Before going to Beirut to watch the elections we go to the city of Saida. we start at the unimpressive ruin of the chateau d’eau that lies in the small fishing port opposite of the medina. the leaflet provided to vistors by the ministry of tourism is identical in text with the section about this place in the lonely planet. would be interesting to know who copied from whom. the thought that future generations main source of historical information are the little boxed texts in the various editions of the lonely planet is already disturbing but if it should turn out that the official historical knowledge draws form the the same source this would be even more disturbing.

In Saida i find the first internet cafe, actually someone finds it for me as it is a little walk from the city center in a little side street. is more or less and empty room with a computers and one hour goes for £1000. as expected the connection is unbearably slow, a single website often takes ful 2 minutes to load. and this is while only 3 of the 8 terminals are occupied. It seems that it is going to be difficult to stay connected while being here.

Beirut is not much more lively than yesterday. the only places attracting crowds are the polling stations that have crowds of party activists in front of them. Hezbollah activists in yellow vests, the omnipresent Hariri fan-boys in white t-shirts with – surprise surprise – Hariri’s face on their chest. each polling station is guarded by a fire-truck, an ambulance, a platoon of soldiers – and in the christian areas of east Beirut – a armoured personel carrier with a mounted heavy machine gun. The atmosphere is relaxed, the different political factions mix while they hand out little flyers with the lists of candidates that their party supports (each party assembles lists of candidates that comply with the complicated confessional balance that is required by the constitution). The Hariri fans-boys also hand out little gifts (bottles of juice and water with the portrait of the late Hariri on them). Inside the polling station party activists continue to give advice to voters, the voters hoever seem to direct themselves to a representative of their party in order to be instructed. In all the polling rooms (there are 5 in the school that i enterd) there are at least 6 observers by the different parties that sit in the schoolbenches and make notes while the voters disappear behind a curtain to make make their choice. While the results of the vote will not be known till mid week…

Just came across an article in todays NRC [‘import-bride has to know thorbecke’] about the dutch gouvernement moves towards requiring a Dutch language and culture exam before a person is allowed to settle in the Netherlands. not that this means that by passing the exams you have the right to settle in NL, but if you have acquired the right to settle e.g because you are married to a dutch citizen or someone who has a residence permit you still neet to pass the tests or you won’t get in. (of course all of this does not applies to citizens of the eu, Switzerland, the us, canada australia and new zealand).

So you have to pass a test on dutch history and society (mainly testing stuff that dutch people have been taught in school immediately forgotten afterwards) and a language test. the language test is suposed to be completely computerized. the test will be conducted via a telephone line form special rooms in dutch embassies and consulates around the world. the computer is not only serving the questions and judging your answers (it has to asses complex things like re-narrations of short stories which as far as i can tell is quite daunting task in itself given the current state of technology). also the verdict of the computer is final there is no possibility of appealing a verdict once given. also for each attempt at the 30 minute test euro 350 has to be paid up-front by the applicant.

If i remember it correctly my last encounter with complex speech recognition technology dates back three years or so and at that point i failed to book a train ticket via the phone answering to simple questions in my mother language. that a centralized computer system can cope with 1001 accents that it is inevitably going to encounter seems to be completely unrealistic to me. so maybe we are starting to see a new form of migration management this time with ‘objective’ computer technology acting as a filter. if this becomes practice (the system does exist but its use still needs to be authorized by parliament) you can fulfill all the legal requirements for settling in the netherlands and still not be granted entry because the computer des not get your accent (or the software fails altogether or the phone line is bad or because you are chinese and cant pronunce the R and the computer wants you to pronunce ‘gras’ (speaking of dutch culture here aren’t we) but you only manage to say ‘glas’…