Mahmoud Ahmadinajad Rocks

I do wonder if I'm the only person who found Mahmoud Ahmadinajad's performance at Colombia University a compelling one. I do wonder if I'm the only person that thought his introduction and the official speech of welcome was insulting and immensely skewed. And I wonder if I'm the only person who finds the way that an American academic institution's officers treated a visiting head of state was appalling by any standard.

And yet Ahmadinajad put in an impressive performance. Sure, he was a bit too Godly for secular Western tastes at times. Sure, he wasn't going to take questions like 'Do you oppose a Jewish State of Israel?' head-on. But he did a damn good job, overall. He pointed out that his country couldn't equip civil airliners because of sanctions: that America, the UK, Germany and others had defaulted on contracts, had provided material assistance to Iraq in attacking Iran, had worked to destabilise his country's elected (for better or for worse) government. It wasn't a bad case to make and he made it pretty well.

What a shame he wasn't a lunatic demagogue with no sense at all of rhetoric or public speech. That would have made it so much easier to continue to mindlessley demonise him.

I do wonder what Georgie boy will do tomorrow against a man who is brighter and more charismatic than he is. I'm not saying Mahmoud isn't dangerous. But he's damn smart and, as he pointed out in his address, comes from a cultured and capable people.

Not bad. The jury's out, for sure... But you had to have watched the entire performance... How many of us got that chance?

And at the end, he waited for his host (he had already made the point that in his, the Middle Eastern, culture - and as an academic who had invited speakers to his university - you didn't insult a guest: it was a very pointed point in view of his embarrassing reception by the Colombia staff) to walk across the stage and shake his hand. Alone and suddenly small, he waited. And finally, long tens of seconds after the announcement that he had to leave and couldn't take more questions (and yet stood on the stage, not going anywhere), he got a brief, grudging touch of palms.

Mahmoud 1 America 0. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

The Finger

So we upgraded our server at work, which involved many technical things that are of no interest to anyone at all in the world whatsoever. One of the things that the upgrading man did was migrate my user profile to a new user profile (without, of course, telling me what he was about to do). This was lovely of him, but of course resulted in all sorts of personal data being misplaced and/or lost and some of my favourite apps requiring re-configuring and even partially reinstalling. I’ve lost all my Google Earth landmarks as well as a whole load of other stuff including Netvibes, Digg and other toolbar buttons on my browser. Oh, did I ever mention that I use the vastly superior and generally rather smashing Mozilla Firefox browser? I do commend it to you most highly.

Anyway...

Perhaps interestingly, the move also resulted in something of a logical conundrum. I use a ThinkPad (Lenovo is a client but, trust me, I don’t endorse client products lightly), which is a truly brilliant machine in so many ways. It has a biometric password system, so I am the only person who can use the machine and just swipe a finger rather than keying in a password. Which is cool.

When our number one software engineering and server migrating expert migrated my user profile, I became another person to the computer, which is now refusing to accept my index finger as a valid fingerprint because it was registered under the old user profile and therefore, as far as the computer is concerned, is the finger of another person.

So I can’t use my index finger to log on any more. I have to use my middle finger. I took great delight in showing the upgrading man which finger I am now using to log on as a result of his actions.

He didn’t seem impressed for some reason…

Ramadan Kareem

The Luddites at the Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority (SEWA) had messed up our bill payment because their payments are managed by Empost and therefore you can pay your bill outside their billing cycle. Once you’re there, you are guaranteed a ever-increasing stay in Outworld, with everything screwing up more and more as each month goes by and each payment getting credited in the wrong place at the wrong time. The only solution is to go down there physically and talk to someone with direct access to their prehistoric computer system and command of a UN recognised language. The latter is usually the big problem.

SEWA’s offices in Ramadan are a listless, torpid place: you can actually physically feel the effort as everyone flops around trying to conserve energy. Come to think of it, SEWA’s offices are like that outside Ramadan, too…

I was waiting to speak to the head of the front office, a laconic Palestinian bloke, who was dealing with an agitated local. The conversation tickled me pink, and went (taking up from when I rolled up, obviously) like this:

“The bill’s not paid and the computer has you down for disconnection. That’s why we disconnected it.”

“But the boss pays the bill and he’s not here.”

“I can’t help that. Your boss has to pay the bill.”

“We’ve been without water for two days. Just give me the key for the water!”

“I can’t do that. You have to pay the bill before we can reconnect it. It’s on the computer.”

“You’re a dog and so’s your computer!”

At which the local turned on his heel and strode off. Now calling someone a dog in the Arab world is not generally considered to be polite, to put it lightly.

“Ramadan Kareem” retorted the SEWA chap. It was delivered impeccably: a perfectly timed mixture of remonstration and effyewtoo. Ramadan Kareem is a traditional wish at Ramadan and means ‘Ramadan is generous’. The month is not only a religious observance but is also meant to be a time of piety, reflection and community and using bad language or being naughty are no-nos.

The local turned at the door. “And you know what you can do with your Ramadan Kareem, too!” He shouted.

I felt I had witnessed a moment of true humanity and was still grinning as I left a few minutes later, despite being considerably lighter in the pocket.

The Du Test

So Du announced it has reached 850,000 subscribers this week. I do find that interesting in view of the continuing consistency of the results I am receiving from applying The Du Test.

The Du Test is designed to gain a holistic view of the comparative penetration of mobile operators in a given market as a ratio of deployed client side devices in customers’ terminal prehensile upper organs. See?

It consists of giving your mobile number to people without the prefix that the TRA has insisted on introducing to differentiate the two operators. Etisalat’s is 050, Du’s is 055. So you talk to a hotel reservation service, or the electronics shop to arrange a delivery, or the bank to complain (invariably) or the taxi company. And you give your number as the last seven digits only.

Now, if something like a fifth of all people in the UAE (pre-amnesty) are using a Du mobile, you’d expect at least one of those conversations to contain the words: “Is that 050 or 055, sir?”

And not one, not.one, has done so yet.

Nobody I know uses a Du mobile. Some people registered and bought the sim because they could. Others bought in and rejected the service. But nobody I know, personally or professionally, uses it.

Where are they, then? Hands up, you 850,000 brave subscribers! Be heard! Wear it on your shirts with pride! Let us know that you DO du! Run round the malls singing Dudududududududuuu at the top of your voices!

Hmmm. Funny. Silence so far...

Ramadan Sparkles

There seems to be glass everywhere, for the last few days there have been small swathes of it on the roads: little sparklings at every U-turn and intersection. I’ve never seen so much glass.

And now, as I get to the head of the tailback on the Awir Road, there’s more glass than usual. It’s scattered across the road, a dragon’s treasure trove of scintillae glittering in the sunshine, a slight blue-green tinge to the little jewels, piled up like a Swarovski display cabinet. And in the middle of this sea of glass, an old Nissan Patrol, short wheel-base, lying on its roof, every window popped, the roof crushed. The Indian man lying flat on his back up along the concrete divider is wearing a pink shirt and brown trousers and he’s horribly still. The man in the blue shalwar khamis doesn’t quite know what to do: he picks the man’s head up in his arms, lays it down gently, stands up, crouches down, looks around.

The glass is crunching under the tires now, the feeling of fingers on dishwasher-dry squeaky crystal: the piercing squeak of glass on glass and occasional pop of shards squeezed into flight. A horrible, nails on blackboard shudder passes down my spine.

Another Ramadan evening drive home, then.

Beating the UAE Content Filter

Emirates Today led today with the story that a Saudi-based company is offering a UAE content filter beating package that installs a personal proxy for its customers. UAE telecom regulator the TRA has, predictably, said this is illegal and that people who use it will have their fingernails taken out and be bastinadoed with dried pasta until they cry.

OK. So I made up the fingernails and pasta bits.

But I found ‘illegal’ an interesting use of words. I think a telecom regulator can say that something is contrary to regulation, but can they claim it as illegal without the backing of an actual law to enact? I thought that something enshrined in statute was law and that the application of that law and precedent through the courts defined legality or illegality. And UAE law (I will rapidly say that I am no expert and invite anybody who knows better to please contradict/clarify this) wouldn’t appear to be particularly hot on the whole issue of cyber-legislation, let alone the application of any such legislation in the courts.

Although you could try applying the UAE publishing law to the Internet and the whole issue of what content is acceptable or not, you’d have a hard time squeezing that round peg into the square hole that is the WWW. As far as I’m aware, Etisalat’s proxy server and content blocking/filtering system was wholly unilaterally implemented and was not a legislated requirement. As others have pointed out in the past, the Etisalat filtering system not only filters content that would be considered offensive in a Muslim country, but also does a neat job of blocking Israeli sites (handy: you can’t actually get information from moderate Israeli voices or even research Israeli companies investing in areas that are of commercial interest to the Arab World), IP telephony providers such as Skype and, the great crime to my mind, a number of social networking sites such as Flickr and Twitter.

A digression. Given that the latter are core components of the Web 2.0 revolution that everyone’s bibbling about, I like to save up some anger about that whole decision that social networking is ‘dating’ and therefore unacceptable. I have pointed out before (not least when speaking at conferences) that the human race has been able to ‘get it on’ for some considerable time before Twitter was introduced. I don’t think blocking Web 2.0 networks will stop that boy meets girl thing from happening, do you?

Getting back to the point, then: although there are laws governing the creation, possession and sale of offensive content, and these define what constitutes offensive content in the UAE, I am not aware of laws that govern blocking competitive service providers or social networking sites. That would be a highly advanced (more advanced than anywhere in Europe, the USA or Asia) piece of legislation indeed. So there's potentially room to question the legal basis for blocking any of this stuff. I'm not talking morality or desirability: just the existence of a law. And, again, I’m not expert so please do take a pop if you know better.

So given the above holds water, you have to question the TRA’s ability to use the law, as it so readily threatens, to pursue people who sign up to this new proxy service. Of course, once content is physically present on a machine/storage in the UAE, other, highly effective and easy to understand laws come into play. But access alone… that’s a difficult one, no?

A small thought: the Internet is not blocked in Jordan or Egypt, as well as other Middle Eastern countries. Society has not crumbled as a consequence. Quite the opposite, both countries lead the region in ICT-based value creation and talent building.

Incidentally, the Emirates Today headline screams ‘INTERNET BLOCKER BEATER’ and is directly underneath an Etisalat strap advertisement that says ‘Wherever you go, we extend your reach’.

A nice piece of flat-planning and a beautiful last thought. :0)

Strange Searches

I’ve done this type of thing before, but remain amazed at the ongoing results from searchers of things on the Internet wot end up here. So here here are some of the stranger and more persistent search strings used by people in order to find this furtive and exclusive blog in the recent past. Some of them really do have me wondering…

Tollgate how to destroy tollgate
It's probably furious Salik victim Half Man Half Beer. Whoever it is, they're obviously looking for hints and tips on how to make your own Salik-beating RPG or something…

Aquafina water horror
Quite a few people have come by to the Aquafina post. I’m glad. I hope more see it.

Fake spring water
Fake Plastic Chickens
Fake Chicken
It seems that you get directed here by Google if you search for pretty much anything fake. I’m not sure how to take that… I am consistently amazed by how many people get here searching for Fake Plastic Chickens. They must all be terribly disappointed when they get here. So, because I'm a cutie really, here’s a link for all you fake plastic chicken seekers!

Metallic sea-green truck
I am really not sure what’s going on here, but I reckon if you can’t find one of these in the Sharjah car souk, you’re done for. I once bumped into a Detomaso Pantera there, BTW. Amazing thing to find in a hot dusty Gulf backroad...

Camps naked
Spare a passing thought for Nigel the Newbie Nudist, searching away for some furtive fun and getting a daft post from me instead…

Syria acid attack irish girl souk
Russian girl face slash
These are the two most worrying ones, particularly the latter (as I’ve reported before), which really unsettles me because of its frequency – whoever you are…

Yes but no but yes
I can only imagine its Matt thingy searching for himself…

Pink pepper tabloid Gulf News
I like that one. It’s got something hippy 1960s Syd Barrett lyric to it… I wonder what the hell the searcher was looking for?

Russian girls in Dubai
You have to SEARCH for them?

Burj Dubai Tilting
Burj Dubai Collapse
Shame on you! It’s not collapsing – it’s a great step for mankind!!!

Blue fig basil fakes
Had to add this recent one. I cannot begin to wonder what the eagerly anticipated result was supposed to be...

History Rises! Earth Bedecked With Jewel! Hyperbole Rules!

The Emirates Today did three things today that amused me. The newspaper's front cover story, which shrieks, tabloid style, 'One more step for the UAE, a giant leap for mankind!' is, of course, about the increasing height of the world's tallest building, the Burj Dubai.

Although cynics would perhaps remark that this is overselling the whole thing in an embarrassingly conformist way, there's no doubt as to the scale of this engineering feat. Whether it is, indeed, a giant leap for mankind (the last one was man reaching the moon, just so that you have a comparative scale to work with) would perhaps be something for debate.

Inside, the story continues under the chucklesome headline: 'History is rising into skies bit by bit and day by day'. We can only assume that ET's sub didn't get to write this one because of the missing definite article, something commonly associated with Arabic speakers writing English. One suspects the intervening hand of something darker and more senior than a sub. But it might just be that the sub was overwhelmed by the content and just lost the run of himself...

And then, on page 26, we have a double page feature on former stripper and 'burlesque' Dita Von Tees, a dubious subject for such a conformist organ to run in Ramadan, but rendered at least visually acceptable by the lovely black t-shirt super-imposed on the young lady's upper body (as usual, squeezed by whalebone into that 'two ice creams held in one hand' shape). I haven't seen that type of gloriously cack-handed image editing since Sarah's tailor in Karama used to import Malaysian fashion magazines for use as inspiration by his customers.

Thanks, ET, for starting my day with so many smiles!

Petrol Companies Revolt Against Credit Card Surcharges. Consumers to Get Stuffed. Again.

Although Gulf News reported in a news story that ENOC was collecting a 1.65% credit card transaction fee from customers, Emarat only got fingered in an editorial feature. Which is funny, because they also started passing on the 1.65% fee to customers on the 1st September.

Interestingly, ENOC didn't mention its move was due to any increase on the part of banks when it talked to Gulf News, but Emarat's explanatory leaflet to customers says the move comes 'due to increase in Bank Administration fees' and goes on to say that Emarat 'will add the 1.65% bank imposed fee to all credit/debit card payments...'

So Emarat is giving the clear impression to consumers that this move comes as the result of a new increase in fees from the bank. ENOC did not make that claim when it spoke to Gulf News, attributing the move to the loss it already makes selling fuel.

Charging consumers for the use of credit or debit cards is expressly against the merchant agreement that merchants enter into with the card networks. In fact, the card companies got all bellicose with GN when it was contacted by the newspaper regarding the ENOC move and both Visa and Mastercard made vaguely threatening 'this is not on and we're taking action' noises.

Banks contacted by GN called the move, apparently, 'unilateral'. Although if Emarat is also passing on the charge it would tend to suggest the move is 'multilateral'.

Passed over in the main by our brave news media, then, is the fact that a pitched battle is breaking out between petrol companies and the credit card networks and their acquiring banks. As usual, the people that are going to get royally screwed are the consumers. Sure, it's only a couple of dirhams in every hundred. But it's also yet another unwelcome price rise among a number of insidious little increases.

I do think the papers have missed the significance of this little standoff. You see, if these petrol companies get away with this (and there's no reason to suppose that they won't out here in the Klondike), you won't be waiting long for everyone else to join in. If Visa and Mastercard don't nip this in the bud soon, we might well be seeing a broader revolt breaking out. Which, although interesting to watch, is going to hurt consumers as merchants start surcharging us left, right and centre.

Sharjah Electricity and Water, as well as Emirates Post already charge a card handling fee - again in contravention of the card networks' stated policy - and Dubai Electricity and Water makes a 2.5% credit card surcharge at its cash collection points, although Internet card transactions are free of charge. In the UK, the world's most intensive credit card economy, merchants are specifically allowed to surcharge by law: although most don't, some (like low cost airlines) do. In many US states, regulations prohibit surcharging (nice bit of lobbying, card companies!).

In the UAE, the legislature has taken no stance - nor is it likely to any time soon. So it's down to the forces of 'laissez faire' and the 'market economy'.

Whoopee.

Blog Gets Action, Justice

Jordanian expat blogger Husain (Who’s-sane) posted up the appalling story of his father’s disappearance in Jordan on September 2^nd. His ageing father had gone missing and the frantic family spent a week looking for him, finally tracking him down to a hospital which they had been calling constantly to see if he, or anyone like him, had been admitted. Husein reports that by the time they found him, his father was critically ill because of the abusive treatment he had received at the hands of the wilfully negligent staff of the hospital

The full story is here. It’s been viewed over 3,700 times and drawn over 200 comments, the vast majority from truly horrified people who undoubtedly sparked major and widespread word of mouth awareness of this appalling situation. The story was also picked up by ‘conventional’ media and ran widely. The combination of word of mouth, blog and media resulted in Jordan’s Minister of Health, Dr. Salah Al Mawajdeh, getting involved and, yesterday, visiting the hospital on behalf of King Abdullah, promising action against the staff and the best possible treatment for Husain’s father. That post is here.

As pal and passionate social media advocate Gianni will tell you, over 40% of journalists surveyed in the UK said that social media affected their work. Over 60% cite blogs in their articles (and over 70% read blogs). In short, this shows how blogs - even in the under-Internetted Middle East - are capable of breaking major stories into national media as well as driving significant word of mouth.

Husain’s blog helped to get action and will, hopefully, also get justice for his father and the family. Which I, for one, find really quite cool.