Buthaina al Hinai, an undergraduate at the College of Commerce and Economics, Sultan Qaboos University, is passionate about human and social behaviour. Her interests revolve around photography, graphic design, sociology and psychology. She can be e-mailed at buthaina.alhinai@apexmedia.co.om

Since the unrest in Oman and in an effort to unveil governmental corruption, many online activists have been working on spreading leaked documents. Some documents exposed the Ministry of Higher Education’s unfair allocation of scholarships to the children of prominent Omani officials and other documents from the Ministry of Housing proved the acquisition of large areas of land by Omani ministers.

It’s always impressive how the work of one person or a small group of people can have an impact on our society. It’s one thing to see a genius scientist making a difference but it’s another thing to witness an equally significant impact done by the work of people like you and me.

Progressively after the Arab spring, Omanis have felt the need to react to local events and news, sometimes aggressively, and fight for their point of view. What keeps them going is the fact that they know that government officials cannot afford to ignore the locals anymore, as all eyes are on them.

Whenever I travel with my family, there’s always someone lecturing us about being careful. Not of pickpockets or strangers, but of how we behave. When we go to Dubai and my brothers wear their Omani dishdashas and they’re about to do something that might look bad, my mother nudges them and warns them that whatever they do can go far beyond stares from others.

If one morning you get ready to leave for work only to find that one of your car tyres is flat, would you go back to bed and call in sick? Or would you find other ways to get to work?