Six Minutes Shame
This morning when I read Ammar’s Six Minutes and watched the video he referred to, I was in shock and shame , although I had some laugh. Basically the piece, for those who do not understand Arabic, is about interviewing random people from Jordan, who are mostly university/collage students and asking them general knowledge questions. “Who is Berlusconi?” gave answers such as “A Romance Actor” and “where is Bulgaria?” resulted to “a planet in the solar system”. What could be considered a basic knowledge such as “What are the major 2 parties in USA”, “Who wrote War and Peace” and “Name 3 novel writers from Jordan” was a complete failure. A question that 100% of the interviewees answered properly is “Who Sings Ah o Nos?” where no one failed to remember Nancy Ajram. At the end, the director shares with us a painful fact. An Arabic student reads in average 6 minutes a year outside curriculum books. Ouch..
A couple of months ago I was part of one of the meetings about Open Content for the OSI Information Program. One of points we talked about as a challenge for Open Content, and Arabic Wikipedia, is the fact that We are a nation very poor in reading, and writing in compare with other nations. The numbers that the UNDP published in the Arab Human Development Report of 2003 still rings until now. knowing that we have very low number of books published, newspaper printed, and the whole numbers related to reading and writing in the Arab world is a complete shame. A relatively good thing that out of the Arab countries, Jordan have a good score/rank generally, but it is still much lower that the world average.
I don’t know what to say more, I am no longer sure that such projects as Arabic Wikipedia would be a success, or of value to Arab readers, as there are almost none.
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July 12th, 2005 at 2:45 pm
Greetings,
Well, I don’t blame the people, People are a product of the media, in the US They have discovery, history, PCtech, biography channels along with MTV and HBO and showtime. And people make the choice.(even movie channels aren’t that bad, they show good movies :-) )
But in the M.E most of the Tv channels are geard towards money milking strategy. Whatever brings the most money and less effort. If Nancy Ajram sells , then Nancy gotta is on Tv 24/7.
Not manny programs are out there for the sake of good. That needs alot of financial support from various nonprofit organizations, or even govermental agencies.
I know of one way to start reforming TV that worked here in the US.
FEEDBACK!
By contacting your TV stations and requesting reform, day after day person after another they will listen. Feedback plays a major role in the Media circle.
Sorry for the long comment, but it is an important issue.
Salam,
PALFORCE
July 12th, 2005 at 4:11 pm
Issam,
I was listening to a radio show the other day, do you know what is the nation that reads most in the world? the answer was actually shocking… it is Israel. In Israel they sell 35 millions a year. They are 6 million people… ya3ni each one of them reads 6 books a year… not bad , no?
July 13th, 2005 at 3:01 am
hmm, i thought i already left you a comment, i checked to see if you had an other responses but did not find mine! i wanted to tell you that Israel book week… it turns out it is one of the countries that read most in the world, they sell around 36 million books a year… ironically we read six minutes a year, they read six books!
July 13th, 2005 at 8:51 am
Maybe the sample wasn’t large enough, but in fact this is extremely painfull, some basic and obvious questions failed to be answered correctly.
About you Isam and such projects that may or may not success, well … there are two kind of people, one who know and other who don’t, if the one how know don’t work in such projects and don’t care of our nation’s current situation, who will??
July 15th, 2005 at 2:37 pm
wow Isam,
you just gave me my answer.. I was doing an experiment for a course i am taking in sociology…. it is the effects of being known in your surrounding on your work… I decided to take the blog as my experiemnt….so i took something very old and decided to rewrite it and see if anyone would make the connection… and I was right, i could report my reults today…
i could tell you more details about it if you like… thanks for responding
July 17th, 2005 at 4:21 am
Well,
I commented the first time but nothing showed. Limseebeh I had a good piece to share but now its merely shattered thoughts. To sum it up, I think I put the blame on the media, watch what the Arab Audience is exposed to? Mostly on the artistic side (Sex sells!).
While in the US. You find Discovery channel, History channel and biography channel, also PBS and Democracy Now channel. People have a choice to watch trash or get educated. While in the M.E 60% of the shows are blind copy cat from the west and 20% are trashy and 20% are meaningless arguments.
But again I think, Feedback works with the media, if we start writing the media and request educational materials, they will listen, and after all we are the clients here.
July 20th, 2005 at 4:00 pm
I watched 6-minutes and I was very dissapointed with the filmmaker. Yahya Abdallah lacked courage. He blamed the victims of the failure of the educational and cultural institutions. In Jordan, we always afraid of blaming the official institutions because our jobs and income could be on the line. And we want to be on the good graces of the people with the purse. So we attack the weak link, the victims.
Yahya Abdalla’s film could have been credible had he allowed someone to interview him, uneditied. Or had he interviewd employees of the ministry of culture and education. But Yahya is a teacher. He knows his limits. His interviewees have no clout. Mostly unwealthy people who could not afford good schools and good teachers. We can’t keep blaming the average jow and letting the officials responsible easy. The blame ALWAYS stops with the leadership, at least in democratic countries.
December 28th, 2005 at 4:33 pm
Thanks Sami , But i didnt blame anyone !