“We have been surprised by our discovery of an Arab world which is technologically advanced and open to modernity” says Professor Garito, who criticises the images of these nations projected on Western television, applauds the project ‘France 24’, and notes that “It would be great to create a Mediterranean TV, which is both Arab and European, broadcast from Italy, and conceived with the aim of improving mutual understanding of these different realities. The launch of the English speaking version of ‘Al Jazeera’ demonstrates that Arabs, much more than Italians, are confronting the issue of communication within a global world.”

What are the role and aims of ‘Uninettuno’ in the Mediterranean, especially with regards to its relationship with Arab countries?

Uninettuno has inherited the role and responsibilities of the Consorzio Nettuno with whom we launched the distance learning Euro-Mediterranean University, financed by the European Commission. When that project finished the governments of the participating countries asked us to continue our work, and so we have forged collaborative links, both at government level and in the academic sphere, with the nations of the southern Mediterranean coast. In the two emblematic cases of Egypt and Morocco this co-operation has already produced tangible results, which go beyond what was agreed in the initial programmes. In Egypt, for example, we have an agreement with Helwan University which has created an extremely advanced technological alliance – much more advanced, in fact, than we could have imagined. Helwan is directly connected to Uninettuno in Rome via satellite, and so there are Egyptian students who are able to enrol in our ‘virtual’ university through their home institutions. We have also developed programmes through which young Egyptians can obtain qualifications which will be recognised in Italy, Europe and in Egypt itself. This is the first time ever that a distance learning university operating by television and internet from a foreign country has brought to an Arab nation an academic programme directed towards its own culture. All of this has already been realised within the Faculty of Engineering, but we are also currently developing courses for the Faculties of Economics, Law, Psychology and Cultural Heritage. We have a network which links, via satellite and television, no less than 31 Mediterranean universities in 11 different countries, from Syria to Morocco. And these countries are now asking us to further develop training and qualification programmes for careers linked to technological innovation – something which will have a fundamental role in the formation of a generation of professionally qualified immigrants, and will also have a decisive impact on the Italian job market.

This concerns your relationship with the universities. But can your satellite channel also be reached by ordinary people in the Arab world?

Thanks to our collaboration with the universities we have created a degree course in engineering that is broadcast via satellite in a number of languages (Arabic, Italian, English and French) over our television channel, RaiNettunoSat1. These are courses taught by the best Arab professors, who are also required to have had training or teaching experience either in the United States or in Europe. We are talking, therefore, of the best teachers who have returned to their native countries and accepted our programmes and study plans, at the same time perhaps also adding something of their own – because in fields like mathematics they are much more advanced than us.

And so you are helping to put Arab scholars back into Arab nations…

In a way, yes – helped by incentives introduced by some governments who, with the aim of re-launching their own universities, have made specific provisions for those professors returning from abroad. Our networks are, however, also followed by normal Arab citizens. There is no other European channel transmitting in Arabic; we are the only the only one to do so. And we have discovered from letters we have received that we have viewers even in the desert, since a satellite dish suffices to receive our broadcasts. Satellite dishes are in fact everywhere in the Arab world, and this proves an extraordinary desire to communicate with the outside world. As of this year we are also planning to teach reading and writing in Arabic to those who are at the moment completely illiterate, and so we will be making use of television in the same way as in Italy in the 1950s. The most important value of our work is to is to transmit cultural and educational information via television, and to provide a tool with which to develop knowledge of our cultures and universities – a knowledge which will sometimes be more accurate than that engendered by mainstream Italian television which presents images of an extraordinarily wealthy nation which must be reached at all cost, even at that of life itself.

Talking of which, how would you assess the degree of commitment demonstrated by those Italian satellite television channels which aspire to create dialogue with the Arab world?

Absolutely inadequate. For Arab nations, television is today the most important means of communicating and spreading knowledge, and we in the West need to be more careful, because the Arab world knows us above all through the images that it sees on its TV screens – images which are distorted. Furthermore, when we talk of the Arab world on television here, it is always war, abuses of power, and lack of freedom which are discussed. It is never the positive aspects of their reality which are shown, but only the negative (which nevertheless do exist).

What could Italy do to help the Arab and Western worlds know each other better?

If I may say so, Italy needs to do two things. The first is to help Italians themselves increase their knowledge of the Arab world. Because we can not rely on the same debates between the same people talking about the same topics. The Italian media must go and retake that reality, earning trust through the objectivity of its reporting. If I, in my own limited personal experience, have had some success with my project in the Arab world, it is only because I have tried to shed my judgements and prejudices, and all my personal preconceptions, and have tried to see their reality with fresh eyes. And in doing this I have discovered a world that I could never have expected. I have seen, for example, how the universities are flourishing once again across the area, from Egypt to Jordan to Morocco; and how the majority of university professors in these countries, those between 40 and 50 years of age, have been trained abroad, in America or in Europe, and are returning to their own countries full of enthusiasm with the aim of re-launching science, culture, and development. They come to work in campuses that are incredible, and absolutely innovative – but this is never seen on our television. There’s the science city in Tunisia, the technology village in Egypt, and concentrated areas devoted to technological development that we don’t have even in Italy.

And the second thing that Italy needs to do?

Italy has a huge advantage with respect to other countries, but we seem to be oblivious to it. The Italian professors who gravitate around Uninettuno have succeeded in winning the acceptance of the Arab governments. Our universities are therefore already there present within the system, without any forced effort, and have to potential to become support points for the entire Italian system. Thanks to Uninettuno, furthermore, Italy is communicating not only with the elite of the Arab world, that is, the universities; whilst those who enrol can earn a university qualification, it is also true that with a simple satellite dish even the most ignorant or poorest individual can follow our courses and benefit from the lectures of the best Arab professors in their own homes, or tents (since there are young people who work in the desert, for the oil companies, who follow us via satellite). If it was fully realised that these projects are accepted not only by an elite but also by the Arab peoples, then with better funding we could extend the progress of our project, both making Italian culture known to the Arab world, and helping the development of Arab culture itself via broadcasts in their own language.

How do you feel about the launching of a French channel for the Arab world – ‘France 24’? In reality France in not seen much better than Italy in certain Arab countries. We need only think remember that on a border as delicate as that of the Lebanon there are more Italian soldiers present than French…

I’m sorry to highlight this, but France is targeting Arab nations much more than Italy, both at an academic and industrial level ( I would like to add, in passing, that less than 4 months ago, via an internal inter-governmental memo, the French, too, asked to receive Uninettuno). France 24 is currently broadcast in French and English, but they are also planning to broadcast in Arabic, and this clearly shows a desire to address the issues posed by global competition. I can only think well of anyone who attempts to confront issues of global communication. It is a mistake to continue as channels such as Rai 1, Rai 2 and Rai 3 do, imagining their audience to be limited to a local or national level.

But is the project of a non-specialised Arab speaking Italian satellite TV channel really feasible?

Absolutely, yes. We ought to be aiming towards a multilingual television which broadcasts in Arabic, Italian, English and French. In order to communicate with the Arab world it’s important to be able to speak Arabic. It would be great to make a Mediterranean television network, both Arab and European, broadcast from Italy, and conceived with the aim of improving mutual understanding of all aspects of these different realities. And the cultural aspect is the most important, since a television network of this kind must necessarily address the young people of the Mediterranean, the future generation.

What are your views on the launch of an English speaking version of ‘Al Jazeera’?

I was really impressed by this project of theirs to make themselves known through the use of other languages. Al Jazeera is the biggest phenomenon of contemporary television, above all because it is making television in a new and modern way. No one expected it, and yet this Arab station is offering a language, colours and graphics which are completely modern. This ought to highlight the importance of budget. If I wanted to do what Al Jazeera is doing, I would need very highly esteemed professionals. And I have to say that the Arab world does indeed have some extremely high quality professionals. We ourselves have recently employed an Egyptian director, and I’ve done everything I can to keep her with us, because they are more familiar than we are with new, emerging technologies. You only need to look at the websites of their universities and of newspapers like Al Ahram to see this.

And to think that many Arab newspapers have a significant part translated into English, much more so than their Italian counterparts…

That’s right, and even if some of these translations are not of the highest quality the sense of the article can nevertheless be understood, and this is evidence of the fact that they are confronting the issue of global communication. In this area we Italians are still very much provincial. How many Italian websites are translated into 4 or 5 languages? We do what we can, and our site is already available in 4 languages (and soon will also be available in Spanish). But not even the Americans have websites translated into Arabic. Arab nations, much more than Italians, are attempting to deal with the issue of communication within a global world.

Translation by Liz Longden