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Egyptian Linux Advocates' Replies
Alaa and his friends at Linux-Egypt put a lot of thought into answering your questions. Alaa wrote, "we felt there was much misinformation or lack of information about egypt while reading the comments so I kinda used each question to inject some extra info," which makes this Q&A worth reading for insight into Egyptian society even if you have no particular interest in Linux. Thanks, Alaa and Linux-Egypt.
1) Computers in Egypt? - by Anonymous Coward
Can you give us some idea of the state of computing in your country? For example, are computers common in general home use, are middle-class types able to afford them, and so forth. I'm also curious about how the heat and sand are handled - are they problems?
Alaa:
Computer usage is very widespread in Egypt, official government estimates are 10% of families own computers, I'd say this is probably a correct observation (you never know with official government figures). this is significant if you put in mind other statistics about 40% of Egyptian population are illiterate, a rough 10% of those who received basic education return to illiteracy. with an average income of about 1000$ dollars a year and a about 60% or more of the population under 25 years old (most probably not buying computers for themselves) this means anyone who can use computers and can barely afford them is buying them.
almost all university students and graduates (we get about half a million university graduates per year), know basic computer and internet usage. everyone in the middle class has a hotmail account (email it is assumed equals hotmail, if you ask your average Egyptian about his email account she will reply with the username only).
Egyptian parents feel it is essential to buy their kids computers and teach them how to use them, the theory being you can't get any kind of job without computer knowledge, they're common everywhere in Egypt not just cities.
it is a rare town that does not have a NetCafe.
everyone uses whiteboxes assembled locally, only laptops are bought from big brands, a computer is relatively cheap when compared to other household apparel, you can assemble a basic system for about 150$.
but thats not the interesting question importing technology is easy, there is lots of computer expertise in the country also, the market is always expanding, computer related schools are the most popular places to spend your university years (after medical school).
most jobs are networking and administration jobs, there are lots of webdesign/webprogramming jobs (Egyptians love flash pages), and a big market for Visual Basic, Foxpro, Access and MS SQL Server based solutions. only big name in enterprise development in Oracle, although most of the oracle jobs are PL/SQL not Java based.
other programming jobs are quite rare but they exist, there is some work on embedded programming, some enterprise programming with Java, everyone is trying to get into the VoIP business, some companies are trying to start data warehouses. most companies are small software houses, I doubt they make any big profits but it seems their goals are to make a living not a profit.
The sand is not a real problem, contrary to what you guys seem to think we don't live in the desert, in fact this is one of the biggest problems facing us, the 70 strong million Egyptian population is living in about 2% of the land area crowded around the Nile valley and north coast which means we build our homes, roads, factories and cities on the little land we have that is fit for agriculture, we should be living in the desert but we aren't.
In Cairo however the dust and pollution are a very big problem, I have to open my PC and blow the dust out once a month, every few months one of my cards would stop functioning because the dust got between the connectors.
Heat isn't such a big deal, it probably means you can't overclock (personally I underclock), and servers are usually placed in freezing air conditioned rooms anyway.
Heat is indirectly a big nuisance though, lately everyone started buying air conditioners and they're overloading the aging power grid, it is very common to get power outages and blackouts in very hot nights (I can't thank the inventor of journalized file systems enough).
2) What is the killer app in Egypt? - by eltoyoboyo
Or more to the point, what is the first thing users want to do after the system is installed and running?
Alaa:
that must be IM, probably MSN followed by Yahoo Messenger and ICQ
thats what most computer users spend their online time doing, net connectivity is available to anyone who owns a computer through a series of free to dial numbers (billed by the minute for rates lower than normal telephone calls), broadband is creeping in slowly in the form of ADSL which starting from this month began to be slightly affordable.
the killer app when not online is probably Windows Media player, Egyptians enjoy the movies very much but don't usually go to the cinema (our cinemas are always barely surviving, sometimes they even get government subsidies and tax breaks just to remain floating), so watching movies on your PC is the way to go for computer owners.
we're talking illegally copied movies of course, there are some cheap VCDs in the market but most people just buy the movies from the guy under the bridge or copy them from friends, almost all Egyptian movies find their way to the pirated CDs market a few days after they start showing.
after that its Internet Explorer for browsing and email and MS Word.
anyone who uses any other apps is an advanced user
as for games FIFA 2003 appears to be the most popular game, football and car racing are very big here, even bigger than FPS.
strategy and RPG games seem to require a bit of knowledge in English, they're played but are not as big as FIFA.
network gaming is beginning to be popular, after the internet became available to all households CyberCaffes (which BTW never serve anything but the internet) began to offer loads of games and even organize tournaments with prizes and all.
one of the interesting peculiarities about Egypt is that Game Arcades are banned almost everywhere in the country, in the mid nineties they where very popular, in both rich and poor areas in large cities, now for some reason there is a loud enough group of Egyptians who prefers the government and police interfere with their kids than to try and raise them themselves. so calls to ban these shops that wasted the kids time and money where voiced in all public newspapers. and governerate by governerate they decided to save all the poor children and close the arcades so the kids can go back to study. The result is CyberCaffes have a very big market even if everyone gets broadband.
this situation of course means that very few CyberCaffes are interested in using GNU/Linux
oh and BTW the act of playing computer games is commonly referred to as "tel3ab atari" "to play Atari"
3) Pre-install questions or misconceptions - by dkh2
What were the most common misunderstandings among new or potential Linux users? Did you provide a place for newbie questions and answers?
Alaa:
well first of all the word installfest is a bit misleading when it comes to our event.
we assumed very few would bother to bring their PCs with them to the fest so we decided to make it a general Linux Festival, a day to present everything about GNU/Linux, Free Software and Open Source, so we had demonstrations and presentations, we distributed informational pamphlets with FAQ like Q&A, and we had a number of volunteers do nothing but chat with the visitors and answer their questions.
the main target for all this was newbies, so in a sense the whole festival was a place for newbie questions and answers.
I don't know if there was a most common misunderstanding, the questions we got this time were surprisingly smart.
I suppose the most frequently asked questions were all about compatibility with Windows, the fact that GNU/Linux is a separate Operating System is sometimes confusing, they don't exactly know where the PC stops and the OS starts, and Microsoft are not making it easier with their thick metaphors. questions about why GNU/Linux needs its own partitions and whether their Windows applications will run on it or not are very common?
once you explain to them that GNU/Linux is a completely separate platform they start worrying about whether their documents and media files will work or not?
to avoid complicated arguments about media files and patents we prepared a specially remastered version of Mandrake 10 CE to include PLF packages capable of playing back all sorts of media files so this part was easy.
of course some had confusions about the meaning of Free Software and Open Source, Free Software is actually the easy part when it comes to Arabic since we have separate words for libre and gratis, but our media tends to copy news from the web and translate it in a very shallow manner so its more common to see GNU/Linux referred to as the gratis operating system.
Open Source is always a bit confusing because the adopted translation means absolutely nothing to anyone even programmers.
4) More particularly - by Dlugar
I'm interested in: what's the best distro with regards to Arabic support? I've been studying Arabic for a year or two now and I enjoy tinkering around with Arabic on Linux, but sometime's it's so hard to get things to work! (I recently tagged some of my Arabic-language mp3s with Arabic Unicode in the id3 tags, and so far the only player I've found that will display the Arabic tags is the Beep Media Player (gtk2 fork of xmms).
Alaa:
that would probably be Mandrake, they work closely with Arabeyes.org, they offer a basic installation guide in Arabic (not full documentation), the installer itself is not translated to Arabic but their tools are and it comes with Arabic fonts, and it's about the only distro where Arabic filenames show properly out of the box on both Gnome and KDE, and AFAIK they're the only major distro to include one of Arabeyes projects in RPM form.
however it doesn't look like Mandrake tests their Arabic support (and unfortunately it seems the Arabic users community is not doing a good job of testing and bug reporting either), in Mandrake 10 OpenOffice would not render Arabic text correctly without installing FreeType packages made by PLF with the bytecode interpreter enabled, this problem is not inherit in OpenOffice since it worked fine with older versions.
apart from Mandrake there are a couple of Arabic distros, HayderLinux which I have no experience with. And Arabbix, a Morphix based arabized liveCD which probably has the best Arabic support yet.
as a rule anything not using GTK2 or QT3 most probably does not support Arabic.
Arabic support is getting better but its true that its still hard to get things to work, for instance this Mozilla bug http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=197375 is a show stopper and slowing the adoption of GNU/Linux here yet no one in the Mozilla developer community or the Arabic community is working on it.
if you want to help please vote this bug, if you know the Mozilla source base please look into it or contact Arabeyes.org and give them directions on where to look.
5) Politics, religion and software - by CdBee
Have the recent military actions taken by Western countries in the Islamic world affected attitudes towards software, bearing in mind the US-centric nature (Microsoft, Intel, Adobe) of commercial, closed-source software?
Alaa:
politics has, I don't think religion had any influence.
the continued support the US is giving to the state of Israel and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have led to a widespread boycott movement, most Egyptians don't want a single dollar of their money to get into the US, I think Linux-Egypt.org got many new members due to this trend. this trend is a purely economical one, no one is refusing software or any form of technology because they're the product of another culture.
in the case of software many Egyptians want to stop using M$ products specially when they're paying for them (beginning to be quite common among companies and government agencies)
local and Arabic media is covering GNU/Linux as a possible alternative that could allow for economical independence in the software market, and I'm sure this played a big role in the success of our event.
but there is a special resentment towards Microsoft, probably due to an incident few years ago when they put adverts all over Israel thanking the Israeli army. or maybe due to the perception that they have some influence over the Egyptian government.
note that these sentiments are shared by both Muslims and Christians in egypt, although of course the more extreme Muslims would voice them in very religious phrasing.
6) Motives for switching - by Rei
On the subject of national origin:
There is a widespread perception in the west that the Arab world is backwards in terms of technological knowhow, and in education in general. How do you, as a geek in Egypt, perceive this? Do you feel that the free software movement can help nations like Egypt achieve the sort of tech industry that nations like Israel have by increasing exposure to computers for the average person?
Alaa:
I don't know about the Arab world, but here in egypt it is basically true we are very much backwards.
Egyptian education is in a very bad state, it has been so for quite some time now and it keeps getting worse, high school graduates hardly learn a thing outside some math and basic mechanics, I'm a student in a Computer Science school and I know I almost learned nothing there, some places are better than others but the general state isn't very good at all, and most Egyptians would agree (we have this thing about not wanting to tell foreigners our bad news so you might not hear it often, but if you monitor any local media, or any local internet community you'll find the topic of how bad the education is brought again and again).
in theory and intentions our education isn't particularly backwards, the courses being taught are probably very similar to what is being taught in Europe and in the case of high school probably even more advanced than what you're used to in the states, the problem is rather in quality, of course its basically impossible to learn anything when your average classroom has 100+ students
in terms of technological knowhow surprisingly enough I don't think we're as backwards as it looks, a large enough number of people pass through the educational system intact and start learning the real stuff in post graduate studies, abroad or in their work environment, we got enough talented and well educated people to lead the way forward, and its surprisingly easy to find them, many Egyptians can even name them for you, ask them who is your top Genetics experts and they're bound to reply Dr Mostagir.
so the way I see it it's more a question of resources, infrastructure and of saving the crumbling educational system. And that is what worries me, the educational system seems to be a hopeless case, I'm sure if you pick a random sample of 1000 elementary school teachers and test them for language and math skills similar to what you test in SAT they'll fail miserably. as for resources and infrastructure almost all of it is controlled by a centralized government infested with corruption and with zero credibility among the people.
as I explained above the average person is more or less exposed to computers, this is not that part that is missing.
but yes I do believe that the free software movement can make quite a difference, by providing the source code, the documentation and a transparent development process you solve the educational part of the problem motivated individuals can teach themselves by joining this community, educational institutes too can rely on these resources and the free flow of information to achieve better education. The problem of infrastructure and resources is greatly reduced in the case of software, specially free software all you need is computers and an internet connection.
I don't know much about the tech industry in Israel; but I'm sure Free Software can help build a thriving software and computing industry, the knowhow is there (thousands of very talented experts out there), and a feasible way to improve the skill pool, the fact that we don't have to start from scratch and can benefit from all the advances of the international free software community with no cost is an essential aspect to it too.
I know many agree with me, we've done three seminars in different Egyptian Universities where these sentiments where voiced by both students and staff, that was a big part of what people talked about in the festival and its actually one of the goals of Linux-Egypt.org and my main personal motivation to help make this come true.
and for this rare opportunity to make our lives better we thank all the Free/Open Source Software community. believe me its greatly appreciated, even by the people you'd normally consider haters of your culture (we had a poster once send a thanks to RMS and wishing that god would lead him to the path of Islam so he can rest in heaven when the day comes!!!
7) Women. - by Mateito
I didn't look through all the installfest photos, but I didn't see a lot of women there. Okay, so hanging out with a lot of geeks configuring network services isn't most chicks idea of a hot date. But, nevertheless, how many females are involved with the open source crowd, and in the IT industry in general, in Egypt?
Alaa:
only word I have for you is "Ya Moftary" I don't know how to translate this, literally it means you despot, but actually it is used when someone makes a very clearly unfounded claim or accusation
Look in the photos again, 36 out of 103 photos had females in them (maybe you where not counting the veiled ones) their numbers where actually higher than what the photos would tell you, our photographer MaysaraOmar has quite individual notions of how photography should be.
first let me explain something, there is no Open Source crowd exactly, there is Linux-Egypt.org and a few companies using GNU/Linux and a couple of very small groups (a new LUG was just started in Cairo University few days ago, they where a great help in the festival) thats it.
I don't know about membership in Linux-Egypt, but we set up a mailing list for the festival visitors which had about 300 subscribers, judging by their names I'd say more than 40% where females, on the festival itself we gave up trying to do registration when the flow became very rapid but my estimate is no less than 25% were females (which I think is quite good for such events), most came on their own not tagging along with their husbands, brothers, fathers, uncles and boy friends, we even got a group of 4 female students who came together from TantaUniversity outside Cairo to pick copies of GNU/Linux and ask questions about their GNU/Linux based graduation projects. The only non Egyptian visitors we got where middle aged ladies.
we had with us 3 female volunteers (only 1 was involved in the technical stuff).
one of the visitors (who was quite good looking BTW) was starting her own software house and was scouting for talents (we had to restrain some of the volunteers
in IT in general it must be a very high percentage, most companies I deal with have more females in their staff, I'd say 50% of all IT jobs or even slightly more but probably the number drops the closer you get to the general manager (is it different anywhere else??).
there are many factors that would affect this, girls tend to do better in school (don't know why) and engineering and computing schools take the top high school graduates so they're usually heavily populated with females, IT is deemed a suitable job for a female since it does not involve much traveling, they don't have to order many men around as opposed to other engineering jobs where you got to deal with many workers and technicians (this isn't really a big factor when it comes to employment but no one tells them till its too late) and late hours could be done at home, alot of the job are still government jobs which are governed by strict rules relating to grades in school and university, age and stuff like that, there is no way to avoid employing a female who is qualified in a situation like this.
Egyptian girls tend to start looking for husbands very early, so their ideas about a hot date may surprise you
8) the competition - by TeamLive
I am wondering what the competition is for an operating system in the arab world. Is windows as big as it is here? Or do people use other operating systems (BSD, OSX, Solaris, Linux) most of the time?
Also, what is the most widely used distro in that part of the world?
Alaa:
you're kidding right??
of course windows is as big, its probably even bigger, the most widespread OS is probably windows 98, then comes WindowsXP, and then windows 2000, you get my drift??
most of it is illegal copies of course.
our government is almost 100% Microsoft, same is true for educational institutes (hell mathematicians write their papers in Microsoft Word here, there is this one guy who knows LaTeX, he makes a fortune out of Egyptian mathematicians wanting to submit papers to AMS Journals), although basic courses with GNU/Linux in them and research and graduation projects on GNU/Linux are starting to appear.
on the other hand our CS departments started teaching C# and .Net before they had any compilers ready.
Macs used to be popular in the printing and journalism field, some of our newspapers still have some aging Macs there and are having a hard time networking them with the new windows machines (hey maybe thats a good opportunity for Linux there), Mac OS X almost doesn't exist (I think it didn't have Arabic support till the current release).
big business and banks are Unix users, although most Unix vendors have closed their local branches, IBM is still supporting a bunch of ancient mainframes, frcu.eun.eg was running on a VAX/VMS machine till few months ago, but most of these aging machines are being replaced slowly by GNU/Linux or Windows boxes.
I only know of one company (an ISP) using FreeBSD, there are some embedded and industrial control work being done on QNX and NetBSD but its all small stuff.
GNU/Linux is slowly replacing all the Solaris installations around Sun basically pulled out of the Egyptian market, some of its old employees are opening GNU/Linux companies.
Apart from Microsoft, GNU/Linux is the most widely known and talked about OS, so I think at the moment its the only alternative (but its not real competition yet).
9) Popular Culture - by Anonymous Coward
How ingrained is technology/computing (including OSS) into popular culture in Egypt? In North America it is everpresent and accepted as part of the culture, as it were, but I seldom see the same side of other societies. Are geek topics common 'water-cooler' discussions?
Alaa:
I just heard someone on the metro/underground say he jumps around like a mouse on a desktop, how's that for ingrained??
we had some popular songs mentioning internet relationships (with comical video clips and stuff).
Egyptian cinema is still finding it hard to portray computers or computer users correctly (but hey Hollywood still does computers that beep and blink).
almost everyone has heard the word internet, some of the older folks think its the tool of the devil, this thing similar to satellite TV that corrupts kids and allows them to download porn, some just know the word but have no idea what it is.
most however have some almost correct notion, you must keep in mind that a huge number of Egyptians work abroad (the money they send is actually the second largest source of income), any technology that allows these people to call home is quickly adopted by the whole nation, in many cases these people are poor craftsmen from farming families with little to no education, don't be surprised to find the local whiz in the village passing from house to house establishing VoIP calls for the folks to see their granddaughter for the first time.
as for geek topics, I'm not sure what you mean by that, if its SCO, the DVD case, etc then no; Egyptians are unaware that their rights to use Encryption are being stripped away let alone being aware of what happens abroad.
if however you're talking about the release of a new Pentium by Intel, or SATA getting cheaper or the release of Microsoft's latest beta then yeah, its quite common to hear young people discussing these things (specially males), this is usually mixed with talk about cars and mobile phones (both more popular topics and more ingrained).
OSS is not ingrained yet, although many have heard the word Linux before, no month passes without a mention of Linux in at least one of the national daily newspaper and one of the monthly computer magazines (usually well intended misinformation).
oh and BTW one of the reporters who regularly cover OSS and GNU/Linux has the coolest family name ever, he is called "Al Batriq" which means The Penguin
I don't know how a topic would be considered a geek topic if it was ingrained in society and culture and to the point of becoming water-cooler discussion though?
10) Positive contribution? - by acceber
Do you feel events such as InstallFest have contributed positively to the growing awareness of computer technology in non-western countries?
Alaa:
this question is meaningless, it is based on an assumption that there is a lack of awareness of computer technology to begin with which is not true.
and please don't lump whole countries together like this, I'd say awareness of computer technology in Egypt or India is as big or bigger than in countries like Greece or Poland (I confess this is not a very well informed opinion but I'm sure the differences won't be as big as the question implies).
however naturally I feel that our festival has contributed positively to the slowly growing awareness of Free/Open Source Software in Egypt
I encourage all LUGs regardless of how western their nation is to organize similar events and please take a leaf from our book, don't make it an installfest only there is alot you can do with just a bunch of volunteers.
oh and use Wikis to organize such events you won't regret it.
-- http://www.manalaa.net ultimate_answer_t deep_thought(void) { sleep(years2secs(7500000)); return 42; }
1) Computers in Egypt? - by Anonymous Coward
Can you give us some idea of the state of computing in your country? For example, are computers common in general home use, are middle-class types able to afford them, and so forth. I'm also curious about how the heat and sand are handled - are they problems?
Alaa:
Computer usage is very widespread in Egypt, official government estimates are 10% of families own computers, I'd say this is probably a correct observation (you never know with official government figures). this is significant if you put in mind other statistics about 40% of Egyptian population are illiterate, a rough 10% of those who received basic education return to illiteracy. with an average income of about 1000$ dollars a year and a about 60% or more of the population under 25 years old (most probably not buying computers for themselves) this means anyone who can use computers and can barely afford them is buying them.
almost all university students and graduates (we get about half a million university graduates per year), know basic computer and internet usage. everyone in the middle class has a hotmail account (email it is assumed equals hotmail, if you ask your average Egyptian about his email account she will reply with the username only).
Egyptian parents feel it is essential to buy their kids computers and teach them how to use them, the theory being you can't get any kind of job without computer knowledge, they're common everywhere in Egypt not just cities.
it is a rare town that does not have a NetCafe.
everyone uses whiteboxes assembled locally, only laptops are bought from big brands, a computer is relatively cheap when compared to other household apparel, you can assemble a basic system for about 150$.
but thats not the interesting question importing technology is easy, there is lots of computer expertise in the country also, the market is always expanding, computer related schools are the most popular places to spend your university years (after medical school).
most jobs are networking and administration jobs, there are lots of webdesign/webprogramming jobs (Egyptians love flash pages), and a big market for Visual Basic, Foxpro, Access and MS SQL Server based solutions. only big name in enterprise development in Oracle, although most of the oracle jobs are PL/SQL not Java based.
other programming jobs are quite rare but they exist, there is some work on embedded programming, some enterprise programming with Java, everyone is trying to get into the VoIP business, some companies are trying to start data warehouses. most companies are small software houses, I doubt they make any big profits but it seems their goals are to make a living not a profit.
The sand is not a real problem, contrary to what you guys seem to think we don't live in the desert, in fact this is one of the biggest problems facing us, the 70 strong million Egyptian population is living in about 2% of the land area crowded around the Nile valley and north coast which means we build our homes, roads, factories and cities on the little land we have that is fit for agriculture, we should be living in the desert but we aren't.
In Cairo however the dust and pollution are a very big problem, I have to open my PC and blow the dust out once a month, every few months one of my cards would stop functioning because the dust got between the connectors.
Heat isn't such a big deal, it probably means you can't overclock (personally I underclock), and servers are usually placed in freezing air conditioned rooms anyway.
Heat is indirectly a big nuisance though, lately everyone started buying air conditioners and they're overloading the aging power grid, it is very common to get power outages and blackouts in very hot nights (I can't thank the inventor of journalized file systems enough).
2) What is the killer app in Egypt? - by eltoyoboyo
Or more to the point, what is the first thing users want to do after the system is installed and running?
Alaa:
that must be IM, probably MSN followed by Yahoo Messenger and ICQ
thats what most computer users spend their online time doing, net connectivity is available to anyone who owns a computer through a series of free to dial numbers (billed by the minute for rates lower than normal telephone calls), broadband is creeping in slowly in the form of ADSL which starting from this month began to be slightly affordable.
the killer app when not online is probably Windows Media player, Egyptians enjoy the movies very much but don't usually go to the cinema (our cinemas are always barely surviving, sometimes they even get government subsidies and tax breaks just to remain floating), so watching movies on your PC is the way to go for computer owners.
we're talking illegally copied movies of course, there are some cheap VCDs in the market but most people just buy the movies from the guy under the bridge or copy them from friends, almost all Egyptian movies find their way to the pirated CDs market a few days after they start showing.
after that its Internet Explorer for browsing and email and MS Word.
anyone who uses any other apps is an advanced user
as for games FIFA 2003 appears to be the most popular game, football and car racing are very big here, even bigger than FPS.
strategy and RPG games seem to require a bit of knowledge in English, they're played but are not as big as FIFA.
network gaming is beginning to be popular, after the internet became available to all households CyberCaffes (which BTW never serve anything but the internet) began to offer loads of games and even organize tournaments with prizes and all.
one of the interesting peculiarities about Egypt is that Game Arcades are banned almost everywhere in the country, in the mid nineties they where very popular, in both rich and poor areas in large cities, now for some reason there is a loud enough group of Egyptians who prefers the government and police interfere with their kids than to try and raise them themselves. so calls to ban these shops that wasted the kids time and money where voiced in all public newspapers. and governerate by governerate they decided to save all the poor children and close the arcades so the kids can go back to study. The result is CyberCaffes have a very big market even if everyone gets broadband.
this situation of course means that very few CyberCaffes are interested in using GNU/Linux
oh and BTW the act of playing computer games is commonly referred to as "tel3ab atari" "to play Atari"
3) Pre-install questions or misconceptions - by dkh2
What were the most common misunderstandings among new or potential Linux users? Did you provide a place for newbie questions and answers?
Alaa:
well first of all the word installfest is a bit misleading when it comes to our event.
we assumed very few would bother to bring their PCs with them to the fest so we decided to make it a general Linux Festival, a day to present everything about GNU/Linux, Free Software and Open Source, so we had demonstrations and presentations, we distributed informational pamphlets with FAQ like Q&A, and we had a number of volunteers do nothing but chat with the visitors and answer their questions.
the main target for all this was newbies, so in a sense the whole festival was a place for newbie questions and answers.
I don't know if there was a most common misunderstanding, the questions we got this time were surprisingly smart.
I suppose the most frequently asked questions were all about compatibility with Windows, the fact that GNU/Linux is a separate Operating System is sometimes confusing, they don't exactly know where the PC stops and the OS starts, and Microsoft are not making it easier with their thick metaphors. questions about why GNU/Linux needs its own partitions and whether their Windows applications will run on it or not are very common?
once you explain to them that GNU/Linux is a completely separate platform they start worrying about whether their documents and media files will work or not?
to avoid complicated arguments about media files and patents we prepared a specially remastered version of Mandrake 10 CE to include PLF packages capable of playing back all sorts of media files so this part was easy.
of course some had confusions about the meaning of Free Software and Open Source, Free Software is actually the easy part when it comes to Arabic since we have separate words for libre and gratis, but our media tends to copy news from the web and translate it in a very shallow manner so its more common to see GNU/Linux referred to as the gratis operating system.
Open Source is always a bit confusing because the adopted translation means absolutely nothing to anyone even programmers.
4) More particularly - by Dlugar
I'm interested in: what's the best distro with regards to Arabic support? I've been studying Arabic for a year or two now and I enjoy tinkering around with Arabic on Linux, but sometime's it's so hard to get things to work! (I recently tagged some of my Arabic-language mp3s with Arabic Unicode in the id3 tags, and so far the only player I've found that will display the Arabic tags is the Beep Media Player (gtk2 fork of xmms).
Alaa:
that would probably be Mandrake, they work closely with Arabeyes.org, they offer a basic installation guide in Arabic (not full documentation), the installer itself is not translated to Arabic but their tools are and it comes with Arabic fonts, and it's about the only distro where Arabic filenames show properly out of the box on both Gnome and KDE, and AFAIK they're the only major distro to include one of Arabeyes projects in RPM form.
however it doesn't look like Mandrake tests their Arabic support (and unfortunately it seems the Arabic users community is not doing a good job of testing and bug reporting either), in Mandrake 10 OpenOffice would not render Arabic text correctly without installing FreeType packages made by PLF with the bytecode interpreter enabled, this problem is not inherit in OpenOffice since it worked fine with older versions.
apart from Mandrake there are a couple of Arabic distros, HayderLinux which I have no experience with. And Arabbix, a Morphix based arabized liveCD which probably has the best Arabic support yet.
as a rule anything not using GTK2 or QT3 most probably does not support Arabic.
Arabic support is getting better but its true that its still hard to get things to work, for instance this Mozilla bug http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=197375 is a show stopper and slowing the adoption of GNU/Linux here yet no one in the Mozilla developer community or the Arabic community is working on it.
if you want to help please vote this bug, if you know the Mozilla source base please look into it or contact Arabeyes.org and give them directions on where to look.
5) Politics, religion and software - by CdBee
Have the recent military actions taken by Western countries in the Islamic world affected attitudes towards software, bearing in mind the US-centric nature (Microsoft, Intel, Adobe) of commercial, closed-source software?
Alaa:
politics has, I don't think religion had any influence.
the continued support the US is giving to the state of Israel and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have led to a widespread boycott movement, most Egyptians don't want a single dollar of their money to get into the US, I think Linux-Egypt.org got many new members due to this trend. this trend is a purely economical one, no one is refusing software or any form of technology because they're the product of another culture.
in the case of software many Egyptians want to stop using M$ products specially when they're paying for them (beginning to be quite common among companies and government agencies)
local and Arabic media is covering GNU/Linux as a possible alternative that could allow for economical independence in the software market, and I'm sure this played a big role in the success of our event.
but there is a special resentment towards Microsoft, probably due to an incident few years ago when they put adverts all over Israel thanking the Israeli army. or maybe due to the perception that they have some influence over the Egyptian government.
note that these sentiments are shared by both Muslims and Christians in egypt, although of course the more extreme Muslims would voice them in very religious phrasing.
6) Motives for switching - by Rei
On the subject of national origin:
There is a widespread perception in the west that the Arab world is backwards in terms of technological knowhow, and in education in general. How do you, as a geek in Egypt, perceive this? Do you feel that the free software movement can help nations like Egypt achieve the sort of tech industry that nations like Israel have by increasing exposure to computers for the average person?
Alaa:
I don't know about the Arab world, but here in egypt it is basically true we are very much backwards.
Egyptian education is in a very bad state, it has been so for quite some time now and it keeps getting worse, high school graduates hardly learn a thing outside some math and basic mechanics, I'm a student in a Computer Science school and I know I almost learned nothing there, some places are better than others but the general state isn't very good at all, and most Egyptians would agree (we have this thing about not wanting to tell foreigners our bad news so you might not hear it often, but if you monitor any local media, or any local internet community you'll find the topic of how bad the education is brought again and again).
in theory and intentions our education isn't particularly backwards, the courses being taught are probably very similar to what is being taught in Europe and in the case of high school probably even more advanced than what you're used to in the states, the problem is rather in quality, of course its basically impossible to learn anything when your average classroom has 100+ students
in terms of technological knowhow surprisingly enough I don't think we're as backwards as it looks, a large enough number of people pass through the educational system intact and start learning the real stuff in post graduate studies, abroad or in their work environment, we got enough talented and well educated people to lead the way forward, and its surprisingly easy to find them, many Egyptians can even name them for you, ask them who is your top Genetics experts and they're bound to reply Dr Mostagir.
so the way I see it it's more a question of resources, infrastructure and of saving the crumbling educational system. And that is what worries me, the educational system seems to be a hopeless case, I'm sure if you pick a random sample of 1000 elementary school teachers and test them for language and math skills similar to what you test in SAT they'll fail miserably. as for resources and infrastructure almost all of it is controlled by a centralized government infested with corruption and with zero credibility among the people.
as I explained above the average person is more or less exposed to computers, this is not that part that is missing.
but yes I do believe that the free software movement can make quite a difference, by providing the source code, the documentation and a transparent development process you solve the educational part of the problem motivated individuals can teach themselves by joining this community, educational institutes too can rely on these resources and the free flow of information to achieve better education. The problem of infrastructure and resources is greatly reduced in the case of software, specially free software all you need is computers and an internet connection.
I don't know much about the tech industry in Israel; but I'm sure Free Software can help build a thriving software and computing industry, the knowhow is there (thousands of very talented experts out there), and a feasible way to improve the skill pool, the fact that we don't have to start from scratch and can benefit from all the advances of the international free software community with no cost is an essential aspect to it too.
I know many agree with me, we've done three seminars in different Egyptian Universities where these sentiments where voiced by both students and staff, that was a big part of what people talked about in the festival and its actually one of the goals of Linux-Egypt.org and my main personal motivation to help make this come true.
and for this rare opportunity to make our lives better we thank all the Free/Open Source Software community. believe me its greatly appreciated, even by the people you'd normally consider haters of your culture (we had a poster once send a thanks to RMS and wishing that god would lead him to the path of Islam so he can rest in heaven when the day comes!!!
7) Women. - by Mateito
I didn't look through all the installfest photos, but I didn't see a lot of women there. Okay, so hanging out with a lot of geeks configuring network services isn't most chicks idea of a hot date. But, nevertheless, how many females are involved with the open source crowd, and in the IT industry in general, in Egypt?
Alaa:
only word I have for you is "Ya Moftary" I don't know how to translate this, literally it means you despot, but actually it is used when someone makes a very clearly unfounded claim or accusation
Look in the photos again, 36 out of 103 photos had females in them (maybe you where not counting the veiled ones) their numbers where actually higher than what the photos would tell you, our photographer MaysaraOmar has quite individual notions of how photography should be.
first let me explain something, there is no Open Source crowd exactly, there is Linux-Egypt.org and a few companies using GNU/Linux and a couple of very small groups (a new LUG was just started in Cairo University few days ago, they where a great help in the festival) thats it.
I don't know about membership in Linux-Egypt, but we set up a mailing list for the festival visitors which had about 300 subscribers, judging by their names I'd say more than 40% where females, on the festival itself we gave up trying to do registration when the flow became very rapid but my estimate is no less than 25% were females (which I think is quite good for such events), most came on their own not tagging along with their husbands, brothers, fathers, uncles and boy friends, we even got a group of 4 female students who came together from TantaUniversity outside Cairo to pick copies of GNU/Linux and ask questions about their GNU/Linux based graduation projects. The only non Egyptian visitors we got where middle aged ladies.
we had with us 3 female volunteers (only 1 was involved in the technical stuff).
one of the visitors (who was quite good looking BTW) was starting her own software house and was scouting for talents (we had to restrain some of the volunteers
in IT in general it must be a very high percentage, most companies I deal with have more females in their staff, I'd say 50% of all IT jobs or even slightly more but probably the number drops the closer you get to the general manager (is it different anywhere else??).
there are many factors that would affect this, girls tend to do better in school (don't know why) and engineering and computing schools take the top high school graduates so they're usually heavily populated with females, IT is deemed a suitable job for a female since it does not involve much traveling, they don't have to order many men around as opposed to other engineering jobs where you got to deal with many workers and technicians (this isn't really a big factor when it comes to employment but no one tells them till its too late) and late hours could be done at home, alot of the job are still government jobs which are governed by strict rules relating to grades in school and university, age and stuff like that, there is no way to avoid employing a female who is qualified in a situation like this.
Egyptian girls tend to start looking for husbands very early, so their ideas about a hot date may surprise you
8) the competition - by TeamLive
I am wondering what the competition is for an operating system in the arab world. Is windows as big as it is here? Or do people use other operating systems (BSD, OSX, Solaris, Linux) most of the time?
Also, what is the most widely used distro in that part of the world?
Alaa:
you're kidding right??
of course windows is as big, its probably even bigger, the most widespread OS is probably windows 98, then comes WindowsXP, and then windows 2000, you get my drift??
most of it is illegal copies of course.
our government is almost 100% Microsoft, same is true for educational institutes (hell mathematicians write their papers in Microsoft Word here, there is this one guy who knows LaTeX, he makes a fortune out of Egyptian mathematicians wanting to submit papers to AMS Journals), although basic courses with GNU/Linux in them and research and graduation projects on GNU/Linux are starting to appear.
on the other hand our CS departments started teaching C# and .Net before they had any compilers ready.
Macs used to be popular in the printing and journalism field, some of our newspapers still have some aging Macs there and are having a hard time networking them with the new windows machines (hey maybe thats a good opportunity for Linux there), Mac OS X almost doesn't exist (I think it didn't have Arabic support till the current release).
big business and banks are Unix users, although most Unix vendors have closed their local branches, IBM is still supporting a bunch of ancient mainframes, frcu.eun.eg was running on a VAX/VMS machine till few months ago, but most of these aging machines are being replaced slowly by GNU/Linux or Windows boxes.
I only know of one company (an ISP) using FreeBSD, there are some embedded and industrial control work being done on QNX and NetBSD but its all small stuff.
GNU/Linux is slowly replacing all the Solaris installations around Sun basically pulled out of the Egyptian market, some of its old employees are opening GNU/Linux companies.
Apart from Microsoft, GNU/Linux is the most widely known and talked about OS, so I think at the moment its the only alternative (but its not real competition yet).
9) Popular Culture - by Anonymous Coward
How ingrained is technology/computing (including OSS) into popular culture in Egypt? In North America it is everpresent and accepted as part of the culture, as it were, but I seldom see the same side of other societies. Are geek topics common 'water-cooler' discussions?
Alaa:
I just heard someone on the metro/underground say he jumps around like a mouse on a desktop, how's that for ingrained??
we had some popular songs mentioning internet relationships (with comical video clips and stuff).
Egyptian cinema is still finding it hard to portray computers or computer users correctly (but hey Hollywood still does computers that beep and blink).
almost everyone has heard the word internet, some of the older folks think its the tool of the devil, this thing similar to satellite TV that corrupts kids and allows them to download porn, some just know the word but have no idea what it is.
most however have some almost correct notion, you must keep in mind that a huge number of Egyptians work abroad (the money they send is actually the second largest source of income), any technology that allows these people to call home is quickly adopted by the whole nation, in many cases these people are poor craftsmen from farming families with little to no education, don't be surprised to find the local whiz in the village passing from house to house establishing VoIP calls for the folks to see their granddaughter for the first time.
as for geek topics, I'm not sure what you mean by that, if its SCO, the DVD case, etc then no; Egyptians are unaware that their rights to use Encryption are being stripped away let alone being aware of what happens abroad.
if however you're talking about the release of a new Pentium by Intel, or SATA getting cheaper or the release of Microsoft's latest beta then yeah, its quite common to hear young people discussing these things (specially males), this is usually mixed with talk about cars and mobile phones (both more popular topics and more ingrained).
OSS is not ingrained yet, although many have heard the word Linux before, no month passes without a mention of Linux in at least one of the national daily newspaper and one of the monthly computer magazines (usually well intended misinformation).
oh and BTW one of the reporters who regularly cover OSS and GNU/Linux has the coolest family name ever, he is called "Al Batriq" which means The Penguin
I don't know how a topic would be considered a geek topic if it was ingrained in society and culture and to the point of becoming water-cooler discussion though?
10) Positive contribution? - by acceber
Do you feel events such as InstallFest have contributed positively to the growing awareness of computer technology in non-western countries?
Alaa:
this question is meaningless, it is based on an assumption that there is a lack of awareness of computer technology to begin with which is not true.
and please don't lump whole countries together like this, I'd say awareness of computer technology in Egypt or India is as big or bigger than in countries like Greece or Poland (I confess this is not a very well informed opinion but I'm sure the differences won't be as big as the question implies).
however naturally I feel that our festival has contributed positively to the slowly growing awareness of Free/Open Source Software in Egypt
I encourage all LUGs regardless of how western their nation is to organize similar events and please take a leaf from our book, don't make it an installfest only there is alot you can do with just a bunch of volunteers.
oh and use Wikis to organize such events you won't regret it.
-- http://www.manalaa.net ultimate_answer_t deep_thought(void) { sleep(years2secs(7500000)); return 42; }
Now that is the kind of interview I really enjoy reading!
It's not technical but tell us about the use of the tech from the view of a 'local' with some insight into the culture. Makes the world seem a bit smaller.
- A Canadian who learned a few things about Egypt today.
Trolling is a art,
From article:
"so simple even a frog could implement it."
Why must article discrimenate againt the French ? We are good people. Too much now in the US is anti-French feelings, like "freedom fries". We helped US defeat Hitler, and France is a leads computer industry.
I think this happens to be a good exersize into seeing what happens in other countries with OSS. Being American I think of my self as prett ignorant toward technology through the world. I appreciate stuff like this.
skills but... email it is assumed equals hotmail, if you ask your average Egyptian about his email account she will reply with the username only).
So hotmail causes gender switching! There is an untapped market for M$ to exploit!
I would have gotten a first post, but my egyptian keyboard hasn't shipped yet and carving all those little pictures into stone takes a long time. :)
oh and BTW the act of playing computer games is commonly referred to as "tel3ab atari" "to play Atari"
Seems that they also invented l33t speak.
...for His responses are informative indeed.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
Do the FUDsters know that Linux is being used by forign countries? If American teenagers can be terrorists with Linux imagine what terrorists will be?! Oh dear no! Vote YES on bill N0-31337 and stop the terrorists from using dangerous open source software!!!! aaahhh!!!! SCO SCO HELP US!
That was an awesome read. Thanks very much to Alaa and Linux-Egypt for some incredibly in-depth answers.
I'd love it if Slashdot could do more interviews with computer users from other countries in the world. Linux or not, I find it fascinating to read about the state of IT and technology in other countries.
In an age when differences between nations and religion cause friction, it's nice to read about a subject which unites us all.
Is it just me that finds about 98% of the questions to be on the whole offensive and myopic? Do you get sand in your PC? When will people realise that brown, yellow, pink or black, we're all exactly the same on the inside. This isn't flamebait, but using AC due to "morons abounding".
Too bad it is not *BSD being discussed. Egypt has the best tombs in the world.
...official government estimates are 10% of families own computers...
;)
I wonder if thats more than in Canada?
-Imidazole2
Almost makes me want to fly to Egypt to attend one of these InstallFests.
"All it takes to fly is to hurl yourself at the ground... and miss." - Douglas Adams
RMS and wishing that god would lead him to the path of Islam so he can rest in heaven when the day comes!!!
there is much for you to learn, my young paduan
vodka, straight up, thank you!
It sounds to me like Egypt is in despirate need to install solar cells on every house to harness the abundant solar energy. (It's mostly a desert, so not a lot of cloudy days, right?)
Too bad they're so expensive.
I found it interesting to hear from a real live human in another country, we should get a little more of this type of "story".
I also found it interesting (but not surprising) that most people there don't want their money to go to the US... I wonder how many realize we've been giving them 1.5 Billion a year for 20 years.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
but there is a special resentment towards Microsoft
Yet, the killer apps and most used services are Hotmail and MSN messaging services. Then offline, Windows Media Player is the killer app.
you suffer under the misperception that only high culture defines the differences between cultures
street culture in tokyo is very different than street culture in cairo or helsinki, and learning those differences is just as valid, insightful, and interesting as learning the difference between chinese opera and western opera
in fact, given that traditional cultural influences exert less and less pull over common folk of any culture nowadays, it could be said that what you indicate is important to learn is really LESS important than what is divulged in this interview, for populism rules in the world now
so congratulations on YOUR elitist troll
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Egyptians aren't Arabs, dumbass.
C'mon, it's funny....laugh!!! In fact, as i scrolled down, i was waiting for the Allah joke to show up!
True, it appears as though his english is a little rough. He probably should have just written his answers in his native tongue and let you translate yourself.
do not read this line twice.
I'm relieved that the Bangles are no longer considered a national treasure there.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
there are many factors that would affect this, girls tend to do better in school (don't know why) and engineering and computing schools take the top high school graduates so they're usually heavily populated with females, IT is deemed a suitable job for a female since it does not involve much traveling, they don't have to order many men around as opposed to other engineering jobs where you got to deal with many workers and technicians (this isn't really a big factor when it comes to employment but no one tells them till its too late) and late hours could be done at home, alot of the job are still government jobs which are governed by strict rules relating to grades in school and university, age and stuff like that, there is no way to avoid employing a female who is qualified in a situation like this.
Egyptian girls tend to start looking for husbands very early, so their ideas about a hot date may surprise you
Man!! I want to move to Egypt right now!! Bring on the hot young female computer geeks!!!!!!!
*dies from overload of the fantasy brain*
I'm sorry to say that a lot of the western world thinks of the East as backwards. Maybe it's American cockiness, but we like to think of ourselves as more advanced. It's nice to see that notion being chipped away. It's great remind people that we're all on this Pale Blue Dot together.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
links plz?
preferably to pix?
Funny, they were the last time I checked...
1. Arabic dialect.
2. Part of Middle Eastern geo-socio region
3. Primarily Islamic
4. Phsyical features of the Arabian Peninsula
What am I missing?
BLING BLING. Meet the architecture that's changing everything.
and yet email = hotmail?
:)
holy crap, gmail is going to clean up there.
This is going to be the most memorable article I've ever read on slashdot.
well, to put it nicely, he didn't seem to take some of the answers seriously. We do have a lot of misconceptions about the arab world and dialogs like these should be used to help learn about each other. answering questions with responses like "You're kidding, right???" or "[The] only word I have for you is 'Ya Moftary'" or "this question is meaningless, it is based on an assumption that there is a lack of awareness" doesn't do much to keep a dialog open between two unfamiliar cultures that should be friends.
So Alaa, if you're reading... Thanks for answering as detailed as you did, however no question is a stupid question. If we can't ask questions without fear of being made fun of, what reason do we have to keep asking questions?
Egyptian girls tend to start looking for husbands very early, so their ideas about a hot date may surprise you
Depending on the age and the culture I think a hot date can be quite a broad brush.
In public school (under 12) a hot date could be walking home from school together.
At the other extreme it might refer to a multipersonal sexual marathon.
My question is about the first answer, speaking about how a system can be assembled for about $150. Now first, I assume that's American dollars they're talking about. But I'm also wondering about the system itself, are we talking older technology or is that a brand new system with current parts?
If so, why has noone setup an importing business yet? Yes, I bet there would be all kinds of protectionist duties, but even with a 100% duty it would probably still be cheaper then prices here (which are already fairly cheap).
My next question would be, are these name brand parts? As in, Intel motherboards and chips, Maxtor drives, etc. And if they are, why are we allowing them to sell to us at such inflated prices? If the parts really are cheap enough to manufacture that a system can be built for $150, the profits these companys (not the retailors, we all know about their razor thin magins) are making must be discustingly large.
Of course as I said, this is all based on the assumption that these are modern machines and not old 486s with a fresh paint job....
Wake up, jackass. We americans are finally becoming part of a global society. Yes, the artificial protections that you refer to are being worn away, and it will be painful for us to adjust to a lower standard of living, while we watch them adjust to a higher one.
Too bad, suck it up, and get ready for it, or you're in for a rough time.
Well, laadeedaa. Guess what, Merikins? Them folks is smart.
Excellent numbers, responses and 'pricking' of stupid conceptions of what Egyptian tech is all about and what their society is all about.
About the schooling: his assessment is dead on. It is a shame but the social and economic structure of Egypt is really a reason why we see young men joining jihad oriented organizations, not their hatred of the USian Empire and 'Freedom.' If you can't get affirmation via the maninstream, you certainly can via groups that give your life a purpose. The whole revelation about how people slip BACK INTO illiteracy is most telling.
I suggest "The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo: A Social History of Islamic Education" as great book to see how good it once was for all classes (under the Mamluks, I know). And these are the times that the Islamists imagine for themselves....
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
He did fine, except for seeming to get rather offended over what seemed to be a perfectly innocent question about the number of women at the installfest.
I suspect some of his bluntness has to do with simple pride in his country, annoyance at simple things (to him) that he thinks should be known already, and just his personality. He could have controlled himself a bit better, but there's not anything wrong with it really - the whole thing's pretty informal anyway.
And if you're reading this, Alaa, thanks for giving a look at the geek culture of somewhere I won't be able to go to in person for a long time, if ever.
That's part of why they don't like the US!
They know we are using tax money to keep their corrupt government propped up!
"Supporters of Democracy" my ass, when America gives out billions to keep various authoritarian regimes propped up.
>> (email it is assumed equals hotmail, if you ask your average Egyptian about his email account she will reply with the username only). Interesting the use of "SHE" in that phrase. Proper english would dictate "HE" or the more liberal and less traditional "HE or SHE". Does this imply that most computers are female OR that egypt is a more maternal culture? Someone brought this up below, but only to poke at Microsoft. heh. Great interview. I work on an international site, and I get to see lots of these missconceptions. Heck. I think the US is probably one of the least connected "first world countries" if i remember correctly.
In my city roughly 80% of households have broadband...
No no that's not 82% of internet users ahve BB
Or 80% of homes have internet
It's 80% of single family dwellings have high speed Internet.
For example I have 5.1Mbit line (abnormaly fast most people only have 1 or 2)
I actually only know one two familes that don't have internet at all and neither family even lives in house. Neither one even has a phone because their pretty poor.
Now that's not normal but our whole province s dang high.
Now I suppose you clever people can deduce where I live but. Meh.
That's exactly why it's not a funny joke. You were waiting for it. The joke was obvious.
A good joke throws in an unexpected twist. It's witty, that's what makes it funny. To make an Allah joke about someone using the name alaa is boring.
In case anyone didn't get offended:
France: Do you get french fries in your PC?
Sweden: Do you get meatballs in your PC?
Sweden again: Does Inga's hair get stuck in the CPU-fan?
India: Do you get curry in your PC?
Germany/Austria: Isn't it uncomfortable to sit in a computer chair with lederhosen(sp?)?
Scotland: Do you get whiskey in your PC?
USA: You lost the vietnam war. How often does war-cripples fall into your PC?
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
I just read it as a gender-neutral statement. Switching gender mid-sentence is sometimes less obtrusive then saying "his/her" all the time, and more personal than using "their" and "they".
oh well and if I stuck to he I'd be accused of masochism or something.
this is a feature not a bug.
Egyptian girls tend to start looking for husbands very early, so their ideas about a hot date may surprise you.
Sweden: Do you type Ctrl-Alt-Del to rebork your computer?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Do you think I eat steamed broccoli when I'm coding?
AC wrote, " Who gives a steaming shit about Egyptian Linux?"
I do. I care about the adoption of OSS everywhere. The more countries that begin to see value in OS software, wider spread adoption will occur. If you are interested in the freedom to be able to innovate based on the free flow of ideas, at least in terms of software; widespread global adoption is crucial.
So count me in. I care.
Based on that, they should build solar arrays out in the desert, since no one is there anyway.
Gigawatt after Gigawatt is available to them!
Reminds of the programmer I knew who had his computer case stood on end to be like a tower. The side-mounted power switch was now on top, and he used it as an ashtray. The inside of the unit was filled with cigarette ashes.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
That's "licking" ass - Canadians ALWAYS use a "K" when they're supposed to use an "L" ...
"So hotmail causes gender switching! There is an untapped market for M$ to exploit!"
Hey! I know after using Hotmail, I feel neutered.
Hopefully Alaa will be reading these posts. A lot of positive thinking.
I have to admit I was not aware, although not shocked, to here some of the answers he gave.
But that leaves me wondering; what can we do from here to help them there?
I mean, I don't have the money to spend to travel the world around and become a Lin-evanglilist. So what help can I provide from here to people like Alaa? What services can I provide to communities like Linux-Egypt?
It really breaks my heart to hear that the educational system cannot accomodate the shear number of students. And couple that with the 60% illiteracy rate Alaa mentions. This makes me want to do something.
No offense to anyone, but when I see the "help the poor country" ads on TV I get sad but can't help. But somehow I can't help but think I can do something here. That I can help with this.
So, Alaa, if you're reading this, please, I encourage you, spread the word back home that people here care and would love to help. We just need to know how.
Rivendahl
... there is nothing that has not already been thought
I must agree that I found his responses at times to be a bit abrasive. This isn't so uncommon among 'geek' types however. /. is full of this kind of talk. If you think that's bad, hang out on debian-user for a day. :)happyfrogcow wrote, "answering questions with responses like "You're kidding, right???" or "[The] only word I have for you is 'Ya Moftary'" or "this question is meaningless, it is based on an assumption that there is a lack of awareness" doesn't do much to keep a dialog open between two unfamiliar cultures that should be friends."
/. is full of this kind of talk. If you think that's bad, hang out on debian-user for a day. :)
I must agree that I found his responses at times to be a bit abrasive. This isn't so uncommon among 'geek' types however.
C'mon, guys. He's just saying that it was nice to learn something new about another country today.
It's nice to know that others also call on their deities when they see a BSoD. The things I used to say, however, would make a Sunday School teacher blush. It's been a long time since I've had that kind of calling thanks to GNU.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
What do your friends do when you ask a stupid question?
It's not the size of your .sig that matters, it's how you use it.
We do have separate words for 'libre' (wolne) and 'gratis'(darmowe). Unfortunately the word for 'libre' means also 'slow'. :P
Slow software? Not a catchy phrase
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I understand you may feel slightly insulted (hmm, too harsh, let's say 'teased') by his answers, but do realize that *he* may have felt the same way because of some condescending questions.
Respect and understanding goes both ways, and I believe this Q/A was very well done and informative.
-- don't discount flying pigs until you have good air defense
I have a question regarding the state of education in Egypt. Wish I had asked it of Alaa before he answered all these questions, oh well, maybe he'll scan the threads...
I have a relative at HU in Jerusalem who helped with a study a few years ago of the public education in Palestinian schools in Arab villages in Israel, and they found that there was a huge campaign of disinformation. Students spent time learning mostly political propaganda that was anti-Israel and anti-US instead of time learning math and languages. Text books were generally published by Arab companies that supported the propaganda campaign and typically were full of factual errors. They even learned off of maps that showed local geography as the Palestinian Authority wanted it to be rather than it actually was! (Often students were told that they were living in "Palestine" rather than Israel, and "Israel" was not mentioned on the map or in the classroom as far as the Arabic-speaking researchers could discern.)
I wanted to know if this type of situation is also widespread in Egypt. I realize that Egypt is in a much different socio-economic situation than Palestinian Arabs living in Israel are right now, has more money, a more legitimate government and are a bit further removed from the daily violence and hatred that is evident on both sides in Israel. But when he talks about corruption in the education system, does anything there approach this?
Also, at the risk of sounding like a tree-hugging hippy, do they teach hatred either at the mosque or at the public schools in Egypt?
Thanks to any Egyptian locals (or any other Arab country locals) or even Alaa if he reads this for any info you can provide.
I really enjoyed reading this, and representing a Jewish American nerd with a strong interest in Israel, I think it's interesting to talk to Arab nerds about political and technical issues. Anyone who fits that bill is welcome to contact me.
------
"Will the highways on the Internet become more few?" --George W. Bush, in Jan. 2000
Okay...publish under your real name, Bill...(Gates)
There are no absolutes in this world other than death and taxes. On the one hand you hate the idea of religeon and government being melded together (as in most Islamic countries). On the other hand, you probably like the idea of loosening the rules against the seperation of church and state in our own country (I am assuming you are American - given the tone of your post, Mr. Anonymous (Bill)).
Sounds pretty hypicritical to me.
Ignorance only leads to superstition and blind zelotry. Education leads to understanding and tollerance. Which do you prefer? I prefer a Middle East that is prosperous, educated, and moderate, as opposed to poor, illiterate, and extremist.
You live on fear, Mr. Anonymous. Grow up. Zealotry under any religeon is destructive, and your post, sadly, illustrates this.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
there is a comment in between the parent comment and my comment that i am talking about, but slashdot displays it if you are browsing above a certain threshold as if nothing is in between
;-P
so slashdot should fix how they display comment threads here, because it is misleading, and indicates a train of thought which does not exist, and only encourages insanity
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
terribly sorry
my intention was not to make fun of anyone, and I did not mean the questions where stupid.
I appologise if I offended anyone, it was meant in jest,
the part about the question being meaningless is realy how I saw the question and the only answer I could give, the question is based on a false assumption and I explained above why this assumption is false.
what was I to do, ignore the question completly?
Egyptian girls tend to start looking for husbands very early, so their ideas about a hot date may surprise you.
American tourists tend to behave with extreme stupidity in France as in other places.
I have travelled on business to France including visits to Paris many times. I do not speak a word of French, but I have never been treated poorly by French, and have had a lot of fun there, even when I politely ask for help in English.
If people can tell by your dress and behavior that you are American, it is a bad start, and it is because you haven't tried to appreciate the culture there. While they may seem rude to you, if you do not adapt, you certainly seem rude to them.
Look around. See how people dress. See how people behave. Notice that in Europe generally, you don't have to open your mouth much because it is designed for international accessibility.
On my last trip to Paris, I took a party of French-speaking Americans who lived in Paris to a nice local restaurant.
They were having to translate parts of the menu and order for me. At the end, the waitress thought she was paying me the ultimate compliment, saying that the way I had behaved, she hadn't even suspected that I was American, but had thought I must be British.
Who ever said my native tongue was English? It might be, but just as you made a comment about me being rude culturally, you may have yourself done the exact same thing.
...from a business that doesn't make a profit?
If, at best, you bring in revenue sufficient to pay expenses, the company stays afloat but you have nothing left to spend.
A business with no profit can survive only by drawing revenue from somewhere else. It won't make a living for anyone.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I'd say awareness of computer technology in Egypt or India is as big or bigger than in countries like Greece or Poland (I confess this is not a very well informed opinion but I'm sure the differences won't be as big as the question implies).
Actually, yes it is. One of the software vendors with whom my employer does business has a number of programmers who are in Poland. They work on the system during what is overnight here on the east coast, so it has its advantages. Poland is one of the most well advanced of the former "east block" nations.
Now had he said Romania or Bulgaria instead of Poland, then the delta would indeed have been less.
Is everyone in your country so verbose??
Man... He was writing novels for answers there!
Good stuff though. Interesting.
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
ok maybe it was a mistake to use an arabic word to answer that.
ya moftary is always used in jest, it is a term used between friends to gently inform that someone is totally off base.
Egyptian girls tend to start looking for husbands very early, so their ideas about a hot date may surprise you.
"Insightful" my ass, you ultra-PC blowhard. He said something with quirky grammar and it was *funny*! Nobody said "Woohoo! Look at the stupid desert boy trying to speak English!," nobody belittled him in *any* way, and yet *you* decide to come along and get all schoolmarmish on us for no reason. If I use my lousy Egyptian to ask Alaa for a cigarette and accidentally ask him if he has a camel in his pocket are you going to yell at *him* in my defense? Noooo, 'cause I'm an evil white Westerner and deserve no pity!
Given the choice between a funny Egyptian and a self-loathing Westerner, I'll take the Egyptian.
Alaa, you want to go out for some camel? I heard they're delicious! I have to have an Egyptian beer to wash it down, though. Is that cool, or will you have to sit somewhere else?
You also have to understand that he is translating not only his language, but his cultural norms into the answers.
What sounds like arrogance to us, may be normal discourse where he is from. Perhaps why we sound so arrogant to people in the Middle East.
Some issues are intractible. However, we can civily agree to disagree and move on with a relationship based on those things we find in common, rather than vowing to kill each other because of religeous extremism - on both sides.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
In case anyone didn't get offended:
Hey, I'm English, and I'm offended that you left my country out!
Aha! I knew it. It *does* mean "you insensitive clod!" :)
Learning about other countries and points of view takes time and effort. Thank you for taking that time and effort to educate your readers. Too bad about the blatant attempts by certain posters to fit this into the 'America knows everything better than anybody else' stream of thought. In any case, you've done well.
I didn't find your answers abrasive at all, in the context of the questions. There was a language gap there, and that makes it harder to phrase things in a more delicate manner. Your answers were not offensive, just translated. And besides, some of the questions did indeed have strong misconceptions about Egypt. I, for one, know almost nothing about Egypt, except that a friend of mine once went to college with Dodi Al Fayed's cousin, and that they have a real problem with people stealing archaeological artifacts from there. I'm going to do more research on it now, however, because this article got me interested.
-1, "1337" speak
Baby don't got no karma? Got a 700K+ uid though. Must be a M$ fanboy...
This may be slightly off-topic, but I've just come back from a holiday in Egypt, and it really is a fantastic place to visit. The locals were all very friendly and the weather was fantastic (if you like sunshine). The ancient monuments are awe-inspiring (one of the few times when that adjective is literally true). Also food, even in a good hotel is very very cheap.
On the technology side - there were quite a few internet cafes, and all the guides we dealt with had private hotmail addresses. But then 20 minutes out of central Cairo and you see people living in mud brick houses, and riding donkeys everywhere.
We met some American tourists, who told us they were accompanied everywhere by armed guards. I think this is more to reassure them than anything else.
a friend would call me a dumbass. a stranger would hopefully take me seriously not knowing what my background on the topic is.
our cultures are still strangers to each other.
Click on alaaosh and moderate up those comments so people can read the insightful replies to all moron's misunderstandings and ignorance.
Cheers.
A large portion of the Egyptian population are actually Nubian (probably about 50% overall from what I could see with this figure tending towards 100% further south) and their physical features are more Sudanese.
Bob
Listen to my latest album here
You want to learn about Egyptian culture? Just watch "The Mummy" and "The Mummy Returns". That's how I learned about Egypt!
An interesting little thing to do is to watch the American news channels (Fox, CNN, MSNBC, etc) and see how they depict Iraq. You see lots of brown and such. FoxNews' maps were, until someone realized something, always tan colored and MSNBC's still are. ABC and CNN though use much better tech with their maps and you see, glory be, that Iraq isn't dry as a pop-corn fart and as brown as Southern Arizona. Remember the "Fertile Crescent?" Well, it hasn't fucked off and gone anywhere. American mind: Brown and Desolate = Not Worth Giving a Fuck About.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
>the general belief here in Egypt is that this money is not used for anything useful
Like many uninformed readers, money spent on national defense makes many things possible:
- having a home
- having a job
- having food
- having an economy
- having social spending
- having infromation sources, internet access, news
Without national defense, there would be anarchy and therefore no quality of living.
Go back to Kuro5hin, you polyp...
Basically, you come to a level with basic education where you can get by through the day, but in order to progress economically or socially you are faced with systems that require more advanced literacy. Eventually, these more advanced 'reading' systems become the standard. If you do not have access to appropriate resources to access the skills to use the new systems then you slip back into illiteracy. Computers come to mind, but this also happens when something like 'green revolution' agriculture is introduced in a developing country. You are farmer and 'literate' in the ways of traditional farming. You are then faced with 'modern' ag practices for which you have not the skills to access. You're not stupid, but you become illiterate to the new 'reading' system. The Russian linguist Luria did a lot of work on this problem and one of the reasons that literacy campaigns were so big in the 1980s among developing countries (Nicaragua, for example) was that they knew that the aid and such would only go so far and that they must have a literate base to start accessing better or more productive means as societies.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
> Hey, I'm English, and I'm offended that you left my country out!
Is your computer boiled, or is it just covered in a pudding made of of blood and entrails?
Muslims invented tolerance
"EGYPT -WOMEN
NEAR EAST AND NORTH AFRICA
"Domestic violence against women is a significant problem and is reflected in press accounts. According to a national study conducted in 1995 as part of a comprehensive demographic and health survey, one of every three women who have ever been married has been beaten at least once during marriage. Among those who have been beaten, less than half have ever sought help. Smaller, independent studies confirm that wife beating is common. In general, neighbors and extended family members intervene to limit incidents of domestic violence. Due to the value attached to privacy in the country's traditional society, abuse within the family rarely is discussed publicly. Spousal abuse is grounds for a divorce, but the law requires the plaintiff to produce eyewitnesses, a difficult condition.
Several NGO's offer counseling, legal aid, and other services to women who are victims of domestic violence. These activists believe that in general the police and the judiciary consider the "integrity of the family" more important than the well being of the woman. The Ministry of Insurance and Social Affairs operates more than 150 family counseling bureaus nationwide, which provide legal and medical services.
The Government prosecutes rapists, and punishment for rape ranges from 3 years in prison to life imprisonment at hard labor. If a rapist is convicted of abducting his victim, he is subject to execution; however, there were no reports of the execution of rapists. In 1999 the Government abolished an article of the Penal Code that permitted a rapist to be absolved of criminal charges if he married his victim. However, marital rape is not illegal. Although reliable statistics regarding rape are not available, activists believe that it is not uncommon, despite strong social disapproval. When "honor killings" (a man murdering a female for her perceived lack of chastity) occur, perpetrators generally receive lighter punishments than those convicted in other cases of murder. There are no reliable statistics regarding the extent of honor killings.
EGYPT
Prostitution and sex tourism are illegal, but known to occur.
The law provides for equality of the sexes; however, aspects of the law and many traditional practices discriminate against women. By law, unmarried women under the age of 21 must have permission from their fathers to obtain passports and to travel; married women of any age require the same permission from their husbands. Only males may confer citizenship. A woman's testimony is equal to that of a man's in the courts. There is no legal prohibition against a woman serving as a judge, although in practice no women serve as judges. The Court of Cassation postponed to January 2001 the cases of two attorneys, Fatma Lashin and Amany Talaat, who are challenging the Government's refusal to appoint them as Public Prosecutors. (To become a judge, one must first serve as a Public Prosecutor.)
Laws affecting marriage and personal status generally correspond to an individual's religion. In January the Parliament passed a new Personal Status Law that made it easier for a Muslim woman to obtain a divorce without her husband's consent, provided that she is willing to forego alimony and the return of her dowry. (The Coptic Orthodox Church does not permit divorce.) However, an earlier provision of the draft law that would have made it easier for a woman to travel without her husband's consent, was rejected.
Under Islamic law, non-Muslim males must convert to Islam to marry Muslim women, but non-Muslim women need not convert to marry Muslim men. Muslim female heirs receive half the amount of a male heir's inheritance, while Christian widows of Muslims have no inheritance rights. A sole female heir receives half her parents' estate; the balance goes to designated male relatives. Male Muslim heirs face strong social pressure to provide for all family members who require assistance; however, this assistance is not always prov
polyp...
Polyphagous? Why, yes I am! Stop posting, anonymously, Michael.
I'm thinking of writing a slashdotters guide to egypt, based on the misconceptions and question in these articles.
so if you want you can send me any questions you have about egypt and any stereotype you know of.
oh and BTW did you know that egyptians believe Dodi was killed in a conspiracy to prevent the birth of a Muslim heir to the British crown (conspiracy theories are popular here).
and yes stolen archaeological artifacts is a big problem.
Egyptian girls tend to start looking for husbands very early, so their ideas about a hot date may surprise you.
I used to get beat up a lot in Bolivia and in Chile, when I was in grade school. This happened because I was "American" and they thought we were all just "born knowing how to fight real good" and wanted to learn how to fight from a "natural born killer".
Well, I did learn how to "fight real good", eventually. But I learned from street experience, just like those kids, who first fought me, were trying to do.
Ignorance is rather universal, folks -- big surprise.
And as long as we're talking literacy, Egypt has quite a way to come before it catches up with the likes of Poland or Greece.
Must be something wrong with me, I'm not getting offended. Oh well, I've learned there are plenty of people who would gladly do it for me. :)
> A large portion of the Egyptian population are actually Nubian
"What's a Nubian?"
noooooh
man what did I put myself in, it means you who ignores obvious facts.
Egyptian girls tend to start looking for husbands very early, so their ideas about a hot date may surprise you.
And the last time I checked, Sudan was an Arabic country.
If Egyptians aren't Arabs, then Americans aren't American.
Do you feel events such as InstallFest have contributed positively to the growing awareness of computer technology in non-western countries?
Alaa:
this question is meaningless, it is based on an assumption that there is a lack of awareness of computer technology to begin with which is not true.
Hotmail, Msn messenger and WMP are NOT the cutting edge of computer technology.
"What's a Nubian?"
The toplink on Google is this - Nubian
Bob
Listen to my latest album here
By DOUGLAS JEHL
You forget to mention that the Egyptian muslim will kill you if he you are a Christian and you sleep with his wife.(Also Arab street will be ecstatic if a infidel adulterer is murdered for despoiling a burka clad pious muslim.) If you are a muslim and sleep with his wife, he will not kill you, he will kill his wife! For a religion so obsessed with honor, it is how amazing how little honor the muslim world has.
Kind of like how the half of a dozen arab state bordering Israel could never destroy Israel despite their numerous attempts and their huge population advantage.
The best one ever ;-)
....................
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4l44:
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bu7 7h47s no7 7h3 in73r3s7in9 qu3s7ion impor7in9 73chnolo9y is 34sy, 7h3r3 is lo7s of compu73r 3xp3r7is3 in 7h3 coun7ry 4lso, 7h3 m4rk37 is 4lw4ys 3xp4ndin9, compu73r r3l473d schools 4r3 7h3 mos7 popul4r pl4c3s 7o sp3nd your univ3rsi7y y34rs (4f73r m3dic4l school).
mos7 jobs 4r3 n37workin9 4nd 4dminis7r47ion jobs, 7h3r3 4r3 lo7s of w3bd3si9n/w3bpro9r4mmin9 jobs (39yp7i4ns lov3 fl4sh p493s), 4nd 4 bi9 m4rk37 for Visu4l B4sic, Foxpro, 4cc3ss 4nd MS SQL S3rv3r b4s3d solu7ions. only bi9 n4m3 in 3n73rpris3 d3v3lopm3n7 in Or4cl3, 4l7hou9h mos7 of 7h3 or4cl3 jobs 4r3 PL/SQL no7 J4v4 b4s3d.
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George W. Bush 2004!!!!!!!!!
For what it's worth, I found your answers well-written, interesting, inoffensive, and informative.
It's good to learn about other cultures - thanks.
I've been to Egypt many times and there are many many western tourists there as well as many westerners who live there. Actually an American friend of mine once accompanied me to Egypt and had a great time. I'd highly recommend you check it out the next time you are planning a trip -- it is a great place to visit. Go in the winter or late fall to minimize the heat.
Isn't fit to be called water. I'd rather rinse my mouth our with my own urine. Why is it that the american macrobreweries suck so much?
Except that in many, if not most, world langauges, and definitely in English, the proper pronoun to refer to an entity of unknown gender is [translated into English as] "he".
And here I thought I was being *too* obvious...
It's a "Chasing Amy" quote.
http://members.theglobe.com/carrieu2/nubian.wav
No, Not true.
Here is my pic just to proove that this is not correct.
http://www.foolab.org/pic.jpg
I'm on the right side.
That's one of the wittiest things I've read on here in a while, Alaa. So, if you need a Slashdot signature, I would recommend that ;-)
Thanks for taking the time for the thoughtful answers to our questions.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
Perhaps we can have someone from Mississippi talk about how GNU/Linux is being used in those parts.
:)
A few years back, I attended a conference where a guy from baton-rouge.la.us discussed (I'm not making this up) GUN/Linux and the GUN-GPL license.
He was pretty embarrased when someone corrected him after his 30-minute talk.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
Greek villagers are probably richer than the very small Egyptian middle class.
If you compare Greece to the Arab world, the Arabs will only be embarrassed. 10 million Greeks read and buy more books than over 200 million Arab speakers, this says enough. I am glad I am no Arab.
This Arab is just talking out of his anus to bolster his Arab pride.
Alaa seemed offended by the question assuming that there where a lack of females in the egyptian IT industry. Now why would any geeks assume that foreign women weren't predisposed to linux conventions what with the flourishing community of IT ladies in North America.
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
This is one of the best interviews I've read. Alaa has painted a vivid picture for me regarding the state of computing in Egypt. I came away with a feeling of having upgraded something in my mind.
Your responses were fine. I have to admit that I probably had some of the same stereotypes and misconceptions that some of the question-writers did, but I don't find it offensive that you poked holes in them. The sand thing is pretty funny; I honestly don't know whether I would have made that mistake myself.
Unfortunately most Americans, when trying to develop a mental image of an Egyptian Linux user, probably imagine something like this:
A guy wearing a white robe, sitting on a camel next to the Great Pyramid. He has a computer hooked up to a portable generator and he's balancing it on the camel's front hump. With his left hand, he's pumping oil out of a well to fire the generator, while with his right hand, he's recompiling the kernel.
Obviously that's a bit exaggerated, but you see my point. When you haven't been someplace, it's easy to develop all kinds of ridiculous ideas about what the people there are like. I'm not saying I'm any better, it's just what people's brains do when they don't know anything about something: they fill in the gaps with stuff that is mostly crap. Or they extrapolate based on one or two things they know, pieces of data that may be outdated or nonrepresentative.
It makes me wonder how Americans are misperceived in the world at large, also. Probably many Americans think that Arabs are all suicide bombers; maybe most Arabs think that Americans like nothing better than to hang out in prisons and pile up the prisoners into naked pyramids, followed by a dinner of Big Macs and Bud Light.
Thanks much for a great interview--the only way that we're all going to find a way out of our mutually destructive ignorance is through this kind of dialogue and education.
Monkeytreats
You mean Unibrau, right?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Honestly, I wouldn't even know where to begin. I think that's the problem - there's not even enough known to *have* very many ideas about the country one way or another. The biggest thing is that most of what we (Americans) see of Egypt is from documetaries about archaeological digs. All sand and ruins, and that one really old guy with no teeth that they always end up interviewing in every documentary set in that part of the world. (At least it seems like the same old guy, I suppose there could be more than one...) :) Most Americans think desert, camels, pyramids, history, and poverty. They don't really know how to differentiate between Egypt and any of the other surrounding countries except for the pyramids and historical stuff. I don't know the population statistics, main religion, type of government, etc. Appalling, I know, but we don't have our international reputation for being ignorant of other countries for no reason. I suspect you will find the Europeans better informed than I, however. Any European or Canadian Slashdotters want to provide him with some good suggestions?
-1, "1337" speak
Recently a Turkish immigrant in New York killed his own wife because a male relative raped her.
Man killed wife for 'honor,' he tells cops
"(April 24, 2004) -- A Turkish immigrant who is charged with killing his wife and critically injuring his two daughters in their Scottsville townhouse allegedly claimed he acted as a matter of honor.
Ismail Peltek, who was indicted Friday on charges of second-degree murder in the April 15 slaying of his wife, Hatice Peltek, claimed he attacked his wife and daughters after learning that his brother had molested his wife and his 22-year-old daughter, according to court documents.
Peltek, 41, said he attacked his 4-year-old daughter because she had been "sullied" by a gynecological exam.
"I was concerned that my family's honor was taken," he allegedly told investigators.
Peltek allegedly made the remarks 14 hours after the attack to Monroe County sheriff's investigators at Strong Memorial Hospital, where he was treated for self-inflicted stab wounds to his abdomen and hammer wounds to his head.
His 39-year-old wife died after being stabbed repeatedly and bludgeoned on the head with a hammer.
His daughters suffered fractured skulls from hammer blows.
"If you had the opportunity to kill the family again, would you?" he was asked by Rochester police Officer Emre Arican, who was brought in to help investigators because he speaks Turkish.
"My female family, yes. My male family, no," Peltek allegedly replied."
'What's a Nubian?', Bitch, you almost make me laugh.
I hear their jails kinda suck :)
;-)
cLive
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
I wonder if they found Hathor's Sarcophagus (sp?) in Egypt ...
So, he treated us as friends. We're all geeks here. What else did you expect?
"You didn't tell me you were going to yell 'BLACK RAGE!' I nearly pissed myself!"
*sigh*
You do realize that solar cells, and wind farms aren't the only way to convert solar power to energy? I suggest you look at what Isreal has done in this area of research. Just like geeks to go for the high-tech solution to a problem.
I took it to be a joke. Social conventions are relaxed in this kind of a forum. I for one enjoy a good flame. That's why I have flamebait modified +6.
:)
Don't worry about it, that was a great story
What would be wrong with that? Asking if he has a pack of camels (or marlboros or newports) seems pretty reasonable to me. I believe that in Egypt they have American cigarettes.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
the american stereotype egyptians hold will be derived from hollywood movies and soap operas (both very popular here).
but since egyptians work all over the planet, and since we do get a fair number of tourists the stereotypes are usualy more subtle.
Egyptian girls tend to start looking for husbands very early, so their ideas about a hot date may surprise you.
I would be most curious how one could value the lives of one people over the lives of another and still claim to be reasonable or enlightened. I'm sure that if you explain how you arrived at that opinion, we would all immediately understand your wise insights.
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
iffy...
calling someone a dumbass doesn't make you friends. being friends allows you to call your friend a dumbass.
I'd mod you up if I could.. You're right.. as the world struggles through advancing globalization, we're foolish to think that 6 billion people can live the way we in the united states do. Either we'll increasingly explit the labour of poorer nations or our standart of living will go down.
To contribute at least somethign to the topic at hand: It amazes me every time how ignorant people are.. sand in your computer?? Come on.
What, they want you to take out the garbage and fix the refrigerator?
That's how I interpreted it. Seeing the general tone of his responses, Alaa came through as affable, intelligent and nice. When confronted with a silly question, he expresses mild outrage in a "you dumbass" friendly kinda way, and takes pains to explain the meaning of his egyptian expression. So, I took it as a friendly jab.
Silly question? Let's consider it. The question was, why are there no women in your event? Answer, yes there were, and there are 36 pictures in the site showing women. So, the asker obviously didn't VTFS (Visit... Site). I think Alaa's mock outrage was more that justified.
Having visited you country the most important thing in any guide for the ignorant is to not mention sand, desert, archaology etc.
- Talk about the thriving Coptic Christian community in old Cairo so people know that the whole country isn't muslim and there is good religious toleration.
- Talk about how no-one should ever drive in Cairo unless they were born and raised there
;-)
- Nubian culture in the south is not very well known outside of Egypt
- Food and drink are another thing not well known outside the country (I stupidly assumed Egyptian food would be "typical" North African Cuisine with loads of cous-cous). And Egyptian wine is surprisingly good
- Etc, etc
I really enjoyed my time in your country and would love to visit again. As for the stolen atrefacts, I asked a local professional archaeologist about whether he resented that and strangely he said he saw it as a good thing since the artifacts were being preserved and are on public display (generally) whereas they do not have enough money to keep the antiquities that they still have in a good condition.Bob
Listen to my latest album here
I am sure you would find enough people in New York (comparable to Paris in many ways) that would sooner spit than talk to someone behaving rude and / or touristy.
Other cultures should be more tolerant of visiting Americans. Don't people know they abuse Americans in the Texas prisons the same way they do in Abu Ghraib and Guantanemo Bay. Why shouldn't they be permitted to behave as they like wherever they are occupying, without regard to anyone else's values and feelings.
If your wardrobe does not contain any decent clothes, I would suggest a new wardrobe before travelling anywhere. I did not have to buy new clothes to fit in there.
persians aren't arabs either. however, i do think the majority of egyptians are arabs.
Who said I made a comment about you being rude culturally? It's not *my* fault my joke got modded "insightful". Quite frankly, I was responding to your joke with a joke of my own.
do not read this line twice.
Heheh, I know Alaa. We all know. I meant that as a jest, too.
I never tasted camel meat myself.
:-)
:-(
although it is a common meal, supposed to take a very long time to cook to the point where its common to say "is this camel tea" when someone takes a very long time making tea
oh yes and every morning you get to see them leading a horde of camels across the streets of cairo, I suppose taking them to the slaughter house.
and sure its cool I'm a beer lover myself, hell I got flamed for showing beer bottles in my website
Egyptian girls tend to start looking for husbands very early, so their ideas about a hot date may surprise you.
yes we have american cigarettes but they're made by an Egyptian factory.
in fact we have one factory that produces all brands Egyptian and American.
Egyptian girls tend to start looking for husbands very early, so their ideas about a hot date may surprise you.
"but there is a special resentment towards Microsoft, probably due to an incident few years ago when they put adverts all over Israel thanking the Israeli army."
Does someone have a link to an article that covers this? I tried googling, but to no avail.
Out of curiousity, is the tobacco imported from the US?
I'd rather be lucky than good.
From what I've heard from people who have been elsewhere in the middle east, Egyptians are stereotypically viewed as having a good sense of humor. I read an article a couple weeks after September 11th in which there was an Egyptian joking that Mohammad Atta (an Egyptian) couldn't have been the ringleader, because the attacks required careful planning and coordination.
"She was out of her depth in a shallow pool." -- Peggy Noonan on Sarah Palin
no idea not a smoker myself
Egyptian girls tend to start looking for husbands very early, so their ideas about a hot date may surprise you.
> it will be painful for us to adjust to a lower standard of living
Maybe the most painfull part will be realizing that non US standard of living may not be lower at all.
Too many many americans live under the false assumption that *their* standard of living is the best of the world. It may be better than that of Egypt, maybe. But this doesn't make it the best.
And a big part of the difficulty is in realizing that there exists not such a beast as a 'best' standard of living. This is similar to what I call the 'coping with difference' problem.
Different != Worse
It's hard to get this concept. But it's fundamental too. Expecially because nearly all wars are actually based on that very false assumption (well, they really are routed in economics. But the justification common people is given by propaganda *is* based on that).
Never noticed how americans are always "saving" somenone from something? Doesn't that sound very much like ancient religion wars where people were killed to "save" them from false faith? Never read anything about burning someone to have her soul "saved"?
What is someone somewere was to say that americans should be "saved"?
Of course the US army is currently too powerfull for such a scenario. But what is the point in having a powerfull army? Prevent someone from attacking you (including those pretending to save you when you need not be saved), prevent someone to actually save you (assuming you need be saved), or attacking someone else for whatever reason (including saving them from whatever you think they need be saved from)?
IMO, in fact, we ALL, wherever we live, whatever we believe, have only two REAL enemies. Our own propaganda is one. Our own faith (not talking of religion here) is the other. And interestingly enought those two often cross-support each other.
Peace, please.
Egypt imports tobacco mainly from China and then italy, greece and brazil
however it doesn't look like Mandrake tests their Arabic support (and unfortunately it seems the Arabic users community is not doing a good job of testing and bug reporting either)
:-)
;-)
h tml
I would say that this work is community driven and not easy, to the point that translation of the mdk10 finished only recently, and the q&a worked started from then.
Here is the message from Youcef Rabah Rahal on 2004-04-27 that announce the end of the translation work on cooker-i18n mailling list:
Hello,
This is to announce that after 3 months of hard work, we (Arabeyes.org [1]) have finally completed [2] the translation of Mandrake to Arabic [3] (100% of the PO files !).
I have committed all the files to Mandrake's CVS. The status page [4] on Mandrake's site is not updated yet, but I think it will display the correct status in ~24 hours from now
I would like to thank all the translators who contributed to this achievement, from the Arabeyes team or not.
The next step is to do Quality Assurance. This is a (long) incremental task that will consist of inspecting all the files, correct and make the translations consistent (as you may know, translation may not be consistent yet due to the fact that many people contributed, and that a great part of the initial translation was done outside the Arabeyes.org scope).
Hoping to see a full arabized Mandrake in the next release
Regards,
[1] http://www.arabeyes.org/
[2] http://www.arabeyes.org/misc/mandrake_status_bar.
[3] http://www.arabeyes.org/project.php?proj=Mandrake
[4] http://www1.mandrakelinux.com/l10n/ar.php3
You can go and find the rest of the discussion as they talk on how such a process of translation work. Interresting stuff and a difficult and long job.
Well, there are languages where pronouns are gender neutral. i.e. she/he/it are all represented by the same word. My wife still switches between 'she' & 'he' even though she's been in the U.S.A. for 15 years. She simply grew up with languages that don't have that distinction. It's not really a big deal.
I enjoyed reading that quite a bit.
Information wants to be $1.98/lb.
I look forward to more interviews with Linux users around the world in the future. What's the point of having global communications and and robust protocols if we never peer out past localhost int the USA?
Actually your information is not accurate.
Israel conquered Arab areas in the 1967 Six Day War (a war which was started by Gamal Abd a-Nasser, the then ruler of Egypt - Israel was in an economic depression and Nasser believed that he has a chance to completely destroy Israel). During the war Israel invaded the Golan Heights (Syrian area), the Western Bank (then under control of Jordan, but Jordan subsequently waived all territorial claims in favor of the Palestinians), Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula.
After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel returned to Egypt a small part of Sinai, and to Syria a small part of the Golan Heights - so the area controlled by Israel actually shrunk.
After those wars, the only newly invaded Arab territory was that of southern Lebanon, and Israel completely withdrew from it in 2000 (causing Arabs to believe that Israel is again weak, and start the Al-Aqsa intifada).
What is the current fate of Sinai, Gaza Strip, Western Bank and Golan Heights?
Sinai - 100% returned to Egypt, as part of the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, which was signed in 1979.
Gaza Strip - the Egyptians didn't want to get it back, so it is still under partial Israeli control.
Western Bank - under partial Israeli control. Jordan got some areas in the border it has with Israel as part of the 1993 peace agreement between Israel and Jordan.
Golan Heights - were not to returned to Syria, because the Syrians refused to sign a peace agreement with Israel. It is assumed that Syria will get back most of the area once they have peace with Israel, which requires that they stop wishing that Israel become part of the Greater Syria.
FYI, don't bother trying to be plotically-correct. Before you know it, you'll be refering to people as s/he, whatever those are.
lots of mistakes, check above I explained how honor crimes work, usualy the guy kills both the wife and the adulterer.
now this isn't an arab thing at all, passion crimes are very common all over the world.
the backwards egyptian part is the husband can get away with it if he kills them both in the marital bed (if the slept together on the sofa in the hall he goes to jail).
I suppose the outrage will be a bit higher if the male was christian, I'm sure it will be the same if the roles where reversed and the husband was a christian and the adulterer a muslim.
I can't see how this is uniquely egyptian, intollerance is common all over the world, and intollerence to adulterers even more so.
and BTW arab states only tried to attack israel once in 1948 which was when the state was found.
the only other time they fought together was in 1967 and the fight was in sinai (part of Egypt) and the Golan heights (part of Syria).
Egyptian girls tend to start looking for husbands very early, so their ideas about a hot date may surprise you.
well I find it a good exercise.
when I talk about someone and use him, he, his, etc I always visualize that someone to be a male.
which is not nessecarily a bad thing, but I prefer to be aware when I'm realy talking about a generic someone and when I'm talking about a male someone or a female someone.
Egyptian girls tend to start looking for husbands very early, so their ideas about a hot date may surprise you.
In the West, there is something called political correctness that does not exist in the muslim world. Norway does has not expelled Mullah Krekar when is well known he is a fundamentalist from Ansar-al-Islam because they are too liberal and politically correct to deport a muslim even one with known terror connections. In the muslim world it is the opposite they make no bones about in Egypt say -- how Copts need to ask the Central government for the simplest of repairs to a Church. In the West if you are a muslim you can call someone a racist and this will leave a stigma due to the obscene amounts of liberals and leftists. In the muslim world, you call someone a infidel and there is little stigma.
Crimes of passion? Honor killings are a muslim thing and have no correlation to crimes of passion. Muslim societies are obessed with concepts of "honor" and "cleanliness". If honor killings are so common then I am sure you can find me newspaper articles about them easily searching the web in the West that are committed by any non-muslim.
Alot of articles I have read about these crimes against women to restore honor, like in Pakistan where is popular now to throw acid on women for suspected infidelity, only the females are targeted. Wife beating is also rife in the muslim world, recently a muslim cleric was deported(or attempted to be deported, I forget) for openly advocating wife beating France.
The Arab states have not changed their attitude to toward Israel: to sum it up -- they want to bring Israeli territory back to the dar-al-Islam they cannot accept it as being non-muslim ruled. Egypt is essentially being bribed to recognize Israel by Washington. This a foolish policy on the part of the Israelis and the US, it is better to have Israel not recognized by Egypt, then an Egypt that recognizes Israel, but still considers Israel its #1 military enemy. The 1.4 billion a year in military aid to Egypt will only make Egypt more powerful miltarily, it is better for Egypt to be hostile to Israel and less of a military power.
You mean back in the early 1800's? You are complaining about the Native American Indians that are now taking advantage of their sovereign nation status by opening up tax-free Native American Casinos and earning billions of dollars?
You mean half of the country back in the days of slavery, back in the 1860's, when there were only about 35 states (not the 50 currently in place)? There was another half of the country at the time that opposed slavery : the abolishionists and then the Unionists. Millions lost their lives during the long bloody Civil War, which was fought from 1861 to 1865 to keep the country together and emancipate the slaves. President Abraham Lincoln was assasinated because of this.
Historically, slavery of blacks was a European phenomenon and a product of European colonialism, not the United States. France had slaves in its colonies, notably in Haiti (or as it was known at the time, "Saint-Domingue"), until the slaves successfully revolted. France also controlled Senegal, which was one of the biggest places where slaves were deported from Africa. America itself was just another colony of England that had slaves prior to its Declaration of Independence, which is why a bias was formed.
And by the way, just how many black people have held seats in the French Parliament or are mayors of French cities? Show me a list, I would be interested to compare it against the current US Congressional Black Caucus and the long list of black mayors and city council members in American cities.
Surprise, Viet Nam was a former colony of France as part of French Indochina, or have you seem to have forgotten? How convenient.
Examine the colonies of France versus the colonies of England, and you'll notice that the English colonies have blossomed, while the French colonies have stagnated. Just compare the modern cultures, populations, and economic status of Australia, India (with the world's largest democracy, and English being the language that ties its people together), the United States, and Canada against the remains of the French empire. There is no comparison.
In fact, the people of the English colony of Hong Kong did not want to be reabsorbed into China in 1997! When I visited Hong Kong in 1996, a native tour guide candidly confessed to me that she and most of the people of her generation were very afraid of what the future reunification would bring.
Ahh, what a lovely way to behave. So cultured, so refined, the mentality of a street whore! "Come visit me to give me your money, so that I may spit upon you when you turn to leave!" This is acceptable to you, no?
Sorry, you are wrong. Inaction is the gravest threat to world peace. Appeasement of terrorists is the gravest threat to world peace. Rogue dictators are the gravest theat. South Korea learned the hard way when it tried to appease the North Korean government under "Sunshine diplomacy". It bought the illusion of peace.
Tu es completement debile. Vive l'Algerie!
agreed honor killing is a problem.
but please don't generalise, do a bit of research and you'll find many Egyptians, Muslims and otherwise working against them.
wife beating is not a muslim only phenomena, I'm not saying this to defend muslims I've no interest in that, I'm saying this because we have to recognise where the problem comes from in order to solve it.
I don't deny that wife beating is rife here though, we got many problems.
as for Israel, most arabs consider the arab states to be too pro Israel for their taste.
attitudes towards israel will not change until the occupation is over and the palestinian refugees return.
and as I mentioned before most egyptians would prefer if you kept the 1.4 billions.
start a campaign with no racist slogans and I promis you 1000 egyptians who will sign it and 100 who will work activly for it (these are big numbers considering the level of apathy here).
+
Egyptian girls tend to start looking for husbands very early, so their ideas about a hot date may surprise you.
Egyptians are more Arabic than Iranians.
Ethnically, Linguisitically, self proclaimed Arabic.
1) Conquered by Islamic arabs, and kept control for several centuries
2) Speak / write Arabic (Farci, or Persian is the language in Iran, it is in the Indo-European language family, as opposed to Arabic)
3) Self proclaim themselves as Arabs
There are significant portions of the population that are Christian, arguably they are not "Arabic", nor the ethnicity derived from "Nubians", and yet the majority still meet the three listed definations.
That was a great interview.
thank you Alla - you come across as being a very perceptive and balanced person. Exactly the kind that Linux needs as ambassadors these days.
I know a lot about ancient Egypt, but I learned a great deal about the modern one through your intelligent and sometimes witty answers, (as well as the state of Linux in Egypt).
Once again thanks man!
Anyway, exactly what kind of "subjucator" sets a deadline for itself to hand control back to the "subjugated"? What kind of "subjugator" gets embarrased by its prison guards messing with the prisoners? What kind of "subjugator" rebuilds destroyed infrastructure and builds infrastructure that never existed before that it doesn't even expect to use itself? I don't recall any of these descriptions applying to Germany when occupying France. I see each one of them happening with us.
Why? Because we are not there to possess Iraq. We are there to bring them back to the community of nations.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
for your excellent interview. You can safely ignore these idiots.
If we can't ask questions without fear of being made fun of, what reason do we have to keep asking questions?
Yeah, it is so great that I can post on slashdot without fear of ridicule. Otherwise I don't think I would post!
It's such a 'safe' environment.
Qxe4
I live on a pier which is the single closest appartment building to NYC that is still in NJ. I don't get to NYC very often, but when I do, I am usually lost if I'm travelling by foot. I have asked for directions a gazillion times and the worst thing I have gotten was a few people pretending not to hear me (they probably thought I was a bum, which is debatible).
So you think being mistakable for a bum makes you acceptable in France? You are wrong. Different societies look at different things, and it depends upon who you try to interact with as well. Get something besides a printed T-shirt and jeans.
But seriously... keep bringing up Iraq and the prisoner abuse. The next time the Germans invade France we'll be supplying the bombs...
That is exactly why I brought it up. The hyper-nationalistic attitude, exhibited by the original post is exactly what I believe makes someone appear to people to be an ugly American to be spit on. You being rejected on every visit is no accident but an attitude which they stereotype as American because it sticks out like a sore thumb, giving all Americans a bad name, even though not all Americans are that way. You can't have it both ways hating the French and blaming them in a few superficial encounters for not accepting you without any attempt on your part to try to think what they feel and think.
While the present-day American government might well desire to make an alliance with the Germany of the 1930's and 1940's, the Germany of today has been well-trained by the occupying forces to be pacifist, and is much more closely aligned with France and Europe than with the US, but I suppose you can always hope for another Hitler.
Wife beating is a pretty universal problem, sad to say. Real sad to say, in fact. You don't have to travel very far from my cozy little suburb to find a place where women are frequently treated as little more than a combination baby-factory, short-order cook, and punching bag. And these are God Fearin' Christians.
Israel, unlike its arab dictator neighbors, allows for freedom of speech, freedom of expression, of religion, etc...
...or the Mossad-educated "interrogators" assigned to Abu Ghraib and the JIDC in Baghdad during the June '03 to January '04 time-frame?
...or shall we discuss the past of your present Prime Minister's "indirect responsibility", or the attack by Israeli warplanes and motor-torpedo boats on the USS LIBERTY (GTR-5) a ship of an erstwhile ally, which found out about Israeli nuclear secrets in international waters and was attacked?
...or shall we discuss what should be even more painful facts to Israeli citizens, such as the use of Sarin and other nerve gasses against Palestinian citizens in what even Israelis term as "the Occupied Territories"?
Yep, just ask Mr. Vanunu, eh?
Israel is a military-theocratic quasi-democracy with a LIMITED freedom of speech, religion and assembly, currently engaged in the military occupation of land that they seized and continue to illegally hold, thanks to their theocratic mythology and the terms of their pseudo-democracy, and supported by Zionists and Zionist Christians in the US, for their own reasons. Because of the support from the US propping up their economy and VERY favorable terms under the World Bank and IMF, they enjoy an almost European-level pseudo-capitalist oligarchy and are still quite Socialist in their benefits policies. I find it ironic that Israeli citizens have better health-care laws and rates, supported by my tax money, than my parents do.
Additionally, Israel is a country that violates the terms of EVERY no-proliferation treaty on the books today. The ONLY place there was WMD in the Middle East in Feb-Apr '03 was Israel...should I detail where they are? Iraq was "liberated" and put under an Israeli-style occupation by the US for Israeli, not US strategic interests, just as the original Desert Storm was fought for the same reasons. All the US is experieincing in Iraq today is a less-controlled, wider-range intifadah in a different country than The Occupied Territories.
Remember guys, this is Amerika. Just because you have the most votes, doesn't mean you get to win.--Fox Mulder
masochism: enjoying pain
misogynism: hating women
malapropism: using a similar sounding word to humorous effect
Muslims countries it is like 50 percent or more of the women are beaten. Wife beating is not such a monumental and popular hobby in the West. So do not give me your crap.
Muslim countries -- all of them, there are much more illiterate women then men.
From the CIA factbook-
Egypt Literacy:
"definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 57.7%
male: 68.3%
female: 46.9% (2003 est.)"
Connect the dots
1)women have much higher illiteracy rates
2)there is much pressure for them to cover up in burkas or headscarve
3)wives frequently are beaten by their husbands
4)judges are lenient on men who kill women for reasons of honor
The picture comes out clear to me. Maybe you cannot see it.
the answer is simple: ask the question anyway, disregarding the fear.
if you fear the response to the question, you must grow larger than the fear. it will still be there, but at least the question is asked, answered, and you have more information to thwart Ignorance (that probably plays a large part forming the fear in the first place).
thats my spellchecker to you, I was trying to build a word based on macho :-)
maybe male chauvinist pig is what I was looking for.
Egyptian girls tend to start looking for husbands very early, so their ideas about a hot date may surprise you.
Yes, I feel sorry for the muslims working against honor killings, they have theoretical basis from the Koran with which to say honor killings is wrong, this is why I pity the so called "moderate muslims".
As for most arabs being against their governments being too pro Israel, well that is tough, it is not like their governments have been very succesful in past jihads against Israel. If Jordan, Syria, and Egypt all attacked Israel tomorrow, it would end in a collective defeat in all likelihood and a lot of mullas saying shit about how can they beat Israel which is supported by a superpower! Which is funny as Israel has only under 7 million people, 20 percent of which are Arabs, some of which have questionable loyalties. Whatever excuse the Arab states can make, does not change that Israel is given a mere 2 billion a year in US military aid and with this is able to maintain a huge military advantage over much larger Arab states with varying degrees of hostility to Zionism. This points to the problems of muslim societies, in the Arab armies, the Arab officiers sent to the United States are very much products of Arab society. A low ranking arab sergeant sent to a US military academy will not score higher than his superior Lieutant. An Arab Lieutant likewise on purpose will make sure he does not score higher than an Arab Colonel. With such a stratified society, the Arabs are wasting their money buying modern weapons and trying to marry these modern weapons to their mediveal muslim mentality.
I forgot to insert a no:(I hate proofreading...)
Yes, I feel sorry for the muslims working against honor killings, they have no theoretical basis from the Koran with which to say honor killings is wrong, this is why I pity the so called "moderate muslims".
I can see it and never denied it.
I just don't see it as amuslim thing (except for the honor killing part).
is the scale of wife beating here worse than anywhere else in the world?? dunno
if it was exactly like in some random western country would that make it ok? no
thats all there is to it, my interest in what is the reason behind social problems like these is to know how to solve them not to prove that non muslims are as bad as muslims.
Egyptian girls tend to start looking for husbands very early, so their ideas about a hot date may surprise you.
Okay -- that would be machismo, (noun) the original Spanish word (definitely not "machoness" or "machoism" other unnecessary constructions).
past wars where not jihad in the sense you seem to imply.
anyway who said we wanted our governments to fight Israel, we just want to be able to support the palestinian cause freely (and no we are not, check how antiwar demonstrations are handled by the egyptian government).
and stop all forms of cooperation with the state of israel until the occupation is over and the refugees are back in their homes.
oh and among the interesting differences that this war brings, both Egyptians and Israelis think they've won the 1973 war.
Egyptian girls tend to start looking for husbands very early, so their ideas about a hot date may surprise you.
> About the schooling: his assessment is dead on.
... etc)
...
> It is a shame but the social and economic
> structure of Egypt is really a reason why
> we see young men joining jihad oriented
> organizations, not their hatred of the USian
> Empire and 'Freedom.' If you can't get
> affirmation via the maninstream, you certainly
> can via groups that give your life a purpose.
You may be right, and that could be a factor, but it is not the whole picture. Other more important factors are at work here. For example:
- A struggling economy for half a century, due to government mismanagement and swinging between "nationalization" which kills private industry, or whole sale "privatization" where the money goes to the rich and powerful.
- A lack of job prospects
- High cost of living (mainly apartments) compared to income
- A dictatorship that does not tolerate any form of real opposition, and holds on to power at all costs
- A lack of any peaceful mean for political change
- Rampant corruption at all levels (government, police,
- Extremely slow judicial system that cannot be relied upon to make the wrongs right
- Social changes over 2 or 3 generations that are both a cause and an effect of all the above
So there you have it, youth graduate form a so so education system, but cannot find decent jobs, nor can they vote the government out. So, no wonder some become extremist in their views, because all other means of change have been blocked.
These are only the internal factors, add to that the foreign policy of the powerful nations in the region (the US being the most powerful in recent decades), the double standard in dealing with the region, and no wonder the US becomes the evil empire
Hope this gives a clearer picture on some important factors.
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> A large portion of the Egyptian population are
...
> actually Nubian (probably about 50% overall
> from what I could see with this figure tending
> towards 100% further south) and their physical
> features are more Sudanese.
You are confusing several things here: ethnicity, language, and culture.
Nubia had its own culture and language, and even invaded Egypt, and its rulers were Pharoahs over Egypt (Tahraqa) about three millenia ago.
As for 50% of Egyptians being Nubian, this is way too inflated.
The Nubians of today are not only black subsaharan Africans ethnically, but also have their own language that is totally unrelated to the Arabic spoken now, and very little in common with the middle Egyptian that was spoken in Egypt during its ancient history.
You can say 5% or 10% or so are Nubians (by language and culture), but not 50%.
As for seeing more African type people as you go south, this is due to many factors, mainly ethnic mixing, which has been a tradition in Egypt for 5 millenia or more.
There are lots of other blood that contributed to the Egyptian mix, including Ribu (Libyans), Shardana (Sardinians and other Sea People), Asiatics (Hyksos and others), Macedonians, Greek, Roman, Arab, North Africans, Kurds, Turks, Central Asians, Kipjaqs, Albanians, Circassians, and more
A university professor made a study about half a century ago on anceint Egyptian skull features, and compared them to modern Egyptians. He found that the present average Egyptian type is anthropologically equivalent to the Egyptian in the Middle Kingdom. A mix of Semitic and North African mainly.
Quite a mix as I said.
Egypt today is not only Pharaonic, nor only Coptic, nor only Arab. It is a composite mosaic of all those cultures.
And do not confuse language, culture and ethnicity. Asian Americans today speak English, but are ethnically still Asians.
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And the last time I checked, Sudan was an Arabic country.
If Egyptians aren't Arabs, then Americans aren't American.
I just posted another message above in reply to the original.
Do not confuse ethnicity, language and culture.
Sudan is a composite country with many ethnicities, but the African ethnicity is the most visible.
Some parts are Arabic speaking, other are not.
The vast majority in Egypt speaks Arabic, which is the only official language. Few speak Nubian, and fewer speak Coptic, although it is a liturgical language of the Orthodox Coptic Church.
Egyptian culture today has things that are Arab, things that are Muslim, things that are Pharaonic, and other influence. It is what makes Egypt Egyptian today.
As for Egypt's ethnicity, see my post above on Ethnicity, Language and Culture in Egypt
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
I second that Alaa.
Drupal is a great CMS for a web site.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Hey, Alaa Basha!
As an Egyptian Linux enthusiast living in the West, I must say it ...
A big thank you for the excellent, clear and informative answers.
Not sure you will see it, since I came late in the discussion, but you are a cool guy, had you not been a Cairene (I am Alexawy! :-)
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
"Perhaps it's time to stop valuing the lives of Palestinian civilians and start using heavy-handed tactics, even if that leads to civilian causalities, to act like the terrorists who blow up innocent women and children instead of going out of our way to prevent civilian causalities at any cost."
Commentary in Jerusalem Post.
evil is as evil does
Camel is a funny story. The guy founded Camel was clever, as one of the most quality tobacco genres is turkish, he had to advertise it somehow on packet.
So, for most Americans of that time, Turkish was also Egypt (as we were there long time) he has put Pyramids, Camel, everything average american that time would think of Turkey and printed. Oh, of course that packet is not so innocent, it has hidden messages embedded on Camel itself (sub-mind advertising?).
Thanks to that evil asshole (cigarette addict smoker here) it doesn't just kill you, it also somewhat kills your image as a turk. I saw many rednecks asking if I own a camel (as I am turkish).
Oh, the tobacco. I don't think its produced in Egypt. 60% of Camel is Virginia genre tobacco and 40% of it is Turkish tobacco. I am not sure if we started Virginia thing yet.
I found his reply about the number of women in the computer-related field there interesting. I've always thought that women would naturaly make good programmers, but they were pushed away by sterotypes about programmers and cultural perceptions of what women can do. It's nice to see that even in a more traditional country, women can get into I.T. and programming roles.
I don't know about Egypt, but in America I find sort of a perception that women don't make good students academically, especially not in math and science. In Japan, though, girls were expected to be better students than the guys, possibly because they were less roudy and rude than guys. This might have something to do with the old confuscianist ideal of the student as a quiet, studious type, not a loud troublemaker as boys are. Unfortunately, sexism later in life makes things hard for women in Japan.
I wonder what the attitude towards girls learning math and science are in Egypt?
I was in Washington DC once, and a French person asked me what time it was in broken French. I told her and she didn't understand, so I told her in French and was greatful.
I asked for the time in France in broken France and was spit on. It doesn't get any clearer than that.
One bad experience defines a country for you?... oooh
Honestly, I wouldn't even know where to begin.
May be by reading the CIA World Factbook.
Alaa,
...) for their children as most US and EU parents. Folks ... people are much the same around the world, it is the politics, extremist, special interest (Religion, Corporations, plutocrats, ...) that create the problems that prevent folks from living in peace, not the language or skin color.
...) suffer the consequences of the evil acts by our leaders (including special interest).
THANKS for teaching US, EU, other folks about Egypt Culture today. I was in Egypt (Business Cairo) about five years ago, the folks I worked with were not near as interesting as my driver and his family. They showed the same interest in building a future (a good job, property, education, respect, God,
This interview is a must read for many university professors in the US and EU, and many US Government departments and agencies. It may help some folks to understand who can be our friends and who are the real enemies of people and peace.
Your comments reflect the honor of Egyptians (The People) including you.
I greatly hope that Pharaoh Mubarak and Mullahs will build a great education system and Democracy for all Egyptians. I have for years hoped for the same, in the USA, but education for the general public continues to become more expensive, more inferior, religiously/falwell slanted, and children and teachers continue to be blamed by our politicians, plutocrats, and extremely overpaid school/education administrators. Maybe one day school/education administrators and Corporate CEOs' pay will depend on real performance and success, but today lies, incompetence, and theft are more rewarding in the US business, religion, and government. We the people (Egypt, US, EU, China, France, Israel, India,
OldHawk777
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Had you actually read the response, you might have noticed that I never defended either the stupidity of the person spitting or the stupidity of the person being spit on. Those who try to understand other people and points of view, wouldn't make themselves such an obvious target and the world would be a less-hostile place.
You have proven one thing: That typical Americans can be at least as stupid as typical French keeping their heads where the sun doesn't shine.
You could only possibly do something about your own stupidity, and you refuse, so how are you in a position to accuse them and call yourself a victim.
I was wondering if anyone uses Greenstone. Greenstone is a suite of software for building and distributing digital library collections. It provides a new way of organizing information and publishing it on the Internet or on CD-ROM. Greenstone is produced by the New Zealand Digital Library Project at the University of Waikato, and developed and distributed in cooperation with UNESCO and the Human Info NGO. It is open-source, multilingual software, issued under the terms of the GNU General Public License. There is an Arabic version.