Last Saturday, a meeting was held at the Alwaqt Newspaper premises to discuss the draft of an Anti-Sectarianism pact which was penned by blogger Mahmood.
The meeting was quite productive, we changed the focus from "anti-sectarianism speech" to "Anti hate, violence and discrimination speech". It has a wider focus to include more than the sectarian feuds encompassing all kinds of discrimination.
We also discussed how it would be implemented, how we will approach offenders and how to identify offenders as well. After the meeting, Mahmood started a mailing group and met with the Minister of Information in what seems to be quite a positive and receptive meeting.
But does anyone care?
The attendees represented 2 blogs and 2 forums only. despite several days of printing a quarter page coloured advert in Alwaqt, not many were there to help form something that touches all.
To make matters more strange, it seems that Alwaqt themselves didn't pay much attention to the matter. With one reporter that left the meeting before it starts, they printed nothing about the matter until today, full three days after. Which is rather strange because I thought since they are sponsoring this movment, they would show more interest in it.
I hope that my fears are unfounded and the rest of the community proves me wrong at the next meeting. This effort will only succeed if all concerned parties take ownership and adopt it.
11 comments:
Something tells me this one won't make it to the next full moon.
Something else tells me people ought to self-edit their material.
Nothing tells me people ought to know better.
I too am surprised by the lack of involvement of other webmasters, but we're working on it and now are calling each and every important one of them individually and have meetings with them to find out their apprehension. And now you know the real reason for pushing the signature to the end of August. I knew it would be difficult but in the end it is worthwhile.
For the record, I chaired the meeting then because Ahmed Al-Aradi was off sick. Really bad flu. The other "reporter" was a radio reporter for Monte Carlo radio service, that's why she just wanted to record something quick and get away. Not very professional I agree, but if all she wanted were sound bites, she certainly got them!
Hope to see you and many more at the next meeting.
Mahmood, you are showing tremendous effort. Kudos. I admire your resilience.
As I said, I do hope that my fears are unfounded and that other bloggers and web admins join in. It may take a lot of energy to get a ball rolling in Bahrain, but once it does it will be better.
when is the next one?
DO send us an email next time pllllllllllz
Will do.
Just give us a good heads up time before the next meeting, I know many more will be there this time.
It would be fantastic if we have better representation from bloggers. We're meeting tomorrow at 4pm in Al-Waqt Newspaper's headquarters in Sanad. Please come.
just to let you know that there will be NO meeting tomorrow afternoon. We will meet at a later date, probably later in the week. I'll let you know of the date and venue once confirmed.
Thanks Mahmood for the heads up. I was just about to email the bloggers mailing list.
If I know in advance I'll definitely write about it here.
1) Why do we optimalize banishment of faith?
2) The world is already filled with hate and filth regurgitating ambiguious nonscense that can only be quelched by nonsensical rebelion.
3) Anything else is foolishness.
4) Don't stop thought, but stop yourself from conventionalistic thought! Bah, new words fun boooo... nah.
Ihateyoualltwice>
I have absolutely no idea what you're going on about. So.. I'll just ignore your post.
But feel free to try posting again!
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