“In a country where most major newspapers are state-owned or affiliated to a party, the Internet is offering an unprecedented freedom and platform for an increasingly bold opposition to the regime.” This is how Agence France-Presse (AFP) described the present status of Egyptian bloggers, who are setting new standards in the Middle East politics and democracy reform. AFP featured some Egyptian Bloggers like Baheyya, Manal and Alaa and Mohammed, who runs a blog entitled “From Cairo With Love.” Mohammed DON'T believes that blogs and the Internet will reform the Arab world and make the people rise up.
Written byHaitham Sabbah
3 comments
“Mohammed believes that blogs and the Internet will reform the Arab world and make the people rise up.”
The AFP piece quotes me saying the exact opposite of that.
It looks I was optimistic enough to read that you “believe”. Corrected now…
What is important here is why not? Why don’t you “believe that blogs and internet will reform the Arab world and make people rise”? And if that is what you believe, then why are you blogging? There must be some objective.
I personally believe that one day they (blogs) will. This is the first step of the thousand miles… Just mentioning some of the Egyptian bloggers (and other elsewhere) in the media is a change that will lead eventually one day to the reform.
And why go far, the Christian Science Monitor article few days ago is another example. Beside that it was talking about the Egyptians bloggers, at the end of the same article was a part about the Bahrain Bloggers, where I was quoted saying “Without the bloggers of Bahrain escalating this, and trying to pressure the government, I don’t think anyone would have ever cared or heard about these guys”, and this is true.
Therefore, yes we can make changes in the Middle East. Slowly and steady, but it will be of a great effect in the future…
Bahrain is a different story. How big is Bahrain?
I’m not blogging to reform anything or anyone, that’s for sure. I’m just expressing my thoughts, and my blog looks at things from a more of a cultural and human perspective –certainly not political. My objective maybe to connect cultures (a bridge or a window as Hoder puts it).