Egypt: My Different Feelings Towards Blogging

You consciously decide to blog about your life and go into personal details. Then you realise that all your relatives and friends have been reading your blog.
Now that you are exposed, are you as free as you thought you were?
Egyptian blogger Mohamed El Tohamy (Aka 2-Hamy) tackles this issue here (Ar) and writes about his new feelings towards blogging.

بعد فترة في التدوين .. عرفت أسهل طريق في نجاح المدونات هو أن تكتب موضوعات السياسية و أرتبطت فكرة السياسية بمعنى كلمة مدونة عن الناس البعيدة عن المجال ..ولكني فضلت أن أدون عني وعن حياتي الشخصية وعن أصدقائي .. ظلت مدونتي نجاحه حتى أصبحت عائلتي و أصدقائي و معارفي تتابع المدونة ..لم أعد أكتب مثل ما قبل ..لم أعد أشعر بحريتي وتمنيت لو كنت شخصية خفية لا احد يعرف من أنا ؟ بدأت أشعر أن كلامي سوف يحسب في يوم من الأيام عليا .. لدى شعور غريب أن شخص غريب سوف يظهر في حياتي ويكون قرأ كل ما كتبت … تخيل شخص يعرف عنك كل شئ وأنت لا تعرف عنه اى شئ
لا أستطيع أن امتنع عن التدوين ولا أستطيع أن أعود إلى الماضي و أن أدون بحرية

After blogging for a while, I realised that the simplest way to have a successful blog is by writing about political subjects. People not familiar with blogging linked politics to blogging. However I preferred to write about my personal life and friends. And my blog became successful until I found out that my family and friends read it. And then I found myself not capable of writing as before. I am not comfortable any more, and wished that I was a hidden person whom no one knew. I started to feel that everything I say will be taken against me. I have a strange feeling that someone I don't know will show up in my life and that one will be reading every post I wrote. Can you imagine that there is someone who knows everything about you, and you know nothing about him/her.
I just cannot stop blogging; I cannot go back in time and I also cannot write as freely as I used to do before.

1 comment

  • Sir, {Mr Mohamed El Tohamey}: I read what you wrote, in English, of course, here in Denver Colorado. Therefore you see straightaway the value of the internet and the b blog. Could you have so easily traveled to Denver Co from Egypt? Perhaps if you have plenty of money. But if not, then the blog that you wrote and the vulnerability that goes with the territory so to speak, enables you to have a worldwide audience. Is that good for your country? Is it good for the free expression of ideas, whether of religious content, political, cultural or personal? The internet is a tool, nothing more and nothing less to communicate ideas around the world. Those nations that allow that liberty may strain for a bit to adjust but in time, they will. And you know why? Because they must. The airwaves, that is the internet, the cyberspace as it is called, is of GOD HIMSELF, and it facilitates the love of GOD as easily as it communicates other topics, does it not?
    Think about this, you, who are almost certainly a Muslim Male and me, a Christian woman, are communicating and there are no threats to either. Isn’t that in itself amazing and the kind of progress that helps all nations? Is not the power of the pen mightier indeed than the power of the sword? Sir, I ask you to tolerate the vulnerability that you feel in writing about your personal issues, knowing that your family and friends read what you write, in order that you might communicate to the rest of the world, how a Muslim male thinks who is not what journalists would label “radical”. The best and greatest gift of anyone to the human race is to show the commonalities between humans of all nations, creeds, and languages, and religions.
    If your family and friends talk about what you wrote, is that bad? Wouldn’t they also do that if say, you became the next President of your nation [if a republic] or the next Prime Minister if a Constitutional Monarchy, or the next Sultan to rule, or the next Emporer or the next King? Of course, they would! Anyone who steps into the limelight in any way, whether for entertainment as for instance a concert pianist, or for political reasons, as already mentioned, has to know that along with that position comes much debate, many who will disagree, many will spend countless hours debating the right or wrong of any position. It is human nature and no leader is immune from that. Ask the Pres of Iran, ask the President of the US how much he is criticized and how much, if any, it causes him to changes his policy?
    Blogging,which after all, is a powerful form of communicating with the entire world, if consistent enough, will bring about change. Of course, that is why some nations fight it. But they won’t win because humans were created in the image of GOD and GOD speaks, and has emotions, and caused the words to be written, “THE LORD is that Spirit,and where The Spirit of THE LORD is, there is liberty.” [ Holy Bible, or as you may know it, The Book]. I also believe that blogging brings about/develops the logic and reasoning and the use of words, and in turn, that develops the leadership of a person. I think it’s all good. I included the url address of one of my websites that has some of my original paintings that I painted, but another site you may find interesting, is also a blog of mine, that is kindly hosted in Egypt, so give them thanks. It is http://gloriapoole.maktoobblog.com/. It was a risk for me to put that up but I am glad that I did, and I am praying that millions of Arabic, and Muslim people read it. signed gloria

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