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.

Comments

Something In Common

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, now the Israelis and the Saudis can team up! You knew Open Source was going to turn political.

Spamming for Free Speech ?

[leoaugust]

Sadly, the Saudi Net filter doesn't stop spam. "If you could stop spam," I told Al-Hejery, "You could make a million dollars a day as a consultant for the U.S. government, and I'd even kick in some extra out of my own pocket."

"If I could do that," he replied, "I would be a hero here, too."

It does sound twisted, but because it is in context of a country where free speech is quite restricted - the thought did pop in my head.

Could it happen that some day spamming techniques or "spammers" will be hired by people who want to exercise their free speech ? You could spam with censored information when every other means of getting your voice heard is suppressed ?

Full Disclosure - I don't know spam. I have never sent spam. I don't like spam.

I had the opportunity

[The Tyro]

to work in Saudi Arabia, and after some thought, elected not to do so. I spent some time there during a military stint, and had the opportunity to interact with a number of Saudis (in the medical field, which is what I would have been doing there).

I discussed the job possibility with my wife (the money was very, very good), but her life would have taken a dramatic turn for the worse in that country. Women there (particularly foreign, christian women) do NOT have the same rights as men. Among other things, you can be detained by the religious police (different from the regular police) if you are a female out in public, not accompanied by at least one male relative. Not wearing an abayah (female headgear) in public is asking for trouble.

I should point out that lots of westerners live in walled compounds, so you don't really have to interact with the regular population if you don't really want to... but who wants to be cooped up in a walled compound for a year or two? The security we had at our military base was ridiculous (and necessary), and the compounds did not have the same level of security. Remember those car bomb attacks in Riyadh last year? They wouldn't have stood a snowball's chance at our military compound... that's the kind of security I'm talking about.

It's a very different culture, and a tough environment to walk into as a freedom-loving american... despite the excellent cash compensation. You really have to bite your tongue, be polite, keep your opinions to yourself, and be a gracious guest. Saudi justice is not american justice (in court, if it's a muslim's word against a christian's word, the christian can lose automatically) You're NOT a citizen there, and if you forget that detail, you can get yourself in serious trouble.

Good money, and I'm sure they could use a few geeks... but know what you're getting yourself into. Lots of TCNs (third country nationals) work there... Britts, French, etc, and some of them seemed to like it... but it wasn't for me.

It's nice to see that you are all so openminded...

[Arab]

I dont even want to comment on how many camel jokes i read in that list of posts, I'm not offended but to be quite frank you are playing up to a stereotype of ignorance.

Saudi geeks are much like any other geeks, religion is not a factor in being a geek, culture is not a factor in being a geek, just a love of what you do and in the case of computer geeks it's computers.

Having lived in saudi for the first 18 years of my life before going away to university I'd say that saudi geeks are the same as they are anywhere. if anythign the "restrictive" society leads more people to be introversive and there are more people that spend far too much time in front of computer screens, there are also a surprising number of women that go on to do degrees in computing, which one can assume is and extension of their geekiness.

I've seen geeks around the world and they are the same, we dont ride camels to work, or flying carpets, we don't have hot and cold running oil.

In the city I live in there are entire shopping malls dedicated to selling computer parts, every where you go you are hassled by people who are trying to sell you pirated software. computers are an enourtmous thing here, because there is nothing else to do. some people use their computers to play games, some people use them to mess around with photos, some use them to hack about with code, some just spend hours surfing the net and talking to people that they normally wouldn't be able to talk to in person due to the restrictions of the society (mainly the opposite sex, regardless of which sex they are, there is little intermingling for most people but some are more liberated.)

anyway it's nice to see that everyone is so openminded and such and that being at the frontiers of counter culture you aren't swayed by stereo types...

Re:Sure, unless they're women.

[swillden]

In which case, they need to wear burkas, not work, and be totally subservient to their man.

RTFA.

One of the things that Saudi geeks are apparently actively discussing (privately) is how software development work makes it possible for women to work without incurring the wrath of fundamentalist Muslims. Sure, that's mainly because they can work from home so the fundamentalists never see them, but the point is that these Islamic geeks in Saudi Arabia are actively considering how they can utilize technology to allow women to work. Their goal is to exploit an untapped resource, but even if they're underpaid and hidden from sight, working women will have a new power and level of influence they've not had before -- and these geeks don't see any problem with that.

Geeks tend not to be racist because hate takes time and effort that could be better applied to developing a better understanding of the universe.

Or, in this case, hacking out more code.

It's this sort of understated change that ultimately changes whole cultures. It's also precisely what a lot of the radicals are afraid of and can not stop, no matter how many car bombs they detonate.