Tag: MENA

Towards a Human-Centered Scientific Culture in the Arab World: from crisis-driven science to visionary renewal

My UNESCO report, Towards a Human-Centered Scientific Culture in the Arab World: from crisis-driven science to visionary renewal, has finally been published and is now publicly available.

Summary:

What if science in the Arab world could again be a cause for wonder, critical thinking, civic engagement, and citizenship? This report explores how scientific culture can be re-humanized and re-enchanted, so that it confronts the most urgent challenges facing the Arab world today. It transports the reader from the jolts of the COVID-19 pandemic to the fast-rising age of AI. It asks: what type of science culture is demanded—not just for technological advancement, but to nurture empowered and inclusive societies from Tangiers to Baghdad?

Despite education and research investments, scientific engagement remains weak across the majority of the Arab world. Developed as part of UNESCO’s Management of Social Transformations (MOST) Programme, the report identifies deeply-rooted obstacles: illiteracy, disengagement, low trust, and mobility restrictions and urges an interdisciplinary and holistic solution that places science within the cultural and social experience of Arab cities.

With cities as incubators of imagination, and Arab-Arab collaboration as a strategic necessity, a new science culture can be constructed: pluralistic, mobile, socially embedded, and emotionally resonant.

From libraries and museums to public media and art, the report offers a vision for galvanizing scientific interest and civic participation. Readers are invited to imagine how this transformation can occur, and to become part of building a future where Arab science touches the soul as much as the mind.

Bringing back common ground (lecture and debate in Brussels)

I will be giving a talk and participating in a debate before an audience of EU and MENA youth hosted by the Friends of Europe (FoE) and the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation (ALF) on 4th and 5th November 2019 in Brussels.

“In an era in which we are facing global issues that demand quick and effective collective action, such as climate change, migration and growing inequalities, both politicians and citizens appear to be distracted and paralysed by polarisation. Trust in the rational and stable middle ground of deliberative party politics is disappearing, with people instead opting for strong emotions, populistic rhetoric and big personalities. Issues related to national identity, cultural values and ethnic origins have been prominent in the political debate worldwide, causing not only political division, but also cultural and social polarisation.

Many governments are unable to respond adequately to the growing social, ethnic and religious conflicts – or oftentimes even foment these tensions. Instead, antagonistic narratives seem to be the only way of conceiving the vote. Societal debate has been hijacked by the more extreme movements that instigate high-tension debates, in which more moderate voices and much needed debates about common concerns such as climate change are losing power and influence.

What is the glue binding us together for the future? What can be done to encourage moderate voices? How can we counter social and political polarisation?”