Nationalism vs. RIM and BlackBerry...

There is one thing that Tifatul Sembiring (aka TitS) is good for; material for blogposts! The Minister for [Mis]Communication and [Mis]Information has decided that he will appeal to Indonesians sense of nationalism. The thrust of the TitS argument is now one that says "if you are a good Indonesian, and a nationalist one to boot, then you must agree with him on all things RIM and BlackBerry related". Maybe TitS should think about getting some t-shirts made up for his followers to wear in support of his nationalism drive.

The porn issues aside, this whole TitS crusade is about getting RIM to agree to set up servers, database centres and, at least, repeaters in Indonesia. The Minister is convinced that this will allow Indonesian authorities to monitor what its 2 million or so BlackBerry users are doing and saying with their Smartphones. The official line is that this is about helping Indonesia in its fight against corruption, an honourable cause for sure. However, the reality is that this is more about spying and eavesdropping on Indonesian citizens , it is really about the heavy-hand of big brother residing in the shadows and dark abysses of the Internet, it is about control of the populace, it is a cynical attempt to allow government to invade individuals private and personal space.

I was being somewhat flippant yesterday when suggesting that nationalisation might be on the agenda. Nevertheless, the rhetoric seems to suggest that any RIM facility that opens in Indonesia must allow for a majority of Indonesian content, must employ Indonesians, and although not explicitly stated yet, some degree of Indonesian ownership of the local subsidiary. Perhaps, then, the nationalisation of the local subsidiary would not be such a far-fetched proposition.

But, I digress...

What I am wondering is whether the minister has any statistics to support the assertion that BlackBerry Smartphones are primarily used for surfing the Internet for pornography as opposed to their primary design function of facilitating the ability to do business easily?

I have never owned a BlackBerry, and unless RIM was to contact me and offer to give me one for free to review, then I am unlikely to ever own one. But, even those that do not own BlackBerry phones should be alarmed at the Minister's moves against RIM. The simple truth here is that this is just the first step. If TitS is allowed to run roughshod over BlackBerry users then it is only a matter of time before he sets his sights on other Smartphones.

Ho hum...