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Are you interested in attending a course about promoting the Culture of Peace?
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AWR plays a critical role in redefining media perception s and reporting on Muslim-Christian, Arab-Western relations, sensitizing both communities to the importance of countering widespread prejudices with accurate information. It''s reports are used by churches, councils of churches, Christian organizations, the Al Azhar dialogue committee, academic institutions in the Arab World and in the West, Western embassies in Cairo, media specialized in religious issues, interested Westerners who use this in their work in different countries of the Arab World and major church leaders in Egypt. AWR is sent to addresses in Egypt, Jordan, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, The Netherlands, UK, US and Canada. Many organizations use Arab-West Reports as a resource in countering inflammatory reporting and AWR criticism has been effective in reducing the output of material inciting discord and conflict.
AWR has succeeded in changing the perspective in a number of those Western media channels characterized by their inflammatory rhetoric against Islam and the Islamic world. For example,
• Christianity today, probably the most prominent publication in the US Evangelical community has, not only become very careful in publishing claims on Muslim-Christian issues in Egypt as a direct result of our work with them, but their editors now often consult AWR on issues related to Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt before publication.
• AWR work has influenced the perspective of October, an Egyptian publication which provided the platform for a very radical anti-Christian article by an Azhar scholar. AWR Board member Dr. Abdel Mo''ti Bayoumi, a prominent Azhar scholar, responded to the magazine with the result that the magazine has changed its policy and no longer accepts such articles.
• The American National Council of Churches used AWR material in the debate on the freedom from Religious Persecution Act, USA, in 1998, playing a role in softening the initial law.
• An AWR report on inciting reporting on police atrocities in investigating the murder of two Christians in al-Kosheh in 1998 brought praise from both Viriginia Sherry of Human Rights Watch, USA, and Dr. Osama Al-Baz, Advisor of President Mubarak of Egypt. This was the First time that a Human Rights Watch and a prominent Egyptian politician came together on a major human Rights issue and it played an important role in reducing the inflammatory reporting on this issue.
• New York of Churches, 1999, requested AWR prepare a report for a press conference on the alleged kidnapping of Christian girls in Egypt. Our report did not confirm the kidnapping but highlighted a range of social problems which had been conductive to the allegations. The report also generated a debate in the US Coptic community, resulting in a report issued by Dr. Rodolph Yanny, president of the society of Coptic Church studies and founder and editor of Coptic Church Review in 1980 which confirmed our own findings.
• Many of the AWR reports which critique and analyze inflammatory reporting in both the West and in Egypt inform the work of major organizations (including the US state department).
Achievements:
• Since its establishment in 1997, we have translated and summarized over 9,000 articles and reports from Arabic to English, and written and researched over 500 special reports. Our statistics show that we have substantially increased the number of articles translated from Arabic into English in 2003 and 2004, as well as the number of special reports and articles put out by AWR. This increase reflects about the role of religion in society to include articles that are relevant for Arab-West relations.
• In 2005, we began to expand the number of languages used.
• In August 2003, the preliminary foundation for the AWR website was created ,(see: www.arabwestreport.org), working toward the goal of making it possible for subscribers to access AWR Weekly online. This work was made possible with the assistance of local website designers who offered a low-cost website developing package. Work on the website designers had to be continued due to lack of resources but recommenced in June 2004 after receiving a commitment from the German organization, Missio, to sponsor our work. Summaries of articles are also being made available in German, starting in 2005.
• In June 2004, we signed a contract with Colt Technologies for the development of the Electronic Documentation Center(EDC). A data entry form and an index was developed to classify all articles and reports into subject categories. In September 2004 we began classifying all information. We expect this process will be finished by September 2006.
• We have received endorsements from a number of prominent statespersons and institutions, such as Amr Moussa, Andreas Van Agt (see below) and, most recently, a memorandum of formal understanding from the Development of Eastern Religious Christianity, Nijmegen University, The Netherlands.
Future plans:
• increasing AWR''s activities is directly linked to our limited staff size and capabilities. Our staff are very committed and dedicated to their work, often compensating for lack of resources by working overtime and taking on tasks beyond their workload. We hope to realize our organizational goals by acquiring the necessary funds and support that will allow us to reach a wider audience and develop our activities.
• The Center for Arab-West Understanding is now seeking to build on its impact, with the future development of the Electronic Documentation Center (EDC – electronic library). The EDC is being designed to documents and track the discussion of current relevant issues. It is an online database with full search engine capabilities and user indexes. This database will enable subscribers to search with in our archives by topic, author, date, and region, taking full advantage of the store of information in the EDC.
A website will introduce AWR to non-subscribers and give them the opportunity to browse selected articles and read about our mission and goals. The subject index of organizations will greatly contribute to facilitating access to documentation. Senior editor Eildert Mulder of the Dutch national, Daily Trouw, comments that the lack of adequate newspaper archives results in insufficient depth in articles and propagates the stereotypes that AWR/CAWU want to combat. Mulder writes that the CAWU electronic documentation center " will soon become an absolutely necessary tool for every serious report" as well as for students, scholars, politicians and businessmen concerned with the Middle East. Mulder is sure that if this project is enlarged in such a way that other Arab countries and subjects are covered that " it will very soon become apparent which media use this electronic library and which media do not. The difference in quality will become very visible" (AWR, 2004, week40, art.2)
In November 2005 we hope to be able to present the EDC with the Articles of 2003, 2004 and 2005. the material of 1997-2002 will be made available around July 2006 with maximum search options.
• with the Aid of future funding, we expect to have the database operational around September 2006. A ten page text in Arabic will explain the aims and activities of the organization and the Mission Statement will be available in German, French, Russia and Dutch. The sophisticated advanced search function will enable users to find the most pertinent articles to their specific research needs and will take maximum advantage of the rich knowledge found within the database. The EDC will also have an index; a glossary of Arabic terms; a Who-is-Who section, an index of some 10.000 or more names culled from all documents that can help users to identify people by nationality, profession, religion or political affiliation; a list of Qur''anic references (to see how authors use specific Qur''anic verses), Hadith as well as the Bible. Development of a list of organizations mentioned in AWR, a glossary of specialized Arabic Terminology with links will be made from individual articles to this glossary, links to the EDC from the website of major academic libraries around the world.
User fees for the EDC have yet to be determined. Article summaries will be available to the general public free of charge, users will be charged for access to full texts.
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