Common Ground News Service
Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH)
for constructive & vibrant Muslim-Western relations
14 - 20 March 2007
The Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH) aims to promote constructive perspectives and dialogue about Muslim–Western relations. CGNews-PiH is available in Arabic, English, French and Indonesian.
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Inside this edition
1) ~Youth Views~ An open letter to journalists by Adam Maruyama and Yousef Gamal El Din
Adam Maruyama, a student at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and Yousef Amin Gamal El Din, a senior at the American University in Cairo address Arab and American journalists in a letter asking for “objective, accurate news reporting”. Arguing that sensationalistic reporting only exacerbates tensions between the Arab world and the West, they highlight several generalizations and biases that predominate the news while calling for increased media responsibility and standards of objectivity.
(Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 13 March 2007)
2) There is no alternative to intensive exchange by Johannes Ebert
Acknowledging there are no short term foreign policy gains to be made from European-Muslim cultural dialogue, Johannes Ebert, director of the Goethe Institute in Cairo, instead makes a case for its long-term benefits: “It ensures that Europe and the Near East maintain a close exchange outside the world of politics even in troubled times. It keeps communication channels open and allows both sides to discuss – and even enter into heated debate – about views and ideals without resorting to violence.”
(Source: Qantara.de, 8 February 2007)
3) The value of their values by Rory Stewart
Rory Stewart, who runs the Turquoise Mountain Foundation in Kabul, writes about how his experience as a Foreign Service officer and, more recently, as a non-profit director in Kabul have highlighted some of the generalizations and unhelpful thinking that foreigners sometimes fall into when working in predominantly-Muslim countries. He concludes that: “Real solutions [to the problems in these countries] will emerge, often improbably, from local individual virtues, and from the cultures we struggle to describe and tend to ignore.”
(Source: International Herald Tribune, 7 March 2007)
4) The United States must widen its dialogue with Iran by Aria Mehrabi
Aria Mehrabi, an independent consultant and member of the leadership Council of the New America Foundation, considers the potential implications of talks between Iran and the United States in Baghdad at a conference on the future of Iraq. Looking at interactions between Iran and the West in the recent past, as well as the example of successful negotiations with North Korea, Mehrabi puts the meeting into broader context and recommends some much needed next steps.
(Source: Daily Star, 10 March 2007)
5) Nigeria’s critical election by Jonathan Power
Jonathan Power, a syndicated columnist, filmmaker and writer, considers the political situation in pre-election Nigeria’s multi-ethnic, multi-religious democracy. Nigeria has seen its fair share of localized conflict and political corruption, but one presidential candidate believes that religion can also be a source of commonality: “All religions are corrupted. But all religions are about love, kindness, justice and tolerance. These virtues are difficult for government to put in practice. But this is what I have tried to do in my state”, says Umaru Yar’Adua, a former university lecturer in Chemistry.
(Source: Jordan Times, 9-10 March 2007)
1)~Youth Views~ An open letter to journalists
Adam Maruyama and Yousef Gamal El Din
Washington, D.C./Cairo, Egypt - We are writing as concerned citizens of America and the Arab world to ask that you, as journalists, put more effort into ensuring and encouraging objective, accurate news reporting.
It has become apparent that sensationalist reports by media outlets in both our regions – the United States and the Arab world - have only exacerbated the current tensions. These reports are often characterized by melodramatic wording, unbalanced coverage, unsubstantiated accusations and speculative comments. Often, the media uses powerful visuals of violence and devastation rather than growth and renewal to emphasize certain messages or subjective points of view. In this open letter to the journalists of the world, we will use as examples two recent conflicts: America’s “War on Terror” and the war in Iraq.
In media coverage of the “Global War on Terror”, the media and its choice of wording have served to magnify the divide between the West and Muslims around the world, hurting crucial efforts to mend the gulf. For example, the New York Times used Samuel Huntington’s term “clash of civilizations” in a total of 140 articles since September 11, 2001; the term had been used in only 24 articles in the five years prior to the attacks. While discussion of Huntington’s theory is admittedly unavoidable in the context of the current conflict, it is appalling that the chances for reconciliation, as embodied in United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan’s speech on the “dialogue of civilizations”, are repeated less frequently. Annan’s term appeared in only five articles since September 11, 2001.
A prime example of how the use of specific words affects interpretations of conflict can be seen in coverage of the war on Iraq. Arab media describes this event as an “invasion”, whereas US media called it a “liberation”.
An independent study by researchers at George Washington University concludes that US restrictions on media reporting and public relations efforts in Iraq were generally successful, and resulted in the “media’s failure to broadcast visuals of coalition, Iraqi military or civilian casualties” and “gives viewers an unrealistic perception of the violence that surrounds the US-led occupation.”
One positive note is that over the past year there have been changes in the coverage of developments in Iraq as the credibility of the current American government has decreased in light of recent scandals. We especially applaud the actions of a few American journalists such as Bob Woodward and Judith Miller, whose investigative journalism has served to increase the standard of accountability to which the Bush administration is held.
The Arab media is equally guilty of biased reporting. The Arab media has tended to strongly condemn US atrocities in Iraq (such as the Abu-Gharib prison scandal) without equally strong condemnation of the horrendous acts of violence perpetrated by terrorists in Iraq. Likewise, there is equally little coverage of terrorist recruitment efforts in Arab countries that are responsible for the thousands of foreign fighters in Iraq, or the failure of Arab governments to stop such efforts. Reporting often focuses on the failures of the American “occupation”, or over the internal Shi’a-Sunni conflict in Iraq.
What often goes unreported in the Arab press is the fact that much of the violence in Iraq consists of terrorist bombings in Baghdad. Although outbreaks of violence outside Baghdad are still common, there are many areas where the security situation has somewhat stabilized and where progress is being made in restoring Iraq’s infrastructure. Unfortunately, the media’s penchant for sensationalism means that the re-opening of a water treatment plant benefiting thousands will invariably go unreported while violence will receive a disproportionate amount of coverage.
This letter is not an attempt to discourage national sympathy for American and Arab journalists or to put down the work of the thousands of reporters around the world who put their lives in danger to give us the news. It is, rather, an attempt to point out that mass media has become extremely powerful in shaping public opinion and hence objectivity is crucial.
As citizens of the world, we believe the media must live up to their own standards of fairness and objectivity. In a world where information and misinformation travels faster than ever, we must demand that our media do more than indulge in sensationalism and be prepared to provide information and viewpoints that might clash with the opinions and political beliefs of domestic audiences. The media should endeavour to promote more awareness, knowledge, understanding and tolerance, and not contribute to strengthening existing biases.
We call upon the journalists of the world, specifically Western and Arab journalists, to come together to formulate ethical guidelines and formally express their support for unbiased and objective reporting regardless of nationality, perhaps through an international congress of journalists that would work to raise standards for reporting around the world. They should encourage soul-searching on how bias is made manifest (word-choice, one-sided reporting, etc.) in viewpoints covered by the media, and promote efforts to produce reporting that puts into question widely-held opinions. Simple discussion of these issues by journalists from different cultures could do much to raise awareness of, and thus prevent, biased reporting that creates barriers to understanding and strengthens stereotypes.
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* Adam Maruyama is studying foreign affairs at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.. Yousef Amin Gamal El Din is a senior at the American University in Cairo, where he is completing a B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communication. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org .
Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 13 March 2007, www.commongroundnews.org
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.
2)There is no alternative to intensive exchange
Johannes Ebert
Cairo - After the attacks of 9/11 and the publication of Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations – politicians of all persuasions have made “European-Islamic cultural dialogue” a key weapon in their arsenal of security policy measures.
The logic behind this thinking is that the Arab Muslim world has historical faith in Europe’s educational systems and cultures. Both are highly respected for their quality and are considered by many to be an alternative to the “American way of life”, which is perceived as dominant. But culture, art and education lose their inherent strength when they are used as mere tools to create security and solve conflicts.
In the original meaning of the word, culture instead creates social freedom, releases creative potential and initiates open processes of encounter, thereby making a significant contribution to constructive exchange.
In real terms, there are currently two obvious risks: on the one hand, cultural dialogue with the Muslim world is overloaded with expectations that it cannot meet. On the other, if Western culture and education were suspected of being used for other ends, they would very quickly lose credibility in the Muslim world, as has been the case in other areas of foreign policy.
So what can be gained from cultural dialogue between Europe and the Muslim world? The exchange of culture and education can neither close the socio-economic gap between North and South nor eliminate the problems that have arisen from political constellations. An artists’ exchange programme cannot solve the Palestinian conflict, nor can it remove a corrupt regime that is unwilling to introduce reforms or convert extremists with a propensity to violence.
In other words, the short-term security policy gains to be expected of cultural dialogue are very modest indeed.
But this is not what cultural dialogue is about; its merits lie in other areas. It ensures that Europe and the Near East maintain a close exchange outside the world of politics even in troubled times. It keeps communication channels open and allows both sides to discuss – and even enter into heated debate – about views and ideals without resorting to violence.
Educational and cultural exchanges contribute to reform processes in the Arab world, thereby smoothing the path to the knowledge society. They strengthen people and groups that break new ground in the development of civil virtues. When both sides enter into dialogue, they each learn about the other and develop an understanding and peaceful means of communication.
For young people in particular – some 60 per cent of the population in Egypt is aged under 30 – education and culture are highly appealing and could be effective outside urban areas. If we look at the long-term potential of cultural dialogue, its outstanding significance for the relations between Europe and the Arab Muslim world become evident.
After the dispute surrounding the Danish caricatures, individual politicians and media representatives announced that cultural dialogue with the Islamic world had failed. They could not see that cultural dialogue is not a panacea for all ruptures both between and within societies, but rather an open-ended process. The focus of cultural dialogue is on the path that is travelled together rather than on the ultimate destination.
It is only when both sides tackle such processes together that they can learn from each other in a sustainable manner. While the debate about the caricatures was undoubtedly a painful experience, it was also an important step along the road to rapprochement.
It did lead to violent protests, but it also led to a large dialogue conference organised in Denmark by the popular Egyptian preacher Amr Khaled. Once the dust that had been swirled up by the heated emotions had settled again, numerous honest and open discussions about values and taboos in our societies took place.
Discussions and conferences are an integral part of dialogue with the Muslim world. However, it is more effective for individuals and social groups to encounter each other in mutual cooperation over an extended period of time. There are numerous examples of such long-term encounters.
Through these encounters, the people involved learn about the other culture and take these positive experiences into their own environments. Scholarships and translation programmes, co-productions in the world of film or the arts, student or journalist exchanges, language courses, and many other activities are all positive approaches to dialogue between Europe and the Arab world.
However, if we want to make the most of the long-term potential of education and culture in encounters with the Arab world, we have to redouble our efforts. Germany’s reconciliation with France after World War II illustrates that cultural dialogue can break down barriers between enemies.
In view of the much larger social differences and discrepancies in world views that exist between Europe and the Arab world, it is unrealistic to expect the same degree of rapprochement that was achieved between two Western neighbours.
In a globalised world in which the southern shores of the Mediterranean are no farther away than the Western banks of the Rhine, we have to rely on courage, optimism and far-sightedness in the face of the dangerous widening of the chasm between these two cultures. In other words, there is no alternative to an intensive exchange with the Arab-Islamic world. We must channel significant resources into educational and cultural exchange. We have no choice.
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* Johannes Ebert is director of the Goethe Institute in Cairo, Egypt. This abridged article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org . The full text can be found at www.qantara.de .
Source: Qantara.de, 8 February 2007, www.qantara.de
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.
3)The value of their values
Rory Stewart
Kabul - I began my career as a Foreign Service officer in Indonesia. There, journalists, diplomats and aid workers emphasized that local government was “incompetent, inefficient and corrupt.”
I heard the same when working in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq. My colleagues often seemed contemptuous of the nations where they served. They overlooked the cultures’ virtues and strengths, which are the keys to rebuilding nations, particularly after insurgency and civil war.
Foreign policy experts will tell you that poor states lack rule of law, a vibrant civil society, a free media, a transparent civil service, political participation and a great deal more. Employees of major international agencies commonly complain that Afghans or Iraqis or Kenyans “can’t plan” or “can’t implement”.
At its worst, this attitude is racist, bullying and ignorant. But there are less sinister explanations. As a diplomat, I was praised for “realism” if I sent home critical telegrams.
Now, working for a non-profit organization, I find that donor proposals encourage us to emphasize the negative aspects of local society. Many of our criticisms reflect our deep assumptions about citizenship, management and the state.
Afghans and Iraqis are often genuinely courageous, charming, generous, inventive and honourable. Their social structures have survived centuries of poverty and foreign mischief and decades of war and oppression, and have enabled them to overcome almost unimaginable trauma. But to acknowledge this seems embarrassingly romantic or even patronizing.
Yet the only chance of rebuilding a nation like Iraq or Afghanistan in the face of insurgency or civil war is to identify, develop and use some of these traditional values. Many international reformers over-exaggerate the power of technical assistance and formal processes.
In fact, in these contexts, charisma can be more potent than bureaucracy. Politicians have to demonstrate an intuitive understanding of local power structures and empathy for the unexpected things people value about themselves.
This may be uncomfortable for the international community. A leader who can restore security, reconcile warring parties and shape the aspirations of a people may resemble an Ataturk more than an American president. This is not a call for dictatorship. True progress must be sustained by the unconstrained wishes of the people. These should include, in Afghanistan, people with strong liberal values as much as conservative rural communities.
These various desires must be protected from both the contorted control of an authoritarian state and the muffling effect of foreign aid.
The international community often attempts to avoid imposing foreign systems. Donors try hard to emphasize grassroots consultation in designing a political system. But it is much easier for us in theory than in practice to admire and empower an unfamiliar society.
Our approach to nation-building in Afghanistan has failed to accommodate the splits between Hazara and Pashtun land arrangements, gender attitudes and codes, or their different approaches to literacy, the dignity of the individual or economic progress.
We do not embrace the many unexpected ways in which Afghans might overcome trauma, invest, trade and learn. Such diversity should not be imprisoned by the current centralized government, but empowered by a devolved and flexible federal system.
Western management jargon is of little help to Afghan entrepreneurs, who use tricks, trust, community and crises in a powerful way.
The strong Afghan sense of justice, community and religious belief can support a counter-narcotics program, the rule of law, democracy or security. But the real drivers of change are opaque.
Ultimately, we must respect countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, and trust in their ability to find their own solutions.
This does not mean we need to withdraw entirely. A Harvard MBA will be better at building a hydroelectric plant than a local tribal process. Foreign troops can sometimes, as in Bosnia, end a war. Our rigid values, critiques and methodologies can, even in Iraq, set up a central bank and stabilize a currency.
But the central problems are national and political. Our invective about state failure and our dissatisfaction have become part of the problem.
Real solutions will emerge, often improbably, from local individual virtues, and from the cultures we struggle to describe and tend to ignore.
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* Rory Stewart runs the Turquoise Mountain Foundation in Kabul. His latest book is the “The Prince of the Marshes and Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq”. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org .
Source: International Herald Tribune, 7 March 2007, www.iht.com
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.
4)The United States must widen its dialogue with Iran
Aria Mehrabi
Washington, D.C. - As the ink continued to dry on the aid-for-nuclear-freeze deal with North Korea, the Bush administration made an important announcement regarding another member of the “axis of evil”. It had decided to talk to Iran as part of a regional conference to discuss the future of Iraq. The parties would be sitting down together in Baghdad. The announcement should be welcomed as a long overdue act of sensible diplomacy that might defuse tensions in a rapidly deteriorating Iraq.
The question remains, however, whether the talks will lead to a reduction in tension between Washington and Tehran over other Middle Eastern issues, particularly Iran’s nuclear program. That’s unlikely. Because the talks will be limited to Iraq, there is little hope the sides will come up with broader strategic agreements on the region. Even as they speak of Shiite militias, Sunni attacks and the future of Iraq, Iran’s nuclear clock will continue ticking. Unless that uranium elephant in the room is tackled, the US-Iranian dialogue will be, at best, a reprieve from a larger conflict.
That’s why the Bush administration should indicate its interest in broader talks with Iran. Shortly after the North Korea deal was announced, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it should be “seen as a message to Iran that the international community is able to bring together its resources, particularly when regionally affected states work together and that the strong diplomacy … has finally achieved results.”
The reality is, however, that the Bush administration has never engaged in “strong diplomacy” on the Iran nuclear issue, and has never engaged Iran. Therein lies a large part of the problem. Indeed, a few years ago the United States rebuffed the most creative and far-reaching diplomatic overture Iran has made since the countries broke off relations almost three decades ago.
In spring 2003, Tehran sent a message to Washington calling for unconditional dialogue - putting all issues on the table, from its position on an Israeli-Palestinian settlement to the nuclear program. The two-page fax outlining the offer arrived at the State Department and found its way to the desk of Flynt Leverett, then a Middle East affairs adviser at the National Security Council. He forwarded it to his superiors. However, somewhere along the way the letter died on the vine, and the administration offered no response. Rice, who was national security adviser at the time, claimed she never received it.
The proposal was made when President Mohammad Khatami - he of the dialogue of civilizations - was in power. At the time, Iran offered to the European Union a range of conciliatory measures on the nuclear program, including the one that Washington most insists upon today: suspension of uranium enrichment as a precondition for talks. That was also when the Iraq war was still looking good, when the flush of victory still quickened the breath of US war planners, and when a confident Bush administration could simply shrug off Iranian overtures with a flick of the wrist.
Iran suspended its program for two years between 2003 and 2005, as it negotiated with the EU. When it became clear to Tehran that the Europeans were powerless to convince Washington to enter into a comprehensive deal, they changed tack. Iran decided to move toward enrichment again.
(Incidentally, Iranian and EU negotiators often commented privately on the absence of a US presence at the table).
Around that time, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a populist firebrand with an arsenal of anti-Western and anti-Semitic rhetoric, replaced Khatami. Though he wields far less bureaucratic power than Iran’s unelected clerics, Ahmadinejad has been an effective spoiler, frightening the world with his speeches, undermining Iran’s negotiating position in the process.
Today, the world looks much different than in 2003. Iran’s nuclear negotiators are less likely to give the United States what they would view as a victory before negotiations even start. As one Iranian official told me, speaking of the demand for a suspension of uranium enrichment: “The United States wants us to get to an end result even before we begin.”
That kind of language suggests that Iran might in fact accept an agreement in which it would suspend enrichment, but on the right terms, in an atmosphere of unconditional dialogue. However, we won’t know what the shape of an agreement looks like until the United States and Iran face each other in a negotiation setting where all issues are placed on the table, not just the future of Iraq.
The North Korea deal could not have succeeded without the US presence, or without a broader strategic framework. Pyongyang would have seen it all as a futile exercise. North Korea could be a template, but that means the Bush administration must hammer out a broader agreement with Iran. The Iraq talks are a good first step, but also an insufficient one.
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* Aria Mehrabi, an independent consultant, is a member of the leadership Council of the New America Foundation, a non-partisan think tank. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org .
Source: Daily Star, 10 March 2007, www.dailystar.com.lb
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.
5)Nigeria’s critical election
Jonathan Power
London - The air is hot here in the deep beyond of Nigeria. So is the talk, as happens at election time in any vibrant democracy. Yet the heat is measured, as one would expect from the retiring, rather cerebral, president, Olusegun Obasanjo, and his chosen, would-be successor Umaru Yar’Adua, a former university lecturer in chemistry, who prefers to speak as if he were in a classroom rather than on a podium surrounded by a cacophony of banner-waiving enthusiasts, bussed in mainly by the local churches, even though he is as Muslim as they come.
This is the heartland of the old Biafra, the province of the mainly Christian Igbo people who, in the 1960s, tried to break away and start their own country. The commanding Nigerian general who secured the Biafran capitulation after a very bloody defeat was Obasanjo. But that was before his days as an earnest Christian, which began when he was imprisoned by the dictator, Sani Abacha.
Now, given what he has learnt about life, Obasanjo says that he would find another way short of violence to have ended the secession, just as he did recently when he gave the disputed oil-rich peninsula of Bakassi to the Cameroon rather than fight for Nigeria’s claim to it.
“Biafra” is now at peace, and quite prosperous. Driving into the town, along past the rather grand Deeper Life Bible Church, the German Language Centre, the dozens of cyber cafés and the local synagogue — all testament to today’s multifaceted aspects of Nigeria’s rapid development — we pass row upon row of well built two-storey houses. The mud hut seems to be of a bygone century. Electric pylons dot the landscape and gas stations without queues are on every corner.
Nigeria has shaken off its sloth, its economic malaise, at least some of its maladministration, faced head on its culture of corruption and is now moving forward with a handsome growth rate of 7 per cent a year (8 per cent in the non-oil sector) with, according to the International Monetary Fund, a good chance of achieving an “Asian miracle” growth rate of 10 per cent within five years.
Now Yar’Adua steps forward and speaks to his “class”, as he does every day as he criss-crosses the country. “By 2020, I want to see Nigeria becoming an industrialised state. I want it to be by then the 20th industrialised state in the world. With the foundations that have been dug deep into the ground over the last 8 years there is no reason why we can’t do it.”
Yar’Adua is 56, governor of a northern state, Katsina, who won Obasanjo’s respect because he is one of the few governors of Nigeria who has not been tarnished by corruption. Unlike Obasanjo, who likes to dress up in sweeping robes, Yar’Adua wears a simple blue smock, with his bare feet in sandals. He doesn’t have the charisma, worldliness or command of detail of his mentor but he is thoughtful and straightforward in what he says.
“All religions are corrupted. But all religions are about love, kindness, justice and tolerance. These virtues are difficult for government to put in practice. But this is what I have tried to do in my state.”
Many of the northern governors tried early on to embarrass Obasanjo with a strict imposition of Sharia Law. Yar’Adua resisted this strongly and is known as a conciliator, rather than a confronter. When I asked him how he was going to deal with the armed insurrection in the oil-producing Niger Delta, he replied: “By patient negotiation.” And then added with a laugh: “You know Obasanjo, with his military manner, is not very good at being patient.”
Yar’Adua is up against two hard-headed opponents. The first is Mohammad Buhari, a former military dictator who, when in power, killed off dissenting journalists and locked up corrupt businessmen, but who in the last two elections has tried, not unsuccessfully, to prove he is now a reformed democrat. The other is Vice President Atiku Abubakar who broke with Obasanjo and formed his own party. Last week, he was indicted by an investigative committee of the senate for serious corruption and this week the government’s anti-corruption body, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), will present before the Federal High Court detailed evidence of his corruption. It is likely that this will lead to his disqualification as a candidate.
Nuhu Ribadu, the clever and brave lawyer who leads the EFCC, told me that he now believes that he is within reach of decapitating the mafia’s hydra that has so deeply corrupted Nigeria.
A lot hangs on this election. If all goes well — which means if the election is honest and Abubakar doesn’t try to extract political revenge — Nigeria could be launched as one of the 21st century’s up-and-coming great democratic powers.
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* Jonathan Power is a syndicated columnist, filmmaker and writer. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org .
Source: Jordan Times, 9-10 March 2007, www.jordantimes.com
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.
Youth Views
CGNews-PiH also regularly publishes the work of student leaders and journalists whose articles strengthen intercultural understanding and promote constructive perspectives and dialogue in their own communities. Student journalists and writers under the age of 27 are encouraged to write to Chris Binkley ( cbinkley@sfcg.org ) for more information on contributing.
About CGNews-PiH
The Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH) provides news, op-eds, features and analysis by local and international experts on a broad range of issues affecting Muslim-Western relations. CGNews-PiH syndicates articles that are constructive, offer hope and promote dialogue and mutual understanding, to news outlets worldwide. With support from the Norwegian, Swedish and US Governments and the United States Institute of Peace, the service is a non-profit initiative of Search for Common Ground, an international NGO working in the fields of conflict transformation and media production.
This news service is one outcome of a set of working meetings held in partnership with His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan in June 2003.
The Common Ground News Service also commissions and distributes solution-oriented articles by local and international experts to promote constructive perspectives and encourage dialogue about current Middle East issues. This service, Common Ground News Service - Middle East (CGNews-ME), is available in Arabic, English, and Hebrew. To subscribe, click here.
The views expressed in these articles are those of the authors, not of CGNews or its affiliates.
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