The Pakistani Spectator

Would you please tell us something about you and your site?

My name is Hussein Adel Fahmy, a 22 years old digital media engineering student at the German University in Cairo.  I was born and raised in Cairo, in a moderate environment where modern culture backed up by identity is a constituent component of it. I am currently doing my bachelor project at the University of Ulm, Germany as a visiting student.

 As my colleagues give me the nickname “Hus”,   The blog of Husfahmy is my personal blogging tool which I started with Mohammed Farouk’s blog, a friend of mine 3 years ago. Our main aim is  to promote for expressing ideas and blogging in Arabic and discussing many of the issues our generation is facing like collision between modernity and traditions, identity searching, freedom of speech, social contradictions, corruption and political awareness ; some through our experiences and other by representing other’s.

Do you feel that you continue to grow in your writing the longer you write? Why is that important to you?

I feel its normal to have this growth as any skill develops by investing more time and effort, but for me the growth was not only related to the writing style or the language, it is concerned with the circle of people I am directing my thoughts to. As in the beginning, a personal blog has a limited circle of interest or I can call it influence but as this circle grows, a blogger should develop his writing and thoughts in a responsible way that respects the reader’s mind and speak to him directly or by tickling his mind indirectly depending on the context. I believe writing is a reflection to us and the more this reflection is getting more precise, the more this growth is occurring.

I’m wondering what some of your memorable experiences are with blogging?

My blog was covering comprehensively the Lebanon-Israel conflict in 2006 and most people including me were against the idea of killing civilians. Lebanese people with their spectrum of ideologies at that time presented a real model of steadfastness. Seeing all this suffering, I changed my avatar to a sign which I designed that said “O’ Lebanon stand firm” and I encouraged all my readers to change their avatars to send a simple message of support presenting our cause.

A memorable experience was seeing a notably large number of Egyptians, Arabs , Americans, Europeans, people from all over the world putting this sign on their avatars and referring to my blog post in which had also contacts to official donating organizations and blood donation.

Another memorable experience was publishing two of my blog articles in The Daily Ahram Newspaper, one of the largest and widely spread Egyptian newspapers in the Middle East.

What do you do in order to keep up your communication with other bloggers?

Comments. It’s the magical word that keeps communication. A comment is a very important discussion line that describes the blogger’s idea. From the comments, bloggers can enhance their connectivity by discussion groups or forums.

What do you think is the most exciting or most innovative use of technology in politics right now?

Communication technology is certainly the most innovative. I believe the contribution of ordinary people in politics through publishing their ideas and communicating with each other has never been growing with this rate ever before. For instance, you can search for the word “corruption” on You Tube and see for yourself how much people are using this tool to present social corruption. This enormous communication technology with no doubt is directly affecting world’s politics right now. It doesn’t only give ordinary people the right and freedom to express but it also gives a chance for the governments to directly address the problems and present them to people directly too. I was personally impressed by blogs in which politicians themselves are developing.

Do you think that these new technologies are effective in making people more responsive?

Yes! Certainly, It makes them interacting within an already interactive medium. You could point the difference between a media tool like a News TV channel where people’s responds are not quite presented all over the topics and a simple designed news blog where millions of people are able to reach with a click of a button and with a possible anonymity. That is why we see many media tools like newspapers and TV channels developing their own blogs.

What do you think sets Your site apart from others?

There are two main things that I took care of while thinking of this site. First is that it is mostly written in classical Arabic while I am directing it to people at my age who find it little hard these days to express or sense this great language because of western influence on our dialects and our daily Egyptian colloquial language. While most of the blogs in classical Arabic are political or hard for daily light reading,  I am trying to promote the importance of written Arabic by presenting a mix of sarcastic, light and also serious articles with a sense of Egyptian dialect in writing conversations.

The other thing is taking care of making this blog “personal”. I am not trying to directly advertise for an ideology I believe in and I am not using this blog to promote for any political party or being against my country or by writing topics that doesn’t respect the reader’s mind. It’s a pure personal message.

If you could choose one characteristic you have that brought you success in life, what would it be?

I am always trying to be balanced in every action I take in my life.

What was the happiest and gloomiest moment of your life?

It was sarcastically at school. In student elections, I’ve been my class’s secretary for two consecutive years and in the third year a controversy started to appear if I am going to win or not against other candidates. It was a real nice democratic environment with elections-frenzy symptoms that ended up by being elected for a third year by my friends. It is a gloom to feel loved and respected by people.

If you could pick a travel destination, anywhere in the world, with no worries about how it’s paid for - what would your top 3 choices be?

Excluding Mecca, Saudi Arabic for pilgrimage,

Andalusia, Spain … London, England and Comoros Islands!

What is your favorite book and why?

It’s not an easy question to ask a Muslim because always religious identity directs him to this choice “The Holy Koran”. But for me, even if I rejected this idea still it will be the holy Koran.

The Koran brings peace to the mind and it brings hope. It discusses human intentions and motivations by giving good and bad examples of humans that you can be taught from. Moreover, it always gives me a logical explanation and argument to my life and its purpose and to the dignity of the human in which he should be taking care of for his afterlife.

What’s the first thing you notice about a person (whether you know them or not)?

A person’s eye is the first thing I notice. The eyes present a general message of one’s character.

Is there anyone from your past that once told you couldn’t write?

I don’t remember being told that I couldn’t write. But, I was certainly told that what I am writing is of no use before.

How bloggers can benefit from blogs financially?

As any website, blogs can benefit from advertisements being posted on it although I don’t encourage this because of the content those advertisements are having and of course spamming. Also, a blog that represents a certain humanitarian organization which gives examples of success stories can benefit from donations. Consider blogs as any media tool.

Is it true that who has a successful blog has an awful lot of time on their hands?

I don’t think so. Although organizing time for blogging is merely difficult especially if most of the blogs are written by you, but from my experience sharing some information or posting a video that keeps the communication is important and will save time. On the other hand, blogging is much addictive for reading and writing than ordinary books so one should really take care of organizing his time priorities.

What role can bloggers of the world play to make this world more friendlier and less hostile?

The key characteristic of blogs – as a media tool - is that they don’t depend on time and place. Two people from different parts of the world can access a blog at the same time. On the human side, a friendlier approach to us starts from understating each other. I’ve always said that blogs are the first media tool that was created by “ordinary people”. For this reason, independently from political biases or cultural differences ordinary people can understand each other through a blogging experience that involves presenting differences, commenting on it, discussing it, finding the commons and respecting the differences.

I see a responsibility for bloggers to approach each other from different cultures even though solving hostilities is not completely possible because of international relations complexities. But, and with no doubt, bloggers from different cultures can provide solutions and avoid hostilities by making people approaching themselves.

Who are your top five favourite bloggers?

Mohammed Farouk’s Blog

Thoughts and Tips by Laila Hussein

Ramblings of a restless mind by Sarah Abdel Azim

Amr Labib’s Blog

Khaled El Sawy’s Blog (A famous Egyptian actor)

Is there one observation or column or post that has gotten the most powerful reaction from people?

In one of the posts, I was writing about spreading hoaxes through emails that are oriented in a religious context. Some of these emails have falsified information and misunderstood concepts that speak about miracles or virtual events that didn’t occur like for example (Bill Gates became a Muslim and that letter in which if you didn’t send to 10 people you’ll be cursed and so … ). The youth out of their religious feelings start to spread this news and contribute in shaping a wrong image about our culture.

This post was published in Al-Ahram, and I found many forums discussing this topic from different countries. I think it had a powerful reaction from people.

What is your perception about Pakistan and its people?

Pakistan is a very interesting country. I respect the country’s model in developing itself economically and technologically and I find Pakistani people an example to observe in their fight for a democratic society. Being in a tensioned part of the world is a great responsibility and I think Pakistan is experiencing vast progress in playing an important role in the region as a strategic Islamic country in Asia.

Have you ever become stunned by the uniqueness of any blogger?

I always see something unique about every blog. The design can be unique and since there are no publishing directors for blogs, the content of written blogs is always completely different from each other. This rainbow of thoughts expressed can be considered as uniqueness in itself.

What is the most striking difference between a developed country and a developing country?

Technological gap and logistics are the real difference between both types of countries. Developing countries lack the tools or machines that contribute in gaining more resources and producing quality standard product. Even developing countries that have the resources are not able to compete in world economy because of deprivation. This technological gap has a negative effect on people and their hopes.

 

 

What is the future of blogging?

I can sense a really promising future for blogging as the number of blogs is increasing and the know-how of using the tool is spreading among wider area of people.  But, I expect more struggles for bloggers to increase their freedom of speech and expression against media controlling bodies in some governments. On the other hand, I see real need for a code of ethics that guarantees for bloggers to spread their word independently and without intrusion in line with respecting their readers and not publishing false information (as possible).

You have also got a blogging life, how has it directly affected both your personal and professional life?

I find it really interesting to include my real life into blogging. As I previously mentioned my blog is personal. That always requires directly observing my personal and professional life to be able to deliver my message and experience with other people.

What are your future plans?

I am currently discussing my ability to publish selected articles from my blog through those three years in a book. This experiment had succeeded in Egypt with different blogs being published. I hope my trial would succeed too given that it needs a considerable effort and time.

Any Message you want to give to the readers of The Pakistani Spectator?

I would like to thank your respected readers so much for giving me the chance to have this interview. I wish them best of luck in their hopes and god’s blessings on all of them. Thank You.

Last 5 posts by The Pakistani Spectator

• Interview with Blogger Tikun Olam - November 30th, 2008
• Interview with Blogger EngSpeak - November 29th, 2008
• Interview with Blogger Jeff Noble - November 26th, 2008
• Interview with Blogger Jan Marshall - November 24th, 2008
• Asif Zardari: ‘India & Pakistan Share Blood Ties’ - November 24th, 2008

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