By John Radcliff
CAIRO: In 2009 Barack Obama visited Cairo and delivered a speech that echoed through the Middle East. While extending a hand to Egypt and the region as a whole, the American president sought to unite the two parties.
“So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end,” his speech read.
Ed Bice, founder and CEO of Meedan.net has put such sentiment into a tangible function. Meedan, the Arabic word for ‘town square’ or ‘gathering’ place encapsulates the idea from which the San Francisco based non-profit has undertaken its efforts since its start in 2005.
Meedan.net is the first social network explicitly built to facilitate collaborations across languages. Literally a digital ‘square’, the site offers nuance to the traditional dichotomy that stems from different regions of the world, news headlines, and contrasting perceptions. Everything that gets posted on Meedan.net is mirrored in Arabic and English – from media publications, comments, or articles shared. By seeking discussion through the sharing of knowledge, unencumbered by the difference of language, this forum allows for users to identify diverging media narratives that more often than not contribute to distrust and friction between cultures.
Listed on Meedan.net is the statistic that embodies the goal of Meedan, but also its potential.
“With 2.1 billion internet users worldwide, and more than 60 million Arabic speakers on the Internet, the social potential for the web to play a key role in the solution seems apparent, though untested.”
After traveling through several predominately Muslim countries and witnessing the misconception that swept through much of the West, following September 11, Ed Bice reiterated his initiative by saying, “I wanted to see a change in the misunderstanding that is present between these two cultures.”
Equipped with 25 professional regional specialists and translators distributed throughout the Middle East, Meedan has been working to do just that. Located in Amman, Damascus, Cairo, Casablanca, Bethlehem, and Beirut, Meedan personal has endeavored to expose political, social, economic or developments within Arab countries or the West, which traditional regional media outlets tends to discard. “If you limit your content to one language, and many times one framing you will you will compromise the overall picture. Here we discuss what is going on in the Middle East at a more in-depth level,” said Kate Goodin, a Cairo based translator and producer for Meedan.net.
Meedan.net has been able to achieve success in this by offering a new approach to linguistic data licensing. In conjunction with IBM ‘Meedan IBM Open Linguistic Data Project’, operating under an Open Database License, has allowed for Meedan to not only afford its users access to translated publications but also to engage in dialogue, regardless of his or her discourse.
When asked about the translation process Meedan translator Rania Kamal said, “As a ‘Meedani’ translator, I’m encouraged to translate from local sources, commentary, blogs, tweets, not straight news. Meedan is all about unfolding the untold truth.”
With existing partnership with Cambridge University’s Inter-faith Program and the Coexist Foundation Meedan is set to introduce the Nurani Digital Platform which will specifically facilitate cross-language discussions between religious leaders, scholars and other civic groups in Arabic and English.
When asked about the expanding role of Meedan, Bice explained, “We are very excited about new opportunities to conduct new media technology and development training with different media publications in Egypt. We will be spending a lot of time in Cairo.”
By providing a forum for the sharing of knowledge that transcends the boundaries of language and setting, Meedan.net is progressing the endeavor to achieve mutual understanding rather than perpetuating a cycle of misconception.
