To Belong or Not to Belong

I previously posted about the expansion of the Saudi blogsphere and how a new network, Saudi Blogs, is slowly but surely creating a community of Saudi bloggers. One thing I like about this site is that it’s inclusive of all Saudi bloggers and has no crippling membership conditions. All you have to do is blog. Simple, isn’t it?

However, it is not so simple for the guys at the    so-called new Saudi bloggers community: The Official Community of Saudi Bloggers OCSAB (Arabic). One of its goals is to elevate the Saudi blogsphere by creating an official community free from dishonorable Saudi bloggers (I am starting to laugh already) and provide support for the respectful Saudi bloggers. Wait, that’s not it, since we are a society of people who worship rules and tend to control the air you breath, we have a list of conditions for you [Via Farah’s Sowaleef]:

1- That the blog does not touch on Islam improperly in any way or shape, which thereby rules out blogs that call to secularism and liberalism.

2- Seeing as how the community is for Saudi bloggers, naturally then, the blog must be run by a Saudi.

3- Since we exert much effort into maintaining an elevated level of blogging, the language in use must be Arabic. An exception: Blogs with a non-Arabic speaking audience are excluded, only on the condition that they call to Islam or reflect a pleasant image of Saudi Arabia.

4- That the blog specifies a certain direction for it to follow, be it Islamic, scientific, technical, medical, social etc. We apologize for not accepting purely personal blogs (i.e diary-like blogs)"

I have a couple of questions here, first: What makes this community official ? As far as I know, there is nothing official about blogging. Bloggers are independent individuals who don’t officially belong to anyone. Isn’t this an oxymoron “Official – Bloggers”?

Second: What constitutes an insult to Islam? How are you going to regulate an appropriate Islamic content? And, how do you differentiate between legitimate criticism of tribal and cultural practices that some believe to be Islamic and alleged attacks on Islam? Or maybe, just maybe, each blog post will need a stamp of approval from an official imam (has to be a graduate of Al-Imam university in Riyadh) before it gets the proper authorization?

Seriously, OCSAB get a grip on yourselves. Enjoy your supposed honor and narrow-mindedness--- Alone. And just for the record, there is nothing honorable or Islamic about what the founder of OCSAB did with Ahmed (Saudi Jeans). If these are your values and what you stand for, no, thank you: proud not to belong.

Comments

[Craig]

Love your blog! Been reading for a while now :)

I left a comment about this OSCAB thing on Saudi Jeans blog so I won't repeat it here.

[ibrahim]

this blog expressed exactly what i've been thininkg of.

when i first saw the ocsab i wondered about the officiality of it.

was there an election or the web site admin just decided that.

any way, i tried to join only for supporting the saudi blogging issue

but guess what , they rejected my blog becasue it almost like a daily diary!

which dosent rise to there expectation.

hello! , what's the main goal of blogging? , they don't see the big picture.

[Ahmed]

Guess this OSCAB thing will divide the Saudi bloggers into two groups!.

Looking more into it .. this is only a part of our almost daily struggle with opening up to the world and having more opinions expressed around .. and mainly through the net.. which some people won't accept unless it is inline with their views of the world!.

[Mahmood Al-Yousif]

Maybe it should be OSCRAP, judging by their blinkered classification system and their mission statement.

[John Smith]

They should scrub the OSCAB

[Aya]

OSCAB simply misses the point and defeats the purpose of blogging. However, it also shows, just as some of you mentioned, that some people are not ready, or unwilling, to embrace the real meaning of blogging, which is purely a free and individualistic experience.

I personally have no problem with, or would discourage, the continuation or development of such groups. On the contrary, as a believer in ones freedom of choice, I think that we should follow up with their progress and evaluate their experience. But, by adding elusive and intangible descriptions such as "official", "respectful bloggers," etc, they are setting themselves apart from the rest of the Saudi blogsphere, which is emerging and developing whether they like it or not, and will fail to represent its reality. Saudi bloggers are born from harsh and controlling conditions, and they will not easily forsake their newly found independence to satisfy a self-styled, wanna be in charge,control freak(s).

Thank you all of your valuable comments.

[An American in Saudi Arabia]

I think that the "essence" behind "blogging" can be found in the origin of the word "blog" short for "weblog"...
Obviously the FIRST thing that comes to mind when one hears "web log" is that it is an electronic diary accessible through the internet, right?
So to make a personal matter official, and then to ban those matters which go back to the essence of the WHOLE "blog scene"... seems a bit ironic (?)