Dubai Book Ban

Five years before I was born, a new law, the Obscene Publications Act, allowed publishers in my native United Kingdom, for the first time, to escape conviction for obscenity if they could prove a work they produced had literary merit.

Its first trial was in 1960, when Penguin books went to court over DH Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, a suit brought by the Crown. They won the case and a new era of freedom was ushered in, allowing people to explore ideas and concepts that had previously been impossible to air in public.

By 1971, the producers of the underground magazine Oz faced trial in a UK court for obscenity, again a suit brought against them by the State. After a lengthy and expensive trial, they too were acquitted (on appeal, in fact).

In the meantime, satirical magazine Private Eye was banned from sale at branches of WH Smith until the 1970s. In fact, the retailer also refused to stock the controversial 'Diana' issue as recently as 2004.

The Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks (Here's the Sex Pistols) was banned from the charts, BBC radio and many record stores across the UK. Their 1977 single 'God Save the Queen' was banned by the BBC. As was The Stranglers' Peaches.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood's overtly homosexual record Relax was banned from the charts, BBC Radio and many record stores in 1983.

In 1992, Radiohead agreed to edit the word fuck out of 'Creep' and thereby avoided a radio ban.

This list of records banned by the BBC for reasons of sexuality, politics and 'obscenity' details the lot, right up to 1997, when The Prodigy faced an effective 'no airtime' ban by BBC radio.

Throughout my lifetime I have seen censorship in my home country, from the demonstrations against Monty Python's Life of Brian (and the cutting of the film to meet the demands of the UK's censor), the censorship of television (Mary Whitehouse and all), of literature (see above) and of music (ditto).

I don't like censorship. I'm against it. I have pushed against it, as slowly and surely as I believe I can within limits of reason I choose to set myself. I believe strongly in freedom of speech and expression.

But the sound of the newly secular and liberated voices of the UK media howling like a pack of infuriated Macaques at the temerity of people living and working in another society and cultural environment in deciding whether a work is appropriate for that audience is really too much. Over the period in which the UAE has been a nation, the UK has only just managed to stop banning, suing, censoring and repressing literature and music. Is it SO hard to understand that other societies might not be quite as... umm... 'advanced'?

Media freedom in the UAE has moved ahead in my time here. It's by no means perfect, but it's a whole lot better than it was and much more liberal than in many other parts of the Middle East and Asia. Greater freedom of expression is allowed here than in many other parts of the Middle East and Asia. But there are limits. These are being constantly explored, tested and pushed. Probably not as much as they could or should be, but they are. It's a long, slow game to play precisely because this Muslim society holds different values and is keen to preserve those.

As is its right, no? People do still have the right to uphold different values, don't they?

I agree on the principle. No book should be banned. And I look forward to the day when we get there. But in the case of the celebrated 'Festival Book', I believe the author knew exactly what she was doing. I believe this is a cynical attempt to use this ban to create 'buzz' around an otherwise, I suspect, unremarkable book.

In the meantime, I do strongly believe that the newly libertarian UK could engage in a little less hubris and a little more introspection regarding its own, hard-fought and newly won freedoms.

A Strange Feeling

I'm currently in the grip of the strangest feeling. I'm actually feeling sorry for Dubai.

Lalaland is taking the most enormous pasting in the international media right now. The Israeli tennis player ban story and the British author book banned story are flying around and media are picking them up faster than discarded dollar bills. The 'conversation' on Twitter is universally negative and violently anti-Dubai, buoyed up with links to the New York Times piece that asserted 3,000 cars have been abandoned at the airport, Dubai's Wikipedia 'human rights' entry that details drug convictions at Dubai International Airport and stories on the tennis and book scandals.

The ban on Shahar Peer has led to an international outcry and the situation doesn't look as if it will get any better, with The Guardian reporting that a second Israeli player, Andy Ram may also be denied a visa - and that Dubai could lose the support of the WTA and the ATP as a consequence of the ban on Israeli players.

The banned British author story has also gained a lot of traction. Nobody has thought to question why a writer that had previously lived in Bahrain for five years would think that a book of that nature would go down well locally but the coverage has been another howl of anti-Dubai sentiment. And no matter how much you suspect it all of being an elaborately managed publicity stunt to get an unpublished book 'out there', the tone of coverage and sentiment is universally negative.

I do wonder how much of the outpouring of hate is about people giving someone else a kicking to help manage their own frustrations and fears in our straightened times. All of this comment, mostly based on little direct experience of the place and more direct experience of over-simplified and jazzed up media reports, does rather seem to position Dubai as the poster child for mindless excess and crassness.

But then Tinsel Town has hardly been tasteful or modest in its promotions, has it?

Don't Panic

I tried to do the lettering above in relaxing colours, but it didn't work. You'll just have to imagine them...

The National today reports that EIDA, the Emirates Identity Authority, has told us not to panic. Which is nice!

"Calm down, don't panic, your deadline isn't until the end of 2010," Darwish al Zarouni, the director general of EIDA told the newspaper.

Gulf News (600g) meanwhile is still carrying the clear message that 430,000 expat professionals haven't registered and there are only 13 days left for the deadline to expire.

I, who hold an appointment to get my card in September (the first available at the Rashidiya ID centre when I booked) am going to go with The National on this one.

The communications aspect alone of the ID card initiative has been a fascinating case study for me. Truly fascinating...

Blogs, Media Laws and Ethics

Loveday Morris in The National touched the issue of the UAE's new draft media law and its treatment of online entities and media today. Her piece (which referenced a certain, ahem, blog) put the question of how the new law caters for the Internet and its media and platforms to Ibrahim Al Abed, director general of the UAE's National Media Council. His response, quoted by The National, was that 'internet issues may be addressed in the “executive regulations” that will accompany the new law.'

This response is increasingly being used to address questions from media that attempt to define a more granular view of a very wide-ranging law. The law itself has been two years, as Gulf News (640g) is so fond of saying, 'on the anvil'. One is left wondering if the regulations have been part of that process or are a process yet to come.

In the meantime, I've been doing a little ferretting in response to the interesting questions I've been starting to encounter regarding the roles of media in today's online world. For instance, what's a journalist and what's a blogger? How should the two behave? Should bloggers be held to the same standards as journalists? And if not, to what standards should they be held, if any?

I found the document below useful and would welcome comments on it. It was referenced by Reporters Sans Frontiers and has been produced by CyberJournalist.net, where it has generated a significant volume of comment and contribution.

Could this be a framework for the Middle East? Something to guide legislators along the same lines as the UAE Journalists' Association guidelines?

This text and the comments on it (over 300, so make a cup of tea first) can be referenced here.

A BLOGGERS' CODE OF ETHICS

Be Honest and Fair
Bloggers should be honest and fair in gathering, reporting and interpreting information.
Bloggers should:
• Never plagiarize.
• Identify and link to sources whenever feasible. The public is entitled to as much information as possible on sources' reliability.
• Make certain that Weblog entries, quotations, headlines, photos and all other content do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context.
• Never distort the content of photos without disclosing what has been changed. Image enhancement is only acceptable for for technical clarity. Label montages and photo illustrations.
• Never publish information they know is inaccurate -- and if publishing questionable information, make it clear it's in doubt.
• Distinguish between advocacy, commentary and factual information. Even advocacy writing and commentary should not misrepresent fact or context.
• Distinguish factual information and commentary from advertising and shun hybrids that blur the lines between the two.

Minimize Harm
Ethical bloggers treat sources and subjects as human beings deserving of respect.
Bloggers should:
• Show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by Weblog content. Use special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects.
• Be sensitive when seeking or using interviews or photographs of those affected by tragedy or grief.
• Recognize that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort. Pursuit of information is not a license for arrogance.
• Recognize that private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than do public officials and others who seek power, influence or attention. Only an overriding public need can justify intrusion into anyone's privacy.
• Show good taste. Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity.
Be cautious about identifying juvenile suspects, victims of sex crimes and criminal suspects before the formal filing of charges.

Be Accountable
Bloggers should:
• Admit mistakes and correct them promptly.
• Explain each Weblog's mission and invite dialogue with the public over its content and the bloggers' conduct.
• Disclose conflicts of interest, affiliations, activities and personal agendas.
• Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence content. When exceptions are made, disclose them fully to readers.
• Be wary of sources offering information for favors. When accepting such information, disclose the favors.
• Expose unethical practices of other bloggers.
• Abide by the same high standards to which they hold others.

(All of which covers blogs, but not Twitter or Facebook or YouTube or MySpace or or or...)

Last Post

The Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has, as many of you know, taken the decision to block the sand between the Western areas of Sharjah and Dubai. I have covered this pretty extensively and am aware I'm in danger of boring you. But indulge me one last time.

I suspect this is, finally, the last post about the snicket. The RTA has now taken to stationing a number of four wheel drives (I think three) along the border, calling down a JCB by radio to plug any new gap being driven in the extensive Hadrianesque earthwork and concrete block barrier that they have put up to divide the open sand stretch between the two Emirates. It's too much even for the little band of lunatics willing to negotiate the remaining, amazingly dangerous, crossing over a high dune.

I banged through a gap in the fortifications today, beeping merrily and waving at the frustrated-looking bunch from the RTA calling up their yellow monstrosity. I suspect for the last time.

It's nice they've got so much resource to devote to stopping a few intrepid 4WDs from making the crossing (which is, incidentally, impassable to 2WD traffic and actually requires a modicum of desert driving skill to negotiate) between the two Emirates.

The shortcut did not cause high levels of traffic on the roads Dubai-side, and at no time resulted in any jams or traffic congestion. It did not cause any serious traffic incidents to my knowledge or contribute to a rise in accidents or fatalities. It didn't promote speeding, bad behaviour or reckless driving.

No journalist has picked up the 'phone to the RTA and asked them why they have built a wall between the two Emirates. And so we will likely never know.

Over and out.

PS: anyone who wants the backstory can just use the search box and look for 'snicket'.

Snarky

The ability to be cynical, negative and rude is one of the strongest assets of a good public relations practitioner.

If you have someone inside the tent who’s able to take a look at what you’re up to and see the downside, to ask the hard questions that media and the public will ask, then you’ve got an opportunity to factor that likely feedback into your plans. You then have the opportunity to change the plan, if that is what is required, or to prepare a well-thought out and clear response to the question that presents your point of view clearly and cogently. That includes looking at the searching, negative questions you’d rather not have to face, let alone answer.

We call the collection of those responses a ‘rude Q&A’: it's a document that summarises the worst things you can expect to have thrown at you, that asks the difficult or dangerous questions and that proposes a response to those questions. It means that your team is better prepared – they have had the chance to consider the factors involved and they all have access to a formal, unified response to the most challenging of questions.

A rude Q&A can make the difference between taking and managing the most probing query in your stride or standing around looking like a slightly surprised goldfish while you try and think up some off-the-cuff response to that bolt from the blue. It also avoids the awful situation where more than one spokesperson is in that situation and they both give completely different responses in their panic. Both responses may be perfectly valid, but it still ends up looking like the proverbial left and right hand disconnect.

Putting together a rude Q&A means being realistic about the other point of view, looking at the issue with fresh eyes and challenging it. It means having a downer on your good work, being cynical and snarky about your virtues and focusing on what’s bad about you. It means having the impertinence to ask the most inappropriate and searching questions of yourself. But it’s important that you do - before someone outside the tent does it.

This piece originally appeared as one of the chucklesomely named 'A Moment with McNabb' columns in Campaign Middle East magazine.

Twits

This Thursday will see the global Twestival event taking place in Dubai. Over 175 countries all over the world are having simultaneous events to celebrate the fine art of Twittering. All you have to do is be a user of the micro-blogging social networking phenomenon and this year’s biggest new thing since Marmite rice crackers.

Why bother?

Well, I can see there’s a downside to getting stuck at the upper deck of Dubai’s Barasti Bar on a Thursday evening with upwards of a 140 early adopters, geeks, nerds, social networking gurus (they’ll be the ones in towels) and neologists. But there’s an upside, too.

Twitter’s damn useful. It started as a social application which aimed to give you a 140 character space to answer the question ‘What are you doing right now?’ But Twitter has evolved at a remarkable pace. The underlying technology hasn’t changed so much as they way people have used it. Rather like SMS, Twitter has taken on a life of its own.

The Dubai Twestival venue was itself sourced and booked using Twitter, which can move information at remarkable speeds. In fact, Le Meridien Mina Seyahi (@minaseyahi) became a sponsor of the event - again, through Twitter. And so did Virgin Megastores (@virginmegame)!

Crowd-sourcing (Anyone know where I can get tickets to the Dubai Twestival?), customer service (I hate HSBC! "Hi. This is HSBC. What’s the problem?" - OK, so that example's a pipe dream, but you get what I mean. Companies like Comcast are using it effectively), marketing ("Try this out, it’s cool") and sharing ideas, information, updates, tips and links you’ve come across are all just a sample of the many ways that people are finding Twitter is a useful and cool tool.

For what it’s worth, people, my Twitter feeds into my Facebook page and to the blog (the feed’s there, to the right hand side) and generates a very different set of responses from each of the platforms it goes to. By using TweetBurner, a natty little application that shortens URLs, I can Twurl any site I come across on the web, sharing that information with the people ‘following’ me on Twitter, my Facebook friends and even you, the rather wonderful readers of this daft wee blog.

You can respond to a ‘Tweet’ on Twitter, send and receive direct messages and ‘re-tweet’ stuff you like and want to pass on to your fellow Twitterers. By tweeting and re-tweeting, information can flow at remarkable speed and to remarkable numbers of people. Just take the recent Mumbai bombings or the Israeli incursion into Gaza, where debate and information were flowing at a blistering pace.

And then start adding in other applications for Twitter. Take a look at Blip.fm (again, there’s a ‘Blip widget’ to the right side of the blog if you scroll down), which lets you select music you like and create a playlist. Each track you pick gives you a chance to comment and that comment’s shared with anyone getting your tweets as well as people following you on Blip. It’s a great way of playing with music, sharing and discovering new stuff. There are a whole range of interesting/useful/crazy Twitter tools out there, too.

If you want to find out more, a great place to start is by registering for Twitter, which takes little more than going to www.twitter.com and clicking on ‘Join the conversation’. You could follow up by registering for Twestival here - if you want to do that, I suggest you extractez le digit, because it's nigh on full as I post this.

If you get to the Twestival and want to meet up, I'll be easy to find. I’ll be the one not wearing bottle-bottom glasses and a funny ‘arm hammering my head’ hat...

PS: And now, for your listening pleasure, that Catboy and Geordiebird interview. Don't blame me if you go ahead and click here!!!

Fear?

Following on from the recent Gulf News interview with Ibrahim Al Abed, the head of the National Media Council, Khaleej Times has now siezed its chance.

That interview is linked here. It contains a few gems. I particularly like:

KT: What should the journalist worry about in the new draft?
NMC DG: Nothing. I am serious. Nothing. But, I do not consider a journalist to be a journalist if he spreads out a rumour. I do not consider a journalist to be a journalist if he wants to attack the President in an insulting way. And, I do not think that a journalist can be a journalist if he doesn't take into consideration the general culture of the country.

KT: Do you think journalists here self-censor?

NMC DG: Yes. I do not know... We have nothing to do.

KT: There seems to be some kind of a fear. What is the fear?

NMC DG: I do not think there is a basis for this fear. For me, any journalist has his own code of ethics. He should have. This is some kind of self-censorship. I look at it from this way. If you look at the code of ethics that was issued by the journalists, by the editors of the newspapers, we have many restrictions within the code of ethics itself. This is exactly the self-censorship.

Advertisement

Gulf News (640g) is more than worth your Dhs3 today, recessionary pressures notwithstanding.

It will repay your investment not because it contains much newsy stuff printed on dead trees, and certainly not for its coverage of the UAE Journalists' Association conference, but because of the advertisement on page 36. This alone justifies the expenditure, this alone makes today's GN a collector's item.

I commend it to you most highly.

Update. For those readers unable or unwilling (Nick) to purchase Gulf News, I have now uploaded a scan. GN's subscription department will never forgive me... You'll have to click on it to read it, of course...

The End is Nigh

Friends.

It is with a sad heart that I address you tonight. As you well know, a small band of valiant warriors has fought an implacable enemy for many months now, an enemy with resources and power beyond our wildest dreams; resources that it is willing to throw against us in an effort to crush us out of existence. If they succeed, they will deny us the very liberty of the sands that has so long been ours to enjoy.

This unjust war has been fought with honour by our people. It is not a war we asked for, but it is a war we prosecuted with dignity and valour.

The media has studiously ignored our plight. Not one pen has been lifted in our defence or to question the motives of this enemy, invisible for so many months but now clear for all to see. They have been allowed to continue in their course, to extinguish our hopes and dreams, while the world's press stand by and shamefully pretend that nothing is happening.

They brought earth movers to shake our resolve, but we were faster, more nimble and smarter than they. They built walls to bar us from the land, tore a slash of concrete barrier across this desert country so that it was divided by an impenetrable, dark, grey wall.

But we crossed their lines time and time again, confounding their nameless purpose. We carried the torch of freedom and liberty and we prevailed.

Friends, we prevail no more. Tonight only one crossing was left open and only a pitiful handful of defenders remained. Lorries dropped lines of concrete blocks, earth movers have been toiling since the early morning to push high piles of sand against those blocks and to carve new, impassable barriers out of the very land. The very weight of the resources our enemy is prepared to expend against us bears us down so that the burden is one we can barely carry.

I fear it is nearly over. I fear I have to tell you that hope almost escapes us entirely.

But we shall fight, my fellow countrymen. We shall fight. To the absolute end, to the finish. To the last man and the last four wheel drive, we shall fight the brutal invaders of our happy shortcut.

The war of the snicket is not, will not, be over.

We shall fight to the bitter end.