We’re all familiar with the brinksmanship between the Peoples Republic of China and Google, on that jockeyed back and forth until a slight alteration in Google’s operating procedures – stopping the practice of bouncing inquiries out of the censorship mode in China to its uncensored site in Hong Kong – brought a semblance of peace and harmony to the world… OK, the commercial cyber world. But there are other little skirmishes and policy shifts that might have gone unnoticed by many readers out there.
The Middle East is not new to telecommunications technology battles. In the mid-1950s, the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO, since nationalized by Saudi Arabia) – a Saudi-based company representing a consortium of Western oil companies – attempted to introduce television to this ultra-conservative nation of fundamentalist Wahabi Sunni Islam, where the depiction of a human face was considered sacrilegious. The problem was solved as skeptical members of the Saudi Royal Family and a gathering of religious leaders watched a demonstration of what was possible: an on-camera Islamic prelate reading from the Qur’an.
On September 16, 1957, Dhahran TV (Channel 3), broadcasting in English to its Western viewers, was born: “Many expats that grew up in Dhahran in the 1980s and 1990s will recall some quaint memories of the channel, e.g., the onscreen calligraphy that appeared to announce the prayer times, or the fact that ‘Children's Shows’ were at least a couple years old and could not show any kissing between men and women. Most Dhahran residents used their television set to watch VHS tapes or play video games.” Wikipedia. Soon after being founded, Channel 3 added telecasts in Arabic, and thereafter television spread into mainstream Saudi Arabian society. The battle between conservative religious practices coupled with severe political restraint cleared created a path of continued conflict with emerging technology along the way, a struggle that most definitely plays on even today.
One big battle looming on the horizon is the very real threat from the United Arab Emirates – a seeming bastion of modernity in an otherwise ultra-conservative region of Islamic rigidity. We can either picture ultra-modern, mega-skyscrapers, man-made islands with various palm-shapes, the super-sophisticated financial system that seems to support the oil economy, shopping malls that make their American counterparts seem old and outdated, shiny new branches of American universities (even the Ivy League with Cornell)… or we can visualize debtors prisons, near bankruptcy of one of the Emirates (Dubai) and an uncomfortable feeling at all those Westerners brought in to supervise the financial system and the construction projects that sit on the edge of what’s possible.
Well, we can add one more sign of governmental discomfort with practices we just take for granted. Research in Motion’s BlackBerry (RIM) mobile phone handles emails with a “push” system that literally gathers your email, messaging and browsing activities in one or more central processing centers where secure servers “push” these communications in a format that allows your phone to receive the encoded messages. It is one of the most important features of the BlackBerry system – often central to business customers who want to be connected to home base without interruption during their travels – and the images of business men and women hunched over their device neurotically responding to the flashing new-message red light has added the word “Crack-Berry” to describe those who seem to be unable to wait to respond.
But it is indeed this “push” system that has the UAE up in arms. Since the processing centers are located overseas, the government is deprived of the ability to censor these devices as they access religiously or politically incorrect sites that the government can otherwise block when traffic is simply routed over the Internet, as it the case with most other mobile phone systems. “The UAE contends some BlackBerry features operate outside the country's laws, ‘causing judicial, social and national security concerns… The smart phones enjoy a following not only among the region's professionals, but also among tech-savvy youth who see their relatively secure communication channels as a way to avoid unwanted government attention.’” Washington Post (August 2nd). A ban on BlackBerry’s “push” technology, slated to take effect on October 11th, is causing much consternation. After all, BlackBerry is marketed as the mobile phone for business.
Since the UAE has often bent over backwards in selling their modernity and fighting to attract Western businesses to based their Middle Eastern operations in one of the member states, the proposed ban – which at present will apply to foreign travelers as well – flies in the face of this long-term marketing effort. Will the ban apply or will an accommodation be reached? Only time will tell. And Saudi Arabia has just raised the stakes a giant notch, but RIM isn’t budging: "A top executive of Research In Motion, the Canadian company that makes BlackBerry smartphones, said on [August 3rd] that his company would not give in to pressure from foreign governments to provide access to its customers’ messages.... That pressure increased on [August 3rd] as Saudi Arabia ordered local cellphone providers to halt BlackBerry service because it did not meet the country’s regulatory requirements." New York Times (August 3rd). Well then! The conflict between the open and fluid communications inherent in cross-border electronic signals – where electrons are devoid of national fealty – will be one of the most constant themes of the 21st century. F.B.I.? You listening?
I’m Peter Dekom, and these flashpoints of conflict between modern technology and old world fears and values are a source of constant fascination.
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