dollars have sent over here are brilliant and intellectually/culturally diverse.
-The range of projects wowed me: even in only half the MENA Fulbright pool gathered in Tunis, we had everything from a materials science masters student making construction-quality concrete from reused Moroccan mine waste ('slag') to a contemporary theater writer/director/researcher in Damascus.
-Friendships made over weekend conferences have an amazing ability to endure beyond their contextual limits (more on that in the next post as well)

Thanks Tunis, thanks Fulbright. But note to self, learn French.

*also, more pictures of this and Tim's visit available on Fbook for the friendly...