While I was recently scanning the local newspapers, my attention was attracted to a story in Al-Watan Arabic daily. The article was prominently displayed and the headline was, "Female students take photographs of classmates in Dammam." The text explained: "An English language and computer institute in Dammam (name withheld) has begun an investigation because of complaints from students. The girls said that some of their classmates had taken photos of them using mobile phones which were equipped with cameras. The administration called a student assembly and inspected their belongings. The girls’ guardians were called in and the girls were asked to sign a document stating that they would not indulge in such activities again." The newspaper added that it was possible that the devices were smuggled from abroad as camera-equipped mobile phones are banned in the Saudi market.
It has been three months since the Ministry of Commerce in coordination with the Ministry of Post, Telephone and Telegraph stated that camera-equipped mobile phones are banned in the Saudi market and that retailers who continue to sell them would be punished. The new rule was made after several religious people, including members of the Commission for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice, sent pleas to the authorities to "ban such devices from being sold in the market so that they would not be misused by bad people."
Ever since camera-equipped mobiles first appeared in Saudi Arabia, panic has swept our streets as though a huge tidal wave had hit and was about to drown us. People were concerned that they would be misused and Saudi women in particular wrote that they feared their photos would be secretly taken in wedding halls — where they wear full make-up and low-cut dresses as no men are present. Others said that our women would no longer be safe in public places and that banning the mobiles would be better than not banning them and then having to bear the consequences of misuse.
The article I mentioned at the beginning appeared three months after the ban was imposed. It seems to prove two points.
1. Banning a device does not prevent people from smuggling it in.
2. Any device can be misused by either sex.
Saudis, and those who have lived in Saudi Arabia, know that our society is conservative and that certain things here are not acceptable as they are elsewhere. One of the "no-nos" is photographs of Saudi women in public. Pick up any Saudi paper and look for a female columnist. Her column will have her name but no photograph. Very few Saudi women are comfortable with their photos being displayed in the press or in public as people might judge her to be immoral. Bearing that in mind — and with the behavior of some irresponsible youths in our malls who harass girls and sometimes even follow their cars home, just to get a glimpse, a smile or to throw a phone number — wouldn’t banning these devices be a blessing? I certainly don’t think so.
Camera-equipped mobile phones, in my opinion, are like any device that can be used for good or evil. We can watch news, documentary movies or soap operas on TV. We can also use it to watch a porn movie. Would banning TVs eliminate this problem? The same can be said about telephones. They can be used for legitimate business, to call friends and family but can also be misused by both sexes. By banning these devices, we would automatically be cut off from its good aspects as well as its evil ones.
I spoke to several Saudis about this. They were from different backgrounds and my purpose was to determine whether other Saudis thought the public had made a mountain out of a molehill.
I first talked to a 16-year-old high school boy who manages his own website. He told me that he had personally seen photographs of Saudi girls whose faces were not covered and who were not wearing abayas. The pictures, he said, were taken at a mixed party in Jeddah. They had been taken using a camera-equipped mobile and been e-mailed to him. He had heard similar stories of women taking photos of other women in the ladies’ section at wedding halls. He did not think that banning mobiles was necessary. "I think advantages exceed disadvantages. Taking photographs of women in public can be done with any small digital camera. Why would someone buy a mobile equipped with a digital camera simply for that purpose?" He continued and answered his own question, "Because our society is still relatively closed, it rejects anything new, fearing the worst."
I then spoke to a 34-year-old female manager at King Fahd Hospital in Jeddah. She felt that the mobiles should have been allowed. "We are part of the world and it is not logical that we reject everything new that technology produces. What we should do is educate the public and create awareness beforehand. The media have an important role in doing that." She cited how the Internet had earlier been banned in Saudi Arabia because of the fear of accessing pornography but was later allowed because pornography had been filtered out.
Another Saudi female, 30 years old who teaches at King Saud University, said that Saudi society fights anything new and will always fight anything new. She added that if people wanted to take photographs of women in public they could do so by using very small regular cameras or video cameras. She also made a point of saying that banning the devices would only encourage people to smuggle them in. "I personally think that it would encourage people to get the mobile by other means which in the end says that nothing has really been banned but that the profits have gone elsewhere."
Indeed, there have been photographs of Saudi women taken and forwarded on the Net. But because of its disadvantages, should the mobiles with cameras have been banned from markets? After all, in the end it’s just another gizmo that technology made for our pleasure and convenience. In Saudi society, however, the question remains: Is it a cool gizmo or a public menace?
