Online political training in exile: Al Sharq Academia platform

Abstract

I have been following the courses of Al Sharq Academia (SA) since 2017, when I started to look for opportunities to learn social sciences in Egypt alongside my BA degree in translation at Al-Azhar Islamic University in Cairo. As quality social science education in Egypt is privatized and not accessible to many (in terms of linguistic, geographical and economic barriers, to mention a few), I found SA an example speaking to my need. Through time, I developed an interest in pedagogical initiatives that (aspire to) practise decolonization, in the descriptive, pragmatic sense of the word. This interview is an attempt to shed light on the politics and problematics of producing and teaching online political content with the aim of working on gradual long-term ‘democratic’ change in contemporary Al Sharq region. Dr Affan refers geopolitically to the Middle East as the Al Sharq region, and uses the term in a cultural sense when referring to Islamic civilization. Taking Al Sharq Academia as an example, what interests me here regarding its work is to show a case of how the academia’s team, represented here by Dr Affan, circumvented many of the challenges they faced in trying to translate political activism and aspirations for democratic change into a platform that channels the complexities of what the political might mean, in the current postcolonial, post-Arab Revolution context...