Syria’s SANA news agency is promoting its latest e-government efforts:
The Ministry of Local Administration reviewed on Saturday the applications of e-government in Syria and future plans in this regard, discussing some of Turkey’s strategies and pioneering experiences in this field.
The discussion was made during a workshop on the applications of e-government on the levels of regions and localities, organized by the ministry with the participation of experts from Syria and Turkey.
Minister of Local Administration Tamer al-Hajjeh said e-government is an integral part of his ministry’s strategy for institutional development, noting that the recently-formed executive team for carrying out the Syrian e-Government Initiative has begun its tasks and is working to motivate government bodies to use information technology and support them in this regard.
The team is also working on the plan for marketing the e-government services and developing them, al-Hajjeh added, pointing out that his ministry launched the video conference system in 2007 as part of the e-government strategy, and that it now covers all governorates, enabling communication between several ministries and all governorates in the future.
It is somewhat telling that other than a reference to “improve the quality of life” there is no reference to computer technology for Syria’s citizens.
Let me give the U.S. government a tip: when you run a repressive dictatorship you don’t want to furnish the masses with the benefits of better Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, satellite telephones, higher-speed Internet, and similar things. Of course, you might want to buy the latest technology for the secret police to use and you would want more information to figure out better ways to block and tap into such communications.
That “better quailty of life” should probably be qualified with “that we determine our citizens will be allowed.”
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
Ministry of Local Administration? Reminds me of “Yes, Minister,” the hilarious BBC series about a bumbling British politician, James Hacker. He was Secretary of the Ministry of Administrative Affairs, 23,000 administrators who administered the other 600,000 administrators in the British Government. I’ll bet the Syrian bureaucrats are even more hostile to local councils that don’t turn in their blue forms on time. That’s evil, one of them tells Hacker.
Syria is a loathsome dictatorship, but this sort of thing really needs to be mocked mercilessly.
Rubin’s a smart guy but that paragraph you quoted could be figured out by any 5th grader. Tells you somethiing about the geniuses currently running our foreign policy (and the rest of the government).