Slashdot Log In
Ask About Life, Blogging and Linux in the Middle East
Posted by
Roblimo
on Tue Feb 28, 2006 12:00 PM
from the get-the-local-scoop-by-talking-to-the-locals dept.
from the get-the-local-scoop-by-talking-to-the-locals dept.
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.
Related Stories
[+]
Answers from 'Our Man in Jordan' 181 comments
At the beginning of this month we sent your questions to Isam Bayazidi of Amman, Jordan. He's a Slashdot reader, founder of the Jordan Planet blogging community, and (I know this from personal experience) knows the best places to buy discount-priced computer components in his home town. Enjoy!
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Which is more important to develop... (Score:5, Interesting)
Arab and Israeli communities (Score:5, Interesting)
Arabic hacker food (Score:5, Interesting)
Straight Outta Casablanca (Score:5, Interesting)
Arabic? (Score:2)
Do you have some cool Arabic keyboard? Is it dvorak?
Re:Arabic? (Score:3, Funny)
Q: How does an English person iron his clothes?
A: From left to right!
*ducks*
Re:Arabic? (Score:3, Funny)
Do most people in Jordan own a PC with an ISP? (Score:2)
I don't know if you're living in the Middle East.. (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Obvious... (Score:3, Funny)
They'd like to move to nuclear power, but have hit some snags.
Cartoons and website defacement (Score:3, Interesting)
So, what's your opinion on the arabic kids who are defacing websites [yahoo.com] in protest to the Mohammed cartoons?
Impact on lifestyles (Score:2)
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?
Stereotypes and those who would further them... (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Re:Stereotypes and those who would further them... (Score:3, Insightful)
One word... judaism.
Plus, let's not forget those buddhist(?) statues that were destroyed in Afghanistan under Allah's name.
Muslims can bullshit the rest of the world all they want about how their religion is peaceful, but actions speak louder than words. Currently, all of the world's major conflicts involve muslim combatants on at least one. Even in Iraq, right now, the rising conflict is between muslims of slightly different islamic variation
Islamic backlash (Score:2)
Stereotypes (Score:3, Interesting)
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?
Dilbert (Score:3, Interesting)
window on the world... (Score:2)
Credible Sources for Arab Bloggers (Score:5, Interesting)
Exportation of Technology (Score:3, Interesting)
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"?
Mo'toons (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Down to earth... how does it feel? (Score:4, Interesting)
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
Re:question (Score:2)
It does not take much to check the ar link. Here you go [wikipedia.org]. No pics included, however, except the cover of an Egyptian newspaper [wikipedia.org] that published them.
However this is how it is right now, I would expect a few flame wars to have been waged about this.
Re:question (Score:2)
Wow--they use Arabic numerals, too.
Answer: Sometimes (Score:3, Interesting)
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 f