Between Jihad and Facebook: Middle Eastern Youth Caught in the Crossroads of Cyberspace

Internet Jihad. A term the Prophet Mohammed never could have fathomed in 7th century Arabia. But today it has become synonymous with the global Jihadist movement thanks to Al-Qa'ida's technological sophistication. As a New York Times op-ed piece professed in June, Al-Qa'ida "made its name in blood and pixels." With online video messages and websites aimed at spreading ideology and global recruitment, technology in the Middle East has largely been regarded solely as the tool of terrorists by Western policy-makers and mainstream media, thereby virtually ignoring the majority of more moderate Middle Easterners. This bias promotes the image of Islam as primitive, except for its most violent elements that will stop at nothing to use technology for their evil purposes; however, while convenient in promoting such a worldview, the above-mentioned paradigm is one-sided. In fact, like any multidimensional society the Muslim world is experimenting with many positive uses of technology, and again the rising generation is at the forefront of such innovation. Last fall I spent a semester in the Muslim community of Mombasa, Kenya, where the stereotypes of Islam that I subconsciously held were first confronted and very quickly conquered. Since returning to the US, I have often thought that if my fellow Americans were also able to appreciate the diversity within the Muslim community, we could get a better sense of important currents within modern Islam. This is crucial in order to see how the center of that ancient culture, under great stress, is adapting modern technology, and even using it to promote more widespread communication and interchange.

Censorship in the Middle East may be a key factor in the rise of religious extremism, particularly amongst youth. In countries such as Egypt, where President Hosni Mubarak has largely repressed the freedom of political expression, many marginalized Muslims have given up on politics and resorted to a more fundamental Islam. Due to decades of corruption, inequality, and foreign intervention, violence became the only forum for dissent in the region. But there are signs that the rising generation, who has only known injustice, may be searching for alternatives to violent opposition. As youth struggle between violence and submission, they seem to have adapted the tool of the internet to their local milieu. 

Facebook, a social networking site used by nearly every American college and high school student, has recently exploded throughout the world and has begun to reflect the debates going on in classrooms and coffee shops in the Middle Eastern world. In September, a Voice of America article wrote about the impact of Facebook on Turkish politics. Turkey is historically a secular state, but Islamism is rising due to the religious roots of the ruling government. According to the article, fundamentalism has been on the rise since the 1980s, when Turkey's military rule began a zero-tolerance response to the traditional platforms of civil society. Today, marginalized youth are turning to the internet as an agent for dialogue and free association. As one young Facebook user put it in reference to the internet, "we don't have assets we don't have capital, but we have a tool for free." This lack of capital and power has also been used as causation for suicide bombers, but Turkish youth have found another outlet via networking sites. In September, The Los Angeles Times continued the conversation on the Islamic use of Facebook. Author Jeffrey Fleisman focused on the struggle between secularists and Islamists, as played out on Facebook. With millions of users on the site, many individuals have started groups that represent their views as Muslims or Middle Easterners. Groups have titles that vary from "Brave Bold Liberal Muslim Girls," which has over 1,000 members, to "Against Any People who Insult Prophet Mohammed and Islam" with over 3,000. While some groups are forums for disagreement between secularists and Islamists, others open communication with their Western counterparts. As the Egyptian leader of the group "We the Muslim Youth Can Change this World" illustrates: "I now have a relationship with an American guy on Facebook. He first contacted me by calling me a terrorist...Now he and I discuss Islam and Buddhism." This is a perfect example of the possibilities for the modernity of globalization to work in synch with the traditions of religion. It is also a wonderful illustration of how a tool that we in the West universally use (and nearly as universally take for advantage) can be adapted to localized conditions around the world to create positive change.

Connecting through bits and bytes on the internet rather than flesh and blood has been criticized for its dehumanizing effect, which could bolster the image of Muslim youth as isolated and desperate connected soullessly through the internet with terrorist leaders. In fact, the emergence of social-networking and the interactive web--known as Web 2.0--is providing opportunities for social and human contact. As a young Bahraini blogged in June, Web 2.0 has given the moderate majority of Muslims such a voice that it has overtaken the effectiveness of terrorist organizations' propaganda proliferated through the more basic Web 1.0 (see the New York Times article which calls Al-Oa'ida "behind the curve"). Al-Qa'ida has been targeting millions of Middle Eastern internet users with its online campaigns, but those same users can be empowered with the creativity provided through the interactive tools of the internet. MidEast Youth, a site I featured in my most recent post, has capitalized on the social-networking capabilities of Web 2.0 to give a human element to the news coming out of the Middle East through online video-conferences with their American peers. This month they conducted their third teleconference with American high schoolers, which can be heard online. Questions ranged from the popularity of Senator Obama abroad to the similarities and differences of health care in each region. The participants from the Middle East featured three females, one Jew, and one Palestinian calling in from a refugee camp. 

The benefits of cross-cultural communication have not gone completely unnoticed, and the international NGO community has taken cues from such homegrown initiatives. Mercy Corps, an international development and relief organization, has created Why Not, a youth internet exchange program using Skype's online video chat. With the goal of building cross-cultural connections between regions defined by stereotypes, the initiative seeks to reduce isolation in the Middle East, create more accurate perceptions and deepen each group's understanding of the other's political and social realities. Mercy Corps, while doing development projects in war-torn and drought-stricken countries around the world, has found that living through everyday violence often leads to feelings of abandonment by the international community, and these human-to-human chats separate the average American, or Muslim, from what each side sees in mainstream media. In this instance technology has become a tool for the humanization of conflicts, war and politics starting at the roots.

There are many reasons why it is important to recognize and validate these positive uses of the internet. The Middle East is currently experiencing what is known as a "youth bulge," a high proportion of 15-29 year olds relative to the adult population that is considered a causal factor for political violence. Indeed, 60% of the region's population is under 25 and their rate of unemployment has reached dangerous levels (see interactive demographic map above). As a marginalized constituency, the likelihood of violence is high, but can be countered with the creation of opportunities to choose another, non-violent path. In addition, the cross-cultural connections which are facilitated by technology is giving a human face to the war and suffering that many Americans do not yet understand. To think of Islam's youth as not using technology in familiar ways, but only to promote violence and terrorism is the opposite of humanizing, it is demonizing. For American students to be able to talk with their Muslim peers about topics like dating, parents and music has a very enlightening effect. Globalization is often criticized for making the world smaller. Yet it is a force that cannot be stopped, and therefore must be molded for the betterment of humanity. Apparently the world's youth are one step ahead of those pessimists by accepting, contextualizing, and adapting what they have to their generational realities.

Democratizing Knowledge: A List of Online Resources for Young Activists

Using search tools on the internet can sometimes feel like hunting for a needle in a haystack. The plethora of information can be daunting, and it is often difficult to know whether a site has academic authority, biases, or hidden motives. With this in mind, I decided to create a list of online resources to supplement my posts. I focused on sites created by and for young people, and the sheer number of pages that I sorted through (and their overall quality and diversity) is inspiring. I ended up with the following list by applying Webby and IMSA criteria to judge each blog or site based on content, functionality, interactivity, navigation and visual design, keeping in mind that many of these sites are geared toward the young technological generation. I have added all of the links to my linkroll (on the left) and will also discuss them here.

I would like to begin with a site that I often use for my own research and whose content really cannot be beat. Global Voices Online is a non-profit founded at Harvard University that features blogs and articles written by credible authors around the world who are normally marginalized from mainstream media, and utilizes a network of volunteers to translate dozens of languages daily. The site is easy to use, with articles sorted by region and topic. It does not have many graphics or tools that may distract from the great content, although this also limits reader interaction with the site. Another, more specialized news source is WireTap Online Magazine, which is created by and for youth on national news and culture. WireTap has well-researched, diverse content using videos, blogs and stories. The graphics are complementary to the content, and even the advertisements on the sidebars are for youth voting organizations!

As the premier organization in the international community, the UN created Youth and The United Nations, which contains information on all of their programs that focus on youth, lists internships, ways to get involved, and relevant links from every region in the world. It is straightforward and simple, but important nonetheless. Two of the United Nations topic-specific programs also have sites geared toward kids, the UN Environmental Program's Tunza initiative and UNICEF's Voices of Youth. Both represent the UN's long-term strategy to engage children and contain information on what the UN and people around the world are doing. While both are quite basic, UNICEF's "e-consultation" is particularly noteworthy by giving young visitors a much needed voice on many issues. Another influential non-profit is the International Youth Foundation, which focuses on the holistic development of the world's rising generation. Like the UN sites, IYF has a lot of information from the field, but mostly publicizes its own programs. Mercy Corps' extremely well-designed page on their global engagement initiatives also has a wealth of information for those interested in global development (see image above of their Global Envision Online Magazine). All of these sites are important in the intellectual and policy circles, but may not appeal to young people simply because they appear to have been created by adults. However, there are many organizations run by young people. One example is the Global Youth Partnership for Africa, which was founded by a 22 year-old American and a 31 year-old Ugandan with the mission to foster understanding between rising American and African leaders through engagement. While largely self-promotional, this web page contains many ways to get involved for budding activists. Another organization, The Freechild Project, strives to aid and celebrate change led by young people around the world. It has pages with lists of resources that represent "guerilla research" that grows out of the community. While this site is more "grassroots," it lacks interaction and excitement with its basic layout and few graphics.

Western universities have been the leaders in the link between technology, media, and social change. One initiative is MIT's Center for Future Civic Media, which is essentially a blog whose posts present innovations in the field of media and technology. Yet its plain white background and lack of graphics reveal its academic origins and make it pretty dry. A much more interactive site in the US is GenerationEngage, a non-partisan initiative that seeks to give young Americans information to engage them in the political process. They do this through video-conferences and informative videos that are posted online and which you can download onto your iPod. The site is at the forefront of technology, but its primary target audience, young people who are not attending college and tend to be less engaged, may have a hard time navigating through such a complex site. Video-conferences are an example of the rise in global telecommunications, which has also facilitated the creation of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. The youth culture associated with these sites tends to have a negative connotation, but the socially-conscious networks I found illustrate an active response to such criticisms. One example, YouthNoise, claims to be a MySpace for those with "deeper interests than Paris Hilton's wardrobe." Its cluttered format may make the site difficult to navigate for those over-18, also a problem on The Global Youth Fund. GYF improves by providing interactive tools such as polls and an "idea bank." The site's advanced level of graphics is seen in its beautiful YouTube promo video. In similar vein, Taking IT Global is a networking site that is easier to tap into, and with membership you get access to IT tools, discussion boards, and lists of global events. Its legitimacy is derived from partnerships with the UN, NGOs and corporations.

One of the most striking characteristics of social activism online is the sheer creativity in the ways that people are creating change. Inspired by the politically-conscious rap in Senegal, undergrad Ben Herson created the Nomadic Wax Global Hip-Hop Blog, full of cutting-edge graphics (see image on left), that focuses on hip-hop from the Palestine to Laos and Brazil. The Global Action Project also promotes arts and social change around the world, and supports itself by selling exceptional videos created by its young members on the site. Even the short clips are worth a visit. While not focusing explicitly on youth, National Geographic's All Roads Film Project promotes documentary filmmaking as a medium to enhance indigenous culture. I Buy Different is an environmentally-focused site that teaches young consumers how to make a difference just by buying differently. Like all of these youth-led sites, it is especially interactive with striking design. MobileActive.org focuses on the cell-phone and its 3 billion users worldwide to create social impact. It is a basic blog, but puts into focus another innovative topic that is below the radar of mainstream media.

I would like to end with one of the best examples of young people using technology for social change. MidEast Youth is a student-owned, unfunded network that promotes constructive dialogue within the Middle East and Northern Africa. It is homegrown, and uses freedom of expression to create social change in a region were speech is often censored, stereotypes abound, and minority voices are suppressed. Its simplicity gives an air of academia to a blog created by youth, which has given it credibility in the international community. The components of the site and overall content relate to different issues that the authors face, from interfaith to sex to comics. It is one of the best and most inspiring examples that I found that shows the true potential of youth putting technology to good use.