Arabs Take Byte at Regimes

Backspace.

"You start writing something and then you think about it: Maybe I'll be misunderstood," said Ayman Haykal, a 25-year-old medical student and head of Syria's fledgling bloggers association, sipping an espresso and pondering a culture of selfcensorship. "So you go 'backspace, backspace, backspace.' "

Around him in an airy, wood-paneled cafe in downtown Damascus, voices clattered off the ceiling. Students mingled over roast beef sandwiches and chocolate milkshakes; boys and girls sent come-hither pouts over polished tables. Syria's Internet generation was on display, vanguards in a long-stagnant landscape.

The Internet hasn't dawned easily here -- not in Syria and not across the Arab world, where a virtual war is raging in nearly every country. In Egypt, opposition movements have used the Internet against President Hosni Mubarak, posting street maps to guide people to anti-government demonstrations. Bahraini bloggers are battling the Information Ministry to keep their freewheeling debates alive, and to keep themselves out of prison. In Libya, Tunisia and Syria, too, online politicking has landed people in prison.

For autocrats such as Syrian President Bashar Assad, technology presents a troubling blend of possibility and danger. They eagerly court its economic and educational benefits but struggle, often with a Luddite's bewilderment, to crack down on its use as a mighty political tool.

Arab governments appear determined to censor cyber-critics and silence unwelcome online voices. They've jailed bloggers, blocked websites and asked Internet cafe owners to spy on their customers.

But it's not working.

Online forums have been embraced by Islamists and the Arab world's underground gay communities alike. The Internet has turned into a virtual debate hall crammed with lengthy screeds, cutting language and calls for rebellion. A colorful repository for the angst of the bulging Arab youth population, the Web is impolite, anonymous and raw -- in short, a revelation.

The new Arab computer devotees have little in common, but they band together for their Internet freedom. They dodge government eyes with encryption and proxy servers. They organize online campaigns against media law and revolt against restrictions on Internet cafes.