Saudi Bloggers

I just came across an article in the Washington Post about Saudi bloggers. You might think 'Saudi blogger' is an oxymoron, given that Saudi Arabia is an incredibly restrictive place when it comes to communication and free speech. But blogging has been growing incredibly rapidly in the Arabic-speaking world, just as it has in the Western world, during the past several years.

Arabs use blogs for the same purposes as Westerners do: criticizing governmental policies, organizing protests, debating topics like religion, and simply sharing their personal stories. What's particularly interesting about Saudi Arabian bloggers, though, is that equal numbers of women and men blog-- very surprising in one of the most conservative countries the world, in which women are prohibited from travelling without a male guardian or driving a car.

There have been some recent crackdowns on bloggers in Egypt, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. But it seems to me that these crackdowns will ultimately prove futile (as China's attempt to keep an unrestricted Google away from its citizens is ultimately futile, I think.)

The most widely-read Saudi blogger, Fouad al-Farhan, who attended the University of Washington as an undergrad, is taking his blogging association, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Bloggers, online, and opening the membership to any blogger, male or female.

Interestingly (and perhaps not surprisingly), Farhan's commitment to blogger freedom isn't as absolute as what you'd expect from, say, an American blogging advocate: "Farhan's push for free expression stops at the doorstep of blogs like Mystique's with their explicit sexual content. 'I respect her right to blog,' he said. 'But I don't think I will stand up for or defend what she writes. My definition of freedom does not cover the type of content she writes.'"

I think it's really cool that technological developments are occurring at roughly the same time around the world, even in regions, like the Middle East, where only 10% of people have internet access. It must be that 10% is more than enough for a movement to spark and catch fire. And I wonder-- could blogging ever be a way for people from different countries and cultures to learn more about each other and (maybe this is waaaay too idealistic) start improving diplomatic relations between their respective countries? It strikes me that maybe the US government already is planning on starting up some sort of blog that will try to improve relations between us and other countries; but then the worry is whether that would be "real" or edited/censored to present interactions in the most positive light possible...