Third World lack of confidence? What do we do about it?

I am sure you all know what I am talking about. Since November 2007 I got my BB and had enjoyed tremendous freedom and mobility; I was travelling and at the same time keeping my business running. The amount of time I saved and the number of gains I secured because of it are not quantifiable, also being linked all the time with my children who study overseas by chatting with them all the time whether on MSN or BBM kept me in contact to the extent that I didn’t feel the need the distance between us nor did I worry about them at any point in time. My team in the office were also constantly in check, so if I needed to ask for something or needed them to do something urgently I was only an email away.

However all of this freedom is about to go, just because the guys at TRA and RIM cannot find a solution to the security issue. Now that this word is introduced I opened Pandora’s Box and of course we must reflect on the subject of national security. What does it mean? Is the country worried about 500,000 business men and women who are trying to add value to the country's economy? Is the country worried that us the business people are in contact with our children and families while trying to add value to the economy and doing this in stress-free mind? Is the country worried that being stress-free will actually endanger the country?

I dont think this is what bothers the country. To me, I dont mind if the country checks all my emails, mms, sms, bbms, emails, phone conversation etc. I dont mind if I have bugs around my house. In actual fact I will be happy if they do this as it will provide me peace of mind knowing that there are people who are worried about our security. Do you know that I become worried and terrified when I enter an airport that doesn’t check our things because there could be a terrorist amongst us who will either kill all of us or damage property; I would rather have the country do the proper checks and balances to keep us all safe. If the country says to me that I have to go and provide my finger prints and reveal all my life's secrets, I would do that tomorrow, in exchange to freedom and mobility. The latter is too important for me and my business. I consider what I am doing is so important to the country and its inhabitants, as otherwise most of my clients (the students) may lose time as they will not be able to study on time, so if in exchange I reveal a bit of my private information then who really cares? And mentioning private information is really a funny subject. If you google my name you can find out everything about me, the only this that is probably missing is the colour of my underwear, and even that is available from my credit card purchases. So our information is public and our lives are public, and even what we do for living is public as we show it on our websites hoping that people who need us will find us. And to prove that we are real we have to put our photos, and all of this is public too.

Did you know? I didn’t want to say all of this, rather I wanted to say that we will always be a third world, as we dont know how to solve business issues. TRA could have secretly talked to RIM and solved this matter in a very civilised manner the same as what the first world had done. Did we all think that the people who are using BB in the west are saved from this? No please you are all naive if you thought so, everybody in the world has a security surveillance imposed on him or her. When we lived in New Zealand they introduced a driving license with a chip (smart card) this chip is linked to radar that tells a machine somewhere, your whereabouts and the explanation provided is that in case someone is lost they can find him or her? Well, that was in the first world? Did anyone utter a word about it? Also in US all bags are screened before and after the flight has landed. The garbage is checked by the green police in Germany, and if they see a piece of paper they try to trace it to the house it’s thrown from then the person is fined.

What I am trying to say here is that, please people dont be upset, and we should all try to save our third world countries from acts that could harm us and our generations, and if we all thought that BBMs could endanger national security we should have said this before TRA had discovered it. In actual fact I received some BBMs that are not proper and I was upset about it. I think we as people living in the third world really lack confidence; we should not be scared to say what is on our mind in order to protect the people and the country.

I love my country and I would do anything to protect it. Come on Etisalat, find us a replacement that continues to save our time, or do the talk that the western world had with RIM (we have many advisors from the west, so why not use them for this to compensate the hefty salaries that they pocket every month)