TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2014
LOCAL
kuwait digest
kuwait digest
Media war
against terror
Against injustice
By Waleed Al-Jassim
By Dr Shamlan Y Al-Essa
D
K
Confe
rence
s
Al-Watan
uring my university days, I did not like my final result
in one of the subjects, for which we had a multiple
choice exam. I was shocked because I expected an A
grade, but it was a B-! I was sure about most of my answers
and that there must be a mistake, so I went to see the subject’s teacher and I asked him to show me the answers to
make sure. He, at the beginning, threatened me in an
attempt to scare me by saying: Do not you think that you
can get a better result and be sure that you got more than
you deserve and if the paper is re-graded, any extra marks
will be removed because you may not deserve them.
I did not care about what he said and told him: I am not
interested in the grade as much as I am in knowing the
secret behind not achieving what I believe should be
achieved. I saw the model answers of the professor, and I
was shocked because the university professor was weak in
the Arabic language to a point that he did not know how to
write the question, so the question comes in a form that the
person who knows Arabic can only understand it in two
ways to select the answer.
I attempted to explain to the professor his mistake, but
he insisted on his opinion, so I told him: I am ready to join
you in a challenge and have the Arabic language department as a judge. You are wrong and I am right because I
know Arabic and you do not because of your foreign studies
on one hand, and weak Arabic preparations on the other. If
you accept to be unfair to me then do not be unfair to the
rest of the students in the coming terms, and use the help
of an Arabic language teacher to correct exams you prepare.
The teacher was very angry with me and I left his office
not expecting anything from him. Yet, I was surprised in the
final to find an A in the column. This professor, despite his
initial obstinacy, asked and found out that he was not right,
and his writing of the questions compelled those who know
the Arabic language well to have some answers that are different from what is in the model answers, and for that he
did not hesitate in accepting what is right and corrected the
grade.
I still feel the gratitude for this university professor who
did not take advantage of his strong position against mine
as a student - rather he reverted to what is right and gave
me what I deserved. I remembered this stand by the fair
professor while listening to a complaint over the phone by a
lady who was suffering from pain due to illness as well the
pain of need and poverty, as she was facing a verdict of
compensating a doctor with whom she had a problem, and
he complained against her and she was unable to follow the
case and he won it, and she is now in a very bad situation.
The lady said that she faced attempts to keep her from
going ahead with her case when she attempted to resort to
the health ministry to restore her right, but the ministry
sided with the doctor against her and said that several parties cooperated against her in favor of the doctor. I do not
know where is the truth in particular, because what happened is that I heard one side but I wish that Health Minister
Dr Ali Al-Obaidi hears her complaint, so he may be able to
remove injustice from her if she was really treated unjustly.
— Translated by Kuwait Times from Al-Watan
kuwait digest
The dedications book project
By Dr Sajed Al-Abdalai
W
henever I get a new book, I quickly flip its pages,
going directly to the dedication page to read
how the author phrased his dedication phrases. I
have always come across some astonishing ones that really touched me. In fact, some of those dedications were the
best parts of the books.
I can even bet that many of you have already been
there in terms of coming across some beautiful dedication
phrases or even keeping them in a personal library or
memorizing them. Hence came the idea of this book. For a
long time, I have been thinking of collecting the most
interesting dedications I have come across in a book I
intend to name ‘The Dedications Book’ with the aim of collecting around two hundred of them and thence declare
the second phase of the book production process.
The idea kept haunting me and kept leading to further
ones. “Why not invite my followers on social media networks to take part in collecting the most interesting dedications they have ever come across and email them to me
so that I can compile, arrange and supervise issuing them,”
I told myself.
The new idea goes as follows: I will personally collect,
edit and print whatever I receive from you and will work
on publishing them in an integrated book through a certain publishing house that will distribute and market it. I
might even manage to convince a friend of those who
own a publishing house to volunteer to do this job provided that all the profits the book makes go to an educational
charity project through the Direct Aid Organization that
used to be run and supervised by the late Abdul Rahman
Al-Sumait, may Allah rest his soul in peace!
All interesting dedications will be attributed to their
senders in a list with the names of those who will participate in preparing the book on the very first pages of it.
Contributors will also receive a free copy of the book to be
sent to their addresses immediately on issue. So, those
interested in taking part in the project are kindly requested to email me at: [email protected], provided that dedications they send match their sources exactly and mention
the author’s name and book title. It would be better if the
dedication is photocopied.
My aim is to collect around two hundred dedications
and thence declare the second phase of the book production process. I will also need a volunteer to design the
book cover later on. One final note: While surfing the
Internet, I have already come across two books with
almost the same idea but have not found any printed
copies of either. Nonetheless, I believe there is no harm in
having a third book because books and beautiful dedications are humongous and each book will surely handle the
topic from a different angle!
—Translated by Kuwait Times from Al-Jarida
uwait is hosting an international conference to discuss
means of halting campaigns of recruiting jihadists in Iraq
and Syria, particularly through the Internet and social
media. Kuwait and the alliance countries did good by starting
the dialogue over fighting terrorism with all its dimensions, but
limited it to the military and security aspects. But terrorism
today has intellectual and cultural dimensions, and they need
an intellectual and intense media effort to fight it, because the
enemy number one of terrorism is introducing peace and love
among nations away from the spirit of religious or sectarian
zealousness. Let us be clear and frank, fighting Daesh through
the media is not an easy task that needs to convene an international conference for one or two days because the anti- Daesh
media needs clear religious reform that cuts the way in front of
the terrorists and those who support them - who use religion
for political purposes. Any media war against Daesh requires
understanding motives of the terrorists and why did the Arab
Muslim youth went extreme and how the good youth were
deceived and turned into terrorists that kill themselves and
hundreds of innocent people.
If we were serious in uprooting terrorism and fighting it in
the media, we should concentrate on the terrorism phenomena
and religious zealousness and fighting religious edicts that
allow violence and terror against individuals and groups in our
society. Fighting terror through the media requires speaking
about the incubating environment that produced terrorists,
parties that taught them and others that used them and contributed to turning them from peaceful and naive youth into
bombs and exploding belts.
The question: What is the media message that the Daesh
media delivered and succeeded in reaching the deceived youth
to join their movement? Daesh’s message is very simple - it
promises the youth with heaven and the beautiful houris waiting for them there. Does our government have moderate religious men who are ready to get in front of the pulpits to explain
Islam’s message that cares for love, good deeds and love of
humanity around the globe?
I do not know why the international and Arab media call the
terrorists of Daesh “Islamic State”, as this name distorted the
principle of the state that we study in political science both
politically and information wise. Why do we not call them the
Daesh terrorist organization? Why do we inject Islam and distort
its image in front of the world? UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh
Abdullah bin Zayed brought up this issue at the Security
Council when he rejected naming the terrorist Daesh entity “the
Islamic State”, and so did the French foreign minister, demanding the use of Daesh instead of Islamic State.
We ask the Arab delegations at Kuwait’s conference to
change the name of IS to Daesh Terrorist Organization, especially
since France calls Daesh ‘beheaders’. No one denies the effective
use of social media by Daesh and broadcasting messages and
videos to recruit youth and urge them to join Daesh. We must use
in our war with Daesh innovative means that explains their
nature by exposing what they do such as broadcasting the picture of the Daesh member committing abnormal acts with a
donkey, as pictured by American drones. We should show images
of selling women in markets, as well as images of the displaced
and those killed by Daesh terror. Media wars require different and
innovative thinking. —Translated by Kuwait Times from Al-Watan
in my view
Sinai attack reverberates around Mideast
By Abdullah H Erakat
he deadliest attack on Egyptian soldiers since the
new government of Abdel Fatteh Al-Sisi took
office is affecting not only Egypt, but Israel and
the Palestinians as well. After an attacker drove a car
rigged with explosives into a military checkpoint in the
Sinai desert, killing at least 33 soldiers, Sisi has vowed
to crack down on Jihadi groups to prevent further
attacks. The Sinai Peninsula, which borders both Israel
and the Gaza Strip, has long been a center for weapons
and drug smuggling.
After the most recent attack, Sisi closed the Rafah
border between Gaza and Egypt. Sisi blamed
Palestinians in Gaza for helping the extremists behind
the attack and announced that Egyptian-brokered
talks on a more permanent ceasefire between Israel
and Hamas, that were supposed to have started this
week, have been postponed. A seven-week war
between the two ended with a temporary cease-fire in
August, and talks on a more permanent deal have yet
to commence.
Some in Egypt say the extremists are gaining
ground, and there could be more attacks in Sinai or
elsewhere in Egypt. “The barbarian actions against the
state and the region being disguised under Islam mistakenly produce more misunderstanding and raise the
Islamophobia inside the Islamic countries itself,”
Moataz Abd Elkarim, a professor at Egypt-Japan
University of Science and Technology told The Media
Line. He says that despite the mixture of anger and
frustration following the attack, he believes “the security is getting better.” However, Egypt’s defense plan can
always do better to protect its citizens, he adds.
T
was to have the Palestinian Authority replace Hamas
forces, an agreement which has yet to materialize.
Israel, Egypt and the United States have all said that
having PA troops running the Rafah border crossing is
a condition for allowing large amounts of reconstruction aid into Gaza. Israel worries the cement and iron
could be used for weapons or tunnels instead of
rebuilding homes.
Palestinians say the Egyptian tendency to blame
them for these attacks makes it harder for Egypt to be
an honest broker in talks between Hamas and Israel.
“Egypt is creating an atmosphere that is not conducive
for meetings, when something happens, they (Egypt)
blame Gaza,” West Bank political science professor
Abdelsattar Qassem told The Media Line. He expects
the attacks to continue, citing the lack of strength
among Egyptian security. “In failing to prevent what
happened in Sinai, it shows a weakness in the Egyptian
intelligence” the political analyst, who teaches at An
Najah University in Nablus, said.
While he could not elaborate on the security coordination between Israel and Egypt, Israeli Foreign
Ministry spokesperson Emmanuel Nahshon said that
the two countries did see eye to eye on the same
objective - fighting terrorism. Calling it a “dreadful terrorist attack,” he said that Israel was concerned and
was behind Egypt in its fight against terror. “We are in
constant dialogue,” he told The Media Line. The
United States has condemned the attack with the
State Department saying that “a prosperous and
dynamic Egypt requires an environment of security
and stability”.
Buffer Zone
The attack, viewed as a setback for Cairo’s efforts to
crack down on Muslim extremists, has prompted the
Egyptian National Defense Council (NDC) to discuss
setting up a wide buffer zone in the peninsula.
Speaking to a Turkish News Agency, a former senior
military official Alaa Ezziddin said that the NDC met to
accelerate the ratification of a terrorism law which
“includes all the necessary measures on how to deal
with security issues, including sentence verdicts for
anyone who owns unlicensed weapons, as well as
prosecuting anyone who carries weapons and explosives before a military court.”
Abd Elkarim says the frustration only grows because
of “the repeated scenarios of the terroristic attacks in
Sinai within the same region and the lessons we didn’t
learn.” Palestinians in Gaza expressed frustration that
yet again, their interests are being pushed aside by
extremist groups in Egypt. “Egyptian army failures can’t
routinely be blamed on others, on outside forces and
on Hamas,” Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian columnist for
Al-Monitor told The Media Line from Jordan.
Following the first visit to Gaza by the new
Palestinian National Consensus Government, the plan
Dialogue
In a surprising move, the Muslim Brotherhood has
also condemned the Sinai attack. “I think the state
should open the dialogue with the youth more to
reproduce their anger in a peaceful attitude instead of
using the ultimate power like what happened in
Egypt’s universities in the last couple weeks,” Moataz
Abd Elkarim said. Recently, university students, belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood damaged buildings in
an attempt to provoke a response, but Egypt’s security
forces showed restraint.
The Palestinian President’s top adviser on international affairs Majdi Al Khaldi says Mahmoud Abbas
spoke with his Egyptian counterpart Sisi on Sunday
and gave him assurances that the Palestinian people
“stand firm with Egypt in this war against terrorism.” As
for the buffer zone, Khaldi says “the President and the
leadership supports the measures that will be taken in
Sinai.”
Khaldi says if Egypt is too busy tending to prevention of attacks, it will be hard to play a key role in ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. “We want Egypt to
stand with us on this issue so we have to support
Egypt to fight terrorism,” he said. —Media Line