Lines of communication
The Middle East news that comes out of most of the major U.S. news sources is often just plain terrible, frankly. Although coverage of the region is hardly comprehensive, I really appreciate the Economist for what they do write (and we’ll forgive and forget for that cover that suggest Bush would somehow succeed in pushing through a Palestinian state, as well their unabashed freemarketeering), which tends to be as “balanced” as writing on this area can be and free from a lot of the political hangups and stereotypes that somehow find their way into articles in the New York Times, for example.
This week, the Economist actually has an article on the Internet in Syria. There’s very little new in what they report (for me or someone who’s followed this kind of thing), but what they don’t add, and what I’ve learned since coming to Syria, is that all of these restrictions seem to bother people a lot less that one would imagine. You can, as the article mentions, access most banned websites through proxy servers, although it is a pain in the ass, but even more than that, most of the people my age I’ve talked to here are far more interested in using the Internet to further their studies, improve their English, chat, and meet people than any sort of subversive activity. I’ve even heard of people here marrying who’ve met through Facebook, and though I think that’s a rare event, I wonder if the real impact of the Internet will be social, rather than political. That would be after it’s become a mass phenomenon here, of course, which it’s not now; Internet access is too expensive for most of the population to spend much time online.
