New Rules for a Decent Dubai?

Image via Wikipedia

Saturday's edition of the Dubai-owned Arabic language daily Emarat Al Youm carried on its front page a piece of news that, strangely, other newspapers didn't rush to file - although The National and Kipp have it today and AFP filed on it. I can't find it in 7Days, GN or KT. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough.

Below is an informal translation of the key elements of that article. Any errors in translation are regretted and will be corrected as soon as advised.

According to Emarat Al Youm, a new set of decency guidelines has been promulgated by the Dubai Executive Council and, according to the paper, these have been shared with government and private sector organisations.

• People are requested to respect the history, culture and traditions of the United Arab Emirates and to avoid improper behaviour in Dubai.
• Residents are asked to show respect to the authorities, flag and national emblems of the UAE, including its rulers. Insulting these is considered a punishable crime.
• Appropriate, modest, dress should be worn in public - particularly in government offices and public areas. Trousers and skirts should be of proper length and not reveal the body improperly. This includes not wearing 'bad' logos or photographs on t-shirts etc that could be seen as offensive to any element of society.
• Beachware should be appropriate and worn at the beach only. Nudity is absolutely prohibited and is punishable by law.
  
• Public displays of affection should be appropriate. Only a husband and wife can hold hands in public. No kissing or other displays of affection such as hugging in public are permitted. Sexual harassment and the making of sexual overtures to women are not permitted.
• The taking of drugs and alcohol are prohibited in Islam. Because of the diversity of society in Dubai, the taking of alcohol is permitted. However, anyone caught under the influence of alcohol outside of places where the sale and consumption of alcohol is permitted are subject to fines or imprisonment. Medicines that contain drugs not allowed legally in the UAE should not be taken.
• Drink driving will not be tolerated.
• Drivers are obligated to wear seatbelts, ensure children sit on the back seat, not use mobile phones when driving, give way to civil defence personnel, not slow to watch accidents and park only in designated areas.
• Smoking is not permitted in government offices or shopping malls by law.
• People are asked to refrain from playing loud music in public places such as parks, beaches and residential areas. Dancing and music are permitted in licensed venues.
• Music should not be played in public places or cars near mosques, particularly during the Azan (call to prayer). Smoking, eating and drinking in public are not permitted during Ramadan.
• The holding of any religious activity in public, whether Islamic or otherwise, should only take place with appropriate permissions.
• Recognising people's need to co-exist in peace, giving offense with insulting and aggressive gestures are subject to punishment by fine and jail. The guidelines ask for priority to be given to the elderly, pregnant women and people with special needs. People are also asked to avoid loud conversations, laughter or whistling in public.
• The guidelines do specify that spreading malicious rumours that can harm the public good will be punishable by law.
• People should take care in taking photographs and taking photographs of families and women in Dubai is not pemitted.

The above guidelines, in my personal view, are a welcome clarification, for visitors and residents alike, of what is and is not appropriate behaviour in the UAE. Ever since I first came to this country in the 1980s, I have been aware of the above, as have many people who have lived here for some time.

This is nothing new, people. It has always been this way in the UAE. All of it, including the holding hands thing.

It's good that now, better late than never, it's down in black and white and people can be quite sure of where they stand. But let us be very clear this is a restatement of what has always been the case here. It's not a 'new crackdown' or a new 'tightening' or any other such tosh. It's the way things are and always have been here. Just because people have got into the habit of disrespecting those norms does not mean that reaffirming them is any form of restriction or clampdown.

And if you don't like it, yes, you do know what to do!!! :)

Iraqi Shoe Thrower Sentenced

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Iraqi journalist Muntadhar Al Zeidi has been sentenced to three years in prison for throwing his shoes at former US President George W. Bush ('Thickie' to his friends), reports Associated Press.

Al Zeidi pled innocent: "What I did was a natural response to the occupation," he said.

He could have been sentenced to up to 15 years, so some have talked of leniency. Others point out that many of us would pay good money to a) have done it ourselves b) see it done again or c) have a range of other objects thrown at Thickie.

Anyway, Spot On PR is hosting a poll on the affair and so you can goto this link here and vote on whether you think the sentence is barking or not.

Have a lovely weekend!

International Anti-Cybercensorship Day

12 mars - Journée mondiale contre la cybercensure
Uploaded by rsf_internet

Today, the 12th March, is International Anti-Cybercensorship day.

Dubai Sharjah Block Offical

The RTA has finally officially owned up to blocking the rush hour short cut through the desert between Sharjah and Dubai in today's Emarat Al Youm, which carries a story on the blocks.

Many of you will by now know this as 'the snicket' having read about it here. Oh! And here and here and here, too! Let alone here, here or here! In fact, I realise that I've been writing about the snicket since here back in May 2007!

Well, now they've apparently told Emarat Al Youm that they've blocked the desert because of the large volume of traffic that used the snicket. I must have missed those large volumes clogging up the roads because I never once saw the snicket causing a jam or any other disruption to the traffic until they started blocking it - apart from some tailbacks caused by some ill-considered temporary speedbumps that had been placed before the roadworks on the Dubai side which are now, in any case, complete.

According to the official quoted by EAY, they've done it for our own safety.

That's interesting, because the only explanation I had heard for the move before was some flibble about buried electrical cables.

I didn't see a single accident on the snicket until I started seeing cars that had smashed into the concrete blocks they had put just over the other side of sandy hillocks or that had torn off bumpers or caused other damage trying to get through the blocks.

But it's nice to know we're safer now, anyway...

UAE Government Appoints Spokespeople

Image via Wikipedia

According to a front page story in The National today, the Federal government has moved to introduce a system whereby Federal government Ministries can have official spokespeople empowered to talk on the record to media on behalf of each Ministry and its officials.

The move received what appeared to be a cautious welcome from the UAE Journalists' Association. The new spokespeople would be "The only sources of information according to their roles and responsibilities", The National quotes Najla Al Awar, Secretary General of the Cabinet. However, she goes on to tell the paper, "Information collected through others at the governmental bodies shall not be considered as valid and authorised information."

So while the move would facilitate journalists' access to a responsible spokesperson, it would also appear to limit media to reporting only facts confirmed or released by that responsible spokesperson.

You tell me which is better...

Spam

no spam! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Fat Expat got hit by a content spammer today. Content spam is a constant annoyance for blog owners: if you choose not to use comment certification (all that entering 'buisfnark' from the picture before your comment is accepted), you have to tidy up after the jerks every now and then. It's an annoyance - particularly as they dump rubbish like commercials for property on recipes for fillet steak in red wine sauce.

To my delight, today's comment spammer was dork enough to have registered the website in his own daft name. A quick WHOIS database lookup tells us that his property website is registered to:

Florin Campulungeanu (gagiu@eim.ae)
971504785426
Fax:
Al Barsha
Dubai, 29948
AE

So, having his mobile number I called him up and let him know what I think of him, his website and his content spam. He claimed it wasn't his site. I pointed out that he was the administrator and the registrant and therefore liable for anything that happened in his name on that site. He said he'd just done a favour for a friend. I told him he was either remarkably naive or lying, but that I tended to drop down the slope towards the latter.

And then I posted a complaint with his contacts on The Fat Expat, the UAE Community Blog and this blog. I also put in a block request to Etisalat, which was pure badness on my part, but let's see what happens. The Etisalat complaint reference is 3712281.

I do hate spammers. But there's only one thing worse than a spammer - a dumb spammer. And you have to be pretty dumb to qualify!

Do, if you agree with me on the subject of spam, feel free to give Florin a call. His mobile's probably off by now, but you can always send him an email...

(Oh! Sorry to have put your full email address on this! gagiu@eim.ae wasn't it? Have fun, bots...)

YouTube Ban in UAE 'on Anvil'?

Dubai's Chief of Police has called for YouTube to be banned in the UAE.

The news, broken yesterday by Arabic language daily Emarat Al Youm, is carried on the front page of today's Khaleej Times.

We would be following the exalted example of two of the world's most successful states, Pakistan and Bangladesh if we went for a ban. As KT reports, Bangladesh blocked YouTube last Sunday, Pakistan in February last year.

Lt Gen. Dhahi Khalfan Tamim was talking to the general assembly of the Juveniles Education and Care Association when he apparently said that YouTube contained content that 'sparked dissension'. He is reported as saying to Emarat Al Youm that 'publishing pornography and defamation is not freedom.'

Blocking YouTube will further deny Emirati, and other, youth here of the opportunity to embrace a range of technologies and changes in social behaviour that are revolutionising the world around us.

That we are even contemplating blocking sites that contain content we don't like is a deep concern - the trick is engaging in a conversation, taking part in the interplay of ideas and opinion that is driving the Internet - and the flow of public opinion around the world today.

The Kipp Report filed a piece yesterday about Dubai briefing top London PR agencies to try and find out why international media coverage was quite so excoriating - and about what to do to try and combat the outbreak of bad news and negative opinion. (It quotes a certain mouthy PR, sorry about that)

Reports like this are unlikely to to help - wait until this one gets out and online.

No matter how many 'feel good' spin doctors you consult, no matter how many yummy stories they put out, this has gone beyond conventional media. The debate, the coverage, the opinion that's driving the negative sentiment isn't on dead trees - it's in electrons. It's online communities and commentators that are spreading the word, sharing the links, adding to the debate and driving the howls of 'Die Dubai'!

That's the choice ahead of Dubai and the UAE - be part of the conversation online - embrace it, open it up, encourage it and educate your people so that they can join in with it. Or be a disempowered, dumb whipping boy.

I can hear the crack of leather already.

Books and Social Media

Some of you will know Dan Holloway, responsible for one of my favourite books on authonomy, Songs From The Other Side Of The Wall.

Dan's something of an intellect and given to visions of revolution. A talented, intellectual revolutionary is something of a rarity these days, I think you'd probably agree. Like many of us, confronted with the banal realities of modern publishing, Dan's been exploring alternatives and some of them may well start to define what we have been discussing (particularly over here at Lauri Shaw's blog) - the future of publishing.

Where Dan's particularly interesting is how he's experimenting with mulitiple media platforms - the book as a multi-threaded, collaborative experience rather than as a static, engraved achievement.

While Lauri has been making her most excellent book, Servicing The Pole, available for download a chapter at a time. Dan's gone further in that he is not only giving away his newest book, The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes, away on Facebook a chapter at a time, but is also allowing readers to contribute to the development of the plot. The novel itself dissects the real and unreal stories behind the creation of an iconic image.

So let's do some Dan-speak:

So, why? Literary anarchy or marketing gimmick?
In all honesty both. I have just finished editing my previous book, Songs from the Other Side of the Wall, which I expect to self-publish this summer. I spent a lot of time talking to people about how to market it, and the whole loss leader thing came up. On the other hand, the potential of the internet for bending fiction out of shape fascinates me. The web’s full of people trying to publish their novels in a new medium. There’s not many people trying to do something new. I’ve always loved the interplay between artist and audience you get in installation art – Sam Taylor Wood going to sleep in a glass box; Gilbert and George – well, being Gilbert and George. For me culture of any form is a process, it’s an interplay. The novel’s lost that. The internet gives us a chance to get it back – that immediacy and connection.

Have you found the process different from writing your previous books?
I’ve had two real revelations. The first is the way the novel itself relates to the virtual world I’ve built around it. Part of the site is devoted to news reports, snippets of biography, little teasers – these form a world in which the novel takes place. What that means is there’s a whole load of back story I just don’t need to put into the novel – it’s much leaner because so much is already known – or can be referenced elsewhere in the site. I can get on with the story – it’s funny. I’ve talked a lot in the past about how I hate the western novel’s slavery to story. I thought this would break that barrier. It’s actually ended up taking story to its tight logical conclusion. The second point is the way the two parts of the novel relate. There’s a lot of social commentary, political satire, stuff about art and celebrity. But there’s also a personal story – a man whose daughter went missing ten years ago. He’s on a journey both to find the real story behind this iconic image of a dead woman but to find his missing daughter, and to understand why some people are remembered forever while others are forgotten. Because the rest of the site has set the political tone, I don’t have to balance the two parts as I write – I can spend the early chapters drawing us right into the personal story that will keep the reader with me – and I don’t have to worry readers will think I’ve lost sight of the other angle.

So how far does the interactivity go?
Well there’s commentary – like you get on a DVD, podcasts, real time editing so people can see me changing my mind. Then there’s events – this is about an image – so I’m holding a contest to design the image – people can enter online or by flashmob – hand me their entry at the café in Waterstone’s Piccadilly 11am on April 21st.

It seems like you’ve approached this in a very calculated way. Is your heart really in the book itself?
At first I told myself it was but I may have been kidding myself. This started as an experiment. But because I’ve gone straight to the emotional heart, it’s actually become the most personal thing I’ve ever written. It feels like I’m baring my soul every day. I just love some of the characters. And they all go to some very dark places. And all of it without a break, with the constant pressure of a deadline, and only an hour a day actually to write in. It feels like I’m putting myself through a very public wringer.

Isn’t the whole thing a bit, well, mad?
Well, I don’t believe in clinical. I don’t get people who bury themselves in their study and won’t show anyone what they’ve done. If your art isn’t a two way thing it’s not art. It might be therapy, but it’s not art. Art makes you vulnerable, puts you on the line. It’s raw. Or it’s dead. Er... Like a shark in formaldehyde :)

So how do we keep up with the project?
You can go to the group The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes on Facebook. I’m also Twittering all my updates there – you can follow the agnieszkasshoes Twitter. And if you get lost just steer from my website.

What next?
A break? In a month or so one of my writing groups, The Bookshed, is bringing out an anthology, Short Fuses – an incredible collection of cutting edge shorts. This autumn sees the release of the first set of books from Year Zero Publishing, a hugely exciting, edgy collective of writers I’m part of – and which you, Mr McNabb, are also playing with.

I’m expecting Songs from the Other Side of the wall to be one of the first Year Zero issues. Next year’s book will either be a body-swap I’ve been working on (a Chinese girl who’s an only child and a Polish boy who’s an identical twin), or a book I’ve always wanted to right about an affair between a 50 year old woman and her 18 year-old student. Either way I’ll always keep up the book a year. If you can’t wait for any of that, you can read one of my shorts, Coastlines, about a Spanish civil servant’s affair with a Chinese businesswoman, in the anthology “Great Short Stories from Youwriteon.com Writers”, which is available from Amazon.

Lightweight

Image via Wikipedia

Look, I'm really sorry. Gulf News has been a constant companion to me for the past fifteen years and I regard this most hallowed of newspapers with great affection. The recent spate of GN-unfriendly blog posts is purely coincidence and certainly doesn't signal an outbreak of anti-GN sentiment.

But I picked up today's issue and it felt so light that I had to go back to my newspaper weighing habits. It weighed in at 470g, a new low for the newspaper that tipped the scales at a whopping 1.3 kilos last November, pre-crunch.

I stopped weighing it last week after it had settled down to a steady 670g on most days.

Drub That Sub!

Gulf News' sub-editors are having a bad week. After yesterday's awful front page headline, today they've managed a nice, 48 point bold literal.

Dr. Shaikh Sultan Al Qassimi Sultan gets Hamdam award for academic excellence

No he doesn't. He gets Hamdan award, named for HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

It's online, too. Here.

Oddly enough, I sympathise. I once caused the word Midddle East to be typeset in 96 point text across a double page spread in a book I published in a former life. It took a year before anyone noticed.

I have always blamed a variant on Douglas Adams' SEP Field. The SEP or Somebody Else's Problem Field is an invisibility cloak that uses incongruity, for instance a spaceship that looks like an Italian bistro. The disconnect is so overwhelming that it causes brain skitter and is ignored as somebody else's problem, so rendering the cloaked object invisible.

The same is true of literals. Especially in headlines.

(Wow. I'm not going to be GN's 'weekly blog pick' this week, am I?)