Washington Post Profiles Saudi Bloggers

So Time Magazine has declared the self-publishers and self-producers of the world "People of the Year." In a way it's a recognition that anyone can freely generate content and share it with the world to get recognition. A recent Washington Post story offered some insight into how this phenomenon is playing out in Saudi Arabia:

When he was a college student in Washington state, Saudi Arabia's most popular blogger, Fouad al-Farhan, donned a T-shirt emblazoned with "Animal Rights Equals Human Rights" and slept on the campus lawn during a hunger strike protesting the slaughter of foxes.

That type of freedom during six years in the United States gave Farhan a taste for expressing himself that he was unable to satisfy when he returned to Saudi Arabia in 2001.

"You can't write whatever you want in the newspaper here; you can't even lift up a poster in protest," said Farhan, 31, a computer programmer who attended Eastern Washington University in Spokane. "On the blog, it's a different world. It was the only way to express myself the way I wanted."

The article chronicles the charter meeting of "The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Bloggers" and its attempt to produce a manifesto for the now 2,000+ Saudi bloggers. The article also claims that half of all Saudi bloggers are female, and describes an encouter with Mystique (who now hints on her blog that the meeting has forced her to stop blogging):

When the woman who blogs anonymously under the name Mystique finally shows up for an appointment at Starbucks on trendy Tahlia Street, she seems used to causing a stir. Heads turn when the 23-year-old walks into the coffee shop minus the mandatory head scarf worn by most Saudi women, her caramel-colored hair cascading past her shoulders. She is wearing a black cloak with a shiny copper-colored print on the sleeve, a black Prada purse slung over her shoulder.

She orders a Frappuccino, then sits down to talk. "I've been in touch with my sexuality ever since I was 13," she said. "Why shouldn't I write erotic fiction? It's one way of expressing myself..."

"Sometimes I push. I want to show that women are oppressed," she said. The situation "is not normal. I would like people to see that."

And then the closing line that sums up the hope and worry about the future:

Omran, 23, like many young bloggers, said he hoped that blogging would speed up the country's glacial pace of reform. Sometimes he is afraid, not knowing whether he had crossed a line, but he continues to blog, eager for change, democracy and more personal freedoms, he said.

"I want our society to move forward, and I want to be part of that change," Omran said. "I don't want to be 40 and still struggling with the issues we're dealing with now."

Chilling.

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