Monday, November 13, 2006

Washington Post: New Clicks in Arab World

A growing wave of young Arabs have turned to blogging to bypass the restrictions on free expression in a predominantly authoritarian, conservative and Muslim region.

By Faiza Saleh Ambah -- The Washington Post

Read here.

2 Comments:

At 7:15 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

the quote you have chosen has no basis in the reality of the arab region. the most authoritarian, repressive, and brutal regimes in the arab world are those who claim to be secular and anti-islamic: syria, saddam iraq, Tunis, Algeria, Libya, ... Funny how even if the facts hit us in the face we are so terribly unobjective it's no longer possible to have a meaningful internal debate aymore. the American carrot is so big, it's turning some arabs into donkeys.

Truyly,
A disgusted liberal secular arab

 
At 9:56 PM , Blogger Abu Shreek said...

Zeid,
I tend to slightly disagree.
Outside of very few Egyptian bloggers who are objectively critical of their regime (and even a fewer number of them are doing for reasons outside of empty publicity stunts), there has not been that big of serious crticism.when was the last time you came across a blog explicitly exposing the atrocities of ruling families in Saudi Arabi, UAE or Morocco (as examples)?
Take for example the Jordanian bloggosphere. You may find a few excellent blogger who are critical of the "governments" (which we all know are completely irrelevant and lasts for less than two year on their best runs), but when was the last time you heard someone mentioning anything about the royal family behavior, the lavish spending or and king's (...) policies?
(A lot can be written about the structure of the Jordanian bloggosphere, the real substance it provides, and the social sector it represents, but that may be a whole different issue)
Still, blogging remains a valuable podium, and hopefully it will break the deep-rooted fear barrier and start carrying the message of reform on the necessary level.

 

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