It’s been a fairly emotional week with a hash tag that reminded social media users to pray longer in honour of the founding father Sheikh Zayed, who died 11 years ago on the 19th day of the holy month of Ramadan. And then, a real, live Snapchat storm erupted when supporters of Palestine got worked up about a Snapchat feature on Tel Aviv.
In memory
Twitter was overwhelmed by memories in the week of Sheikh Zayed’s passing, 11 years ago. Hasan @dayem33 spoke for everyone: “There isn’t a house in the UAE that doesn’t have a photo of Sheikh Zayed and stories of his good deeds.”
And then he was off again. “The generation born after Zayed still call him father as if he were living among them,” Hasan tweeted.
Alya @3llaayaa said that was because he lives in our hearts. “And in our tears,” tweeted @mmalshamsi.
The last few days
Muslims believe that Laylat Al Qadr, in the last 10 days of Ramadan, is the night the first verses of the Quran were revealed to Prophet Mohammed. Social media marked the occasion with appropriate fervour.
Essa @EssaAlBasheer tweeted: “We should start the last ten days of Ramadan asking for forgiveness.”
Abdullah @alaidrooos shared a prayer that he said Prophet Mohammed repeated a lot in the last 10 days of Ramadan.
@3llamteen said that the lucky would have managed to read the Quran in the holy month, but “if not, there’s still time”.
@A_M1258 advised against the indiscriminate use of smart phones and social media in the last few days of Ramadan.
City feature
When Snapchat decided on Tel Aviv as its featured city, it could not have known the Twitter storm it would unleash. The feature gives all Snapchat users some insight into the daily lives of users who live in the featured city by means of user-submitted photos or video “snaps”.
All of these are aggregated into a “live story”, which is available to view for 24 hours by more than 100 million Snapchat users.
But Tel Aviv became a “live story” in an unexpected way. Supporters of Palestine said the city was “taken from an oppressed group” and shouldn’t be featured at all.
Twitter-users started uploading photos of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rather than the city’s towers, roller coasters, singing young people and radiant brides.
Alaa @lokakh22 tweeted: “Fake Land. Fake Culture. Fake Happiness. Fake People.”
Rana @Ranajop shared photos of Palestine before the state of Israel. Abdullah @AbdullahAlen shared several other photos, with the message: “This is reality, why don’t you show it?”
The photos showed an Israeli soldier pointing his gun at a child, Israeli women pulling off a Palestinian woman’s hijab and a child kicking the same woman.
Abdullah @abody_11shared maps of Canada, USA, Germany and Australia, with “Israel” written across each and asked “How would you feel?” He meant, how would you feel if you saw a map of your country with the name of another on it?
@MohsenAldayel shared a heart-studded drawing that recalled the story of Muhammed Al Durrah who was killed on the second day of the second intifada in Gaza.
@muh_al84 tweeted photos of Israeli soldiers using Palestinian kids as human shields.
@dxbsam offered sage advice to Snapchat: “Never promote a live story to the wrong region. It’s like promoting North Korea’s event to South Korea.”
But Fahad from Saudi Arabia @bohimi said he liked the use of Arabic on the streets of Tel Aviv and some other aspects of life as seen in the photographs.
Sarah Khamis is The National’s social media editor
salalawi@thenational.ae
On Twitter: @SarahKhamisUAE
