The Columbia Journalism Review, January 2007 issue, contains a thoughtful and interesting piece discussing blogging in the Arab world. Now of course I’m including it here because it supports one of my beliefs: that Muslim societies actually have more diversity of opinion than the West commonly believes, and most of these diverse viewpoints are calling for more self-criticism and reform of the existing societal and (especially) governmental institutions, and that it is these tentative steps toward (a) freer expression of opinions, and (b) reform, that we should be supporting with all our national might. Some extracts:
. . . And though he probably would not have appreciated being deployed as a weapon in Israel’s public-relations war, the presence of his independent voice, a counterintuitive opinion not filtered through any official source, said a lot about the power of Middle Eastern Web logs to expose a hidden trove of multiple perspectives in a world that the West often imagines as having only one perspective — that of the “Arab Street,” a place of conformity, of mass acquiescence to singular passions, be they blind support for a dictator or seething hatred of Israel.
Last summer was, in fact, a watershed moment for the Middle Eastern blogosphere. The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah not only brought attention to the many different Arab conversations that had taken place on homemade Web sites in the past two or three years, but also launched thousands more of them. And they were more than just a handful of aberrant voices. They reflected a new culture of openness, dialogue, and questioning. And unlike the neoconservative notion that these ideals can be dropped on a foreign population like so many bomblets, the push for change here is coming from within. Whether it is a Jordanian student discussing the taboo subject of the monarchy’s viability or a Saudi woman writing about her sexual experiences or an Egyptian commenting with sadness at an Israeli blogger’s description of a suicide bombing, each of these unprecedented acts is one small move toward opening up these societies.
Why should we support this movement? Because this blogging represents the best hope we have to have a safety-valve that will prevent some of the most repressive regimes in the region (read: our friends, mostly) from erupting in an Iranian-style revolution — the kind of thing that will make our lives here very much more difficult. If we think that Iraq is a problem, wait until half of the whole middle-east is drowning in the same acid.
And they write not without risk:
In the American blogosphere, opinions and life tales blossom a millionfold every day. But against the background of a largely party-line mainstream local Arab media, and the absence of avenues for national conversation, these Arab bloggers, most of whom are anonymous for their own safety, commit small acts of bravery simply by speaking their minds.
[snip]
To hear the bloggers themselves describe it, blogging has taken off in the Arab world because it presents an opportunity to reclaim individuality. In a region where leaders, be they Hassan Nasrallah or Ismail Haniya, claim to speak on behalf of all Arabs, a blog is a chance to contradict, to undermine, and to assert. “Every leader thinks they represent everyone in these countries,” says Abu Kais. “And I think that’s something we challenge every day in our blogs. We challenge what they say, and we always show the politicians as hypocrites, really. We have documented what has happened over the past two years and are able to contrast statements that show the level of the hypocrisy. That’s something you don’t always find in Lebanese media.”
So however tentative, however groping, however repressed, this unofficial opinion-sharing IS there and IS growing and IS worth reading. Try it, you will find it both disturbing and interesting.
And, as usual, I recommend you take a listen to a great American Shia Muslim podcast, Qunoot, to get a handle on diversity of Muslim opinion in the US.
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