Deciding to ban something is very easy to do and is also the least effective way of distancing the public from whatever is banned. Bans are always flouted as people always find ways of getting around them. Ban anything and people are sure to find a thousand ways to get whatever has been banned.
Examples abound.
Think, for example, of how we behave in our homes and schools as well as in public and in private. In raising and educating our children and in dealing with each other, we resort to issuing orders and declaring bans on matters we see as unacceptable and which must thus be forbidden.
King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology is the best example of what I am referring to. It occupies itself with blocking Internet sites when everyone knows that our young people have a thousand ways of overcoming a block and accessing the site they want to visit.
Had the country used the money it spends on staff and equipment in order to block sites to educate the public on how to use the Internet, it would have been better spent.
With the battle over the Internet still in progress, a new front has opened — this time over the use of mobile phones with cameras. The decision to ban these mobile phones will be no more than ink on paper and has so far been futile.
The import and sale of mobile phones with cameras thrives as much as it did before the ban was imposed. The effect of the ban was to make people aware of what might otherwise have escaped their notice. The publicity about violators being punished has only resulted in even more people wanting the phones.
What then is the solution? It is a simple one: a two-way approach to educating people and laying down clear regulations on the unauthorized use of these and other such devices.
I remember a case of some secondary school teachers here who were reported to have demanded the expulsion of one of their students whom they accused of photographing them and threatening to put the pictures on the web.
Had the student felt that what she did was pointless and that it did not matter to the teachers, she probably would never have taken the pictures. It all comes back to education and spreading awareness among the public.
Some people have nothing to do but make mountains out of molehills and waste time by making trivial matters into what seem important.
