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Are Geeks in Saudi Arabia Just Like Us?
Robin 'Roblimo' Miller (of NewsForge and sometimes Slashdot) spent five days in Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh, meeting with local Linux advocates and users, and wrote five articles while he was there. The article titles are Saudi Arabia: Linux advocates in white robes, Saudi Space Institute techies love their new Linux computer, Meet Saudi Arabia's most famous computer expert, Saudi open source conference opens minds, and Linux and open source opportunities in the Mideast. This is the first in-depth look ever at open source (and programming in general) in a conservative Islamic country. Roblimo concludes that under the robes, Saudi geeks are much like geeks everywhere, but from comments on the stories it looks like a lot of people don't agree.
Because they believe that women are lesser creatures that have next to no rights?
Look at how women and other religious minorities are treated before you start saying that other geeks are just like them.
Do some research.
Last week was an excellent example to see if geeks in Saudia Arabia work similar.
:)) excellent phpMyFAQ, I am eager to (let) translate them into as many languages as possible (actually, I'm working on a Latin translation right now).
As a part time team member of the (imho
Last time we got to know that someone from the Arabic community has done this already.
Unfortunatly, my Arabic is still far too broken to be used in daily conversation or even letters. It took some time and attempts to get into contact with them. Well, it seems that this week, the phpmyfaq will be shipped as a version 1.3.9-pl2, introducing Arabic support, thanks to these great people.
If someone speaks this beatiful language, he/she might check out these forum threads:
swalif
or alqafelah
This is one of the arabic phpmyfaqs: ksavb.com. Pretty interesting style imho.
The arabic language file was first spotted on albakr
Doesn't this look like the cute Arabic sister of freshmeat.net?
First Post: "Al bust al-awwal" (I don't think there is an equivalent to the word "post", but I may be wrong).
Sorry, I don't have the unicode. Essentially: Alif -Lam Ba-Waw-Sod-Ta, Alif-Lam Alif(with hamza)-Waw(with shadda)-Lam, . The last letters for "bust" may differ (emphatic or not) depending on the original pronunciation.
Thomas Miconi
The world is not at war with Islam, it is at war with Islam fundamentalists. How many times does the distinction have to be made before people will understand it? Fundamentalists of any religion are just as bad. Look at the Crusades, that was Christian Fundamentalists. Regular Muslims are no worse than regular Christians (or Jews, or Hindus, or whatever, i just chose Chistians because most Westerners, and therefore most /.ers know more about it (i would guess)).
And, before anyone asks, I am an athiest, and am equally critical of all religions.
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, reports from the women themselves, etc.
Here's an example of Saudi Arabian barbarism towards women and girls: Religious police make girls die in fire because they aren't wearing headscarves
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
...me thinks that their women geeks and our women geeks are somehow a bit different.... we allow ours to work more freely (driving, education, clothing, status, etc...)
This is the scary part.
Somehow you hoped that people in such a fucked up society that leaves little girls in a burning school as they were not dressed correctly, were different.
I for one would like to be able to point to a special aberrant gene causing this crap.
Help fight continental drift.
1) I did not question the irony because I knew *you* would without my help.
2) I did *not* stay in the hotel. I wandered all over Riyadh, and I met quietly with several social dissidents, but writing about them by name would not be safe -- for them. Sometimes it's better to leave a U.S. reader thinking less of me than to put someone's life in danger. At least *I* think so. You are free to disagree.
3) I'm sure I'll eventually write other stories about Saudi Arabia that will go more deeply into the social/religious/political situation there, but not for NewsForge or Slashdot. There are other media where those stories would be more appropriate.
- Robin
First to dispel some misconceptions: The women on the roads here think it is just as crazy that their counterparts in Saudi can't drive. Alcohol is available at hotels, restaurants, and in liquor stores. There is essentially no dress code for visitors, and we see plenty of tank tops and belly-button rings. Women don't wear veils or always black, because that's not part of Islam - that's a recent part of Saudi culture. Plenty of women wear jeans and t-shirts. Birth control pills are available at subsidized rates and are encouraged. And of course there are all of the modern ammenities you'd expect: water, power, cheap gas, shopping malls, movie theaters, Starbucks and McDonalds and satellite TV, just like everywhere else.
Second, there are a number of ways in which life here compares favorably to life back home (I'm American): in day to day living, things are less oppressive here. When you get pulled over by the cops, you get immediately get out of your car and shake hands with the cop and exchange pleasantries. You would get shot doing this where I lived in LA. Speaking of getting shot, there are no guns here. Well, there are rifles of course, but murder is exceedinly rare. In fact, the last one was some Texan woman who murdered her oil-worker husband with the aid of her son. There is virtually no crime to speak of at all. No metal detectors in schools, no looking over your shoulder in dark alleys, no worries or concerns about getting carjacked or mugged or harassed in any way. I rarely lock my car, never lock my house. Punishment for crimes is indeed swift, certain and severe, but a trial by jury is guaranteed - kind of like small-town USA. Medical care? Free. For everyone, foreign or Omani.
Freedom? There sure seems to be. All citizens vote for parliament members. There are female doctors, professors, ministers - you're free to choose to do whatever you want with your life. Freedom of religion too. A couple of my jewish friends have been out to visit and loved this place. You're much more free here to go where you like, camp where you like, eat and drink and smoke where you like. Cops in Arizona (well, rangers), in the middle of nowhere, busted me for trespassing and not camping at a designated campsite. And here I was used to rolling up any old place, pitching a tent, making a fire, cooking up some pork sausages I picked up from the local supermarket, surfing and fishing wherever I chose.
Next to my folks' house in California people had a 'vote no on prop 22' sign on their front lawn (the bill that would have allowed gay marriage, which was voted down). Racial hate crimes and general tension are vastly greater in the states than here - Oman is historically a melting pot because of all its sea-faring trade. Oh, and unlike in here, I needed a license to catch a fish and a permit for wherever I wanted to go fishing back in California.
The point of all this is that things are never black and white, and these countries out here are almost nothing like what the evening news and our elected officials would have us believe.
A-Bomb
actually, neocons are rarely jewish. They just support Israel for "Pat Robertson" reasons.
LOL. Well, I do know quite a few Arabs, and 'liberal' is definitely not an adjective that comes to mind when describing their politics. Especially the younger ones, who tend to be far more fundamentalist than their (often fairly secular) parents.
Eh. I know lots of Arabs (I'm a Muslim) and I wouldn't say that they are quite liberal. I know lots of Southerners too (I live in Georgia) and I'd say that they are not very liberal either. They are, of course, good people, but they do have a conservative streak.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
As long as I can see Christian fundamentalist get air time on Larry King to explain how the Jews should be helped to regain their entire scripture promised lands, and by extension cleanse it from its present occupants, I dont think you should be throwing stones.
We all have our nutters.
The piece they covered about that girls school that was on fire in Saudi Arabia? The local "religious police" would not let them out because they didn't have the garment that covers their faces, and many girls (as in CHILDREN) BURNED TO DEATH. No, the Saudi's are nothing like us. I'm sure SOME people in that region are just swell, but many are just sub-human.
75% of the content in these articles were comparison and contrast between Saudi culture and the author's American culture; 25% of it consisted of actual information about technology in Saudi Arabia.
As a Muslim, if I were to write an article about Linux adaptation in say -- France, do you think I'm going to use 50% of the text to explain women there do not cover their heads, many drink alcohol and eat pork, and none of them pray five times daily? No, because I'm not looking to create a cultural competition; I simply don't care since, although I may have certain cultural beliefs and even prejudices, it's irrelevant to the actual topic.
Saudi Arabia is the home of Islam's two holiest places; it is the home of Islam itself. Coupled with that is Arabian culture that is much more rich than that of Arabized nations in the North (such as Egypt, Syria, Lebanon etc.) Part of 'freedom' is realizing that people may hold values that are in stark opposition to your own; ones that may even seem 'incorrect,' however NOT being a member of that culture you have no room to judge that. The fact is that the vast majority of Saudis approve of their government, and this is coming from someone who has spent most of my adult years amongst Saudis, and plan to spend the rest of my life there.
The author did not really write a journalistic piece, and that's probably not surprising since he is a self-proclaimed geek. The following links should fill the voids these articles left out. There are some very impressive open source projects going on in Saudi Arabia, including the first Arabic Linux Live-CD (based on Knoppix I believe, as well as many other projects, including Arabic localizations of Mozilla. Feel free to visit the Saudi Linux User group while you're at it. For Arabic Mac users like myself, they may find this site informative.