FOREIGN FUN

Women Speak Out In, Of All Places, The Middle East

Just when you thought women in the Middle East would never come out from under their burkahs, out they pop, thanks to the freedom of anonymity the Internet confers.

Expectedly, the emerging activity has attracted the attention of governments and fundamentally repressive male bloggers, and they have begun to police the Internet for women who are behaving in ways they, in their infallible judgment, consider inappropriate according to the Koran’s extensive teachings on the proper uses of the Internet.

A female blogger, who protects her identity with the nom de ‘Net, Saudi Eve, regularly writes of her love life and religion clicked on to discover that her blog was blocked. "I'm temporarily back in Saudi,” she stated, “only to find that 'Saudi Eve’ is officially blocked in Saudi."

Thankfully, many bloggers urged the Kingdom's official Internet police force to unblock the site. Mishaal Al-Kadhi, the head the unit, says, "The blacklist we use is a combination of an international commercial blacklist and a local blacklist. Ninety-five percent of blocked sites are pornographic. But we do make mistakes sometimes and urge people to e-mail us with their unblock requests."

Saudi Eve, however, maintains that she was blocked just for being female and daring to express herself about her love life and God in a post. "In my opinion, my blog was singled out and blocked because I – a Saudi female – wrote about romantic escapades in Arabic, plus I committed the 'ultimate sin' by mentioning the name of God in those posts. To a Saudi male, romance is only allowed if written in English or by a male. It definitely isn't tolerated if it's written by a Saudi female, let alone in Arabic."

A different female blogger, using the name Aziz, commented, "First, they say that a blog cannot disrespect Islam in any way in order for it to be included… Second, they say that they don't accept blogs that are personal diaries, which is ridiculous, as most blogs are just that."

Another woman blogger, operating under the name classic-diva, was stopped from using the Internet at home when her conservative brothers began to suspect why she was online so much. She was forced to sneak out and get log on at the home of friends or at Starbucks. "We have this clash going on between us liberals and the conservatives in the blogosphere,” she said.

Saudi Eve hasn’t decided whether she’ll request that her site be unblocked or create a new blog. "I haven't decided yet whether to react to this block or just to ignore it. There are readers in the rest of the world, you know!"

It will be quite a change when all the lonesome-George men in the Middle East who we see appearing in one group or another realize that the only way they can enjoy the partnership of women is to grant them equality.

The way women have begun to assert themselves means these stern men may quickly find themselves in the indelicate position of having female equality thrust upon them.

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