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Ask About Life, Blogging and Linux in the Middle East
Isam Bayazidi is about as far from the current U.S. media stereotype of an Arab as you can get. He's worked on the Arabeyes (Unix/Linux in Arabic) project, helped start the Arabic Wikipedia, co-founded the Jordan LUG, is a Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE), works as a senior software developer for Maktoob, an online community that boasts more than four million members, and created Jordan Planet, a blogging community whose members have many different religious and political viewpoints. Isam is also a long-time Slashdot reader, so he's the perfect person to ask what's going on in the Arab (cyber)world today. One question per post please. Isam will answer 12 of the highest-moderated questions. We'll run his answers verbatim as soon as he gets them back to us.
A communication infrastructure, or a transportation infrastructure? I ask this because what my American viewpoint sees of the middle east is the seeming lack of mass-transportation systems like we have in American (highways, railroads, and the like.) The Middle East also seems to lack a stable communication infrastructure, especially to rural areas. Which do you think is more important, communications or transportation?
How do you mix Arabic commandline arguments with English commands on one keyboard?
Delta-Mike November Bravo Tango
Is there any collaboration between the Arab and Israeli communities when it comes to blogging, Free/Open Source Software or general computing?
Keep the faith, share the code
Pizza and some caffeinated beverage with an occasional foray into sushi are typical geek food in the west - what is finding it's way down the typical arabic chair dwellers gullet?
You have solid credits for several "Arab versions" of modern software. The Mideast, was where many technologies, like writing, urban living, astronomy and symbolic math were invented or mastered. What new uses of the Internet and open SW do you see originating in Mideastern hands? Which brand new apps are people in your world using in a way more familiar in the Mideast, which could make the jump to global popularity the way so much Western tech already has?
--
make install -not war
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Do you think that the increase in technological development in the Middle East will soothe or heighten the already-existing political and social fault lines that plague that region of the world?
Or is it a mixed blessing (it gives freedom to Iranian dissident bloggers but also enableds al qaeda to communicate more effectively)
How do you blog in Arabic? Aren't there several more characters in written arabic than there are on a normal keyboard?
Do you have some cool Arabic keyboard? Is it dvorak?
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...
What has your ethnic origin have to do with computer software?
If they do, do they mostly use dial-up, DSL or cable modems for their internet access?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
But the question that really jumps out in my mind to ask is this:
After living in Egypt for a year, the biggest frustration I can recall with computers is how unreliable the power was. Due to the spikes and surges, the school I taught at would normally go through about 5 power supplies a month (for a building with about 200 computers). Any serious business who wants to protect their computer from an unwanted surge has at minimum a voltage regulator, and at maximum a UPS. Our school paid a company in Europe to host their website, as most Egyptian businesses did.
Is there any power infrastructure advancements that are being made to better support the growing rise of computer use in the middle east?
Does the Islamic clergy meddle with technology concerns in the arabic world and limit the types of things that these technologies can be used for? Are you limited by beliefs or fear of reprisal for possibly having females working with or learning these new technologies?
Terrible karma and aiming lower, which in this environment of one-sided reason, is higher.
Not the time nor the place
So, what's your opinion on the arabic kids who are defacing websites in protest to the Mohammed cartoons?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I know that here, many people are spending an inordinate amount of time on the computer, to the point where it has negatively impacted their time spent with people in social settings (iow - people are becoming less social). Blogging is yet another time sink, on top of the web, email, etc.
Do you foresee the same negative long-term effects in the middle east as we've experienced?
Ok, Two-parter here...
1)As an Arab in today's world, how do you deal with those in the Western world who further the stereotype of "Arabs As Radicals"?
2) In addition how do you, as a forward-thinking Arab, address the issue of those in the Middle Eastern world that would seek to further the radical elements of Islam for thier own purposes, regardless of the consequences or the stereotypes this may create in the West? In other words, how does one function as a concientious objector in Middle Eastern Society?
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Do you think that Islamic exposure to the Internet, and the information age is causing culture shock in the Middle East. Surely it must be, it is causing a culture shock in the US even. How do they handle it? How are they reactiong? Do you think it's causing a backlash that relates to terrorisim?
Isam Bayazidi is about as far from the current U.S. media stereotype of an Arab as you can get.
The article itself, in this case, is very leading regarding an opinion of treatment of Arabs by the US media.
My question is, what do you feel that the stereotypes reinforced by major media outlets are? Certainly they reported that there were Arabic hijackers on 9/11, that Al Quaida has attacked the US many times, and has reported acts such as beheadings and suicide bombings. Unfortunately, the fact is that these events all happened.
Do you believe that there is an undercurrent of racism and bigotry in the media's portrayal or Arabs? Do you believe that the image of the Arab has been charicatured by the US?
As a follow-up. How do you feel that recent world events, such as the riots in Paris, riots over Danish comics, and even the actions of terrorist organizations or Arabic origin have influenced this view, by relation to media portrayal.
Do you see this adversely affecting your career, or have major business outlets mostly overlooked this?
It does not take much to check the ar link. Here you go. No pics included, however, except the cover of an Egyptian newspaper that published them.
However this is how it is right now, I would expect a few flame wars to have been waged about this.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
I'm going to guess that office and IT environments around the globe probably share more in common than their superficial differences (language, decor, degree of automation etc...) suggest. Indeed, petty politics and general insanity are going to raise their heads regardless of your office's time zone. As such, how well does Dilbert, the quintessential North American corporate satire, translate into Arabic? Do you see your office in these cartoons? If not, is there an Arabic version that does a better job?
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
And yes, I'm sure there are atheist Arabs. There are also Christian Arabs and ... wait for it ... Jewish Arabs!!! Considering that most Jewish Israelis and most Muslim Palestinians are ethnically indistinguishable, one might argue that all such Israelis could be considered "Jewish Arabs".
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
well, looking at the questions so far, I don't know if one guy's opinion is a realistic way of finding out what's going on in the Arab world, but it's sure going to be a fascinating (and possibly scary) window on what the perceptions of the average western geek.
'This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it' - Eeyore
As a founder of an Arabic (Jordanian) blogging community, what do you perceive to be the source of news most popular/trusted by Arab bloggers? Is it local, Arab (AlJazeera, etc), European (BBC, TV5, etc), or American (NY Times, Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, etc)? Is the Arab blogging community a large echo chamber for the latest and greatest western conspiracy theories, or is there genuine diversity of sources and opinions?
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
It does not take much to check the ar link. Here you go.
Wow--they use Arabic numerals, too.
A lot of people in the states are familiar with anti-export warnings on encryption technology:
Are their any technologies that the government of Jordan specifically mandates not be exported outside of its borders?
OR
How common is it that encryption technology that the U.S. Government asks not be used overseas is actually implemented "against their will"?
Red Hat Certified Engineer - is that the Linux version of the MSCE?
For a while I was starting to believe in some certifications again, but then I ran into an CISSP who needed to be told what magic things a firewall does to that new-fangled technology called TCP.
When writing code, do you find the pre-requisite of english a hinderance to writing solutions to problems? European spoken-language is part of the design of nearly any modern programming language - ie , "FOR/NEXT", , "SELECT * FROM"... which then requires at least a little understanding of English in order to make sense of what the keywords are suggesting.
Yes fellow SlashdotWeenies, I know that when executed/compiled these 'words' are symbolized and purely arbitrary - but, arbitrary as they are, an arabic webpage from al-jezzera.com still has english HTML tags.
So the question, open to anyone who doesnt speak english as their native-tongue, is: Does the english-oriented structure of programming languages present a hinderance to how you would conceptualize a problem and how you would write code to solve that problem?
The only PT Boat Journal on the web: http://www.PT171.org
Islam may be problematic, but Muslims are NOT the enemy. Even if you do not respect Islam (for something founded and justified) it is irrational to blame everyone who grows up in an Islamic culture, or label them as enemies. There are plenty of Muslims who are skeptical about religious literalism. We're much better off treating them as friends, and let them come to their own conclusions, as much as we can.
Do you happen to know Junis?
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
I know that a number of people work on doing translation work for various languages -- as a whole, what is the state of Arabic-translated open source software? Is it possible for someone to work on a Linux desktop fully within Arabic, or is it necessary to use English?
How does this support compare with that under Windows?
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Thanks.
In the Arabic world has Microsoft got the same dominance with standard computer users, for example in England (at least the South) almost everyone (who uses the internet) uses MSN Messenger to chat, not much Yahoo, AIM, Jabber, IRC etc? Not just MSN Messenger, Office and IE etc.
Michael-m.co.uk - Home of Michael Mulqueen
How does religion influence technology development in the Arab world?
ignorant
With all these questions like how do you blog in Arabic. Sheesh people. How do you think Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Hebrew people type? There are input methods for almost every language on the planet. I've got my machine set up for English/Japanese, in both Linux/Windows, it's a breeze.
It deeply saddens me that the general questions been thrown about here are of such a trivial small minded view. It seems that most the stupid comments are coming from people in the USA, are you truly so ignorant or are you just being trolls? Please this behavior does not do the world any good, nor does it give your country a good name.
As for questions:
I would like to know to what extent blogging/chat in censored in the middle-east, and what restrictions they impose on encryption tools such as ssh and how this effects online activities.
are all muslims/arabs completely irrational?
Yes. Yes they are. Do you now feel better about whoever you are?
How is your internet connection? What types of connections are available to people in your area? Are there wireless access points in the city in which you live and if so are they set up by an ISP, are they free? Are there datacenters in Jordan and if so how stable is thier connection and what kind of bandwidth do they have? I really know little about the Middle East but I can't imagine there is miles of fiber running across it like North America or Europe.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
about the Middle East that you've seen in Western Media that you wish could be cleared up?
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Help the moderate muslims. Both of them!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Using (NT)Emacs and AUCTeX for Math stuff, I have not gotten this to work for Arabic language input. (I recommeded LaTeX to some Islamic Sciences student after something got screwed up in OpenOffice.org, again. For German or English texts it was nice...)
What I need: an editor with LaTeX-commands integration that supports UTF-8 with right-to-left Arabic input. Currently I need it on Windows, but I prefer an open source solutions that will work on *nix, too. (Or a *nix program that will compile on Windows.)
I accept the cartoons are blasphemy and deeply offensive. Yet I hear no acknowledgment that freedom-of-expression is religiously venerated in the West. Worse, official (pandering?) reaction (sanctions) holds large unrelated groups responsible rather than the tiny right-wing newspaper that did the wrong. The many must pay for the misdeeds of the few. This implies responsibility for their own extremists!
I know media everywhere is seriously distorted. In the West, fear sells ink, photons and electrons. I wanted to understand the feeling on the ground. What are the people feeling?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Okey, I just want to comment on this stereotype thing you said, I have always thought that any stereotyping is wrong. But, if I have learned one thing from my 2 years in UK is that the stereotypes are there *because* of some reason.
Let me explain, I am from Mexico, and I have lived here (UK) for almost 2 years. It has been very interesting and I have had contact with a lot of different kind of people (different contries and races).
I do not know if the stereotype of "arab as radical" is true but, all the middle east or middle east descending persons I have met (in Mexico or UK) are some kind of really "thick" or hard people (sorry if I can not make myself clear). They are quite obstinated and closed.
Now, it may be wrong to generalize upon that, but I think there *is* a patternt. I have also seen a pattern in people from USA, they tend to be dumb, or uncultured, of course I have met several intelligent people (after all, they were in postgraduate levels) but overall they felt a bit dumb.
Then we have the french, haha, I have no predisposition against anyone but, Frenchs are so funny, they are so proud of themseleves and they get angry so fast. Again, I have seen this with at least 2 different French persons.
Now, I want to be fair here, as I said at the beggining I am from Mexico, and I am *sure* there are stereotypes of us as well, maybe one is that we are thieves or lazy, the thing is that it was not made for free.
As a side note, another stereotype I thing middle east (Iranians and Arabs at least) people have is how FUCKING HARD they work, at least where I live (and I think in almost all UK) all the stores close at 5:00. It is only stores run by middle east people that open from 9 am to 9 pm at least, all the week.
I mean, these people really know how to work, and they surely deserve to get a lot, I (as a Mexican presumabley) can not see how can they cope with working 12 hours a day nonstop for 5 years to save money.
Oh yes, I just reminded a mexican stereotype, Mexican usually shoot other mexicans, while you see Japanese people trying to help Japannese, the "£$@! USA government used this "mexican feature" and made a program where an Illegal inmigrator could obtain legal status if he denounced 10 Illegal inmigrators.
That does not surprises me (USA government sucks) what I found outrageous is that Mexicans where indeed turning their relatives to the inmigration police...
So, as you can see, stereotypes have something of truth, there are positive and negative stereoyptes, of course, when it is a positive stereotype nobody cares to whine, but when it is negative we always jump saying "it is wrong to generalize".
As for the real article. Man, I think slashdot editors just made one of the most Trollish posts I have ever read. My question will only be:
How is the interest in Open Source over your country/region? is the government interested in using it? (as, like some countries they see Microsoft as USA company, OS may be a solution) I think it is difficult to ask somethign specific as most of us do not have the slightest knowledge on how things are there, I mean, are schools similar to schools in USA? (classrooms, teachers, school levels as bascic/junior high/high/University), if they are, in which level does the average person has their first contact with computers?
What is the average of people that have a day to day use of a computer over there? is it more than the 50%?,
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
As an American I find my relation to the Middle East almost exclusively filtered through the lens of "spreading Democracy." I am also a Religious Studies major so I find myself fascinated by Muslim theocracies and their relation to modern technology. Increased access to the Internet and availability of technology must be an enormous influence for modernization and liberalization in otherwise oppressive countries. However, you see countries like Iran becoming more technologically saavy even while they promote a culture that could be considered archaic. As someone who could shed some light on the interplay. Do you see technology and information access to be more a force for positive change or more of a force for finding new ways to oppress at least in the context of the Middle East?
The real world cultural differences between the Arab and western worlds are clear. What majors differences would you note between the two cultures online?
In addition to blogs, podcasting's blooming as an outlet for many groups and interests. Are there any you would recommend (in Arabic or English) for folks in the West to hear what folks in the Middle East are thinking, without media spin?
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
piping and redirection can be very confusing with a normal left-to-right command line. Is the Arabic command line worse? How do you know if your cat'ing into a file, or from a file?
l- sl #
/ fr- mr #
Do Arab kids play Western computer games, particularly ones where you play a (US) soldier shooting loads of (Arab) terrorist bad guys? Or do you have games there where the roles are reversed (ie. Arab freedom fighters killing invading Western armies)?
Isam? You're not a MySQL admin, by any chance?
(Sorry, sorry, couldn't resist.)
Serious question: from your point of view, what do you think it would take for MidEast nations to embrace democracy, in one form or another, rather than the monarchal and dictatorial systems which are currently popular? For instance, your home nation of Jordan is a monarchy, though a relatively benign one. Do you see any impetus for that to change? If not, why not? As a correllary, do you think it's important that MidEast nations embrace democracy (since my question implies that it is)? Why or why not?
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
It strikes me that most of the people here don't realise that Jordan is a relatively modern westernized country when compared to, say, Georgia or Kazakhstan, and doesn't have anything like the civil disobedience problems of Iraq or Afghanistan. Look it up on the CIA World Factbook. Although I'm sure Isam will comment on this, it seems unlikely that the state of Technological and Economic infrastructure is anything like as bad as some people would like to make out. Again - according to the CIA factbook Jordan has: microwave radio relay transmission and coaxial and fiber-optic cable are employed on trunk lines; considerable use of mobile cellular systems; Internet service is available Anyway, on to my Question: As a student in the UK studying computer Science I try to keep abreast of what other people are learning atound the world. What is the state of CompSci (as we like to call it) education in Jordan - is it freely available for everyone to a high (ie. equivelant to a good European/US university) level? Come to think of it, in a more general sense: how does the Jordanian University System compare to universities in Europe and the States? Finally, i would be interested to know: Did you study in Jordan, or abroad?
e^(i pi)+2 bottles hanging on the wall, one falls off and now its
We know a open-source in a lot of countries is regarded as a method to fight US-based companies like Microsoft, etc. How much is this view shared in the Middle East, and has this opinion encouraged Open Source in this region?
Also, in your personal experience, what kind of discrimination do Arabics face on online developer communities? Has this been a deterrent for more Arabics to enter open-source development?
Thank You
what are you really fighting over?
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
sorry, forgot about line breaks:
It strikes me that most of the people here don't realise that Jordan is a relatively modern westernized country when compared to, say, Georgia or Kazakhstan, and doesn't have anything like the civil disobedience problems of Iraq or Afghanistan. Look it up on the CIA World Factbook .
Although I'm sure Isam will comment on this, it seems unlikely that the state of Technological and Economic infrastructure is anything like as bad as some people would like to make out. Again - according to the CIA factbook: microwave radio relay transmission and coaxial and fiber-optic cable are employed on trunk lines; considerable use of mobile cellular systems; Internet service is available
Anyway, on to my Question: As a student in the UK studying computer Science I try to keep abreast of what other people are learning atound the world. What is the state of CompSci (as we like to call it) education in Jordan - is it freely available for everyone to a high (ie. equivelant to a good European/US university) level?
Come to think of it, in a more general sense: how does the Jordanian University System compare to universities in Europe and the States?
Finally, I would be interested to know: Did you study in Jordan, or abroad?
e^(i pi)+2 bottles hanging on the wall, one falls off and now its
Israel has an active open-source and linux community, do the two groups colloborate? And if so, have any friendships been made? Without getting too political, can open source gap coltural and political differences?
I can correspond in Esperanto and/or English. I'm sorry, but I don't know their native language.
Do ordinary people in Iraq have access to the Internet? If not, is there some way of finding someone in Iraq who would like to correspond by mail with a "USonian" who is genuinely interested in their viewpoint?
I can't help but think that if we only had more interpersonal relationships between the US and Iraq that the possibilities for cooperation and understanding would be so much better.
Rick
1) I am not so thrilled with the number of stereotypes and racist jabs I'm reading on this thread. C'mon Slashdot: I thought you people were smarter than this. 2) Honest question(s) for Isam Bayazidi: long-term (20+ years) do you think the Internet will serve to a) promote a moderate view of Islam, b) promote a radical view or c) both? If you had to guess, how to the "numbers look" when it comes to the Islamic web right now? I would guess 99-1 (at least) in favor of moderate, am I way off?
Math is math. Regular expression is regular expression. The tools are there. The future is now.
Do bloggers over there write about stuff written in the blogs of political slant with influence to see western mindsets?
.. anncoulter.com .. michealsavage.com .. michellemalkin .. moveon.org democraticunderground ..etc).
(For example, websites like freerepublic.com
Seems like this would be an important thing to do. I'm asking cause it'd be interesting to know responses reactions to what is said on there. IE, are they false/true.
1) In my experience, as an Iranian-American, I find that most Americans fail to comprehend that the Middle-East is comprised of many different ethnic groups (e.g., Turks, Persians, Kurds, etc) speaking as many different languages (not all based on the Arabic alphabet). Aside from ethnicity, there are also numerous political & religious issues that present challenges for community related project. How do you address these diverse issues in your work?
2) I don't know if you're a US citizen, or not, but I'm sure you've encountered a few Arab-Americans during your work. I'm curious to know how they (or you) deal with the current stigmatization of Middle-Easterners? For instance, I'm considering a trip to my father's birth place in Iran, but hesitate for fear I'll be put on a 'watch list' or if I blog politically, I might be put on a 'no-fly list' and have my future plans ruined. Ten years ago, this would have been an absurd thought, but with recent revelations, it's no longer far-fetched.
What's the legal environment for publishing websites in the Arab world? You may be able to answer this only for Jordan, but can the government ask for records (real name, logs, etc) to be turned over regarding any individual poster/blogger? As a practical matter, do governments bother with censoring/harrassing critical posters?
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
As a user interface designer, I've always been interested in the interface needs of different languages. Arabic has always intrigued me because it reads right to left rather than left-to-right as we are used to with languages using the Roman alphabet. I am curious how much software and how many web pages actually make interface changes to the structure of a form or page, such as moving the traditional left side toolbar to the right, rather than just changing text, and what the prevailing attitude in countries using Arabic script is on the issue.
At this point in time, what would further the use of Linux in the Arab world? Better fonts/font rendering? Translations of howtos? Better infrastructure?
Actually that's a good question. How good is OSS Unicode support?
With the world-wide collapse of Socialism, the power of information and communication was demonstrated; a society built on myth collapsed under its own inconsistancies and inefficiencies. How do you see communication impacting the Islamic community, the ummah; and over what time frame?
As an Arab, a Jordanian, a regular Slashdot reader, and a computer addict my self, I feel compelled to ask this question. But first a little about why I'm asking... I started my addiction when I was in Jordan at an early age in the mid 80's, and moved to the United States in the late 90's. So I think by now I'm out of touch with how things are advancing in our part of the world. I used to be considered as a knowledgeable geek, but that was a long time ago when I had more time on my hands. :(
:)
My questions are (really it is the same LONG question:)
Now that online communities and computer volunteering (especially OSS) is growing on the highest rate in the western part of the glob, how do you see participation and understanding of such participation in Jordan in specific, and the middle east in general?
Do you see the Arab population is going toward a more active role, or maintaining a technology consumer role as it used to be in the old days? Do you feel that you are a loner in what you do and contribute? Or do you get a whole lot of "Hey man that is soo cool, how would I start contributing like you do?"
Last but not least, from your day-in-day-out interaction with the local-online-communities, when do you see us (Arabs) technologically maturing to a level where we can be a major contributing force in the OSS global community... is it happening now?
May be one of those days we'll meet... after all Jordan is a small place
Actually, Jyllands-posten is the largest danish newspaper, though with several others coming close. The newspaper is generally not considered extreme, but some of it's journalists are quite right-wing (obviously, including Flemming Rose), since it is the most right-wing newspaper in Denmark (excluding fringe-newspapers).
In danish journalistic tradition, most newspapers employ journalists without too much regard to their political stance. There are also journalists at Jyllands-posten who would be considered centrists.
The parents point and his question are still valid, in my oppinion.
What bothered me most in this case was the stated intentions of many Moslems to answer a statement/picture with violence. I have seen and heard the same from so called Christians, and it saddens me. Is this a typical reaction from most Moslems, or it is just a voluble minority?
accept no limits but time
Personally, as an Arab developer, I have no problems with coding using English constructs. Most Arab developers are the same.
.net's IComparable and IComparer interfaces, or what a 'paradigm' is. In many cases part of the lesson had to be a lesson in English instead of programming!
It's quite the opposite, in fact, there have been many attempts to create an 'Arabic programming language' that used Arabic keywords and identifiers, but none of them became popular even if the language itself was good.
The problem, IMO, is with learning, not developing.
Some of my students are not very good English speakers. They have no problem with basic programming constructs like for or while, but when it comes to high level abstractions, they have trouble.
For example, we have to spend quite some time explaining the difference between
Given the concerns that many people and countries have raised about control of the Internet namespace, the security concerns this raises for communications in Arab countries, and China's recent decision to have an alternate Chinese character namespace, do you see any indications of a movement towards an alternate Arabic Internet namespace emerging?
[i]There are atheist arabs right?[/i] God I hope so.
Terrible karma and aiming lower, which in this environment of one-sided reason, is higher.
Oops, used php tags by mistake. Yes, I'm an idiot. Now move along, nothing to see here.
Terrible karma and aiming lower, which in this environment of one-sided reason, is higher.
If by "western" you mean "like the USA" I'll point out that the Israeli government specifically sponsors Judaism - for example, the so-called "right of return", and the public works tax dollars spent on building special roads for observant Cohens (who are religiously prohibited from passing through graveyards).
So, while saying "the USA is becoming more eastern with the Bush governments attempts to divert tax dollars to religious institutions (faith-based charities and the like)" is merely hyperbole with some basis in truth, saying "Israel is the only western country in the Middle East" is either ignorant posturing or a cynical attempt to downplay the modernity of Jordan and pre-invasion Iraq.
David Irving was not convicted in Denmark. If he had been you would have had a point.
Troll? Calm down there Geddy. It's a valid question given recent events in Iran (completely irrational president and clerics) and Pakistan (forcing small children into the streets to protest and burn flags for reasons that probably can't comprehend). I must say there's a good deal of evidence to support him asking that question so you might want to get a stepladder and climb down off of that horse.
Terrible karma and aiming lower, which in this environment of one-sided reason, is higher.
the article while interesting is a sad commentary on how the most Arabs been shafted by their leaders for the past 60 years.
lets talk about an article that wouldn't be so interesting.
"computer life in Israel" it has all the elements of this story
2 countries that 60 years ago were even on the starting line
one had no particular advantage over the other. both were backwards at the time w/ no real educational elites to lead them (they both had universities). small populations focused on agriculture, both coming out of a period of being ruled by others (the British) (OT - those were the good ol` days when Jordanians occupied the west bank and nobody complained that they stole the land from the Palestinians or denied them a state - but i digress)
yet here we are 50 something yrs later and Israel has managed to produce and endless amount of tech in computer, medical, bio-tech,etc.. and here we are fascinated by a Jordanian who uses a computer.
interesting article but sad premise.
Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind. -- Mark Harrold
Not that there's anything wrong with using Microsoft products, but here in Egypt most people don't even know other products exist.
MSN messenger is dominant ( though many people use yahoo! and ICQ).
Very few people have heard of Corel Office or Lotus Smartsuite. worse, very few developers have heard of Delphi ( shame!). And when I tell somebody that Delphi is easier to use than, say, Visual C++ 6, They look at me with surprised faces and say "What? Everyone knows Microsoft are the masters of easy to use products".
Microsoft got them early. They have made several deals with the government and educational institutions to make everyone use MS products. When you are taught C# the moment you enter colledge, it wont be easy to learn about anything else.
In the U.S., the two educational systems of memorization (concrete) vs. conceptualization (theoretical) tend to favor the latter, theoretical methodology that encourages questioning and independent thought from the students.
In many other countries, I have heard that the memorization or rote-learning methodology is strongly emphasized. I understand that this results in a large deference to the scholarship of others and less interest in, or tolerance of, a student's rejection of conventional thinking.
Do you personally see these differences in educational emphasis, or is this a western myth? If you do see them, how do they affect engineering in arab countries? Does this relate to Islam in some way, with its emphasis on deference to several preeminent religious schools/seminaries that imams must attend to be allowed to interpret the Koran? Is this conceptualization of Islam also a flawed or distorted view in some way? How does this affect the engineers you meet? Is Linux / OpenSource, Wikipedia, SMS, email, and the power these give to the average user, affecting this worldview / educational / cultural system?
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
I know you've seen the racist posts against blacks, indians and arabs, as well as the religious intolerance towards Islam, that pops up every day on Slashdot.
;)
I'm sure you are intelligent enough to know that at least half of these are trolls posted by people with no real opinions of their own, but what about the rest?
My own solution involves alcohol, but that may not be an option for you
Mods: This is an honest question, and I haven't said anything bad about Zionism or Ayn Rand (this time around anyway) so can you lay off the "flamebait" modifier please?
Do you agree?
How is the ability to access international media contect, esp sexual content changing preceptions of the world outside? Before the internet this content was easy to hide, how has this access changed thought in the middle east, if any?
Please tell us what blogging server are you using on Maktoob, what influenced your choice, what's the best blogging tool for Unicode-based languages such as Arabic. What is different when using Arabic than using English/ASCII writing.
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com
Use the time of day least susceptible for an EMP surge....
Arabtex with Emacs works quite nicely for what I need (Arabic quotes in European-language papers). Otherwise you could, you know, look at the information the arabeyes project put together on the subject (basically arabtex + lyx
"Oh Bother", said the Borg, "We've assimilated Pooh."
In the West web pornography was a major proponent in pushing internet access out from under the watchful regulations of the workplace and bringing it into the privacy and freedom of one's home. This led to a boom in possibilities for the internet as a forum for social, political and creative opportunities.,
Now I've spent time in two Middle Eastern states (a conservative, rural emirate in the UAE and equally conservative Yemen) and I have personally experienced strictly filtered and monitored internet access and the result was a lot of free time on my hands. Many webaddresses were outright blocked, not just porn but all types of free expression, entire domains that people in the West take for granted with a good dose of anonymity as well (though the outcome of this government eavesdropping matter might change things in the US)
Does government imposed and religious-based internet censorship and monitoring in the Middle East restrict the usefulness and spread of internet access?
I know if I had a moral policeman or Soviet style political officer standing over my shoulder all the time when I'm online I'd look for something else to do.
Very funny how this thread turned out, alot of ppl seems to be very racist as most of the replies where mocking the arabs, it's really surprizing how much the ignorance of some ppl can get. Now, tell me, if an arab sees this thread what whould he think? open minded ppl or cultural fear and alot of ignorance? shame on you!
Any serious business who wants to protect their computer from an unwanted surge has at minimum a voltage regulator, and at maximum a UPS
No wonder you had so many problems. These things will not help you during a spike. What you need are high-Joule surge protectors + your UPS. "Voltage Regulators" will not help in times of a spike (or a brownout) but a high Joule surge protector will.
Horns are really just a broken halo.
Is there an coordinated effort to translating a lot of articles from the english wikipedia to arabic yet?
Middle east is NOT arabland!
Why everybody is commenting on arabs!
Iranians also live there, we have linux user groups (e.g. LUGIR) and we DO have our own linux distros (e.g. Parsix) and linux-related forums (e.g. Technotux) and our government has declared linux as the national operating system which MUST gradually replace windows in all governmental organizations.
I'm really sick n tired of people thinking middle east is were just arabs live or even worse mistaking us -Iranians- with arabs or our country -Iran- with Iraq! Hell we're just neighbours!!! YES, this is off-topic but it is INFORMATIVE as well.
The Arab/Palastinian/Israel issue has generated so much disinformation (all sides involved have an open and a hidden agenda and there are more sides involved than the average Slashdotter would think) and hot debates, it is like a flamewar. Do the real flames also heat up the online world? How far? Are geeks very much involved?
"Death to these primitive, tribal, backward moon worshiping, rock worshiping, pedophile fools."
You thinks so???
I think that way too.
Except I as muslim does not worship moon neither a rock (statue of crist) nor you will find child molesters in our mosques. I cant say same about sunday schools in churchs.
Hows that?
You must be so angry because you been molested by your clergy and you cant do anything about it.
Don't blame others for your own faults.
http://l10n-status.gnome.org/ [gnome.org]
http://l10n-status.gnome.org/HEAD/index.html
[gnome.org] Translation stats for Gnome/Gtk+.
http://i18n.kde.org/stats.php [kde.org]
http://i18n.kde.org/stats/gui/stable/index.php
[kde.org] Translation stats for KDE.
What solutions exist over there to deal with the large amounts of sand that can, and do end up in the systems? Obviously server rooms have intense filtration systems, but what about home computer use or laptops?
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
C'mon, you know that was funny. Gimme that FUNNY mod! gimme gimme gimme!
Since both Hebrew and Arabic read from right-to-left and produce similar software issues, do you ever work with Israeli software engineers?
t ml) advocate boycotting Israeli products, including software. Some even proposed boycotting PHP for its supposed Israeli connections.
Some enthusiasts, such as British actress Emma Thompson and the "Boycott Israeli Goods" campaign (http://www.labournet.org.uk/so/47boycottisrael.h
Others argue that such boycotts of films, software, people, etc. do far more damage than good. In addition, sometimes the boycotter can become the boycottee. If Emma Thompson won't buy Israeli films on DVD then I can not buy Emma Thompson films on DVD.
How do you feel about such boycotts? Are you in favor of a blanket refusal to purchase Israeli products or services? Do you in Jordan sometimes purchase Israeli software, products or services?
Marjo Wycam, Master of the Programming Arts
It's a reed that grows in Egypt. It's where the English word "paper" comes from. I read a lot of history books (not suprising I guess) and I've never seen China credited with either one.
Salaam alaikum.
Do you feel pressure to moderate what you say online? I ask because I spent a number of years in the middle east (including Jordan) and discussion of matters political was avoided if not discouraged. Less so in Jordan, to be fair. So to be blunt, do you have to, or *feel* that you have to watch what you say online? And if you do, has this changed over the last, say, 10 years?
How do you free speech and open ideas in that region when places like Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia (among others) make regular use of technologies like Websense to filter content they deem inappropriate? Having lived in Saudi Arabia for 8 years myself, I know first-hand the kind of censorship that is practiced on a regular basis. Some Saudi's have even suggested that the government goes as far as to use humans to monitor their citizen's web activity. I feel like this problem is even furthered by government control of communication. For example, I was suprised to see the relatively high prices for broadband in Dubai (considering that Dubai is a fairly advanced city) while I was visiting this August. I realized that these high prices were probably a result of Etisalat's near-monopoly on all communication in the UAE.
Is there any power infrastructure advancements that are being made to better support the growing rise of computer use in the middle east?
They'd like to move to nuclear power, but have hit some snags.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
You are about as ignorant as they come. For the last few thousand years, Europeans were reknowned for persecuted Jews. I'm sure you watched the movie gladiator, right? Did you know that most of the innocent people thrown into the rings to be butchered by gladiators were Jews right? Do you remember Hitler and the Holocaust? Again, Europeans. Europeans people are about as savage as they come and have hurt Jews at every turn in the road. We, as Jews, sought protection under Muslim lands in places like Spain. Our golden age in literature was under Muslim protection from savages such as your ancestors. Don't sit here and try to label an entire religion of Muslims as savages when you don't know your entire history.
In terms of statues being brought down by the Taliban, I don't remember 1 billion Muslims bringing them down. What I do remember is a small government of extremist destroying the statues. How can you make the leap for a handful of people to attacking an entire religion? Actually I do understand. It is this same mentality that led to the murder of my great grandparents at the hands of savage Europeans. You people make me sick.
Your next idiotic response of every major conflict involving Muslims on one side may be about as true as saying that every major war in the last two hundred years has been at the hands of Westerners. The biggest war (WWII) was mainly between Europeans. So yes, every major conflict in the last 200 years has involved western combatants on one side. What's your point? It's unfortunate that people like you are even allowed to exist. Not only are you naive but ignorant.
What can linux do to help solve this problem?
In the western world, things that were considered geeky in years gone past, like computers and gadgetry, have shifted into mainstream culture. Basically everyone plays computer games, blogs about their iPod... etc. The geek stigma attached to things/people is less of an issue nowadays too.
Have you seen that same trend on your side of the world?
Microsoft gained a strong foothold in Arabic-speaking countries early on due to strong language support. Do you believe that Arabic language support in software and documentation from US and European vendors is all that it could currently be? What other advice would you give to software producers looking to penetrate the Arabic-speaking market?
#!
RSA encryption should not be used by Emma Thompson when purchasing on the web...
It is (partially) an Israeli technology!
Reversing everything written with LTR directionality to RTL is not difficult in web pages (there are dir=rtl attributes and CSS2 also supports "direction:rtl") and webmasters can easily apply these to whole documents or elements within them.
p ?postid=362403#post362403 ) Others mistake right alignment for RTL directionality. Another problem is with webmail providers such as Yahoo that claim they send us-ascii only but actually accepting any character input and marking it as iso-8859-1 (latin-1) and not what it actually is).
Email is another issue:
I know in Hebrew directionality is often wrong in email I receive, and the charset is often not specified correctly, resulting in garbled display. I see lots of postings from Hebrew email users about these problems, but I don't see much Arab postings. Is the situation similar in Arabic? What might be reasons that I don't see as much Arabic speakers complaining about encoding or directionality issues (in international forums)? Are arab speakers aware of these problems or just accept them as "reality" (as most Hebrew users of email including corporate users do)?
There is no way to specify rtl directionality in plain text, and certainly not "per paragraph" (except for embeding special Unicode characters that alter the bidi algorithm behaviour). That makes plain text email quite unusable in RTL languages, except for short notes.
HTML mail is almost a "must" in composing RTL email, but even then many people don't do it right, and lots of people use webmail clients that don't allow specifying rtl directionality (Gmail, Yahoo. FastMail.FM is an exeption in actually willing to spend money on full bidi support http://www.emailaddresses.com/forum/showthread.ph
I see lots of email in Hebrew that is sent with wrong MIME headers (with respect to charset encoding) that makes standards compliant email viewers show the email garbled. Mainly because there is a slight difference in the interpretation of "Content-type" headers in MIME and in HTTP (in HTTP no charset specified means just that. In MIME it means MUST use us-ascii to render. Many newletters are sent with no charset in MIME header and tag in the html and are then correctly displayed as garbled text rendered in us-ascii).
Of course, I want it to work with arabtex as I know no other mean to get LaTeX to support Arabic.
;-)
The non-official branch Emacs-bidi would be a solution, if there was a way to compile it on Windows. I do not see it. Additionally, I got NTEmacs to display Arabic characters (left-to-right...), but I was never able to input them, since simply switching the Windows keyboard driver to Arabic produces quite different characters and Emacs does not have a keyboard driver. Though, the bidi version probably does.
AFAIK, lyx does not work with NTEmacs. (And I do not like generated LaTeX source code.)
VMware might be a solution, though the hassle of setting it up and exchanging files would go beyond simply using a unicode supporting editor (I found Yudit, but I do not like the interface too much) and forget about the LaTeX integration. Though for the person that needs it, having an external command line for compiling and displaying would be a lot of trouble.
The official bidi support for Emacs would be best (and definitely integrated into the Windows version), but with the rate Emacs is evolving, I do not see it before the person that needs it has finished university.
Google and the Chinese government have taken a lot of heat here in the US for filtering search results for Chinese citizens. But according to a recent article I read, filtering search results and even blocking access to entire categories of sites is nothing new and it's very prevelant in the Middle East. What is your perception of religious censorship of the Internet in the Middle East? And do bloggers risk having their blogs shut down or censored if they write something that is perceived as anti-Islam or pro some other faith?
That said, there do seem to be an awful lot of "very angry and not entirely peaceful protestors". More so than when Jerry Springer produced a somewhat blasphemous (and tediously self-indulgent) opera that offended Christians.
In the middle ages, the world of Islam was more tolerant and more progressive than "christian" Europe. It is not clear that this is still the case on the whole -- even though both faiths (now as then) have their intolerant bigots and their thoughtful and tolerant adherents.
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
How do you and your peers experience the internet where everything is available - not just what is approved by the state. What are the favourite forbidden downloads, protocols and haunts? -- I'm thinking of news, movies, music, the Bible and porn. Do you have the same level of internet censorship and fear of being watched as China?
Mr.Bayazidi, In today's rapidly growing world of blogging hysteria, a phenomenon if you wish, do you beleive the arab world mentality can express itself and indeed stand out amongst the overflow of information across the web? do you think we are "out there" or are we just a small closed loop that feeds from the outside just enough to keep itself alive while not providing any real output? and secondly, where do you see it going in the future, did we bring something new or are we just repetitive, are we just riding the tides and doing the fashionable thing or are we bringing true genuine content to the web/blogging world? Thank you.
Will the "net" bring us together or tear us apart.
By "net" I don't mean the internet and blogs in particular. What I mean by "net" is the trend that started with telephones, radios and TVs, and is now rapidly heading towards world wide, instant "person to person" or "person to public" communications for everyone.
Suplementry:
What affect do you think blogs or any of these new forms of communication have already, or could in the future, have on the magnitude and frequency of "violent knee-jerk reactions". I do not wish to single out any particular reaction, suffice to say they are enacted by powerfull states and angry mobs from across the political and religious spectrum.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
That sort of orwellian doublethink doesn't make sense to me. Sorry.
You asked me to contrast Israel with Arab countries, so: from here in the fields [a bunch of brutal, fanatic wahhabists cynically using the historical oppresssion of Palestinians to further their lust for power] and [a bunch of brutal, fanatic Zionists cynically using the historical oppression of Jews to further their lust for power] seem kind of similar... thus I usually think of Israel and Saudi Arabia as being morally and ethically equivalent.
So I guess I just can't find a lot of contrast. Must be my ignorance of "state science"!
Until roughly 9/11, the Internet had been able to remain a content-neutral place, until capitalists could find a way to harness this new-fangled thing. With the likes of AOL and Yahoo opening their portal doors, everyone could pretty much find what they're looking for; now they can just as easily publish same. Right-wing and Left, porn, god, cooking recipes, doesn't matter. It's out there by the bucketful. Information, dis-information, noble deed-doers and everyone's strange uncle; all hanging around, sitting in your computer, just a click or two away. Do you and your cohorts ascribe to complete freedom or believe that censorship plays an important societal function; and if so, who do you feel is qualified for that role? If so, would it start with self, the Imam or the politician, and in any case, is it possible that you are being decieved? I think the original hopes and promise of the Net, getting beyond DARPA and military applications, was that it would become a tool to make people more tolerant of differences as they became exposed to greater diversity. A grass-roots' agent of change. Maybe that's happening here in the U.S., in the West, in the Industrialized nations. And maybe it's possible that the WWW IS helping people recognize they're not so different after all. I'd like to believe that, as much as I'd like to hit a few net denizens with a clue stick. But the blow-back is that if true, then the machine that tries to keep people at each others' throats, that finds ever-better ways to distract them from the real issues, is at risk of losing its power. As such, the mantle of neutrality vanishes as role of the Net becomes either a vehicle of subversion or subjugation. What signs of radicalism do you see in your neck of the woods that looks beyond extremism, either from the State Autocrats or fundamentalist Wahabism as the only viable alternative able to challenge the status quo? Or is cyberspace still little more than a cool place to hang out. Use of the Internet as an Information device can often separate users from non-users by class and education. The "silent majorities", the common-man, remain largely unaware and could possibly care less. I'm sure this applies equally to the farmer in Appalachia or to the Bedouin trader. Have you found that to be the case in the Mid-East? Does Internet usage help to put aside sectarian and tribal differences and find a common ground? If so, how? Do websites and IM and SMS and P2P sharing help people bridge the internal divide? Does it bring a Shia closer to a Sunni, a fundamentalist closer to a Secularist? Do wealthy children of your Establishments get down to the Oldies or the Rap tunes with their working-class neighbors? How is the Arab (cyber)world different from the Arab street? Are people generally more pro-western, or less iconoclastic in their beliefs? I'd imagine many arab youth are into the games, GTA? WOW? Does this put them at odds with the rest of your society? Here in the U.S. at least, Pandora's box has been opened and now people are confronted with the fact that its harder to keep secrets; that your normal-looking neighbors are into {pick your poison/compulsion}. That most everybody deviates to some degree. One likes to be spanked, another likes golden showers and a third likes to watch. That normal as you know it is a construct that doesn't actually exist. Search enough and you'll find a forum in any neck of the woods. (here's one in mine: www.anonymousconfession.com) that reveals everybodys' private lives and tastes sliping out in all their droll and inoccous glory. Normal is only an illusion re-inforced by the system. So, is the web and the Net breaking its' users perception of normalacy in your neighborhood? Are you some finding any chauvanists into wearing panties? Is it safe to say that life in Jordan( a representative monarchy?) is any different from Syria, or Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or any UAE member states? You are in Amman? Cosmopolitan? Up with current trends? Sure, educated arabs from Beruit to Bagdad may be tuning in, blogging, rel
resist propaganda