According to the BBC, the launch of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s blog was reported on state TV, which urged users to send in messages to the president. Several magazines and newspapers around the world have already talked about Ahmadinejad’s blog. In his first, and so far only, post, Ahmadinejad talks about his personal history and the Islamic Revolution. Iranian bloggers have very diverse opinions about this new blog. Let’s look at some of them:

A rural attitude or a modern one?

Ayandeh Abi says that by reading Ahmadinejad’s writing, we find out about his rural value system and background, we see how peasants who immigrated to urban zones revolted against urban life and tried to destroy it. The blogger adds [Fa]:

Sibestan disagrees, saying he sees Ahmadinejad not as a peasant but as a man who wants to discover and form a relationship with urban life. In Sibestan‘s view, Ahmadinejad has found a way to communicate through his blog, and communication is the heart of modernity [Fa].

Balouch says what Ahmadinejad writes in his blogs is less important than what he does in the country. He warns that Iranian authorities have a project for bloggers and blogs [Fa].

Presidential Attention: Good thing or Bad thing?

Jomhour wishes that Iranian authorities would ignore weblogs and let bloggers do their work. The blogger adds that media ( newspapers and magazines) have already been targeted and next time it will be the turn of blogs and web sites [Fa].

Hoder, a Toronto-based blogger, considers Ahmadinejad's blog a positive development, as it shows Ahmadinejad is a populist rather than a fundamentalist and that he's quite keen to reach the young educated urban Iranians around the world. Hoder writes:

. . . he wants to communicate with the outside world. If he continues writing it and if it becomes a real blog, then we should be happy that they're not going to shut down the blogging services as long as Ahmaedinejad is a populist.

Fidel Castro

Another political figure who captured the attention of Iranian bloggers is Cuban leader Fidel Castro and his recently announced illness.

Azar offers his views on Castro's promises of freedom and love of power [Fa]:

Nikahang remarks that Fidel escaped several US assassination plots, but the things he did to his people! If he dies, communists will be sad and so will many others around the world, but how will the many people who escaped Cuba feel? [Fa]