UAE youth question political passivity of their parents

Reuters:

Older Emiratis, who remember when their families lived in humble fishing villages, have long been content to remain politically silent as their rulers turned the coastal desert state into a business hub of gleaming skyscrapers.

Yet for the first time, a younger generation is starting to question the cost of their parents' genteel quiescence.

"I'm well off. I don't need a revolution because I'm hungry. I want my freedoms, my dignity," said a 21-year old woman, wrapped in a gauzy black abaya. She gave her name as Alia, but said it was an alias for fear of pursuit by security forces.

"The Alia after the Egyptian uprising is not the same person she was before. Now we know what young people are capable of."

She is not alone. A small but increasingly active number of Emirati students are questioning, often on social media Twitter and Facebook, why they should not seek the same democratic changes demanded by street protests elsewhere in the Arab world.

Fear

Student activists say the fear barrier is their biggest obstacle. Supporters of the status quo are also using the Internet to reinforce their views.

One Facebook post has pictures of some activists' faces and names above a noose, with the message: "Hang the traitors."

Police arrested five activists who signed a petition in April urging democratic reform. They were accused of insulting UAE leaders and threatening national security. In past years, some activists have had their passports taken and jobs revoked.

"We are trying, but I'm not optimistic," Fatima said. "People are too scared, even if inside they are motivated."

If I were in their shoes I'd be fearful, too.

I can see why people in Syria are risking life and limb despite their fear, although even there it is quite surprising -- the events sweeping through the Middle East brought about a tipping point in each successive country. In the UAE life for the nationals is good, and totalitarianism though present is largely invisible. Dissidents are isolated one by one.

I've been thinking about my teaching experience in the UAE lately. Two areas:

1. There were direct elections for student government allowed. The students weren't given that much authority, but the system did give them some collective voice and they did negotiate some changes with the administration. Interestingly, those elected often were from well-connected families -- but how different was that from Bush I and II?

2. The students that really brought up the the quality of upper level economics classes were women. They arrived in college better prepared because they too advantage of whatever learning opportunities were provided in high school. Education for women was empowering. For men it was more that their birth determined their future and all they needed to do was graduate. People respond to incentives.

Tribal interests

Given that the petition calling for greater democratic freedoms and direct elections circulated months ago, and that arrests of dissidents occurred weeks ago, it was rather odd to read that UAE tribes just this week "spontaneously" expressed their support the rulers of the nation. Spontaneous generally comes with a connotation of contemporaneous with the triggering event.

Was "spontaneous" meant to communicate, without saying so explicitly, that the expression of support was prompted without a request and without coercion? And did it mean that in actuality the rulers had solicited the open expression of support from the tribes, including a denunciation of dissidents who were related to the tribe?

But the more I think about, the more I wonder why the interests of the tribes aren't aligned with the interests of the rulers. After all, greater democratic freedoms and direct elections would weaken the tribes as a political unit. No?

An analysis of the detention of Dr Nasser bin Ghaith

Habiba Hamid has a masterful analysis of the detention of Dr. Nasser bin Ghaith, putting it into the larger context of UAE government and society.

It's too good to excerpt. Read it all here.

More about Hamid at her twitter account.

Emiratis are 11.5% of population

From 2006 to 2010 the population of the UAE population grew 65 percent according to official statistics. Unsurprisingly, the proportion of the population who are Emirati citizens fell. A lot. Immigrants Migrants cannot gain citizenship. [Strikeout courtesy of commenter below who is correct that the UAE aims to have no immigrants, only transients.]

Bloomberg:

The population of the United Arab Emirates grew 65 percent to 8.26 million people in the first half of 2010 compared with the same period in 2006, the U.A.E. Statistics Bureau said on its website today.

Emirati nationals accounted for 11.5 percent of the population at the end of June, or about 948,000 people, the data showed. The country’s expatriate population rose 75 percent from 2006 to the end of June, to 7.3 million people.

In 2010 there were 5.8 million non-national males and 1.6 million non-national females.

Follow the label "demographic imbalance" for previous posts on the UAE population.

Local teenage scene in Fujairah

As reported by The National

On a recent Saturday evening, a group of Emirati break-dancers who call themselves the Crip Killers crew – named after a violent street gang that originated in Los Angeles – prepare to face off against local rivals.

As the bass of the Shop Boyz rap song Party Like a Rockstar thunders from the subwoofer speakers of a customised Honda Accord, a scrum of other hyped-up teenagers encircles the Crip Killers.

Wearing headbands, white trainers and jean shorts, they stare down the rival crew until one slender teenager steps into the circle shimmying his shoulders and performing headstands and front and back flips, the opening salvo in a dance battle.

“We want to be like Americans – but we can’t,” says Ali Abdullah, 18, an Emirati student at a military academy and member of the Crip Killers. “I only dance to hip hop – I love it.”

A dancer from the opposing crew, Mohammed Hamdan, 17, a former gymnast, steals the show with high-flying back flips.

Although kids from all backgrounds take part, there is general agreement in the crowd that the Emirati dancers are best. “They’re better than me, man, they’re better,” Abdullah, 15, an Iraqi, says ruefully after the other dancers race off in their expensive Hummers and sport utility vehicles.

As Khamis looks on, a group of teenagers walks by wearing bright yellow T-shirts emblazoned with silver dollar bill signs.

“Wearing those kinds of clothes is comfortable for them,” Khamis says. “But trust me, when they’re 18, they’ll go back to wearing kanduras.”

According to the twentysomething generation of Emirati men, however, something odd is happening to their break-dancing younger brothers.

Lots of picture accompany the story.

Is tribalism alive and well in the UAE?

For an outsider living in the UAE it is very difficult to get an intimation of what goes on behind the scenes in local culture. And I'm not a social anthropologist, so I'm not skilled at teasing these things out. But a story in The National gives some insights:

Abu Dhabi TV takes tribes series off air
...
Abu Dhabi TV has taken the controversial Ramadan television miniseries Sadoun Al Awaji off the air by order of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, the President of the UAE and Ruler of Abu Dhabi, after prominent Arab tribes portrayed in the show raised serious complaints about their depiction.

The 30-episode nightly drama about the historic figure Sheikh Sadoun Al Awaji was pulled following its Sunday night broadcast after Sheikh Khalifa received appeals from the Anazah and Shammar tribes. Abu Dhabi TV, which aired the show, is owned by Abu Dhabi Media Company, which also publishes The National.

Officials at Abu Dhabi TV declined to comment about the show’s cancellation, but sources at the station said they had received a number of calls about the fate of the soap. The Saudi press has reported that members of the two influential tribes had protested about the broadcasting of both series.
...
A second soap opera, Finjan al Dam, which was also due to air over the month of Ramadan on Saudi Arabia’s MBC channel, was cancelled last week as well. Set in the 19th century, the show’s plot revolves around tribal conflict and also features the old tribes.

Dr Ali al Matroushi, a historian and an expert on tribal lineage, said: “All of this proves that even after hundreds of years, the tribal traditions and their feuds are still strong.”

He said the story of Al Awaji was very popular, with many books written about it. But he added that portraying the story in a big-budget TV production during Ramadan, “when everyone is watching”, may have been too much.

“The descendants of the tribes pay close attention to every detail about their tribes,” he said.

Thanks to Memri for the pointer.

Addendum: Leo Americanus evidently knows much more than me about the tribes of the Arab peninsula. Thanks to him for this comment to my post:

The tribes in question here, the Shammar and Aniza, are found primarily in Saudi and Iraq, not UAE. I read elsewhere that it was actually Saudi officials who requested that Abu Dhabi cancel the series. The Saudi government's legitimation rests more squarely on tribal manipulation than does the UAE's, if only because Saudi is much larger and contains much larger (and maybe more troublesome) tribes. In any case, some tribesmen in the Shammar and Aniza may be moved to "thar" or feud by the series, but I've met a number of members of both tribes who are friends and laugh at the old tensions. It seems to me that it really depends on whether or not there is something else to fight over in certain, probably rural, areas.

Check out Leo Americanus' blog for more posts about the Arab world. I affiliate with Leo's self-description: "An American traveler of sorts, currently in the U.S. and looking forward to the next adventure."

An appreciation for an alternative political model is banned

Addendum: Not banned?

There's no better way to get people interested in reading a book than for the government to ban it.

Christopher Davidson, author of Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success, said the ban was an own goal by a country that is at pains to present itself as an open society with aspirations for its higher education sector.

Dr Davidson, a lecturer at Durham University's School of Government and International Affairs, has previously worked in the UAE at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi. He has also acted as a consultant to the Dubai Government.

His book details the emirate's economic success and the problems it faces as oil reserves dwindle and its need for foreign investment pushes it towards socioeconomic reforms that could clash with the ideological, religious and cultural legitimacy of its monarchy.

It also analyses Dubai's awkward relationship with its federal partners in the UAE and its attractiveness as a free port to international criminal gangs and terrorists.

Dr Davidson said: "This is an academic book published by Columbia University Press, so it went through a rigorous peer-review process.

"Crucially, it is independent research, written by someone whose salary is not paid in the UAE, so there's none of the self-censorship that often prevents people who live there discussing anything beyond the bland and banal about the ruling families."
...
Dr Davidson said: "It makes it difficult for foreign academics to come to a country and try to do research when there is freedom on anything except the domestic matters of the country and the government. It's a mentality that is self-defeating for these countries, which are trying to become knowledge economies."
...
Dr Davidson added: "Ironically, the book is neither a neoconservative essay on the need for Western democratic implants, nor is it particularly supportive of the current format of domestic opposition - although it does highlight their existence, which is something of a first. If anything, the overall flavour of the study is one of appreciation for an alternative political model rooted in history, culture and the principles of consultation."

This is a book I'll be ordering online and reading.

Thanks to samuraisam for the pointer to this story; you can read UAE community blog reaction to the book ban here.

Addendum: The intrepid nzm has located a solid review of the book.

More: Davidson was quoted (and the book mentioned) by The National on August 16 of this year in a story concerning fraud allegations at Nakheel:

But the challenge to the efforts underway [by Dubai authorities to root out corruption] will be in the follow-through. Though Mr Shahin’s arrest was disclosed in April, a trial has yet to begin. Authorities have given little information about their investigation into the corporate world. Christopher Davidson, a professor at Britain’s Durham University and author of Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success, said that “the weakness with this is it is a mystery how the authorities are operating”.

“Are there informants? The story never really comes out,” said Prof Davidson.

Cause and effect?

Abaya redefined

In six years of living in the UAE I witnessed a rather dramatic evolution in abaya styles worn by local women. It was certainly not a majority even among young women, but many abayas were adorned with clear glass sequins, or black tufts of fabric, and some even added color to the basic black abaya. It was as if it was acceptable to wear an abaya to cover your clothes and create uniformity, and at the same time add another layer to express flamboyance or individuality. I found it puzzling.

The National has a story on this subject. Some extracts:

Embroidered crystals of black, blue and white glitter on the sleeves of Nouf al Hamly’s open abaya and the lining of her shaila.

Both pieces of clothing are impeccably matched to the midnight blue blouse and white skirt that the 22-year-old laboratory technician is wearing underneath.

Her sister Reem, 21, a student at Zayed University, on the other hand, has chosen a more demure version of the traditional outfit: plain and closed from the front so that the clothing beneath it is hidden from public view.

From traditional wear to fashion statement, the abaya is undergoing a massive transformation, much like the Emirati women who wear it. The subtle differences in the sisters’ outfits offer a perfect illustration of how some young women are pushing the limits of creativity while still respecting their culture.

“We have to stick to traditional boundaries, but that does not mean that we have to lose our femininity,” says Nouf al Hamly, whose point is emphasised by her perfectly presented hair and meticulous make-up.

When Reem shops for an abaya though, she says likes to “make sure it covers the right parts”.

“The way I wear my shaila and abaya is purely religious,” she adds. “I don’t like to attract attention.”
...
In part, the trend may be driven by the increasing financial independence of Emirati women.

Seven UAE civil servants in 10 are now women, according to official estimates, and a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers suggests the UAE has the highest rate of women studying in university in the world.

“Now that the Emirati woman is a working woman and a productive part of society, her abaya is reflecting that change,” reflects Nouf Al Hamly.

Both she and Ms Hashem hasten to add that they choose what abaya to wear by how hectic they expect their day to be.

“If I need to go around and walk a lot, it is easier for me to have it open with jeans under it,” Ms Hashem says. “Abayas are thinner now too, for practicality, and because of the hot weather.”

I've students who sometimes wear the shaila and sometimes don't why that is. Their answer: depends on whether it's a bad hair day or not.

There are advantages to being able to throw on the black abaya and shaila. It's an immediately classy looks even in the basic versions without a lot of bother.

Most people couldn't find the richest city in the world on a map

Fortune:

"We move fast," Khaldoon says, his crisp, white headscarf whipping in the wind. "Think about it: How many places in the world can you say, 'I'm going to establish an airline,' and boom, two years later you have 21 planes and 37 destinations? How many places in the world can you say, 'I need 15,000 hotel rooms,' and boom, you have 100 new hotels in the works? How many places can you say, 'I want world-class hospitals, universities, and museums,' and boom, the Sorbonne, Cleveland Clinic, Guggenheim, and Louvre are on the way?"

Welcome to Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates and the richest city in the world. The emirate's 420,000 citizens, who sit on one-tenth of the planet's oil and have almost $1 trillion invested abroad, are worth about $17 million apiece. (A million foreign workers don't share in the wealth.) Yet most people couldn't find Abu Dhabi on a map. Khaldoon's job is to change that. Tall, handsome, and politically savvy, he wants to make his hometown mentioned in the same breath as Singapore, Tokyo - and yes, Dubai.

But does the UAE, a federation of seven emirates strung out along the Persian Gulf, need another Dubai just a two-hour drive away? Does it need another long-haul airline, another financial center, another tourism destination, another billion-dollar hotel? "The short answer," says Khaldoon, "is yes. But I don't like to use comparisons with Dubai. We're not trying to be Dubai. What they've done is phenomenal, and we're very proud of it. But here we have a unique opportunity to get it right."

Read it all. Thanks to A Year in Exile for the link.

The puzzle continues

How can a country as rich as the UAE turn away citizens from higher education on the basis of lack of funds? It promises free education to all citizens, but doesn't fund it:

"When the oil was priced at $8 a barrel the government had been offering generous incentives to students, now when the oil almost reached $100 a barrel, students are denied admissions due to shortage of funds. How come this happens in the UAE which is considered one of the richest countries in the world?" asked Ali Majid Al Matroushi, an FNC [Federal National Council] member from Ajman.
...
Shaikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, admitted that the shortage of funds "forced us to turn down admissions of 5,000 students this year and the number will be even bigger next year, when the Higher Colleges of Technology will be forced to reduce the number of seats from 16,000 to 14,000."

Shaikh Nahyan warned if no action is taken, the situation is going to get worse and the country will suffer a severe shortage of human resources that will adversely affect the economic development. He urged the private and the public sectors and businessmen to join hands to resolve this problem.

There is a parallel issue with the quality of government provided primary and secondary education. It's not up to snuff.

I'm not arguing that education is best funded and provided by government. But I am arguing that promises should be kept. And I am also suggesting that citizens should share in the oil wealth of the country.

Paragraph of the day

The Wall Street Journal the other day ran a piece titled State Funds May Not Bolster Democracy. This sums up what it was about:

Free traders have long argued that expanded trade is a force for political freedom abroad, and point to South Korea and Taiwan as proof.

In both places, exports boosted living standards for millions of workers, while expanded imports and foreign investment helped to break up entrenched elites. Autocratic governments eventually gave way to democracies.

But will sovereign-wealth funds do the same for democracy? Fans of the trade-produces-political-change argument doubt so.

Here's the sentence, though, that really caught my attention:

In many of the nations with sizable wealth funds, the money stuffs the pockets of rulers who spend on patronage or repression. A few years back, Dubai, a part of the U.A.E., gave government workers tradable vouchers, valued at more than $100,000, for discounts on condominiums being erected in massive construction projects, says Marcus Noland, who studies Arab economies at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, D.C. "The short-term effect is that you buy people off," he says.

There are a couple of points of interest. First - regarding the housing market - was it generally known that the government was in effect pumping up demand for its own building projects? Second - regarding politics - is it possible in the UAE to avoid the development of a democracy? In the case given of South Korea a middle class developed and it demanded political rights and a breakup of the autocracy. In the UAE a middle class made up of citizens is not developing; that role is taken by ex pat workers. UAE citizens are very well off and may have no desire to rock the boat as long as the rulers share the oil wealth as they have.

Efficient queuing, Emirates style

How can we reduce the amount of time waiting in line? The Undercover Economist has the answer:

Imagine a bank queue in which one customer arrives per minute, and one customer per minute is dealt with by staff. All it takes is a cashier on a cigarette break, or a sudden rush of customers, and you could have 10 people in the queue. At that point, each person has to queue for 10 minutes, even though people are leaving as quickly as they are arriving. Somehow the queue must be disposed of.

The solution is elegant and unexpected: new arrivals should go directly to the front, to be served immediately after the current customer. Queues would then be very short, because once a customer was pushed back a couple of places he or she would give up and go home.

This is the system that I encountered for the first time when I moved to the Emirates. Who knew it was the most efficient? Yet another case where unbridled pursuit of selfish interest produces the socially optimal outcome.

70% pay raise for UAE federal employees

It was announced the other day that employees of the federal government would receive a 70% pay increase.

There's a problem. Pay increases this large, out of line with private sector wage increases, run entirely contrary to the government's expressed desire to see more Emiratis in the private sector. Very few are, and with good reason. Their time would be better spent hounding someone for a job in government. That's a waste from the social perspective. It's a waste because it's effort that just moves money from one pocket to another and produces nothing. It discourages Emiratis from becoming engaged with the private sector and the virtue of merit-based reward. And not least of all the country develops no institutions of its own to foster economic growth.

In short, the country is suffering the curse of resource abundance.

There are better ways to share the plenty of high oil prices with its citizens. Write them a check; unhitch payment from employment in the government sector. Make them owners of the oil that is currently owned by the government. Make it difficult to reverse course -- as happened in Saudi Arabia where so much of the oil revenue now goes to maintaining a large royal family.

One maid for every child

Gulf News

Five per cent of the population of the UAE are domestic workers, according to a new study by the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
...
Abu Dhabi: Mohammad Al Saeedi has four housemaids, one for each of his children.
...
Al Saeedi affirms the study's findings by saying, "I know countless families who have more maids than there are people in the house."
...
26-year-old Mohammad Al Ganabi says this idea has to change. "It is actually not healthy to the structure of the family to have these many housemaids.

Besides housemaids other there are other categories of domestic workers such as chauffeurs.

It is not only Emirati families that employ domestics. Many middle and upper class ex pat families employ live-in domestics as well. Still, 5% is substantial in a country where less than 30% of the population are citizens and most of the 70% ex pats are low wage workers.

Christians are coming back to Arabia

So says Chisea, a website providing "news, analysis, and documents on the Catholic Church." According to Chisea,

On May 31, the Holy See established diplomatic relations and exchanged ambassadors with the United Arab Emirates. Few noted the fact that the United Arab Emirates has the greatest Christian presence of any Islamic country.

And it is a new and growing presence. Exactly the opposite of what is happening in other regions in the Middle East like Iraq, Lebanon, the Holy Land, where Christian communities of very ancient origin actually face extinction.

The United Arab Emirates is a federation of seven emirates ... . Almost all of the citizens belong to the official religion, Islam.

But there are many more immigrants than citizens. Foreigners now make up more than 70 percent of the more than 4 million inhabitants, coming from other Arab countries, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, the Philippines.

More than half of these foreign workers are Christians. Adding up the figures, Christians account for more than 35 percent of the population of the United Arab Emirates. Around a million of them are Catholic. And it's not only in the UAE – in Saudi Arabia, too, it is estimated that there are already about a million Catholics from the Philippines.

The article goes on to describe the worship especially amongst Filipino maids. One example is those who have fled their employers and are sheltered by the Filipino embassy. Another example is of maids who arrange their own services together because their jobs do not allow them to get a church.

Unlike Saudi Arabia, the UAE is good in giving freedom to foreigners to celebrate their religion. But Chisea points to issues that should be addressed. The first is that maids working for families have very little free time, and little freedom of movement both of which limit their freedom of worship - in particular, preventing them from obtaining the sacrament of communion.

The second is that workers in low-wage jobs are virtually indentured servants. This leaves them vulnerable to the capriciousness of their employer. As I have argued before, there would be far fewer stories of employer abuse in the UAE if workers had the freedom to change jobs. As it is, the bad behavior of a few spoils the reputation of the country and makes it more expensive for all employers to hire workers from abroad.

Comment of the day: October 10, 2007

From here:

rosh said...
Agree with all of BuJ's views - he's hit the nail on its sweetest spot!

As someone who was born/raised in a single nation for the first 25 years of his life (am 31 today), it almost incomprehensible, not having the option to call this place as a *home* in its truest sense. I cannot express how unsettling it's to grow up thinking this way.

All my growing up, teenage and most adult memoirs are held in this tiny nation. My parents have been in the UAE since 1969, they are both retired, and continue to live in UAE. Today, I live in Manhattan - but UAE is my home, hometown, whatever you chose to call it. There is not a single day, I don't think, debate or check upon UAE. It's a part of me that I can't get rid off, even if I wanted to (believe me, I've tried : )

Personally, I couldn't care less of rights/benefits enjoyed by citizenry. The only right I seek is the right/option to live, work and make a home in a place where I was born and raised. Don't care for naturalization - a resident process is most preferred, so I can switch or ditch a job without the fear of "visa cancellation".

Beyond all the glam sham in Dubai, UAE is a beautiful country with a simple, honest and giving soul. I connect with it, like no other.

The UAE welfare state

Bloomberg:

All 800,000 Emirati citizens get free education and health care, and subsidized utilities. Emirati men can claim free land and no-interest loans to build homes. Other benefits include a $19,000 payment toward wedding costs.

The handouts, based on traditions of royal patronage dating back centuries to Bedouin society, now discourage citizens from working, academics say. Expatriates outnumber Emiratis and dominate fields such as banking, law and technology. The quandary for Sheikh Mohammed is how to reduce the culture of dependence without alienating his people.

``The relationship between work and income is broken,'' says Kenneth Wilson, Dubai-based director of the Economic and Policy Research Unit at Zayed University, a school for Emirati women that opened in 1998. ``That's unlikely to change until the government starts trying to give incentives to work in the private or corporate sector.''

The phrase "culture of dependency" bothers me. Suppose I inherited stock and could live very comfortably off of the dividends if I chose. Would you say I was dependent on the stock? And does it create an incentive for me to stop working? No; Bill Gates is still working plenty hard.

The UAE is a very rich country and it is only natural that the wealth owned by the government/rulers is shared with the citizens. Where economists begin to worry is when the size of the transfers creates adverse incentives. For example, suppose you get more from the government if you earn less. This cuts your incentive to work. Or suppose underpricing of utilities causes you to waste water and electricity -- there are more efficient ways to make transfers. Or suppose that government jobs are require little effort and pay much more than the private sector -- where's the incentive to choose the private sector rather than engaging in rent-seeking activities (wasta) to get a government job? Or suppose you are guaranteed a government job as long as you have any college degree -- where is the incentive to excel in college?

It's not the size of the transfers. It's their design.

The Bloomberg article goes on to suggest that the transfers buy political allegiance. If that is true then the trick to solving the Emiratization problem will be to reform the welfare system without cutting the benefits to most citizens.

What I'm reading

1. Globalization of labor. Is labor getting a smaller share of income and yet a larger income? Yes says the IMF.

2. Driving alone, in traffic. Putnam redux.

3. The Constant Economist. Rachel Friedberg, economist, takes a busman's holiday.

4. The Obesity Conjecture, by David Friedman, "an academic economist who teaches at a law school and has never taken a course for credit in either field." Excerpt:

Over time, although the hardwired elements of behavior do not change--evolution is slow--the cultural elements do. Instead of demonstrating how wealthy and generous you are by urging your guests to have a second and third helping of dinner, you do it by providing them smaller amounts of particularly tasty, sophisticated, or expensive dishes.

I stand corrected

I didn't think it would happen: 45 arrested in campaign against ‘beach pests’.

It's not a flaw, it's a feature

Emirates Today reports:

“The solution to what our children see will not be by monitoring published material but by education that starts at home,” said Abdullatif Al Sayegh, Chief Executive of Arab Media Group. “The internet blockage rate [of unwanted material] in the UAE has reached 40 per cent. That is among the highest in the world.” Al Sayegh’s remarks came at a conference on Emirates Media Freedom at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi.

Delegates debated what the Emirates should expect from its media – the employment of nationals, levels of censorship and freedom of expression – and educating the next generation about how to benefit from the media.

Jaber Obaid, manager of Emirates Media Radio, said: “There has not been one single study on the extent of freedom of speech in the UAE.”

Most of the blocked material is images and videos. Internet service is already slow due to due capacity. Just imagine what service would be like if there was great access to material? Censorship could be increasing the value of the service to users not interested in that material.

Blocking. It's not a flaw, it's a feature.