For what it’s worth, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales sees the growth of Internet usage in the Middle East as a boon to the world’s exposure to “ordinary people” of the region. Such exposure, he said, would soften the region’s image abroad.
Everday PeopleWe got to live together
I am no better and neither are you
We are the same whatever we do
You love me you hate me you know me and then
You can’t figure out the bag l’m in
I am everyday people, yeah yeah
There is a long hair that doesn’t like the short hair
For bein’ such a rich one that will not help the poor one
And different strokes for different folks
And so on and so on and scooby dooby doo-bee
Oh sha sha-we got to live together
— Sly and the Family Stone In other words, not everybody in the Middle East is a suicide bomber, just as America isn’t filled only filled with gun-toting Yosemite Sams, just as not every Frenchman smokes while waxing elitist about Anglican cultures, just as…well, pick your favorite stereotype.
Wales, known more for utopianism than realism, predicted the Middle East, thanks to Internet exposure, will be viewed at increasingly more moderate angles that will lead to a collective conclusion that the region has its strengths and weaknesses like anywhere else.
For example:
Strengths: Smoking strawberry flavored tobacco from a shisha on a Jordanian rooftop cafe; lots of dates and figs; God lives there
Weaknesses: Ironically, getting stoned is easier than you think; higher likelihood of getting blown up
“I think that ordinary people are far more moderate and far more ordinary than the unfortunately polarised views of extremes you see coming out,” he said at World Economic Forum for the Middle East.
