Here’s a bit of background information

The Internet Services Unit (ISU) is a department of King Abdulaziz City for Science & Technology (KACST) responsible for providing Internet services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

ISU is also responsible for censoring the Internet in Saudi Arabia. Being a conservative society with blurry lines of freedom of expression and access to expression, the Internet wouldn’t set foot here without such an organization acting as a “big brother”. And while other societies see no problem in granting their members access to website on suicide, drugs, the occult, or pornography, this country saw it best to reserve the authority to block access to what it deems “inappropriate”. So if you are going to access the Internet from Saudia any time soon, prepare to be told what is appropriate for you to see or read or hear because you, my friend, will be under the discretion of them ISU boys.

And what a ridiculous discretion that can a lot of times be.

• Blogger.com has been blocked for more than a year now.
• YouTube.com has been blocked for months.
• Flikr.com is also blocked
• Google Translation? Forget about it.
• And most abhorrently, Wikipedia.org gets blocked regularly

The latter two, I claim, are nothing short of an abomination onto the lord and an expression of contempt to all that humanity stands for.

Seeing all the collaboration that has been happening over the web for the last few years has been heart warming for me. I am proud to live in a time when people can come together and build useful things and offer them to whoever wants them FREE OF CHARGE. This includes open source software and of course wikipedia which is an unprecedented structure of human knowledge whose usefulness is unrivaled.

To bar a society of 20 million people from a culmination of human knowledge such as Wikipedia is a crime. But for it to come from the responsible organization whose mission is “to provide outstanding services” and “to increase awareness about Internet in the society“ is just beyond me.

But I’m afraid it doesn’t stop here. ISU (which rightfully justifies its parent organization being called ‘The City of Darkness’) has recently turned its attention to the still-young-and-awkward Saudi blogosphere. Yesterday, ISU blocked access to SaudiJeans, a prominent and pioneering blog run by a young Saudi guy. His site is free from all pornography or calls to a “revolution” or whatever else might deem a site “inappropriate”. Given that, one is lead to believe that his being blocked is only due to ISU’s disagreement with Ahmad (Saudi Jeans) on some issues. And while I also come to disagree with Ahmed on some issues (heck, I sometimes even disagree with myself on some issues), there is no question neither I nor anyone else have the right to strip him of his freedom of expression as long as he practices his freedom responsibly (that is to say: without harm to society or other people).

As a form of protest, some fellow bloggers announced that they will abstain from blogging for 72 hours. Others are left wondering “who’s next?”

The fact of the matter is that this is a critical time in the evolution of freedom of speech in Saudi. If this comes to pass, then ISU would have succeeded in crippling this ambitious medium of ‘personal journalism’ as a vessel of change inside the Kingdom. Therefore, proponents of freedom of speech in Saudi must rise to the challenge and snatch and earn that freedom.

Action points:

• Fill the Unblock request. It is better to be polite and express your reasons for the request.
• Let other people know about these issues. Post in forums, blogs, mailing lists…etc
• Don’t be afraid that your blog might be next. Or don’t let that stop you from continuing to honestly express your opinions. Because if you do, what’s the use of having a blog in the first place?
• It’s time for the Saudi blogging groups to shine. Both OCSAB and SaudiBlogs must take the lead on publicizing the issue and responding to it. If they fail to do so with such a serious issue, they lose all their credibility (to me at least).
• Can we sue these guys?
• Think of other things to do, and post em in the comments section, I’ll add em up here.

Remember that this is not just about some dude’s blog. This is about your right to express your opinions even if they are different from those of another person. God knows I’ve never met SaudiJeans or even talked to him (aside from a couple of comments on his blog). I just think that this is a battle we can’t risk losing. The stakes are just too high.

Allah almusta3an…

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Today was my first day at work. It’s actually the third but the first two days I just stuck around for a couple of hours.

I was sitting the whole day in front of a computer, in a cubicle. Its someone else’s cubicle but he isn’t here and they let me sit in it until further notice. It’s a new thing for me, I’ve never had a job before. I went from high school to college on a government scholarship and didn’t have to work during college years. The whole time at work today I was remembering various scenes from Office Space. Its funny but its not really like it, thank God.

My time is being more structured now that I have daily time commitments. Boy let me tell you, THAT is an alien feeling! College days were pretty free. I didn’t have morning classes for the longest time. Some days I could easily sleep at 4 AM and not need to set the Alarm clock to wake me up for class at 2 PM. ha!

But this structure is starting to make me feel more organized (although it hadn’t really kicked in, its now 2 AM and I have to be in the office at 7:45 AM!). There’s always a certain feeling of security with routine. People tend to feel safer when they have an idea about what is going to happen. Although it’s not as exciting when you pretty much know what is going to happen.

The department that I got assigned to deals with an advanced e-Government solution that our governmental organization employs. I wasn’t exposed to much of this solution but I understand its pretty advanced. I have been told that its ahead of most other ministries and governmental organizations that are part of the Saudi e-Government initiative.

The Saudi e-Government program is called Yesser, an Arabic word meaning “simplify”. It is actually quite an ambitious program. I’m really impressed at the parts of it that I saw. Its vision is:

“By the end of 2010, everyone in the Kingdom will be able to enjoy - from anywhere and at anytime - world class government services offered in a seamless, user friendly and secure way by utilizing a variety of electronic means.”

Their website explains this vision by enumerating ten objectives to be achieved by the end of 2010:

Provide better services by the end of 2010:
1. Provide top priority services (150) at world class level of quality electronically
2. Deliver services in a seamless and user friendly way and at highest standards of security
3. Make services available to everyone in the Kingdom and allow 24/7 access from cities as well as countryside and even outside the country
4. Realise 75% adoption rate with respect to the number of users
5. Ensure 80% user satisfaction rating for all services provided electronically
Increase internal efficiency and effectiveness
6. Deliver all possible official intra-governmental communication in a paperless way
7. Ensure accessibility of all information needed across government agencies and storage of information with as little redundancy as possible
8. Purchase all goods and services above a certain value threshold through e-procurement
Contribute to country’s prosperity
9. Contribute to establishment of information society in the Kingdom through spreading information, knowledge and use of e-services
10. Help improve use of country’s assets and resources by increasing society’s productivity in private, business and public sectors.

I understand that some people would have the tendency not to believe that any of this is going to happen. After all, ambitious plans have been devised before but were crippled by incompetence, corruption, and/or whatever other reasons. But I personally am optimistic about this project for several reasons. First and foremost, the program’s website ROCKS! It is very well designed and it is filled with great content. Most importantly, however, is that it is extremely focused. It really shows that a group of ambitious and technically savvy people have been working hard at this for quite some time. The second reason for my optimism is the fact that it is being pushed from the top of the pyramid. The king ordered 3 Billion Saudi Riyals (US $800 million) to be dedicated to the project effective immediately. The third reason is what I saw of the program so far in the organization that I work in. The system currently in place allows most transactions to be paperless in the 20+ offices around the kingdom. Other interesting e-Government solutions available now are Holy Makkah Municipality (offering online renewals for store licenses, status reports of all applications in process…etc) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (offers online visa applications), although the latter seriously needs a facelift.

But we still have a long road ahead. Abodrak pointed to the catastrophe that is governmental websites. In “When failure is redefined: governmental websites” he sheds light on some truly ridiculous websites for government departments. I doubt Google’s translation would make any sense (hey, it’s a beta!), but if you just follow the links he lists, you’ll get the idea (notice all the visitor counters that these sites have… sigh).

Gee, 4 AM already.. I gotta get some sleep..

I get asked this question quite often. I can’t say I can give a complete answer considering I haven’t even spent 20 days here yet. But some things stood out and I had to notice them..

First thing that seemed different is the heightened level of security alertness. Compounds, hotels, some foreign companies, and important governmental buildings are now surrounded by concrete, guards, and giant machine guns we only saw in movies. Not to mention the checkpoints and random car searches.

All of this is of course a part of the Saudi government’s war against terror. Terrorists had struck Saudi cities pretty bad. Riyadh, being the capital, got the worst of it. The Ministry of Interior, several compounds, and other targets have been attacked throughout the last 5 years. And it’s been near a state of war ever since.

I’ve got to say that the Saudi government has been very effective in carrying out its anti-terror campaign. They identified, captured, and killed hundreds of convicted and suspected terrorists. All of that in a time where the US government failed to identify a single terror cell on American soil so far. Yet it (the US government led by the current administration) continues to use the threat of terrorism to cut down on hard-earned American civil liberties.

I have no idea how the Saudi government managed this rate of success. Some people say torture which I doubt since the US government used this technique but to no real avail. Some people that I talked to were so surprised that they suspected the use of magic (…!).

Either way, I’m glad that it’s gotten to this. Many people that were pro or agnostic to terrorism are against it now that they’ve seen how blind it can sometimes be. Notice however that the word “terrorism” does NOT have a universal meaning; while Hamas and the Iraqi resistance/insurgency might be labeled “terrorists” in the west. Many people in this part of the world disagree.

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Second. Riyadh grew to ridiculous proportions. It’s been big for decades now, but now its just MASSIVE. The people, the traffic and the stores.. Oh good God the stores.. There’s just infinitely many of them. And not just your usual barber/pharmacy/grocery-store, I’m also talking about Kilometer-wide shopping centers and Super-Duper-Hypermarkets. I’m surprised Wal-Mart is nowhere to be seen yet. Yet I’m sure that whenever the retail monster attempts to make its debut here, it will be faced with ferous competition. But again, Wal-Mart probably loves competition by now..

Third. Internet usage is sky rocketing. The localized version of google for Saudi ranks 56th globally according to Alexa’s top 500 sites list. Total user growth from 2000 to 2005 is 1000%. Too bad the grand-daddy teleco can’t keep up with the demand and its services are far behind. 512 Kbps is the fastest you can get for home DSL, and consider yourself lucky if you got that much. Aside from the fact that a lot of people have been on waiting lists for months for a puny 256 or 512 Kbps connection, a lot of the time you wouldn’t even get half of what you paid for. Our 512 DSL connection at home (that have been gracefully bestowed upon us by our loving overlords in said company) is only 288 Kbps fast.

(Closes his eyes and lays back rubbing his eyes with his hands as he remembers the occasional 500 KBps download that AT&T used to throw at him once in a while. Notice that the capital “B” in (KBps) means Byte while the small “b” in (Kbps) means bit. A Byte contains 8 Bits. Meaning my own DSL in Riyadh is 288 Kilo bits as opposed to the 4-Mega-bit one I had a month ago in the States. Sigh..)

Fortunately, a competitor should arrive soon at the scene. There is still light at the end of the tunnel.

Forth. Everyone cringes at the mention of stocks and the stock market. The recent Saudi-stock-market crash broke the hearts of the population after they went completely insane following dreams of instant wealth. Now, many weddings have been postponed (costing the fortunes that they do here), many cars have been sold, and debt is breaking the backs of a large part of the middle class. It’s sad..

Fifth. People LOVE to text-message their favorite TV channels! There are several TV Chat channels in which you type a text-message in your phone (using that tedious click-the-keypad-button-several-times method), send it to the number on the screen, and communicate to people at a third-grader’s level (sentances are short and shollow due to the inconvenient typing method). Other TV channels have a chat bar on the bottom of the screen to entertain the lonely folk. Some channels even have two or three chat bars at the bottom.

This boggles my mind. The question in my head is mainly: WHY!?? why would anyone carry out a text conversation on TV using a stupid typing technique and paying for every message they send? I know that people are bored, but still. TV is not an interactive medium, the Internet is. Now get off your back, get your laptop, and carry out the proper chatting procedure. Better yet, talk to the person next to you (most people watch these channels from a Gahwah — a traditional coffee shop sporting many flavors of sheeshah), I’m betting they’re as bored as you are. Hell, that other guy might even be the “Daloo3at Najid” girl that you think you’re talking to..

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Sixth. People are cell phone crazy. They all must have the latest Nokia with the X mega pixel camera. The good thing about this is that you’ll always see the latest cutting-edge phones as soon as they’re released. I truly hated those silver US flip phones. They’re about the only thing that’s there!

Seventh. EVERYONE hails the king. And I mean they so passionately love King Abdullah. Approval rates of kings vary from time to time, from era to era. But in this era, most people are happy with what has been done so far and are optimistic about the future. He ordered a 15% raise in the salaries of people in the public sector and the armed forced, started a program to send tens of thousands of high-school graduates on scholarships to universities all around the world, and he has been more lenient on several issues. The war on terror also raised the levels of patriotism amongst people. I never saw anyone put up the flag on their cars before. It’s now quite common. It seems that the recent years have been critical in shaping the identity of the Saudi citizen.

Eighth. Gas prices are AWESOME! The king recently cut down the prices to what amounts to 60 US cents per gallon. Now filling the two gas tanks of a HUGE Toyota Landcruiser costs much less than filling my little Altima back in the states. God bless the king!

This is pretty much everything that I noticed so far. “Demystifying Saudi Arabia” is intended to be a running theme of this blog. I will come back with more as soon as I figure it out for myself.

I just came back from a graduate recognition ceremony held by our Muslim Student Association. It’s so overwhelming saying goodbye to such a tight knit family. MSA was the main form of social support for me and it really helped me get through some tough times. I will extensively write about MSA and my experience with it in the coming days.

I hope I can find such a wonderful group of people back home.

Hello and welcome.

I have been wanting to start an English blog and podcast for a while now. This is the begining of the blog, the podcast should follow at a later time.