The recipient of a YouTube Visionary Award last December, Queen Rania of Jordan's Arab world videos are changing perceptions of Arabs and the Arab world. Dena Rashed logs on I have long been curious about the video clips posted by Egyptians and Arabs on YouTube, the free-to-upload video site. Knowing that many controversial pieces surface on the site, together with people's funny videos, bits and pieces of movies, songs and homemade videos, I recently decided to try to view as many such pieces as I could. Amid all the trivia, including a lot of material relating to Arab women -- Arab women at home, Arab women in the streets, Arab women very often, or so it seemed, filmed without their consent -- it was striking how much of the YouTube material seemed prejudiced towards Arabs. It was also striking how intolerant people seemed to be towards each other, many of those posting comments making prejudiced remarks even in response to a humorous video. However, one set of Arab videos amid this flood of material stood out for its good sense and message of tolerance: those made by Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan. In these videos, Queen Rania speaks eloquently and confidently to the world about Arab women's lives, as well as about the stereotypes circulating in the West about the Arab world and about Arab women in particular. Queen Rania is an example of a smart and accomplished Arab woman, but for all that she understands in her video material that simply presenting herself and her life to the viewer is not enough to change perceptions about Arab women's lives. Obviously, not every Arab woman is like Queen Rania, and Queen Rania's life is very far from representing the lives of women in the Arab world. For this reason, in her videos Queen Rania tries to show what seems to be a sceptical world that Arab women's lives do not conform to the Western stereotypes of women in the Arab world as being poorly educated, submissive towards men and oppressed. On the contrary, she shows how Arab women are individuals like Western women, and how Arab women have their own identities, ambitions and careers. In a preliminary video made for the YouTube site, Queen Rania presented her views and asked people around the world to send in videos dealing with various kinds of stereotypes. Over 1.5 million users of the site saw the two-minute video, in which Queen Rania says that "in a world where it is so easy to connect to one another, we still remain very much disconnected. There is a whole world of wonder out there that we cannot appreciate through stereotypes. So, it is important for all of us to join forces and come together and try to bring down these misconceptions." Acknowledging the power of the site as a tool for global communication and a platform for dialogue, Queen Rania says in her first video that "I want people to know the real Arab world, to see it unedited, unscripted and unfiltered, and to see the personal side of my region. [I want people] to know the places, faces, rituals and culture of the place that I call home." YouTube is among the most popular sites on the Internet, the second most popular according to some accounts, and Queen Rania's initiative to use the site to foster dialogue and to target the site's millions of users worldwide has not gone unnoticed by Web insiders. One YouTuber wrote that "it is outstanding to find a royal person willing to open channels with young people. It is so inspiring," while another regular of the site, a Mexican man of Arab origin, said that what was most valuable about the queen's initiative was her determination to counter mainstream Western media images of Arabs as intolerant or violent. One of the most valuable aspects of the initiative has also been its use of the YouTube comments section, in which viewers are invited to post remarks on the clips and to enter into dialogue with other viewers. This section can make for fascinating, if sometimes disturbing, reading. While there are many positive remarks, there are also remarks that show an alarming lack of knowledge or understanding in the world at large. Many of those posting do not seem to know the difference between an Arab and a Muslim, while others mix political factions with countries, or confuse religion, politics and culture. Some viewers ignore the intention behind Queen Rania's initiative altogether, asking why she is speaking in English in the videos, a way of reaching out to the world at large, instead of speaking to Arabs in Arabic. Many YouTubers want to use the site as a forum for political discussion, arguing over the rights and wrongs of Jordanian politics, about Hamas, or about Jordanian diplomatic relations with Israel. Others seem more interested in the queen herself, commenting on how she looks, what she says, or whether they find her remarks inspiring. There are many comments from non-Arabs and non-Muslims about Islam, some of which are answered from their point of view by other, Muslim viewers. There is some heated discussion on the site, one of the 16 videos featuring Queen Rania gathering some 7, 000 comments. In the videos, Queen Rania argues for what she calls "four steps towards breaking the stereotypes". First, she advises people to try to separate fact from fiction and to try to examine the labels that are sometimes used in a critical way. The next step, she says, is to read others' comments carefully and to think of counter arguments, expressing them ideally through videos or through creative ideas. Collaborate with others, she advises users of the site. Get your clips out there. Share them with others. Probably the most interesting part of the whole initiative is the video stories that Queen Rania's pieces have provoked from users of the site. One video piece, for example, entitled "See what Arab Women are up to", gives examples of the different jobs held by Arab women, including CEO, taxi driver, plumber, judge, minister, football player, pilot, stay- at-home mother, hairdresser and architect. Queen Rania delivers her message "that Arab women do have choices", while also acknowledging that there is still a way to go. Misperceptions, however, still exist. Some YouTubers seem unable to believe that certain videos were filmed in Arab countries, being apparently convinced women not wearing the veil are persecuted. In reply, Arab writers try to correct such misperceptions, one woman arguing, for example, that Arab women do not need to prove anything to the rest of the world and another proudly telling viewers that she both wears the veil and was top of her computer engineering class in the US while at the same time being pregnant. Arab women, she says, are just as accomplished as their Western peers. Why not show more veiled women on the site, she asks, since so many people seem to think that women who wear the veil are either uneducated or oppressed. Not all of the debate is about women, of course. There are also comments on religion, peace and communication. Many Western viewers ask questions about human rights in the Middle East; others seem to ask questions related to almost anything apart from the Arab world. There are voices on the site calling for the Arab countries "to fix their problems", and others claiming that the whole exercise is propaganda, aiming to present the Arab world in an only positive light. Whatever one may think of the questions asked or the answers given on the YouTube site, the kind of dialogue Queen Rania's videos has given rise to, sometimes moderate, sometimes less so, is very much in the spirit of Queen Rania's aims. Indeed, when she received the inaugural YouTube Visionary Award for the videos last December, Queen Rania said that while a video clip "could not change the world, it could change a mind." " Yalla," come on, she said then. Let's try to change as many minds as possible.
