Category: Thoughts & Scribbles

Wi-Fi Internet in Tunisia

Wi-Fi is barely starting in Tunisia, apart from three airports and a very few hotels here and there, it’s unlikely you’ll come across any wireless hotspots.

This post is more about some of my ideas and thoughts on how WiFi internet can get off the ground and become a reality in Tunisia.
Maybe it’s a bit too early, as even broadband connections are still not that wide-spread yet between home users, but we’re on the way there, and we can allow ourselves to look a bit to the future.

As with anything like this, government entities should be and are the first to encourage such ideas.

The airport authority have invested in providing Wi-Fi internet in three main airports; Tunis-Carthage, Monastir and Djerba-Zarzis.
I think that is great so that passengers on their way in or out of Tunisia can have access to the internet.

I also think it’s important for government entities that are involved with international trade and business, like the CEPEX and FIPA for example, to provide WiFi internet in their buildings so that foreign businessmen, investors and officials can easily access their emails, extranets and more.

And of course, I suppose the Kram fair building will be equipped with Wi-Fi internet for the WSIS in November.

Continue reading Wi-Fi Internet in Tunisia

Ramadan And It’s Crescent

So the holy month of Ramadan is on the doorstep, starting tomorrow or the day after, depending on whether they see the crescent today or not.

Now, just this once, I want to get this whole crescent thing off my chest because it’s bugging the hell out of me!
Every year, religious insititutions in all Muslim countries go out and start looking out for the crescent that marks the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan. But of course, they won’t all be able to see the crescent from all over the world on the same day, and we end up with Muslim countries starting the month on different days and ending it on different days too.

Ramadan should start and end on the same day for all Muslims, I think it’s wrong the way things are going now.

Some people suggest we all follow Saudi Arabia, and some others think that if one country declares it has seen the crescent then all countries should declare the beginning of Ramadan.
But then second thoughts, politics, international relations get in the way of those ideas.

I personally think the solution would be for all Muslim countries to get behind one International Muslim Institution, that has among its duties the watch for the crescent in all Muslim countries and declaring Ramadan for the whole world.

Such an institution would have members from all over the Muslim world, and also serve as a central for Muslim scholars to debate and issue religious decrees (Fatwas) for the whole Muslim world, avoiding having scattered scholars issuing different and conflicting decrees on their own.
This would also eliminate the risk of having rogue self-claimed scholars issuing decrees for their own benefits and influencing Muslim youth.

Of course, Muslim countries’ adherence to Islam varies and so a decree that would be accepted in one country might not be in the other, but that’s politics not religion.
In the end, and when it comes to religious matters in our time, I think that it’s important to have one centralized source. Whether the country chooses to apply the decree or not is something else, but the source should be one.

This post turned out something a lot different from what I had in mind when I started writing it, but well that’s the beauty of writing I guess. you start somewhere and end up somewhere else.
Anyway, this is my opinion, maybe a bit optimistic or even unrealistic, but well we can still dream.

Anyway, I’ll be tuning in to the news today to see the Mufti (Head scholar) of Tunisia announce whether Ramadan starts tomorrow or the day after.
In either case, Ramadan Mubarak to everyone. May it be a happy and blessed month for you all.

Update: Ramadan in Tunisia starts on Wednesday, and started on Tuesday for most other countries.

Communication…

When I was younger, back when I was a teenager, I remember I used to write a lot of letters to my cousins in France and my friends all around the world. It was the most natural thing to just sit with a pen and paper for an hour writing a letter that would turn out 2 to 3 pages long.

Then came the internet and email, and suddenly I couldn’t even force myself to write one letter anymore. Either people upgraded their means of communication and started using email with me, or we’d be disconnected.
When I was in Jordan, my family would send me letters that I would read but rarely reply to just because I couldn’t bring myself to write one. This problem was only solved when my sister created an email address and became an intermediary.

But then that was too late, as instant messaging and real-time chats had come along, and I found email to be a rather slow and boring means of communication. That made me use email only when absolutely necessary.

The instant messaging market is still booming, but it’s no longer practical, with a huge list of contacts growing over the years. Catching up with my friends is now a tiresome act of switching between a bunch of windows and trying to keep up with a number of parallel and completely different conversations at the same time.

Now I have come to think that blogs are the best tool of communication, through which I can communicate with a big number of friends and people who share similar interests at once and get their feedback in an enriching and organized manner.

I wonder what’s the next step in the evolution of human communication…

Flying & Rambling

I love flying…
Ever since I can remember, I’ve always loved flying…
I love that sensation of soaring above the world…

As a kid, I dreamt of growing up to become a pilot, and if not for the fact that I have a combination of short-sightedness and astigmatism, I’d certainly have ended up as one. (Thank you family for passing me your screwed up genes!)

Anyway, I’ve always loved air travel, sometimes even more than actually going to other places, especially when I already know the place I’m visiting.

I’ve never panicked on a plane or thought dark thoughts about it crashing or anything, in fact I’m totally convinced planes are the safest way to travel. Period. (Hmm, maybe trains are the only things safer.)
And I guess the crap they tell us at the beginning of the flight, and that was engraved in my memory from my early childhood, somehow makes me unconsciencly sure everything is cool and under control.

These days though, every couple of days, we hear about a new plane falling out of the sky, and people get scared out of their heads from ever flying again.
A plane crash is a tragedy by all means and it’s scary as hell.
I can only try to imagine how the people who lost their loved ones in plane crashes feel, and would get nowhere close to imagining how people who went through a plane crash themselves felt.

Personally, I do get afraid of flying for a split second, but then I remember that every time I get on a plane, I know the risk exists, and that I do it anyways.
Just like going out of your home in the morning is a risk, driving your car is a risk, eating something is a risk…etc.
I guess life is but a series of calculated risks; We only do what is within our acceptable risk range.

I’ll never give up flying…
I love the feeling too much…

History

“History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books — books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe.
As Napoleon once said, ‘What is history, but a fable agreed upon?’
By Its very nature, history is always a one-sided account.”

From the book: The Da Vinci Code

I couldn’t agree more.
I’ve been wanting to write about this for a long time, but never came around to doing it. This quote in The Da Vinci Code said it wonderfully and rekindled that thought in my mind.

This also brings me back to my previous post about Truth, where I talk about how relative truth is, and how there is no such thing as absolute truth.

There are different versions of the truth, just like there are different versions of history. It’s just that the winners get to force their version on everyone else.
But that doesn’t make it any more true.

I guess what I’m saying is that people shouldn’t always believe what they hear or read in history books, because that’s only one side of the story.
The only way is to try and look at the different sides of the story and try to put it all together to create a personal understanding of it.

Reflections on the London Explosions

Our deepest condolences go out to the people of London, our hearts and thoughts are with you in this very difficult time.

The latest toll from the London explosions yesterday say that at least 50 people were killed and 700 injured, and the numbers are still set to rise.

Investigations are still under way, but a group calling themselves “The Group of al Qaeda of Jihad Organization in Europe” are claiming responsibility for the attacks.

I strongly condemn such attacks, and decry their use of Islam as a cover and reason for them.
Islam doesn’t support terrorism!
Islam doesn’t support the killing of innocent people!
Islam is totally against these sick and evil doings!
People who do such things are NOT Muslims!
They do not represent Islam, nor do they speak for us Muslims!
They do not have our support!

Emigration

Yesterday, I found these really interesting numbers about Tunisian emigration on Zizou from Djerba‘s blog.

– 80% of Tunisian youth would like to emigrate.
– 80.000 to 100.000 Tunisian youth leave Tunisia each year (Some come back of course).
– 25 to 35% of Tunisians abroad are jobless.

According to statistics from 2003, the number of Tunisians abroad is 850,000. 6000 of them are students.

Even though these numbers might not be 100% accurate, I do believe that they are pretty close to reality and I think they’re very interesting.

I’m sure numbers like these are reflected throughout the Arab world with only slight differences.

A common idea between Arab youth nowadays is that the only solution to a better life is to emigrate. The choice of countries to emigrate to depends on the country of departure, for example in French speaking North Africa the most popular destinations are France and Quebec (Canada), in the Middle East it’s more like Canada, USA, New Zealand…etc.

But it’s not always true that a better life awaits these emigrants. As numbers show, a lot of them end up jobless and on the streets.
Still some are able to build great lives, that’s true too.
It all depends. It’s pretty risky.

I think the whole issue of emigration is a very sensitive one. It’s a shame when some of the best minds in the country as well as its youth find themselves tempted to leave. It’s a big loss for the country. But still I do understand how some of them feel.

Death

A distant relative of mine passed away, God bless his soul, and yesterday I attended his funeral.

Funerals must be one of the most depressing things in life.
Just the thought that a person you knew to be so full of life, energy, kindness and good has passed away and is being lowered a stiff lifeless body into a hole in the ground is a very depressing thought.

Most people start thinking of their own deaths, and they get more and more scared of it, fearing it could come and take them by surprise at any second.

As for me, I don’t really fear death, because I know it’ll come when it’s supposed to come, and when God wishes for it. But death makes me think a lot about my life.
With death eventually coming sooner or later, I can’t but think about the limited time I have on earth and what I’m doing with it. Am I really doing the stuff I want to do? Am I really enjoying life? Am I really going to look back at this life of mine with a smile when I’m on my dying bed? Are my priorities in life balanced like I want them?

In short, all the questions can be summed up into one: Is this the life I want to be living?
That’s a hard question though, because if answered in negative, it means that there are a bunch of life changing decisions that have to follow, and those are always very hard.

In my case, when I look at it from a distance, I’m happy with what I’ve done in my life up to now, but I do see that it’s time to change some things here and there, move on to new things here and there, build on what I have here and there.
After all, life isn’t constant, it’s a moving ever-changing thing.

One important thing though is that a person should always hang on to his optimism throughout life. I think it’s a very essential ingredient to having a great life.