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Arabisc: The Arabic Bloggers Ken, Media, Anti-Blogging and the World Cup

· Written by Haitham Sabbah

Categories: Middle East & North Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Palestine, United Arab Emirates, Arts & Culture, Breaking News, Digital Activism, Economics & Business, Education, Freedom of Speech, Governance, Human Rights, Media & Journalism, Politics, Sport, Technology, War & Conflict

Blogging nightmare…

Starting with hot news this week, it looks that the Egyptian blogsphere is going to have more hard time in the near future.

Following Aljazeera's one hour TV documentary [1] (Arabic) about blogging and its role in the political scene in the Egyptian street, one of the oldest, biggest and most read newspapers in Egypt, published a long report about the bloggers. The article was published at besara7a blog and is titled “The Bloggers Declares Revolution on the Internet: A sociological Study on Bloggers and their Blogs” (Arabic) [2].

The alarming news comes from 43arb [3] and Jarelkamar [4]. Tadwen blog sums up the story as following [5]:

تتناقل بعض المدونات المصرية مؤخرا خبر إنشاء مكتب خاص بما عبروا عنه بـ”مكافحة التدوين”، ضمن مكاتب أمن الدولة في مصر..
ويؤكد بعضها أن تهما مثل “تحريض الرأي العام”، أو “سب رئيس الجمهورية”، أو “الدعاية للتظاهر بدون تصريح” قد توجه إلى المدونين ضمن هذه المكافحة..
Some Egyptian blogs are circulating recent news about the establishment of a special office called “anti-blogging”, within the State Security Offices in Egypt.
The blogs confirmed that charges such as “inciting public opinion”, “insulting the President” or “propaganda for demonstration without a permit”, may be directed to bloggers.

Now, that is scary! We can understand the need for “anti-terrorism force”, but “anti-blogging” security office?! Wow!

On the political side…

The “Gaza Beach Tragedy” had a big presence in the Arabic blogsphere. The Palestinian cartoonist, Amal, in her new latest work [6] sums up what is going on, world wide (World Cup 2006) and the tragedy news coming from Palestine on the World Cup opening day:

F**k the World [6]

Playing with the words equivalent to ‘World Cup’ in Arabic (كاس العالم) the cartoon is simply ‘bad-mouthing’ the world (not the World Cup).

Still on “Gaza Beach Tragedy”, a campaign was launched to call the Arabic TV channels, to use the scenes of the tragedy as much and as often as they can.

They wrote a letter and asked readers to send it to AlFajr, Aljazeera and Alarabiya TV’s. The letter reads [7]:

الاخوة الافاضل في قناتنا الحبيبه ..حفظكم الله تعالي
لا شك ان ما جرى على ارض فلسطين يوم الجمعة الماضيه ..يهز قلب كل من
في قلبه ذرة من انسانيه ..ناهيك عن من بينه وبين الفلسطيني اخوة دينية
وعلاقة عربية .. لقد استغربنا من قناتنا الحبيبه ان تمرر هذا الخبر
وان تجعله كاي مادة اعلامية انتهى زمنها وانتهى وقتها … فلا تخيبوا ظننا في
قناتكم وقناتنا الحبيبه
فنحن نرجوكم … ان تقوموا بتغطية اعلاميه عن كل ما يخص الخبر قتل عائلة
هدى غالية
سوا من الجانب السياسي او من الجانب الاجتماعي للأخت هدى غالي غفر الله لذويها
وان تجعلوا اعلانات تذكر بهذه القضية .. اسأل الله العظيم ان يووفقكم
المرسل : مشاهد عربي
ارجوك اخي القراء ان تنسخ الموضوع في منتدى اخرى
ولكم احترامي
Distinguished brothers in our beloved channel,
May God Guard You. There is no doubt that what has happened in Palestine last Friday has shaken the heart of every human. Beside the religious and nationalism ties between the Palestinian brothers and others, it is strange that our beloved channels passed this news and to treat it like any expired material … So, don’t disappointed us, we ask you … to cover the news story of the murder of Huda Ghalia’s family, from political and/or social aspect of sister Huda, and to produce ads that marks this incident.
I ask God the Almighty to bring you success.
Signature: Arab Viewer

On the sarcastic side…

Surfing the Moroccan blogsphere, I came across a new Arabic term, funny one, but has a strong roots that refers to the rising numbers of unemployment in Morocco and the Arab world.

Heyttism, is the new term. Hamoud explains the roots of the term, he said [8]:

الحطيزم كلمة مشتقة من “حيط” او “جدار”.. وترمز إلى الفعل الذي يقوم به كل شاب درس كما يدرس الجميع فعل ما وجد نفسه مجبرًا عل فعله وحتى والديه لا يعلمون لماذا يجب عليه فعل هذا.. درس حوالي الـخمسة عشر سنة أو أكثر أو أقل.. نال شهادة جامعية رفيعة أو حقيرة ذلك غير مهم فكلها واحد.. وبعدها عليه ان يشغل المنصب الرهيب وهو دعم حيطان البلاد ومساندتها وحمايتها من السقوط وذلك يتم فقط بإتكاءه عليها طوال اليوم مع سيجارة يدخنها ,
Heyttism derived from the word “Heyt” or “Wall.” It symbolizes the act by individual youth’s who studied after he found himself compelled to act upon his parents wish, not knowing why he should. He studied for about five to ten years or more or less, received a college degree, ultimately to fill the horrible position of supporting the walls of the country and protect the walls from falling, only by leaning on the walls throughout the day with a cigarette to smoke

Heyttism!! Added to personal dictionary.

Arabic language and the Internet…

Marwan, from Subzero Blue blog [9], writes in his Arabic blog about the new Google News service in Arabic. He seems have found something we all have missed for long time. Marwan writes [10]:

أخيراً أصدرت شركة غوغل نسخة عربيّة من خدمة أخبار غوغل. وجدت اللّغة العربيّة ضمن اللّغات الموجودة للخدمة هذا الصباح و أنا أقرأ الأخبار هناك.

تجمع “أخبار غوغل” قصص ومقالات إخبارية من مصادر للأخبار تزيد على 150 مصدر من جميع أنحاء العالم، وترتبها أوتوماتيكياً ووضع أهم وآخر الأخبار في الصدارة. يتم تحديث موضوعات الأخبار كل 15 دقيقة، ولذا فمن المحتمل أن ترى قصصًا إخبارية جديدة في كل مرة تراجع فيها الصفحة.

أظنّ أنّه جيّد جدّاً أنّ غوغل تهتمّ أكثر فأكثر بادخال اللّغة العربيّة في خدماتها مؤخّراً كخدمة البريد الاكتروني و الترجمة و الآن الأخبار.

أتمنّى أن نرى المزيد من الخدمات على الانترنت مستعملة اللّغة العربيّة من غوغل و غيرها، مساعدة في تقوية الحضور العربيّ على الشبكة.

Finally, Google launched the Arabic version of their Google News. I found the Arabic version among others while I was browsing for my daily news read.

Google news gather the news stories from more than 150 news sources from all around the world, then sort them automatically and puts the hot news on top. The front page is refreshed every 15 minutes, so you might see new stories every time you visit the page.

I think it is a very good move from Google to introduce the Arabic language in its services like E-mails and the translation services and now the news.

I hope to see more online services from Google and others in Arabic, which will strengthen the Arab presence on the Internet.

Not far from the Internet; The Emirate's blogger Ben Kerishan is criticizing what he calls the foolishness and backward mentality of the way things are dealt with in his part of the world. He said [11]:

بعد جولة في مواقع الانترنيت المختلفه لبلاد الرمال..في محاولة لفهم سبب جنوح العقل العربي الصحراوي تجاه الخرافه و ابتعاده عن العقل، خرجت بأستنتاج قد يساعدنا على فهم أسباب هذه الظاهره الغبائيه المستفحله
After a tour in various Lands of Sands Internet sites, in an attempt to understand the reason of the delinquency of Arabian desert brain towards superstition and distance from the rationalism, my finding may help us to understand the causes of this massive phenomenon of foolishness

After giving many examples of material published online and describing how it mock and ridicules the intelligence of our brains, Ben Kerishan concludes:

أن نجاح العلمنه في المجتمعات الغربيه و تفوقها العلمي يعتمد على قدرة افرادها على التفكير السليم بأنفسهم خارج اطار الخرافه والدين ، و هو مانسميه بالتفكير العلماني.. مقارنة بتخلف مجتمعات بلاد الرمال التي فشل افرادها بتحرير عقولهم من سيطرة الخرافة و رجال الدين عليهم..وحتى لو فرضت عليهم العلمانية والديموقراطيه فرضا..فلن يكون هناك اكثر من مضاعفات غبائيه..للشيء ذات
The success of globalization in Western societies and its scientific superiority depended on the ability of its members to think for themselves outside the framework of good myth and religion, or what we call, the non secular thinking. Compared to the Lands of Sands and its communities which failed in liberating their thinking from the control of superstition and the clergy. Even if the non secularism and democracy were imposed on them, there will be no more than foolishness complications.

Very harsh, but maybe true!