Re: <nettime> Why so surprised?

[Heiko Recktenwald <heikorecktenwald@googlemail.com>]

Facebook is much more popular in Arab countries than in the "West", they 
are much more familiar with the technic, setting up groups etc, in my 
experience. Ir is as popular amongs girls as smoking shisha waterpipes 
with apple flavoured tobacco.  They dont use it for politics in first 
place, it is just a part of their life and as such also a political 
tool, if they want so. They just know it very well.


Allthough I dont know Arab and In my experience at least some are very 
fanatic in the sense that they dont understand critic. No wonder, they 
are in a revolution. Not all are intellectuals. Many are probably very 
young.


For example I dont think what Mubarak does is a war crime or genocid or 
whatever they say. He is a simple dictator which is bad enough. A 
question of perspective. But write this on their wall and you will get 
troubles with the facebook management. I did ask myself whether they 
would allow dissent when ruling. But I am just an observer and such 
things are common in the "West" too..



Best,


H.


Am 07.02.2011 00:29, schrieb Bassam el Baroni:

> As an Egyptian involved in the protests I find your argument archaic
>and very conservative to say the least, as well as highly tainted
>with the Orientalism that you seek to set straight in your message.
>Let these 'us' and 'them' arguments burn in the dungeon of the late
>capitalist nexus and let us think of new ways to speak, write, and
>communicate our perceptions and imaginings of those who are not
>dwelling in our direct vicinity.
>

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime>  is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org