{"id":18236,"date":"2012-04-22T11:28:41","date_gmt":"2012-04-22T07:28:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=18236"},"modified":"2012-04-26T18:58:28","modified_gmt":"2012-04-26T14:58:28","slug":"online-or-behind-closed-doors-the-big-saudi-discussion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/technology-in-the-middle-east\/online-or-behind-closed-doors-the-big-saudi-discussion\/","title":{"rendered":"Online or Behind Closed Doors: The Big Saudi Discussion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The real discussions are online, according to a piece in yesterday\u2019s\u00a0Saudi Gazette<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The article, by Laura Bashraheel, paints a picture of a young people who are taking advantage of \u201ca manic side of Jeddah that is evolving\u201d in order to discuss important issues online. She quoted a young Mahmoud Sabbagh as saying that he\u2019s taken his thoughts to the Internet because the Jeddah Literary and Cultural Club was too suffocating. (Official Saudi book groups have to submit their discussion points to the government in advance.)<\/p>\n

A guy named Ahmad (who wouldn\u2019t provide his full name) further told Bashraheel that he believes Twitter has opened doors: \u201cNow we can interact more freely and exchange ideas, books, events and articles on Twitter and then discuss them with all kinds of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some ways, sure.<\/p>\n

However: 1) Ahmad wouldn\u2019t give his name in the article, and 2)\u00a0Hamza Kashgari is now in solitary confinement<\/a>\u00a0in a Riyadh prison for free discussion of ideas on Twitter.<\/p>\n

So Twitter has its downsides, too. Ideas shared on Twitter, like the ones that landed Kashgari in prison, are instantly very, very public (and very easy to make into a viral campaign against the author).<\/p>\n

Activist Waleed Abu Alkhair\u00a0writes in the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0today<\/a>\u00a0about a real-life weekly salon in his home, which seems in many ways like a better place to share ideas (at least, well, if you\u2019re a man).<\/p>\n

He writes: \u201d I started the salon after government and religious authorities clamped down on gatherings of liberal youth in cafes and bookstores in the wake of Hamza\u2019s arrest, severely constricting the space for free expression in this city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the\u00a0Saudi pavilion at this year\u2019s London Book Fair<\/a>\u00a0boasted loads of books, according to Saudi prince and UK ambassador\u00a0Prince Muhammad bin Nawaf. Ahmed Al-Hamdan, chairman of the Association of Saudi Publishers, said Saudi participation is way better this year because they\u2019ve got a whole 120 square meters.<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s there, in the \u201cofficial\u201d pavilion? If it\u2019s similar to the official Saudi pavilions at this year\u2019s Cairo and Abu Dhabi fairs, there\u2019s a whole lot of flash and not much substance. After all, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya recently reported that \u201cSaudi writers publish abroad to escape censorship.<\/a>\u201c<\/p>\n

So where are Saudi\u2019s \u201creal\u201d literary meet-ups? I don\u2019t know (particularly as real is a stupid word here), but I imagine them to be in homes, in unofficial spaces, sometimes online, too; flourishing despite attempts to regulate them into disappearance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M. LYNX-QUALEY: There’s liberation in discussing ideas online but also dangers. Where do young Saudis discuss the big issues? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":18237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,173,482,10,63,9],"tags":[18291,18275,3882,143,166],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18236"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}