Language and Orientation

Language is destiny. Speaking a language opens doors, and not speaking a language shuts them. A language carries with it more than a code for conveying information, but a sensibility and an idiom. Language shapes and restricts.

Enough with the philosophizing, which was provoked by an interesting post by Saudi Jeans about Middle Eastern bloggers and their blogging language of choice. The first wave of Arab blogging began in English about two years, but once some technical hurdles were surmounted a wave of Arabic blogging soon followed. How has it all evolved?:

...As a reader, and a blogger, I have noticed that English-writing Arab bloggers are living in their own world, and the Arabic-writing Arab bloggers are living in another world. Now to make things easier, let's call the first group A, and the second group B.

The great divide can be shown clearly by the variation of the qualities in every group. For example, most members of group A are liberals who look to West with admire, and tend to criticize the situation in their countries harshly. They have little or no HTML knowledge, and they like to start blogging using a free service such as Blogger.

In the other hand, most members of group B are expert programmers who look to West in suspicious, and write their blogs with Islamic sense. Of course, there are some exceptions in both sides, but I can't study every individual case in this article.

Such differences, and therefore such divide, is not a big a problem by itself, as long as A and B are communicating with each other properly. The big problem is coming next. From my observations, I have noticed that A and B are living in two separate worlds...

Blogs have provided a groundbreaking new platform where Middle Easterns can express themselves and share their thoughts with the world, in an instant reaching millions of people around the world. Blogs are windows into previously-remote worlds, both physical and psychological. They can play - and are already playing - a key role in the emergence of a civil rights movement in the region.

Saudi Jeans rightly worries about the language divide in the Middle Eastern blogsphere. The more the divide can be bridged, the stronger role blogs can play in helping all Middle Easterners achieve guaranteed civil rights. In the meantime, we have to wonder what we are missing - and how much language is destiny for Middle East reform.