An excellent article on Your Middle East by Mohamed Hemish: http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/opinion/friedmans-the-other-arab-awakening-explained_19933
On Sunday, the controversial Thomas Friedman published a new article on the Gulf states sure to fire up a new twitterstorm of angry responses. In it, he claims these countries are “evolving” to their citizens’ needs, using such platforms as twitter and Facebook to promote dialogue between governments and the people. (I guess he doesn’t know that the majority of Saudi social media users are pro-government, and that some countries are even seeking to force users to reveal real-life identities so they can be prosecuted for any negative comments.)
Hemish delves into the most significant counterexample to Friedman’s argument, showing how many crackdowns there are on those who speak their mind, and how little government officials are listening to local voices:
The famous columnist does not seem to be aware of the extent of the crackdown on any dissent by the states’ ruthless authoritarian governments. He does not seem to be aware of the countless reports issued by human rights groups over the years condemning the systematic violations of human rights, freedom of speech, unlawful arrests and disappearances and the attempts to control social media and the Internet.
Hemish focuses on the UAE and Saudi Arabia, but there are many other prominent cases in Kuwait and Oman — I won’t even get into Bahrain — that illustrate these points.
(I also wonder, if the officials Friedman glorifies are so responsive, what happened to #women2drive or #الراتب_ما_يكفي_الحاجة or …)
This is of course not to say that there is no reform, but reality is hardly the rosy picture Friedman paints either:
How about the fact that just recently a blogger was sentenced to 7 years in prison and 700 lashes for charges of “insulting Islam.” The man, however, was blogging on his website about religious reform and dialogue. The man had been in jail since June 2012 before he was convicted a year later.
The Saudi government also announced on December 2 that it wouldstart monitoring YouTube along with other websites in order to “contain” content and reduce “violations.” The chairman of the Saudi Audiovisual General Authority, Riyad Najem, said that individuals who wish to engage in those websites would have to obtain permissions that include the regulations and terms for using them in the Kingdom.
MENA and Beyond 