[Foundation-l] Partecipation in Wikimania 2011

[Osama Khalid]

On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 10:49:15PM -0400, Nathan wrote:
> Countries like Egypt, Taiwan, the United States, Israel, etc.
> shouldn't be banned from hosting the Wikimedia movement because it
> may be difficult for some Wikimedians to attend.

Poland, Germany, Egypt, United States, Argentina and even Taiwan were
easy for the vast majority of the Wikimedia community to come into and
I don't think anyone had serious issue like the one we, Muslims and
Arabs, are have here. Just to be clear, here are the projects the will
have issues in being there;
ar.*.org
id.*.org
fa.*.org
ms.*.org
sw.*.org (not all users, but many of them)

> We shouldn't let "social considerations" (i.e. the decision to not
> recognize Israel as a nation) prevent us from locating Wikimania in
> the country of an active chapter with committed organizers.

Why not? It's as serious as the legal one. (I mean people think Israel
is doing very nasty things to innocent people e.g. preventing food and
medicines and killing thousands of citizens every now and then , and
for them to go there is to recognize the legitimacy of what it does,
and it may not be the best thing one can do!)

> People, the Middle East is more complex and multifaceted than BBC
> lets you think, come judge for yourself.

Harel, you are missing the point. It isn't about how Muslims/Arabs
within Israel get along. It's about the possibility of the rest of the
strategic region to be there.

-- 
Osama Khalid
English-to-Arabic translator and programmer.
http://osamak.wordpress.com | http://tinyogg.com