3-digit tribal codes in Saudi Arabia

I don’t quite know what to make of this interesting news item from Arab News, one of Saudi Arabia’s English-language newspapers, but since it’s about “tribes,” as an anthropologist I feel like I should be paying attention!

Saudi ‘Tribal Codes’ Draw Mixed Response
Ali Al-Zahrani, Arab News

RIYADH, 7 March 2008 — Increasingly, young Saudis are using three-digit numeric codes to indicate their tribal affiliations. Among the codes used by them to identify the tribes they originate from are 511, 505, 502, 707, 711, 501 and 111.

The code is aimed at others who know how the numbers translate.

The numbers indicate the number-bearer’s tribe and, by implication, where his loyalty lies.

These numbers are showing up in school, cars and in graffiti.

…

Some students claim that the trend started in the Eastern Province when locals distinguished others by their areas of residence inside public housing complexes in Al-Jubail Industrial area. Saudis from a certain tribe would be often found in a certain area with a three-digit code similar to a zip code in the US. The location code then evolved into a code for particular tribes.

“I really do not know where these codes came from. I only learned of it now when I saw the codes glued to the windows of my big brother’s car,” said Al-Qahtani.

–L.L. Wynn

Lakota Indian activists secede from the US

Numerous Native American activists, including former American Indian Movement leader, Russell Means, presented a kind of declaration of independence for the Lakota Sioux on 19 December, 2007, to the United States State Department. Here’s the account of developments from Lakota Freedom, the website which seems to be an official newsource from the delegation:

Lakota Sioux Indian representatives declared sovereign nation status today in Washington D.C. following Monday’s withdrawal from all previously signed treaties with the United States Government. The withdrawal, hand delivered to Daniel Turner, Deputy Director of Public Liaison at the State Department, immediately and irrevocably ends all agreements between the Lakota Sioux Nation of Indians and the United States Government outlined in the 1851 and 1868 Treaties at Fort Laramie Wyoming.

“This is an historic day for our Lakota people,” declared Russell Means, Itacan of Lakota. “United States colonial rule is at its end!”

“Today is a historic day and our forefathers speak through us. Our Forefathers made the treaties in good faith with the sacred Canupa and with the knowledge of the Great Spirit,” shared Garry Rowland from Wounded Knee. “They never honored the treaties, that’s the reason we are here today.”

The four member Lakota delegation traveled to Washington D.C. culminating years of internal discussion among treaty representatives of the various Lakota communities. Delegation members included well known activist and actor Russell Means, Women of All Red Nations (WARN) founder Phyllis Young, Oglala Lakota Strong Heart Society leader Duane Martin Sr., and Garry Rowland, Leader Chief Big Foot Riders. Means, Rowland, Martin Sr. were all members of the 1973 Wounded Knee takeover.

Temple of Dreams screening at Macquarie

With a proposed new Islamic school facing strong community opposition in the Sydney suburb of Camden, it is timely that the Centre for Research on Social Inclusion at Macquarie is screening a new documentary called Temple of dreams. The film portrays similar challenges faced by a group of young Australian Muslims attempting to set up a youth centre in Sydney. Details about the film and the screening are below:

*Free screening*

Introduced by the director, Tom Zubrycki

(Molly and Mobarak, The Diplomat, Billal),

and followed by a post-screening Q&A discussion.

Temple of Dreams follows a group of Lebanese Australians who set up an Islamic youth centre in Western Sydney. The documentary - by one of Australia’s leading documentary film makers - follows the group’s battle against the local council to keep the centre open, and their struggle to fit into the wider community.

When: Wednesday 14 November

Time: 4-6pm

Place: Building C5C Room 498 (Enter via Research Hub EAST), Macquarie University

RSVP: By 12 November 2007 to crsi@scmp.mq.edu.au or on 02 9850 9171

**FREE**

Please spread the word to your colleagues and friends - download event flyer here.

For more information about the film, click here, or visit

http://australianscreen.com.au/titles/temple-dreams

The transparent life

A little while ago Wired magazine reported on Hasan Elahi, a Bangladeshi-American suspected of being a terrorist. He devised an apparently ingenious method of keeping himself “out of Guantanamo”: he would embark on a project of almost complete self surveillance using digital technology. He takes hundreds of photos of himself every day and sends them to his website so that if the FBI want to find out what he’s doing they only have to look there. Like a human sonar, he constantly sends out “pings” to locate himself, a method reminiscent of Twitter. The article discusses his rationale:

“I’ve discovered that the best way to protect your privacy is to give it away,” he says, grinning as he sips his venti Black Eye. Elahi relishes upending the received wisdom about surveillance. The government monitors your movements, but it gets things wrong. You can monitor yourself much more accurately. Plus, no ambitious agent is going to score a big intelligence triumph by snooping into your movements when there’s a Web page broadcasting the Big Mac you ate four minutes ago in Boise, Idaho. “It’s economics,” he says. “I flood the market.”

Although Elahi seems pretty cheerful about this I wonder if his strategy is a novel method of pre-empting the surveillance of the state, or a model for self-servitude? In some ways it seems to be a very literal application of Foucault’s theory of self-subjectification, except instead of internalising surveillance and control Elahi “externalises” it by making it available the authorities as an ongoing alibi. He has also perfected the surveillance by outdoing the authorities, suggesting that it’s not the presence of the state’s control that is the problem, rather its lacks and lacunae.

To me, Elahi’s approach to his “problem” suggests he is in a state of being always-already guilty. Rather than assuming he is innocent, his energy must go into a constant struggle against that state. The onus is on him to prove that he is not guilty of something rather than on the state to prove that he is. It’s Kafka-esque in a way. Like the protagonist of The Trial he is guilty of a crime but doesn’t know what it is. His life then becomes devoted to proving that he innocent, which is of course can never be achieved.

Anyway, this is a thought-provoking application of ubiquitous computing, or ubicomp, in a post-911 world. It raises the question of whether, as we become ever more connected, the onus will increasingly fall on us to prove our “innocence” in various ways just because we can. I see an echo in a more trivial domain: the reduced tolerance for ambiguity that comes from possessing a mobile phone. Now that it is a technical possibility I find we tend to check up more on each other. For example, if I am slightly late for a meeting with friends I will inevitably get a call asking where I am. Likewise, I’m held to account for not letting my friends know I’m going to be late. It is also a common experience to find that the mobile, Blackberry or whatever blurs the lines between work and leisure, so that the freedome the phone provides means that we are even more thoroughly chained to the demands of the job. In each of these cases the domain of plausible deniability has shrunk and therefore we are forced to self-surveil and contantly “prove our innocence”.

Of course this is not just a product of technology. Even if we are all guilty some people are more guilty than others. An example is Muslim men in the contemporary USA, or Australia for that matter, as the case of Mohamed Haneef more than amply demonstrates.

The Visible Man: An FBI Target Puts His Whole Life Online