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A glimpse into the heart of Iranian society · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Christian Alexander is an American blogger who has written his BA thesis on Iranian blogs. Here, he shares with us his his opinion on Iranian blogs. He is also a contributor to Sounds Iranian blog where people who do research on Iranian blogs and exchange their ideas.
Q: Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your interest in blogging and your interest in Iranian blogs?
My interest in blogs was a little accidental. I've always had an interest in technology, and specifically the Internet. The web is the defining technology of our times, and a revolutionary invention that will have – indeed already has had – an incredible effect on human civilization.
In college, for my final honors thesis I decided to interlace my interest in technology and its influence on society with my major area of study, colonial and post-colonial non-Western history. My advisor, a specialist on 19th century Iranian and Middle Eastern history, suggested that I look into the recent hype over blogging in Iran.
I spent the better part of a year investigating Iranian blogs and relevant literature on them. In the process I developed an interest in Iranian society and culture.  I took an independent Persian language course and began my own metablog that I used to track the Iranian blogosphere.
Since submitting my thesis a little over a year ago I have continued to follow Iran both in the news and through the blogs and other sources I accumulated during my formal study.  While I am actively looking to broaden my study of blogging to include other countries and regions that share many of Iran's issues (such as accessibility, poverty, etc.), I maintain a specific interest in the Iranian blogosphere.
From taxi culture to nuclear crisis
Q: Do you think Iranian blogs can give you an image of Iran that we do not find in the mass media? Can you cite an example?
I definitely think that, especially in the case of Iran, blogging gives a welcomed alternative perspective that often diverges radically from what traditional mainstream media provides us here in the US. In my mind this is one of the most important contributions that the Iranian Weblogestan makes.
One of the most interesting and exciting discoveries I made during my study was the perspective of the Iranian blogosphere. The odd mix of familiarity and strangeness of their worlds provided a much more complex, nuanced, and sympathetic picture of Iranian society than traditional sources of news did.
The fact that I had such access to these people also gave me an important sense of empowerment. Learning about the intricacies of taxi culture in View From Iran's “Taxi Talk,” or about daily street life from Mr. Behi  gave me a glimpse into the heart of Iranian society that traditional media stories left out. Daily coverage of the Iranian-US nuclear stand-off and Iranian involvement in Iraq by the mainstream media continually creates a false impression of Iran that blogs often work to deconstruct.
But the Iranian blogosphere represents a very small demographic. As in other “developing” countries, the internal “digital divide” between those with access and those without significantly shapes the perspective and climate of the Iranian cyber-society.
Reading Iranian English-language blogs in the months and weeks leading up to the 2005 presidental elections, it would have been hard, if not impossible, to predict that Ahmadinejad would win. Clearly the views of these bloggers were at odds with a substantially large portion of the rest of Iran. The surprise/shock/denial illicited by many of these blogs in the aftermath illustrates how specific group this group was/is within the broader Iranian population.
Technology and ideology of modernization
Q: What are the main topics of your thesis about Iranian blogs?
As I said before, my project looked to combine my interest in technology and the Internet with the history of non-Western post-colonies. Now, I understand that Iran was never a formal colony.  Nevertheless, its semi-colonial past bares many of the similarities to other parts of the world that at one time were dominated politically, militarily, and culturally by Western Europe and/or the United States. I am interested in how this part of history has shaped the world we live in today.
The overarching theme of my thesis was an investigation of the way technology and the ideology of modernization interacted within Iran throughout the previous century or so.  Looking back on the recent history of Iran, technology has always played a central role in the ideological pursuit to become “modern.”  The idea of modernity itself is something that is flexible and subject to change, depending on who and when you ask.  For 19th and early 20th century Europe, modernity was reflected in the rational, scientific, transparent ideology that developed from the European Enlightenment.
Tangled up in this ideal were the cultural norms of European society, which were often labeled as objective truth rather than subjective perspective.  Predictably, this view of modernity clashed with the cultural norms of other regions of the world, such as Iran, who came to be dominated by European countries.  Confusion over the definition and meaning of European modernity and its compatibility with Iranian culture created tension within the political, social and cultural hierarchy of the region.
Over the last hundred years Iranians have wrestled between the desire to be modern and the fear of political and cultural domination by the West.  The 1979 Revolution signified a swing towards anti-Western “traditionalism” and a rejection of Euro-American “modernity.”  However, the regime's mixed ambivalence towards technology hints at a greater ideological incoherence that is not sustainable in the contemporary world.
Blogs are radical
Q: How do you evaluate Iranian blogs’ importance in Iranian society?
This is a difficult question for a number of reasons. First, being an outsider (and with a very limited grasp of the language to boot), it is very difficult for me to ascertain the importance of Weblogestan within Iran and Iranian society.  I've read many bloggers inside Iran complaining about the warped perspectives of those outside the country, both foreigners and members of the diaspora.  I acknowledge the complexity of Iran's social and political situation, and question how accurate my analysis is.
The second difficulty is in determining the larger impact of blogging itself on politics and society in general.  No doubt, blogging can have a significant impact on societies, as has been demonstrated numerous times in Iran, the US, and around the world.  Blogs play an important role as disseminators of information and ideas.  They are radical because they introduce a (relatively) cheap, accessible and anonymous medium for expression (the last factor is what has made them such an attractive and potent political tool in repressive societies, such as Iran).
However, when it comes to specific, sustained political and social change, blogging seems more effective as an indirect and supplementary contributor.  Can bloggers by themselves change policy, elect a president, or preserve a cultural monument? They are only indirect players. Citizens and/or leaders must still make the decisions and take action.
The most effective campaigns for social or political change that have utilized blogs have had some sort of real-world backbone, some means of connecting ideas in cyberspace with action in reality. Can this change?  For most purposes I believe blogging to be just a tool. In essence, for grassroots social/political change to be effective, bloggers must also be active citizens.
From a purely cultural perspective you might argue that blogging has a more direct effect by actually changing the structure of human interaction and socio-cultural norms.  I think this is very significant, but this change too is in my mind a slower, more subtle process. Bloggers (and everyone else) have less direct control over this change.
In general, I think that blogs have had more of an impact on Iranian society and politics than they otherwise would have because of the repressive nature of the regime.  The freedom of expression and ideas that blogging facilitates has been an important development for Iranians, and this phenomenon has already shown its power and influence over the country's leadership.  Socially too, blogs have allowed many Iranians to bypass restrictive policies and engage each other in discussion, share opinions, flirt, etc.
However, I would also say that much of the hype produced about the democratizing power of the the Internet and blogs has proved to be just that.  Thus far, the new technologies themselves have not been effectively utilized as a tool to reform the repressive regime.  Instead, the Iranian government has learned to manipulate or censor technologies such as the Internet.  Despite the efforts of many reformist bloggers, it still remains to be seen whether the pressure they have placed on the government will be enough to move it towards a more just and tolerant society.
Iranian blogs vs. American blogs
Q: How do you compare Iranian political blogs with American ones?
I would say that in many ways Iranian political blogs and American political blogs are very similar.  In both communities there is a variance of positions and opinions (thanks Hamid Tehrani for blogging about conservative Iranian blogs).  A fragmentation of the blogosphere along ideological/political lines is probably also a characteristic of both.  Of course government censorship is a much bigger factor in Iran, and so the number of anonymous blogs in the Iranian blogosphere is, I imagine, much higher (although I have nothing but anecdotal evidence to back this up).
Q: Have you got anything else to share with the Global Voices audience?
I'd like to thank GVO and all of its contributors for their work. I've enjoyed learning about new places and people through its pages, and hope that GVO and its partners will continue to facilitate meaningful dialog between different groups.  I hope to continue to contribute in my own way and encourage others to share their thoughts and ideas as well.  Feel free to contact me through this GVO post, SoundsIranian or my personal blog.


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Bolivia: Another Seven Wonders · Global Voices
Eduardo Avila

In the spirit of the recent 7 Wonders of the World competition, Miguel Esquirol of El Forastero [ES] provides his own list of the seven wonders of Bolivia.

source: news-globalvoices

license: Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

author: Eduardo Avila


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Chile: Government Seeks to Lower Price of Broadband Internet · Global Voices
Eduardo Avila

Fayer Wayer [ES] is pleased with a new governmental effort that seeks to lower the price of broadband internet in Chile.


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Chile: Video Art in Santiago · Global Voices
Eduardo Avila

Chile From Within writes about Yael Rosenblut's newest exhibition and Video Art in the capital city of Santiago.\


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Japan: The psychology of right-wing nationalist intellectuals · Global Voices
Chris Salzberg

Blogger Niphonese writes about the phenomenon of Japanese going to study in Europe, then returning to Japan and joining right-wing nationalist groups [Ja]: “After experiencing discrimination in Europe, these Japanese people think to themselves: ‘Westerners talk about these things like human rights and so on, pretending like they don't know. There is discrimination in the West. So what is so wrong about Japanese also discriminating?'”

author: Chris Salzberg


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Kuwait: Despite the Summer, it’s Never Quiet in Here! · Global Voices
Abdullatif AlOmar

It's still summer here. The mercury is rising but Kuwaitis still go for traditional activities during the summer.
Pepsi Guy blogs about his first boat trip and gives a warning.
After a long wait, I finally got to take my boat on it's 1st test drive. The weather was amazing, boat ride was cool (though we had to drive slowly to break down the new engines) and the dive was excellent.
Zdistrict goes to his cousin's Saturday Dewaniya (gathering place for men attached to homes), but this time there is a secret!
Then he pulled out one bag, then the other guy asked where was his, then he pulled out a second bag, then the third person asked where was his, and he pulled a third bag. All of that just like he was Santa Claus, I wanted him to pull out another bag just for the hell of it.
breezeey didn't take any precautions and got hit hard by the sun .
My face got burned from the sun and I didn't expect it to be like this but it's my fault. Is there someone who would go in the blazing sun of the noon and not apply creams or sun block?
I jumped into the sea and I didn't take it seriously. They told me that the sea is a backstabber but now I regret it because I can't go out or see people – burnt is an understatement about my face.
Forzaq8 found out that the sun got into someones head.
In an Interview with Alwatan Daily in Kuwait for the Week Topic (which was about blogging, more like attacking bloggers), the Secretary of the Kuwaiti Journalists Association said what is on his mind about bloggers, which is amazing what he think of blogs, and how many times he shows that he demands they be closed or controlled and that coming from a guy who is supposed to ask for more freedom of speech is priceless irony
Flugtag seems to be the new fad in Kuwait and there is more than one blogger entering it!  One of the teams is led by none other Nibaq and he is joined by three other bloggers!
ABNE & Co is proud to announce its first Red Bull-flugtag flying endeavor, Team Imperial27, in remembrance of Imperial Airways’ first Kuwaiti in 1927. The team will be composed of lead pilot and magician Nibaq (pilot), accompanied by conspiring engineering extraordinaries Marzouq, Mark and K.

author: Abdullatif AlOmar


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Morocco: Hot Hot Hot · Global Voices
Jillian C. York

It's still excruciatingly hot in Morocco, making the heat a popular topic amongst the Anglophone blogoma.  With temperatures often reaching 40 degrees Celsius and a serious dearth of air-conditioning, it seems many bloggers are suffering.  Evelyn in Morocco, an expatriate in Fez, is struggling with modest dress during this heat wave:
Hot, hot, hot
The days are very hot and it is difficult to find the proper clothing to wear. To be cool yet modestly dressed is a real challenge for me. I surely believe Moroccans have a different tolerance for the heat … especially the women. How else can you explain their ability to wear a galaba* over other clothing (usually pajamas) plus add a headscarf tied tightly and completely around their neck? A few even wear a veil across their face leaving only the eyes showing. And some wear all this in the color black. I get hot just looking at them!
*Also djellaba or jellaba – a hooded robe worn by both men and women in Morocco.
Cory from 32n5w chooses to lament the heat through poetry, specifically haiku. Here are a couple of his poems:
Too hot to throw rocks
And hurl racist insults
Kids aren’t so bad now
Hemlines are rising
With the day’s temperature
Was that an ankle???
A surprisingly un-blogged subject this week was the fact that Morocco has raised its security level to maximum, “indicating a radical Islamist attack is expected imminently,” according to Reuters.  Cat in Rabat seems unsure about the whole thing:
So it's been three days and all is quiet; thus far, there's been no incident. Touch wood. Nonetheless, I am tempted to quote Marvin the Martian and ask, “Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth shattering kaboom!” Not that I'm not relieved, but what happened? Perhaps the SBs were rattled. Rattled by this, the “… first time Moroccan authorities have used clear language and precise words about the terrorist threat.” Yeesh.
Another hot (no pun intended) topic this week was travel writing.  After a Wall Street Journal article about Morocco's “mystique” was released, several bloggers had something to say about it.  The View From Fez criticized the article, saying:
Oh dear! Now the Wall Street Journal has succumbed to tabloid writing about Morocco. Yes, sad but true. The usual standards you expect from the WSJ have plummeted.
In an article headed: Morocco's Dangerous Mystique, one STAN SESSER manages to get in snake charmers and faux guides in the first paragraph. Mind you this is a man who got lost in the Marrakech Medina… now if it had been Fez, we might have understood.
The Morocco Report chimed in:
Go ahead, Rupert Murdoch.  Buy the Wall Street Journal.  It’s not like it gets any worse than this.
(I particularly like how the author repeatedly points out how “unsafe” Morocco is and cites the Casablanca suicide bombers as example, when they didn’t actually kill or injure anyone but themselves)
On a final and not-so-hot topic this week, Braveheart-does-the-Maghreb has discovered an odd children's toy in the souqs of Rabat:
The chaps are selling these at the entrance to the Medina. I am not sure exactly of the Moroccan view of the play being enacted. Is bin Laden the victim? Does he have a bomb hidden under the skateboard? The press here [that I have read, and that Q has read] while not condemning bin Laden does not, and most certainly the people do not condone terrorists acts against ANYONE in Morocco. Perhaps it is only tourists and expats buying the toy? All possible choices, you decide.
Photo by Braveheart-does-the-Maghreb

author: Jillian C. York


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Peru: Prayer of Daily Strikes · Global Voices
Eduardo Avila

Cuaderno de Borrador [ES] writes her own play on the “Our Father” in response to the wave or protests and strikes currently taking place in Peru.


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Uruguay: Rest in Peace for Football Team · Global Voices
Eduardo Avila

Montevideo Me Mata! [ES] declares that Uruguayan football has died after witnessing tough losses to Brazil and the United States.


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Afghanistan: Child labour · Global Voices
Ben Paarmann

Afghan Lord talks to a 9-year-old girl who does not go to school but has to help her family make ends meet instead.

author: Ben Paarmann


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Africa: The 2007 AfricanLoft Cyber Essay Contest · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Participate in the 2007 AfricanLoft Cyber Essay Contest: “To celebrate and mark the official launch of AfricanLoft as a platform for Africans and Afrophiles worldwide. AfricanLoft is proud to present: The 2007 AfricanLoft Cyber Essay Contest.”

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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Armenia: Vardavar at Garni · Global Voices
Ben Paarmann

Vardavar is fun for almost everyone, as you can get away with throwing water at complete strangers. Christian Garbis and Onnik Krikorian (more photos here and here) went to witness this ancient Zoroastrian ceremony in a village near the Armenian capital.


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Bahrain: First Vlog · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Bahraini emoodz posts his first vlog here.

author: Amira Al Hussaini


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Bahrain: Saudi DJ Podcast  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Bahraini Esraa posts a podcast of an interview with a DJ in Saudi Arabia here.


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Bahrain: Tension with Iran  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Bahraini Mahmood Al Yousif  says the tension between Bahrain and Iran is escalating because of people “exposing their racial and sectarian intentions.”


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Bangladesh: Child Marriage · Global Voices
Neha Viswanathan

Voices of South on the issue of child marriage in Bangladesh, and how a 13 year old's classmates protested when she was to be married to a 23 year old man.

author: Neha Viswanathan


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Bangladesh: Sheikh Hasina Arrested · Global Voices
Neha Viswanathan

The arrest of an ex-Prime Minister – Hasina Sheikh gets reactions from Mash, Unheard Voices and Dhaka.


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Barbados: World Youth Athletics Champ  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Barbados Free Press applauds the achievement of 17-year-old Shane Brathwaite, Barbados’ first World Youth Athletics Champion.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Cambodia: Cambodian Students Safe in Japan Quake · Global Voices
Preetam Rai

Cambodian student Himatsubushi, currently living in Japan, describes his experience of the recent earthquake that hit Japan.

author: Preetam Rai


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Caribbean: Contemporary Art Exhibition  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“Brooklyn sometimes feels like it is part of the Caribbean,” writes Caribbean Beat Blog,  reporting on an upcoming exhibition of contemporary Caribbean art at the Brooklyn Museum.


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Central Asia: Evil ranking · Global Voices
Ben Paarmann

BordersCA, a blog on borders in Central Asia, is reporting that Turkmenistan is slowly loosing its “Evil-Number-One” status to Uzbekistan. A sign of this are the small, yet continuous changes put in place by the new Turkmen president Berdymukhammedov, such as the removal of the arduous and omnipresent highway passport controls.


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China: Architecture Website · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Jason Li introduced a Beijing based architecture firm, Atelier fcjz which takes up projects from all over China. The designs are showcased in their website.

author: Oiwan Lam


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China: Olympic is not everything! · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Zheng jinyang blogs a letter from a friend working in the human rights field who gave a urgent call to her colleagues: The grave human rights violation in else where China, especially Shanghai has not been addressed because we are so dam focus on Only Olympic and Beijing! When so many money and resource pour in Olympic focus, more and more petitioner, human rights defender are torture to death in Shanghai, imprison else where in China.


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China: Rodent population problem · Global Voices
John Kennedy

The top featured story at Sina blogs yesterday was the rodent invasion into the areas surrounding Dongting lake in southern Hunan province precipitated by flooding on the Yangtze river, and the resulting extermination campaign.
Among discussion were the reasons the rodent population has flourished in the south, as well as what's being done with the corpses, ninety tons of which have already been collected, according to officials, with two billion rodents running loose in total [zh]. Video and photos have been posted and, notes Sina blogger ‘Everywhere is my Home‘, the area affected spans four million mu—just more than 1,000 square miles—which includes twenty-two counties, leaving the local flood protection dike and eight million mu of rice paddies at serious risk:
据分析，洞庭鼠灾的原因在于近年湖南受广州菜肴的影响，造成”口味蛇”的时兴，蛇被大量拿来”果腹”，而老鼠的另一个天地”猫头鹰”由于当地流传的偏方『治偏头痛』也残遭杀害。缺少天敌的田鼠们，繁殖、破坏起来自然”随心所欲”。
当读了这篇新闻报道的时候，想到了前不久在上海发生的一件事，840只流浪猫（其中也有些家猫）被上海小动物保护者在上海至广州的高速公路闸口处解救下来（这些猫是从浙江、安徽等地被猫贩子收购下来送往广州餐馆里做菜肴用的），并在各个论坛里发帖子征集药品、食物来救治这些可怜的小生命。而当时的警察却以猫不属于国家保护动物而拒绝出警，更可恨的是猫贩子手持伪造的林业部门文件，叫嚣着谁搬猫就打死谁。此外，第二天又有辆运猫车闯关去了广州。
为什么会把这两件事情放在一起，还有个重要的原因：新闻报道里说湖南省农业厅厅长程海波提出的化学灭鼠方案，主要是投放毒饵，用溴敌隆、敌鼠钠盐等杀鼠剂配制毒饵。而大通湖区、乡两级政府拨付应急防治经费购买鼠药和饵料，投放毒饵毒杀害鼠40多吨灭鼠。
要有点常识的人都知道，化学灭鼠产生的效果是不错，但对当地的生态环境造成更大的负面影响是无法估量的。由此可以看出，政府政绩思想又一次出来做了跳梁小丑的角色。
现在让我们设想一个美丽的结局吧：这840只猫如果在洞庭湖生活的话，那里还会有鼠灾的发生吗？
最后要问一句：广州的居民们，当你们吃着小动物的尸体，看到这样的新闻，你们还吃的下吗？？？
Let's just imagine a nice finale, though: if those 840 cats lived in Dongting, would there still have been the rat disaster?
One last question, to Guangzhou residents: when you're eating the corpses of little animals, having seen this news, are you still able to swallow them down???
Not all of them residents, judging from sentiment expressed by Southern Metropolis Daily blogger Arden Deng:
“…whenever there are people bombarding against the Cantonese “ungraceful” wild diet, I wish to distance myself from the Cantonese by declaring myself a Hakka—as I am. I know it doesn’t work though, as not much difference remains between the two. With the flourishing restaurant industry, every kind of dish is up for exploitation, to be pushed up against the common sense. For example, there is little daily connection between pangolins and human beings, so it is understandable why it became a dish in a sense. But rats? They’re a daily-visible creature with a dirty and notorious reputation. Leeches won’t even take rats as delicious diet, so what kind of humans do? I really feel sorry for them.”
Other bloggers made the association between this campaign [zh] and that of the Cultural Revolution era, then to wipe out ‘the four pests’.
‘The Demon of Justice‘ blogger goes back [zh] to the underlying problems that gave rise to this situation:
据报道称，这次鼠灾主要是由于人们的贪吃，使得蛇、鹰、猫头鹰等鼠类天敌被吃得光光的，几乎找不到这些动物的影子了。老鼠所到之处，粮食像被收割机割过一番，成片成片地倒下。当地人拿着木棍、铲子之类物品去打老鼠，一棒子能打死两三只，一铲子下去七八只老鼠倒地，几天工夫竟灭了90吨的老鼠！而尽管如此，老鼠却依旧不见少，仍然大肆游荡着，农田继续遭殃，每户人家也都继续提心吊胆地生活，房屋设施不断遭到破坏。
其实何苦呢？人类啊，要是少吃点，怎么会落得如此下场！我也搞不懂，怎么这么多人喜欢吃野味啊，难道味道就真的这么棒？现在生活条件好了，吃的也丰富了，可是那些鱼啊肉啊，难道就不能吃了么？非得下海捉海豚，上天逮鸿鹄不成？很多人说野味鲜过家养的，我看未必全是真的。假使人类以前养的是鸿鹄，而不是鸡鸭，我想现在也有许多人去争着吃鸡鸭了吧。有人说是去尝尝鲜，好啦，你已经尝过了，何必要把它们吃到绝种呢？如果你觉得此味实乃天上的珍馐，又何不自己去养殖呢，这样也不会吃绝种了啊。知道伐木必先种树，却怎么不懂吃食先得养殖呢？

author: John Kennedy


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China: You’re killing me! · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

A hilarious post by positive solution on his day-to-day toxic life.


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Egypt: An Insight Into Protests  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Egyptian Baheyya  gives us an insight into protests in Egypt.


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Egypt: Sex Ads on the Increase · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Egyptian Zeinobia expresses her annoyance with sex pests and advertisements here.


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Egypt: Two Bloggers Arrested  · Global Voices
Freedom For Egyptians

Egyptian Watchman blog is reporting that Ahmed El Geizawy of ana Bahebek ya Masr (I love you Egypt) blog and Moataz Adel of Manfa blog were arrested today.
The two bloggers were on their way to cover a military court session for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Egyptian Watchman blog is calling upon all parties concerned with freedom of speech and expression to stand by the two detained bloggers.
He is commenting on the arrest as saying “it seems that security (departments) get worried of bloggers reporting on political trials in which bloggers have been doing great job.”
Tahyyes blog has since reported the release of Moataz Adel, which is good news. On the other hand, Geizawy is till under investigation.
Arresting bloggers has become a frequent procedure recently, particularly for bloggers who attempt to cover the political scene in Egypt.

author: Freedom For Egyptians


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Egypt: Violence Against Women  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Egyptian Ha Ana Za  writes about the status of women in Egypt.


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El Salvador: What Bloggers are Saying About Protesters and Terrorism · Global Voices
Tim Muth

A bloody street protest one year ago led to the passage of an Anti-Terrorism Law in El Salvador.  The alleged cop-killer in the disturbances outside of the University of El Salvador has been arrested, and the Anti-Terrorism Law is being used — to prosecute protesters demonstrating against the government's water policy.   The Salvadoran blogosphere has had much to say about this turn of events.
On the 5th of July 2006, a demonstration outside the University of El Salvador turned deadly violent as a sniper shot at riot police, killing two and wounding several more.  (In the Salvadoran media that day's events are now known simply as “5-J”).   After a year long manhunt, the alleged sniper Mario Belloso was apprehended on July 2, 2007, with an orgy of media coverage in the Salvadoran press which has yet to end.
The aftermath of Belloso's capture has journalist blogger Jorge Ávalos concerned. Soon after the capture, he notes [ES] that ruling ARENA party officials were trying to make propaganda use of the arrest, and the press and the government seemed not to care about the presumption of innocence.  On the day of Belloso's capture, Ávalos expressed his hope that the national police could act with professionalism and good forensic technique as they assembled the case.
Two days later, however, Ávalos found that the police couldn't seem to resist the temptations of the high profile case.  Police officials had leaked a photo from the search of Belloso's house which showed Belloso with a ranking member of the opposition FMLN party.  Ávalos commented that the police were playing a very dangerous game[ES] in their anxiousness to get such photos into the hands of the media.   The consequence might be a loss of the “chain of custody” over that proof.
Looking back with a year's perspective, blogger Ixquic writes that the events of 5-J were the birth of “terrorism”[ES] in El Salvador — at least in the eye of the conservative ruling parties.   With the images of the 5-J shootings  still playing across the TV, the government pushed through a new anti-terrorism law.  While Ixquic, a lawyer blogger, says she has no problem with a law which condemns terrorism properly understood, this new law left important terms undefined, allowing for the possibility that it could be used maliciously by a government which wanted to come up with its own definitions of terrorism.
The new anti-Terrorism law had its most controversial application yet on July 2, the same day Belloso was captured.  Demonstrations to protest the water privatization policy of El Salvador's current government resulted in clashes with riot police outside of the city of Suchitoto. On that day, president Tony Saca was scheduled to travel to Suchitoto to give a speech and initiate a project for “decentralization” of water systems, which many understand as the piecemeal selling off of water systems to private businesses to run. Demonstrators blocked access on the roads leading into the city. Various units of then anti-riot police (Unit for the Maintenance of Order “UMO”) arrived to clear the roads. Tear gas and rubber bullets were launched at demonstrators, and press photographs show demonstrators throwing rocks and buring rubbish in the streets.
Marches through the streets and demonstrations which block traffic are not uncommon in El Salvador.   But this time the government had a new tool — 14 of the protesters, including several leaders of the local development organization CRIPDES, were arrested and charged under the Anti-Terrorist Law.   Photos and video of the protests and the arrests were quickly on the Internet and being spread to supporting groups nationally and internationally.
On July 7, the 14 arrested outside Suchitoto faced an initial hearing in the specialized Organized Crime Court in San Salvador.   The organization US-El Salvador Sister Cities carried a live blog from the large group of demonstrators outside of the court who were urging that the court throw out the terrorism charges.  The judge, however, ruled against the demonstrators, sending 13 of them to prison for “provisional detention” for up to 3 months prior to the actual trial on terrorism charges.
From the scene after the decision was announced:
The crowd is angry but peaceful, still outside the tribunal building.  The Riot Police is still there, but there has been no aggression.  Julio Portillo, (Marta Lorena Araujo Martinez’s husband) spoke to the crowd immediately following the verdict, saying that he was disappointed and outraged, and called upon all Salvadorans to work ceaselessly over the next 3 months to get the accused out of jail.  Now FMLN leaders are speaking, as well.
The crowd is waiting to see where the detainees will be taken, to go with them in caravan and hold vigil outside the jail, wherever it turns out to be.
In his blog, writer Juan Jose Dalton criticized charging protesters with terrorism [ES]:
Los detenidos en Suchitoto serán procesados como “terroristas”, pero eran activistas sociales que a lo sumo lo que tiraron fueron piedras….
¿Cómo comparar a Lorena Martínez, presidenta de la organización de campesinos cristianos CRIPDES y procesada como “terrorista”, con los secuaces de Osama Bin Laden? Estamos retornando a la locura…
Those arrested in Suchitoto will be processed as “terrorists,” but they were social activists and the most that they shot was stones.How does one compare Lorena Martinez, president of CRIPDES, an organization of Christian campesinos with the followers of Osama bin Laden?   We are returning to the madness [a phrase used to describe the conditions surrounding El Salvador's civil war from 1980-1992]
Similarly, blogger JC at La Terminal found that this use of the anti-Terrorism law made the word “terrorism” a farce:
Tirar piedras, quemar llantas, tapar una calle, quemarle un carro a los desprevenidos PNCs en el marco de una protesta anti gubernamental no es algo que me cause gracia, ni que me guste ni que apruebe.
Pero si una ridícula Ley da pié a que una jueza diga que eso es “terrorismo” entonces cualquier cosa es terrorismo….
Pero si ser tonto es terrorismo, yo también soy terrorista… y la jueza también.
To throw rocks, burn tires, block streets and burn a car in an anti-government protest is not something that amuses me, nor do I like it, nor do I approve it.  But what a ridiculous law where a judge can say these things are terrorism, then anything is terrorism….To say their actions was terrorism is to insult common sense and to insult the victims of true terrorism acts.  If what they did in Suchitoto is terrorism, then I am a terrorist… and so is the judge.
Another blogger, Victor Castro, picked up on this same theme, writing in his blog[ES] that “because I have plans to go back out and march in the street expressing my discontent with government policy X or Y,  — then I am a terrorist too.”
In addition to this application of the anti-Terrorism Law, Jjmar, who is one of the original contributors at the popular Hunnapuh blog, was worried about the presence of the armed forces[ES] in the confrontation between the government and the protesters in Suchitoto:
El otro elemento de preocupación es el uso de la Fuerza Armada en incidentes de protesta popular. La fuerza armada tiene claramente definido su rol en la Constitución de la República. No tiene funciones de seguridad pública o de servir de apoyo a la PNC ante protestas populares. Además los soldados no tienen la preparación adecuada para actuar en estos casos. No es lo mismo que un antimotín dispare una escopeta con balas de goma o lance una bomba de gases lacrimógenos a que un soldado dispare su M 16 o con una ametralladora punto cincuenta contra la masa de manifestantes.
The other element for worry is the use of the Armed Forces in incidents of popular protest.   The armed forces have a clearly defined role in the Constitution of the Republic.  It does not have functions of public security or to serve as support to the PNC [National Police] before popular protests.  Besides, the soldiers do not have adequate preparation in order to act in these cases.  It's not the same thing for an anti-riot officer to fire a shotgun with rubber bullets or launch a tear gas bomb as a soldier to shoot his M-16 or a 50 caliber machine gun against the mass of demonstrators.
All of these events are playing out in El Salvador where the atmosphere is already politically polarized and will only become more so as national elections in 2009 approach.

author: Tim Muth


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Ghana: secondary school programming competition · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Ramblings of an African Geek writes about secondary school programming competition in Ghana: “For those of you unfamiliar with I2CAP, it is a secondary school level programming competition. We train the teachers who go back and train the students. Then we have regional competitions and finally the nationals. At the moment their tutors are taught in the Ruby programming language.”


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Haiti: March for Aristide  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“Thousands marched in the streets of Port-au-Prince…calling for the return of exiled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.” Free Haiti was there.


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Hong Kong: GV Editor Oiwan Lam faces court battle over Flickr photo · Global Voices
Rebecca MacKinnon

On May 11th, Oiwan Lam, Global Voices Northeast Asia Editor, committed what she says was a deliberate act of civil disobedience. (She is pictured at left protesting media content controls.)
Writing on the citizen media website InMedia Hong Kong, Oiwan called on her readers to post links to erotic websites and also included an artsy photo of a topless woman that she found on Flickr, the photo sharing site owned by Yahoo!. The post was originally published here, but has now been removed from the InMedia site and posted on a WordPress.com blog here. (WARNING: that last link is for people over 18 only and is not work-safe.)
As Boingboing and others reported earlier this week, Oiwan's post has been classified as "Class II indecent" by Hong Kong's Obscene Articles Tribunal. The maximum penalty for this is HK$400,000 (US$ 51,162) and one year in jail. Whether or not she ends up doing jail time, she certainly faces a long drawn out court battle and series of appeals, and if she loses will end paying a hefty fine. People in the media business with experience fighting such cases also point out that the implications of a conviction are quite serious because the conviction is passed to all governments and would affect her ability to get visas.
At right is a cropped version of the image, minus the woman's breasts which were visible in the original. Click on the photo to see the original image. (WARNING: not safe for workplaces or children.)
Oiwan displayed and linked to this photo as part of a protest against the fining of a man who posted links to porn sites in an adult online discussion group. She was also protesting the fact that a local student publication was recently classified as indecent after publishing a questionnaire about sexual behavior. She discusses her reasons in English here, here (WARNING: same warning as above applies to these two links), and here. Also see two posts about the earlier cases on Global Voices here and here.
Oiwan feels strongly that censorship of adult material is the thin end of the wedge for creeping political censorship – and the silencing of minority voices. In the opening of her "war declaration" post, as translated by Roland Soong, she writes:
The recent storm aroused by the Chinese University of Hong Kong student newspaper's erotic section is just the tip of the iceberg. Political censorsihp has been manipulating public opinion in seemingly apolitical sectors. Previously, we saw during the consultation over digital media copyrights how the state machinery used "protection of copyrights" to attempt to introduce a system to filter and delete contents, or else intimidate personal or small websites through fines.
Another gap through which political censorship can be introduced is pornography. This gap gathers the power of the state as well as the forces of religious people and fake moral politicians. So far, they have focused on gender and gay rights groups, but we must extend our battlelines in light of the court decision two days ago: the police filed charges against a netizen for posting hyperlinks to pornographic websites at a certain forum and the court arrived at a guilty verdict with a fine of HK$5,000. This is a very significant precedent for censorship.
Oiwan's court date is August 15th.  Meanwhile…
When Oiwan was asked by the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority (TELA) on May 28th to remove the offending photo and blog post, Oiwan refused. One reason she gave was that Flickr, which has guidelines about adult material, had not flagged the photo as unacceptable and thus she had no reason to believe it was indecent by any reasonable standard. Click here to read in English about her conversation with the TELA official.
After the conversation Oiwan wrote: "In the guidelines of the largest photograph storage/sharing company
flickr in the world, this photograph is regarded as acceptable and it
is quite prominent in terms of search results. But the Hong Kong
authorities have defined it as indecent. Where should we define the
boundary for netizen and public acceptance?"
Then in mid-June, Flickr launched a new Chinese language service. After which  all Flickr users in Hong Kong whose Flickr accounts were set up through yahoo.com.hk (Yahoo! Hong Kong) could no longer access the photo that Oiwan had linked to on Flickr. Instead, they got a block page like this one:
The page says "This photo is unavailable to you" but gives the user no further explanation as to why.  This now happens any time a Hong Kong user tries to access a photo or account that has been rated "moderate" or "unsafe." They can only access areas rated as "safe." This is part of Flickr's new targeted censorship policy, as outlined in its FAQ item about filters:
If your Yahoo! ID is based in Singapore, Hong Kong or Korea you will only be able to view safe content based on your local Terms of Service so won’t be able to turn SafeSearch off. If your Yahoo! ID is based in Germany you are not able to view restricted content due to your local Terms of Service.
Exactly who determines what gets rated "safe," "moderate," and "unsafe" is not explained to users at all. Exactly what criteria are being used is also not made clear, and while community guidelines are referred to, it's not clear what these guidelines have to do with actual laws in the jurisdictions concerned. In fact, the entire user account of Jake Applebaum, the photographer who took that photo, is blocked to Hong Kong users, despite the fact that it is very unlikely that all his photos violate Hong Kong's obscenity laws.  (His account includes many pictures that don't involve nude people, including – I noticed while trolling his account – fully clothed staff photos for the Electronic Frontier Foundation…)
On June 22nd, TELA handed Oiwan's case over to Hong Kong's Obscene Articles Tribunal (OAT) without notifying Oiwan and InMedia. Then on June 26th, OAT classified Oiwan's article as indecent. In a recent interview Oiwan indicated that she believes there is a relationship between Flickr's censoring of the photograph and the OAT's indecent ruling. "This was some kind of concidence," she said. "Flickr changed its policy and then the Obscene Articles Tribune received my photograph for classification purposes."
Now let's be clear: Oiwan says she has no factual information linking these two events. Somebody from Flickr needs to address this on the record and clear things up. Oiwan's queries yielded only this e-mail from customer service [Flickr Case 283506]:
Hello,
Your picture has been marked "restricted" due to the adult
& sexual nature of the content. Regards,
Michelle
Oiwan believes that two key unanswered questions are:
We do not know.
On Wednesday Boingboing published an e-mail by Applebaum in which he made clear he is very upset about the way he has been treated by Flickr as a longtime user, with his entire account and all of its contents now inaccessible to his friends and potential clients in several countries. He also writes "They're about to be complicit in putting another (Thanks Yahoo!) Chinese citizen behind bars as an unintended consequence of their attempts to grab foreign markets."
Now, let's be clear that Oiwan is not packing her toothbrush, and Hong Kong's legal system is completely separate from mainland China's.  If Oiwan is eventually found guilty after a long expensive journey through the courts, and then fined, the extent to which her plight can be blamed on Flickr depends on the answer to question 1 above. If it's "yes," then one might argue that Flickr assisted the OAT's case, though the Flickr/Yahoo employees may or may not have understood what they were doing or been aware of what was going on with Oiwan.
According to somebody in a position to know, who won't talk on the record, Flickr can only provide local-language services if it complies with local laws. This person says that the decisions about what gets blocked to users in different jurisdictions are made by staffers in these countries – not by staff in the U.S. People in the company also argue they are trying very hard to do the right thing by their users while finding a way to provide localized services in a wide range of jurisdictions.  The extent to which they claim in private to care about their users is, unfortunately, not being conveyed very well in public – or to Flickr users.
Legally, Flickr is off the hook because in the Terms of Service users agree to allow Flickr staff to remove or block their content in accordance with the law as well as community guidelines, etc etc etc all  contingencies covered. It is also unlikely, when more facts become clear, that it will be possible to blame Flickr for having directly caused whatever happens to Oiwan.
However, this whole mess makes one wonder. Even if we assume political content is not being censored (Can we if certain political speech is illegal in some places?) and assuming that we are only talking about censorship of erotic/"adult" content, is it possible for a global internet company like Flickr (or Google) to censor different content for different national jurisdictions without creating major blowback?
The first kind of blowback is a significant decrease in trust by at least a segment of Flickr users – how big a segment depends on how well Flickr communicates with their user community. So far they don't seem to be doing that so well.
The second kind of blowback is more serious:  Are censorship decisions about made by Flickr staff (or staff of any other global user content hosting company) going to be used by governments as an excuse to prosecute certain cases? Without meaning to, will the company's internal content filtering decisions – which appear in this particular case to err on the side of caution in an attempt to comply with local law – inadvertently also help to shape the interpretation of local laws by local authorities in a more restrictive and conservative direction?
Is there any way to avoid this kind of blowback once you get into the game of local censoring? Or it just inevitable?

author: Rebecca MacKinnon


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Hong Kong: Rubbish Collection Container · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Citizen reporter one dollar health wrote at inmediahk about the new design of the rubbish collection container [zh]. The Hong Kong government has recently changed the design of rubbish collection container, local cleaners complained that the new design has hurt their bodies as they have to collect the rubbish by lifting it up. They invited the government officials to try the work for one day.


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Hong Kong: Selective Prosecution on Illegal Broadcasting  · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

The Office of Telecommunication Authority had decided to prosecute guest speakers from a Civic radio channel which organized public broadcast illegally to protest against the government strict control over radio frequencies. Many politicians have spoken at the illegal channel as guest speakers, however, the OTA has selectively prosecuted two of the speakers who were critical towards government policy. Charles Mok worried that such selective prosecution is a beginning of a gloomy picture of future control over media and broadcasting in Hong Kong [zh].


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Hong Kong: Signature Campaign Against Flickr Filtering · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

HKxforce launched a signature campaign against flickr filtering policy in Hong Kong. The petition demands Yahoo! to adjust the filtering policy in Hong Kong so that adult users are free to choose and view “unsafe” content. It also demands more transparency in categorizing the content, let the users know the reason and build up a more effective revision mechanism [zh].


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Iran:Three Iranian Scholars will “confess” · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Kamangir reports that The Islamic Republic television has just aired short pieces of a program titled “In the name of democracy”. The program features “confessions” made by three Iranian academics and scholars about their anti Islamic Republic activities: Haleh Esfandiari, Kian Tajbakhsh and Ramin Jahanbegloo.Esfandiari and Tajbakhsh are still in prison.

author: Fred Petrossian


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Iran:Release jailed students · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Ghomarasheghaneh has published the 14 photos of jailed members of Tahkim Vahdat, a progressive student organization.The blogger asks for their freedom.


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Iraq: Forgotten Plight of Palestinians  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Alive in Baghdad updates us on the plight of Palestinians in Iraq here.


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Iraq: Three US Soldiers Found Dead in Pool  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

The bodies of three American soldiers were found in a swimming pool in Baghdad. Ladybird reads behind the headlines and gives us a map  of where she suspects the bodies were discovered.


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Jamaica: Election Campaign  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

In the wake of reports of violence in the lead-up to Jamaica's general elections, Jamaica Elections 2007 Blog links to a TV advertisement by the Electoral Office of Jamaica which states, “It's foolish to fight over elections.”


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Maldives: Jamming to save the islands from submerging · Global Voices
Nihan Zafar

In Greek mythology singing of the Sirens were so sweet and melodic that sailors were lured into the sea and met fateful deaths. On July 07, or the date known better as 07.07.07, music and melodies were used by Maldivians as they pondered about the fate that sea level rise and climate change would bring to them.
As a very low lying island nation the Maldives is among the most vulnerable countries if global warming causes the sea level to rise up to the levels being forecast by world scientists.
Jamming for the Islands, a music show organized as a Friends of Live Earth event, aimed to create awareness among the people on various issues related to climate change. The show also showed solidarity with other people across the globe who organized Live Earth events.
The Maldives was hit hard by the tsunami of December 2004 and there are Internally Displaced Persons still living in camps. The tsunami was an early warning of how things could turn if Maldivians have to become environmental refugees.
There were mixed reactions from bloggers on the music show held in a location less than a hundred meters from the sea, and on the Live Earth concerts held across the globe.
A blogger expressed his desire to visit all venues where Live Earth shows were held.
I wanna be at the Wembley Stadium to see RHCP, the Foo Fighters, Metallica, Damien Rice and Duran Duran.. I wanna be in New Jersey to see Roger Waters, The Smashing Pumpkins and DMB.. I wanna be in Sydney to see Wolfmother and Jack Johnson.. I wanna see Lenny Kravitz in Rio de Janeiro.. I wanna be in Hamburg to see Chris Cornell and Katie Melua.. I'll take a pass on Tokyo and Shanghai.. And Johannesburg too..
I also want a Gulfstream 400..
but…
well, hopefully they'll have a DVD out..
Maldives Today says the show was not effective in delivering ‘key environmental messages’ to the public. The blog also criticizes the government for failing to address environmental issues at home.
Almost all inhabited islands in the Maldives are facing the problem of contaminated groundwater because untreated sewage seeps into the aquifer. Only few islands such as the capital Male’ has a sewerage system in place. The population is also unable to solve the problem of garbage accumulation. Undesirable methods of garbage disposal such as burning and throwing them on beaches create further environmental problems. Increased consumerism means the people of the Maldives produce more garbage, most of which is non-biodegradable. Reefs in the country are under threat from marine pollution while certain marine species are on the verge of depletion because of overexploitation. The mangrove ecosystems in the Maldives are under threat while beaches in the Maldives are eroding due to human-made modifications to the coastline.
While the Maldives needs the support and cooperation of the international community to address the problems caused by global phenomena, several people in the country are dismayed by the lack of commitment by the government to address local environmental issues. The government is keen to highlight the vulnerable position of the Maldives in international conferences and IPCC meetings but when it comes to solving the environmental problems in its own backyard, it remains tightlipped.
The blog Idhikeeli also raises questions about the inefficiency of the government in dealing with domestic environmental issues.
None of the political parties in the Maldives seems to be concerned much about the deteriorating environmental conditions in the country. Islands are being reclaimed and harbours are being dredged without proper Environmental Impact Assessments. The greed of the corporate sector takes dominance over environment as resorts expand their land to build more rooms, altering the natural island dynamics. Poor islanders are left with no choice but mine sand from beaches for construction because river sand and aggregate are too expensive for them. The lack of a good transportation network pushes up the price of any material taken to the islands. Our islands are faced with threat of tidal waves and flooding. To what extent do our parliamentarians raise these issues in the parliament? Shouldn't the government reduce import duties from river sand? Shouldn't the government set up warehouse facilities in islands for river sand? Or should the government just turn a blind eye to sand mining from beaches and blame all beach erosion on global warming and sea level rise? Why did the fine imposed for destroying Vilivaru island reduced so drastically? Who does what at the environment ministry?
It is not just enough to jam for the islands and think that the music show will solve everything.

author: Nihan Zafar


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Japan: Nanotech fragrant Pencil · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Edo from Pink techacle introduces a new type of pencil lead that combined the power of nanotechnology with the knowledge of expert aromatherapists. It claims to help the children to wake up in class room by smelling the pencil lead.


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Japan: Ramen Bath · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

James from Japan Probe reports on a Theme Park's idea of Ramen Bath.


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Japan: We Can’t Trust The Testimony Of Black People · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Debito reports on a court case about a Nigerian, UC Valentine, being denied of medical treatment after police abuse in 2003. Consequently, his leg injury became so medically traumatized that it required complex hospital operations. The case was put on court in 2005 but a testimony of an African was rejected because of his race and the case was dismissed early this year. An appeal has been put forward to High court and tomorrow (July 17) is the first hearing.


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Jordan: A Day at the Street Market  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

American Edward Stallard spent a day  selling unwanted belongings at a street market in Jordan.


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Jordan: Disappearing Middle Class  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Jordanian Ohoud muses about the disappearance of the middle class in this post.


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Jordan: Little Black Box  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

It may be an obsolete gadget for most of us – but Jordanian Hareega  writes about how attached he has become to his pager.


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Kenya: recipe for Kenyan dish, Mthokoi · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Try to make the the Kenyan dish, Mthokoi: “Many thanks to Wawuda for sharing this recipe with us. I have prepared this recipe a few times for my family. It seems very simple but the mixture of beans, corn and sweet pepper creates a wonderful flavor that may make you serve this dish again and again. I am happy to tell you this is a must try Kenyan recipe.”


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Kuwait: Cockroach in Your Pizza  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

PhilQ8 writes about a cockroach found in a pizza in Kuwait.


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Kuwait: No Internet  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Mark from Kuwait spent an agonizing 24 hours without the Internet. Read about his dilemma here.


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Kyrgyzstan: Islamic banking · Global Voices
Ben Paarmann

CXW says that Islamic banking might gain a foothold in Kyrgyzstan, thanks to involvement of the private sector and the Islamic Development Bank.


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Laos: Landlocked Lao has a Navy · Global Voices
Preetam Rai

Curzon at Cominganarchy.com introduces Laotian Navy. Laos is a landlocked country.


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Lebanon: No Army Day Celebration  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Riemer Brouwer from Lebanon writes about a memorial service held for fallen soldiers after Lebanon cancelled its Army Day celebrations, scheduled for August 1.


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Lebanon: Sobheiya in the Desert · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Serene from Lebanon brings us the story of Sobheiya, who lives in the Sinai desert.


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Malaysia: Candlelight Vigil · Global Voices
Preetam Rai

Oon Yeoh has pictures from the candle light vigil that was organized in support of blogger Nathaniel Tan. Nathaniel was detained by police last Friday.


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Malaysia: First Investigate Then Arrest · Global Voices
Preetam Rai

Referring to the recent arrest of blogger Nat Tan, Malaysian politician Lim Kit Siang, urges the prime minister to respect human rights and reign in the abuse of power by the police.


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Nepal: Abortions and Maternal Mortality · Global Voices
Neha Viswanathan

RH Reality Check on how Nepal has reduced maternal mortality by improving access to abortions.


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Pakistan: Mobile Activism · Global Voices
Neha Viswanathan

All Things Pakistan on mobile activism in Pakistan, given the recent turbulence in the country.


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South Africa: two lesbian activists tortured, murdered · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Black Looks writes about the brutal murder of two South African lesbian activists: “Last Sunday two more South African lesbians were brutally raped and murdered in Medowlands, Soweto. Sizakele Sigasa, lesbian activist and outreach worker with the Positive Women’s Network (PWN), and her friend, Salome Masooa, were first tortured and then murdered.”


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Sri Lanka: Fresh Off The Boat · Global Voices
Neha Viswanathan

At Found In Ceylon, Adams talks of the F.O.B feeling, Fresh Off the Boat – and yet, picking up mannerisms and aspects of culture.


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Sudan: Movie Reviews, Being Single, Sudanese Rape Laws & Life Saving Stoves for Darfur · Global Voices
SudaneseDrima

There is quite a lot to cover in this week's round up of the Sudanese blogosphere so let's get it started.  We'll first start with some Sudanese bloggers’ thoughts on recently released movies.
Ayman, a Sudanese blogger residing in Dubai enjoyed the movie, Transformers, immensely:
Wow wow wow wow…
What a movie!
Transformers is totally the movie of this summer. It’s two and a half hours of extreme visual graphics, amazing muscle cars (I loved the new Chevy Camaro), and marvelous action scenes.
Totally recommended!
On the other hand,Amjad, who lives in Oman can't even be bothered about the latest Harry Potter movie:
I'm not a fan of Harry Potter and never was. And I'm not looking forward to watching this movie.
Meanwhile, Daana feels like she's being singled out and treated unfairly simply because she is a single girl:
I just realized that there is a new kind of discrimination that has been practiced against me. In fact it is done in such an obscure manner that I did not recognize it until recently. I am talking about discrimination against SINGLE PEOPLE.
Recently I discovered that if you are single, people around you will try and take advantage of that fact for the best of their ability to get whatever they want out of you.
Kizzie, who was previously very frustrated with her Visa application to travel to America, is now enjoying her trip there.
Zoulcolm X is also happy but for a totally different reason:
Finally, someone from South America viewed my blog (cheak my map below). lol, I know it's nothing, but to me it means a lot… and of course, I can't forget that it's the continent that gave birth to Ernesto Guevara. and Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isbel Allende
Rara Avis, a Sudanese blogger living in New York, informs us about the coming Sudanese concert to be held in the city in Central Park on July the 21st.  It will have a number of very prominent Sudanese singers:
If you're in New York, or the surrounding areas and are Sudanese, interested in the Sudan, or simply wanting to hear a different sort of music, here is an event, actually a concert by prominent Sudanese singers
She also wrote a post about Sudanese laws and rape victims:
a recent report by Refugees International, a well known NGO based in Washington DC, has exposed the loopholes existent within the Sudanese laws that expose rape victims to more abuse and trauma.
The report is titled Laws Without Justice: An Assessment of Sudanese Laws Affecting Survivors of Rape; which can be downloaded and read in full at their website.
… An introductory to the report could also be read in this article at Refugees International newsletter.
Aperadosini is back from her blogging break with a new philosophical entry in which she contemplates the meaning of life:
Maybe that's the only truth in life; everything leads to nothing. Unless of course, you believe you're gonna die and go to some eternal heaven or eternal hell.. but even then.. then what?? you just live forever and ever, and whether it's an eternity of punishment or relaxation, you'll end up living the ultimate form of vacuousness (is that a word?). I love life, despite not understanding the point of it, and part of that love is probably due to the knowledge that I have a limited amount of time to live it… but living it forever is too long, why are people so attracted to forever anyway??
Black Kush is also back from his blogging break with a great post about life saving stoves for Darfur:
How can stoves that use fire wood safe lives in Darfur? Strange, but it is something that is happening. A group of scientists have built a special stove that uses less firewood for effective cooking. Result: it reduces the number of trips to gather firewood, thus less chances of attacks and rapes.
Finally, he writes about the reshuffling of the Government of South Sudan (GoSS):
The reshuffle is long overdue, as far as I can see. GOSS turn out to be corrupt and the only thing they were good at was squandering government money.
… And the electricity in Juba? And the finance Minister scandal? How about the Ministry of Health? The woes are too many. I leave them for next time.
The reshuffle? better late than never, at least.
That's all for this week!

author: SudaneseDrima


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Taiwan: Tales From The Martial Law Era  · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

ESWN has collected and translated  informations and details on banned books and songs from the martial law era in Taiwan 20 years ago.


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Thailand: Yunanese Food in Bangkok · Global Voices
Preetam Rai

Real Thai hunts down a Chinese restaurant in Bangkok that serves Yunanese food. Yunan is a province of China closest to South East Asia and some Yunanese people sought refuge in Northern Thailand after the communist took control of China in 1949.


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Trinidad & Tobago: Saturday Cookup · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“A typical Saturday doesn’t usually involve having lunch with a celebrity, roasting amazing Herdwick lamb and stabbing myself with an oyster knife. But yesterday was different.”  Can Cook, Must Cook has an eventful weekend.


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Turkey: Evangelical Channels  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Dr Assad Abu Khalil draws attention to the way in which Christian evangelical channels are spreading around the world.


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World Ponders the 7 New Wonders · Global Voices
Jillian C. York

On July 7, 2007, the world elected a list of  “New 7 Wonders”. Chosen by global vote via internet, telephone and SMS, many argue that the election was unfair and favored the broadband-connected West (how else would you explain the Statue of Liberty being one of the 21 finalists?). The one-year process has ignited the excitement and imagination of bloggers from both “winning” and “losing” countries.What remains for some a list of attractive tourist destinations is for others a source of deep national pride.
Today, we'll take a trip around the globe to see what folks on nearly every continent are thinking.
Global
Globally, the general reaction to the New Seven Wonders was annoyance – at the voting process more than at the final results.  Some even created their own alternative lists. Elisa of Subversive Writer listed her own “Seven Wonders of a Total Scam” in response:
7. I wonder how anyone could expect this list of “New Seven Wonders” to actually be anything but forgotten? Perhaps in the years to come, we might expect a new corporate marketing frenzy to produce new Wonders of the World: how about Trump's Tower, for a change?
With UN's UNESCO not even endorsing this corporate undertaking, instead calling the whole shebang a “private undertaking”, this milking cash cow, under close scrutiny, doesn't even hold a semblance of authenticity.
When the dust clears and it's all said and done, the only wonder that remains is that of chutzpah – and the New Wonders of PR.
Astroprof also had a say:
But, there is still controversy. For one thing, only people who heard about the campaign and had internet access voted. Second, the only things on the list were tourist attractions. The original seven wonders would likely have been tourist attractions, but that wasn't what got them on the list.
Asia
Asia was fortunate to have four sites nominated for the new seven wonders, two of which – The Great Wall of China and India's Taj Mahal – made the final cut.  Blogger Always Aditya is thrilled the latter:
The selection of Taj Mahal as one of the seven wonders is itself a great achievement for Indians and also the lovers of architecture round the world. Even if the Taj would not have been selected it would have remained as one of the most beautiful and perfectly crafted master piece. Thanks to all those who voted for the Taj Mahal.
Itch of Writing discusses how the “Vote for Taj” campaign within India affected its citizens:
Wow! We felt like Indians. We needed to. With India out of cricket world cup in first round itself, we needed something to drive us along as Indians; perhaps for many of us ‘New 7 Wonders’ provided that opportunity.
Cambodia's Angkor Wat, built in the 12th century and the world's largest religious structure, was unfortunately not a winner of one of the coveted seven places.
VuthaSurf, on the other hand, lamented the voting process, saying that Cambodians had less access to the voting system than those from larger nations:
I don't feel upset when I knew this result because I thought that the voting through internet and telephone is not fair and just for least developed countries like Cambodia. Most of our Cambodian people have limit to access internet nationwide like developing and developed countries. By the way, small Cambodian population is in comparison with other countries like China, India and Brazil.
Oudam.com suggests a new idea for Angkor:
Perhaps we Cambodians should demand a similar special honor for Angkor Wat as well because it clearly dwarfs many of the current selections in size, splendor and architectural sophistication. After all, if there are already eight “wonders” on the list of seven, what’s wrong with having nine, ten, or even twenty?
Africa
Timbuktu in Mali and the Pyramids of Giza were the only two nominees from the African continent, and neither were elected.  Blogger Oluniyi David Ajao expressed irritation over Africa's exclusion:
My question is simple. Where is Africa? It is unthinkable that no edifice/site in the entire African continent made it to the final 7. How could it have been when only Timbuktu in Mali made it to the final 21?
Egyptians, on the other hand, were frustrated that their pyramids were even on the list.  The Wild Hunt Blog lamented:
Egypt, which houses the only surviving ancient wonder, the Great Pyramid of Giza, complained that the contest demeaned their culture and the pyramids. It got so heated that New7Wonders sidestepped the controversy by making the Great Pyramid(s) of Giza an “honorary” candidate.
Latin America
Latin Americans were mostly satisfied with the results, as Brazil's Christ the Redeemer, Peru's Machu Picchu and Mexico's Chichén Itzá were all included in the final seven.  Chileans, however, expressed their disappointment at the exclusion of their beloved Easter Island moai.  Evoluz (es) demonstrates:
En el curioso día 07/07/07, fueron escogidas finalmente las 7 nuevas maravillas del mundo.  Pese a que se hizo una insistente campaña nacional para votar por los moai de Isla de Pascua, no quedaron dentro de la selección.  Una pena, para nuestro país.
Blogger Galería Paralela (es) expressed disappointment as well:
Rapa Nui no salió Maravilla. Dice el rumor que los votos fueron comprados. Otros por ahí cuentan que salimos octavos.
Brazil's Christ Redeemer, inaugurated in 1931, was the “youngest” Seven Wonder on the list, a point which irritated some, including Natural Reporter:
While I think it's cool that Latin America is represented 3 times, I don't know if the Christ Redeemer statue is as cool as some of the other finalists. It just seems too… new. When I think of “wonders,” the construction in the context of the time period is an important factor to consider.
It is worth mentioning the impact that these new wonders will have on nearby historical sites, as Blog de Viajes does:
Van a aumentar el precio de la entrada a la ciudadela inca para
protegerla del “aluvión turístico” que se produciría tras la
elección…Ya ven, se trata de noticias maravillosas. Preparen sus
maravillosas billeteras, porque como hace rato venimos planteando en
este blog, Cusco va camino a convertirse en un destino exclusivo para
turistas con altos ingresos. En ese marco, la votación de las 7
maravillas es una maravillosa excusa para acelerar ese proceso.
Middle East
Jordan's ancient city of Petra, once capital of the Nabataean Kingdom and today a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was the only Middle Eastern site selected as a finalist.  Blogger Puzzle Piece congratulates Jordan on its win and encourages us to be proud of all the monuments, whether their title is deserved or not:
But still these new 7 wonders are controversial. Do some of the newly elected wonders deserve to be named so?
Let us take it in timeline:
Chichén Itzá – 800
Christ Redeemer – 1931
The Great Wall of China – 221 B.C
Machu Picchu – 1450
Petra – 9 B.C
The Roman Colosseum – 82
The Taj Mahal – 1648
From here I can see that only Petra and The Great Wall of China deserve the title.
But not everyone is thrilled – Wassim, a Syrian blogger, says in his blog Maysaloon:
Petra has been appointed one of the new “wonders” of the world. Apparently the Jordanians are overjoyed at this. Truly, they can be as proud of Petra as the Egyptians are proud of the Pyramids or Shah-era Persians over the Persian empire, Lebanon over the Phoenicians or Italians over the Romans, etc. etc.
You see, it doesn't matter if you are a loser now, what matters is that somebody who used to live where you are now did something amazing once and you can now take credit for it..
Europe
The only European site selected as a finalist was the Roman Colosseum.  The Perrin Post had this to say about it:
Frankly, I don't think this new honor will noticeably increase attendance at any of these sites — how large a rock would you have to be living under to not already have known that Rome's Colosseum is worth a stop?
Supporters of Stonehenge, a candidate which did not make it, were disappointed, as The Play's the Thing states:
This website even specifically states that Stonehenge didn't make the list. I bet it lost by only one vote. I bet it was YOUR vote. I didn't vote either, but it was your vote, wasn't it.
All photos are Creative Commons-licensed.
Taj Mahal photo by PriyadarshiC.
Angkor Wat photo by flydime.
Timbuktu's Sankore Mosque photo by ازرق.
Moai of Easter Island photo by Fedeil.
Petra photo by nonmipare.
Colosseum photo by Bunshee.


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Zimbabwe: 2008 election rigging has started · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Sokwanele blog reports that 2008 election rigging in Zimbabwe has started: A reliable source in the Ministry of Home Affairs has revealed that while frustrated Zimbabweans queue in their thousands to obtain their birth certificates, identity and passport documents, Government has hijacked the process and is clandestinely handing out documents to Zanu-PF supporters. “These supporters from far off places are preferentially given identity cards and passports and registered as voters”, this is in order to reconfigure the Harare and Bulawayo urban constituency voters rolls ahead of the 2008 harmonised elections.


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Africa: African Content Projects · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Kenyan Pundit writes about two African Content Projects: “I’m a huge proponent of building and showcasing our local (African) content rather than bitching up a storm about how neglected we are…here’s two opportunities to do so.”


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Africa: sectors ready for investment · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

If you want to know where to invest in Africa, read Nii Simmonds’ post listing sectors investors should focus on: health, media, education, energy, and stock market.


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Americas: Intel and OLPC to Team Up · Global Voices
Eduardo Avila

As head of Intel in Latin America, Ricardo Carreon is very pleased that Intel and the One Laptop Per Child Project will join forces because, “we have dozens of millions of kids that deserve to get the best education they can get.”

author: Eduardo Avila


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Annoying Food Taxes in Oman · Global Voices
Riyadh Al Balushi

Blogger Amjad discusses the issue of the confusing and misleading taxes in restaurant receipts in Oman.

author: Riyadh Al Balushi


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Arabeyes: A Protest for Every Citizen, Al Qaeda and Iranian Provocation  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Locked doors at a university campus, daily demonstrations on busy main roads, an article attacking Bahrain in an Iranian newspaper, Al Qaeda's attacks in North Africa and the death of cultural magazines – on and off-line – are some of the topics being discussed by bloggers writing in Arabic in Bahrain, Algeria and Jordan.
Bahrain: Locked Doors
Bahrania, from Bahrain, writes about arriving to class to a locked classroom and the debate which followed on what students fear most about job interviews.
Bahrain: A Protest for Every Citizen
Still in Bahrain, Butterfly comments on the number of protests in her country and how a day doesn't pass by without one.
يكاد لا يمر يوم في البحرين دون ان نشهد فيه تظاهرة أو اعتصام لدرجة اننا لم نعد نستطيع حصر هذه الاعتصامات واسبابها. وبسبب خروج هذه الاعتصامات عن نطاق السيطرة وانتهائها بمواجهات عنيفة بل دامية أحيانا مع قوات الشغب لم يعد الكثيرون متحمسون للمشاركة فيها
التظاهرات والاعتصامات عندنا للأسف تفتقر الى النظام والتركيز وتؤدى الى تعطيل مصالح الناس بسبب تنظيمها في شوارع رئيسية تؤدى الى مرافق مهمة.  والمحصلة ان قوات الشرطة تقوم باغلاق هذه الشوارع  بينما نظل نلف نحن ممن لا ناقة لنا ولا جمل فيما يحصل بالدوران في متاهات مغلقة طوال اليوم حتى تنتهي هذه الاعتصامات وتدب الحياة مرة أخرى في شوارعنا التي لم يكفها الاعطال الناتجة عن أعمال الطرق والاصلاحات الشبه يومية لتنال منها الاعتصامات من جانب آخر
Algeria: What's on Iran's Agenda?
From Algeria, Salam Baroudi writes about claims by a hardline Iranian conservative that Bahrain belongs to Iran and should be returned to it.
Algeria: Al Qaeda in North Africa
Still in Algeria, Saber Blaidi writes about the questions raised by the Al Qaeda attack in Algeria.
Jordan: Death of Culture Magazines
Our last stop today is in Jordan, where Essam Hamoud laments the death  of cultural magazines on and off-line


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Argentina: Reader Comments Now Allowed on La Nación Online Edition · Global Voices
Eduardo Avila

Blog Pasa en Buenos Aires [ES] writes that the newspaper La Nación is now allowing reader comments on all of its online content, including opinion columns.


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Bahamas: Tough Love  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“Within the space of five days two young men had their lives stubbed out for nothing at all.”  Craig Butler at Bahama Pundit has a few suggestions for stemming the tide of violence in Bahamas’ youth.


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Bermuda: Good Governance  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

The Bermuda Housing Corporation scandal still has Bermudians talking, causing a Politics.bm reader to comment on the principles of good governance.


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Bosnia & Herzegovina: 12 Years Since Srebrenica · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Belatedly, a link to the commemorative post on the 12th anniversary of Srebrenica tragedy, at Srebrenica Genocide Blog.

author: Veronica Khokhlova


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Cambodia: Historic Theater Sold · Global Voices
Preetam Rai

Details are Skethcy writes about an historic Cambodian theater that has been sold to a businessment in a  “completely nontransparent sweetheart deal“


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Caribbean: West Indies Cricket Board Elections  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“You might think that the position is so blighted that no one wants it, or you may think it just odd that only one name apiece was tossed into the circle for the posts of president and vice-president of the West Indies Cricket Board.”  Vaneisa Baksh at CaribbeanCricket.com weighs in on the WICB‘s upcoming elections.


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China: Nanjing forced out by Transformers · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

A serious documentary film  Nanjing  was forced out from the theater by a commercial movie Transformers, Joel Martinsen from DANWEI translated a few pieces that addressed the issue.


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Colombia: Ten Years After the Mapiripán Massacre · Global Voices
Eduardo Avila

Adam Isaacson of Plan Colombia and Beyond reflects on the Mapiripán Massacre, which took place ten years ago and up to now, “very few people have been punished for what happened in Mapiripán. Nearly all of those who tortured civilians, chopped up their bodies and threw them in the Guaviare river are free, living among their fellow Colombians at this very moment.”


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Guyana: Modern-Day Fairytale? · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“Once upon a now time, it got a gyal who believe in love and romance…”  Guyana-Gyal is torn between her “well-beloved myths” and reality.


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Honduras: An Introduction to Honduran Blogs – Part 1 · Global Voices
Aaron Ortiz

Editor's Note: We welcome Aaron Ortiz as our newest contributor to Global Voices Online.  This is his first article, in which he provides an introduction to the Honduran blogosphere.  He blogs regularly at Pensieve, an outstanding bridge blog written from the capital city of Tegucigalpa.
Photo by Matthew Hogg and used under Creative Commons license.
The blog phenomenon has been slow to move to Honduras, but it's starting to take root. If you google “Honduras blogs” you'll find that 90% or more are not written in Honduras or by Hondurans. Most of them are written by people from the US. The few Hondurans who blog are usually in the computer science industry like myself, or in their teens.
One might venture to classify blogs written in Honduras into 4 broad categories:
* Expat blogs, written by people from the US
* Tech blogs, written by computer geeky Catrachos like your servant
* Personal blogs, written by young Hondurans
* High culture blogs, written by the Honduran intelligentsia
Notice that I didn't include travel blogs. That is because most travel bloggers blog not only in or about Honduras but everywhere in the world.
By far the expat blogs are the most abundant. Here are a few of them.
Expatriate blogs
La Gringa's blogicito (lagringasblogicito.blogspot.com) is one of the most widely read of these. It tells the tale of a gringa who moved to La Ceiba, Honduras in 2001. Her topics range from gardening to politics, and are full of practical wisdom and culture shock. Her easy-to-read style and sharp sense of humor has made her very popular among the expatriate community. She is vocal in calling for reform in Honduras, and for others to start blogging about the current issues in Honduran politics and society.
Little Wooden Man (www.littlewoodenman.com) tells the tale of a Canadian couple who move to the Honduran outback of Juticalpa, Olancho, and experience the surreal Honduran culture. Their blog is fresh and entertaining, but sometimes serious and philosophical. Many fellow bloggers and I have been drawn to its frank discussions of the pain of losing someone, religion, sexual harassment, wacky humor, and the “strange” customs and language of Honduran people.
Honduras Sprouts (hondurassprouts.blogspot.com) is the ongoing tale of another American lady who has just moved to Honduras a few months ago with her Honduran husband. Her pictures of her adorable family and tales of life in San Pedro make this blog a en excellent picture of expat family life. Topic include local critters, food quality, the fourth of July, and cutting the grass, Honduran-style.
Honduras living (hondurasliving.blogspot.com), by Don Godo, is another great blog, although entries are not as frequent as in the others I've mentioned. Nevertheless, where else would a future expat learn about health insurance, what beer to drink, or whether to try to build a house by “remote control”.
Hondubirding, (hondubirding.wordpress.com), by Daniel Germer. I'm not sure Daniel is from the States, his Spanish is that good, but his blog is written mainly in English. Daniel is a biologist, an aspiring naval officer, and as the title of his blog suggests, a fan of bird-watching. This site has some of the best pictures of the Honduran cloud forest that can be found on the internet.
By now there are more Honduran blogs than can fit into an article of comfortable length, so come again next time for a rundown of the abundant Honduran Tech blogs.

author: Aaron Ortiz


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India: Thank you, come again. · Global Voices
Neha Viswanathan

A stunt pulled by Seven Eleven stores in the US stirs controversy as it relies on the character of Apu (of The Simpsons fame), provoking Greatbong to comment on whether or not the use of the character is racist or offensive.


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Iran:A new nuclear computer game · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Kamangir informs us that the Islamic Republic had announced the development of a new computer game, in which the players will fight the US and Israel in Iraq and in Iran.


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Iran:Shi’tes in Bahrain in trouble! · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Farzandan Iran says[Fa] stupid comments of Hossein Shariatmadari,ultra conservative editor who called Bahrain a province of Iran, will have negative effects for Shi'ites who live in that country and want close ties with Iran.The blogger adds Shariatmadari is one of adviser's of Iranian Leader and everybody takes his word as official statement.


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Iran:What to do with Bahrain? · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Z8tun says in a taxi she talked with a young man about Bahrain-Iran crisis. He said he hates ultra conservative editor, who called Bahrain a province of Iran, but concerning Bahrain he was right. Z8tun replied: “come on, imagine it becomes ours,what will we do with that?creating a new Islamic Republic?”Young man said you are right!


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Jamaica: Mad Season  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“The violence is so entrenched in our political culture I just don't see it changing anytime soon.”  Stunner returns home from vacation to find himself in the midst of Jamaica's “mad season”.


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Jamaica: The Large Black Woman  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“How is the large black woman represented in both literary and popular venues? How is she perceived? How do her race, size and gender intersect in her representation?”  Geoffrey Philp features Jamaican author Andrea Elizabeth Shaw in her own words.


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Japan: Asia-Pacific Internet Usage · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Nicholls from Japundit reported on the first comprehensive review of Internet behavior covering 10 countries in the Asia-Pacific region released by comScore: The average person in the Asia-Pacific region visited the Internet on 13.8 days in the month and spent 20.2 hours viewing 2,171 pages.


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Korea: Cleaning Up Classrooms: Duty or Violation of Human Rights?  · Global Voices
Hyejin Kim

I remember when I was in school, every year I had to bring to class rags that my mother made with old clothes. We students had to push heavy wooden desks and chairs to the edge of the classroom and then crouch down and wax the wooden floor. On a weekly basis, groups of students took turns tidying up the classroom that seated 50 or 60 students. Recently, I heard that my older sister regularly visits her children's primary school to clean up the classroom instead of her children.
Through a news report on “Cleaning up classrooms: Is it a part of education or a violation of human rights?”, the topic has recently become hot in Korea.  Teachers appeal that it is getting hard to make students clean up and that parents give pressure to schools not to let students clean up the classroom because of their busy schedules with after school tuition courses. On the other hand, human rights organizations focusing on teenagers and the Korean Teachers & Educational Worker’s Union insist that forcing students to clean up is a violation of human rights. While these groups argue that the statement that cleaning up is part of education is for administrative convenience, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education emphasizes that students need to learn a sense of responsibility.
Bloggers are divided on this issue: While some of them consider cleaning up their own classrooms to be practice of good behavior, others regard it as squeezing labor out of children and criticize teachers’ attitude.
Chang-gong asks what ‘human rights’ have to do with this issue.
‘인권’이 무엇이길래 이렇게 아무곳에서나 나타나는가?
자신들이 사용하는 물건, 공간을 청소하는 것이 당연한 것 아닌가?
자신이 사용하는 물건을 정리하고, 교실이나 화장실, 운동장 주변을 쓸고 닦는 것을 가리키는 것도 교육이다. 청소원을 양성하는 것이 아니라 당연히 해야할 일을 가리키는 것이다. 그렇게 함으로서 거리에 쓰레기를 버리면 힘든 청소를 해야한다는 것도 느끼고 쓰레기를 버리지 말아야 한다는 것을 인식하고 그렇게 행동할 것이다. 즉, 교육인것이다. 하기 싫어하는 것을 시키면 인권침해인가?
Another blogger suggests the real problem of education, authority.
학교 청소를 거부하는 아이들이 많아지고 있다는 인터넷 기사를 보았다
네티즌들의 반응은 다양한듯 하면서도 대체로 하나로 모아지고 있다
누구는 학교다닐때 그런생각 안해본줄 아나. 애들이 제정신이 아니다. “교육”의 근간이 무너졌다. 그러나 사람들은 문제의 본질이 무엇인지 간과하고 있다. 문제는 청소가 교육의 일환이라는 인식에서 출발한다…
그러나 과연 얼마나 많은 교사가 진정 학생이 학교의 주인이라고 생각하며
학생이 자기가 학교의 주인이라고 생각할까?
스피커에서 장학사가 온다는 교무실의 전달이 떨어지면 부리나케 일어나 교사의 지시를 받아 니스를 칠하거나 양초로 학교 마루를 열심히 칠해야 했던 초등학교(그때는 국민학교)시절. 책상을 뒤로 밀고 애들이 청소를 하는데도 같이 도와주는 선생님? 아쉽게도 나는 단한번도 본적이 없고 선생님은 그런 일을 한다는 것을 상상해본적 없다. 물론 하고싶어서 하는 애들이 몇명이나 되었을지도 모르겠지만 왜 선생님은 안하시냐고 묻는 애들도 못봤다. 하라면 해야 하니까.
반항이나 대드는 것은 상상할수도 없다. 물론 예의에 어긋나는 것은 경계해야 한다. 그러나 “왜” 하는지는 적어도 알고 해야 한다. 그러나 우리나라 교육은 그것을 악으로 보았다. 인간은 본능대로 행동하는 개 돼지가 아니라 왜 하고 왜 하지 말아야 하는지 고민을 하는 이성을 가진 존재인데도 그것을 철저히 무시한 것이다. 그것이 현재 한국 교육의 가장 심각한 폐해이다.
그리고 그 권위의식…
쓰레기가 떨어져있으면 지나가는 애한테 “야, 주워”라고 말하는 선생님은 봤지만 자기가 쓰레기통에 넣는 선생님은 글쎄 …나만 못봤는지도 모르겠지.
존경받는 스승들은 자기가 그만큼 학생들에게 뭔가를 깨닫게 하기 때문에 존경을 받는 것이지 뭔가를 많이 하라고 해서 우러러 보아지는 것은 아니다.
On the other hand, there is the opposite opinion.
그냥 하기 싫어서 선생들이 시키는 꼴이 보기 싫어서(그 권위라는게 싫어서) 선생들이 사용한 공간까지 내가 청소해야되나 싶어서 이런 간단한 이유를 나름대로 논리들로 포장해서 시부렁시부렁 되는데 그런 학생들 보면 참 안타깝다. 교사는 급식지도, 청소지도 등등 수업말고도 맡은 바가 많다.
우리나라 도덕교육에서 가장 중요시 되는 부분은 ‘습관화'이다.
초등에서만 강조되는 것이 아니라 개념들이 중요시되는 고등교육에 있어서도 이 ‘실천을 위한 습관화'는 매우 중요하다.
“자신이 거쳐간 자리를 깨끗히 하는것.” 이것은 매우 중요한 덕목중의 하나일 것이다. 도덕시간에 그런 덕목들을 배우고 습관화 하는 것도 중요하겠지만 우리나라에서는 그런 시간이 매우 부족하다 여겨 가정과도 연계하여서, 청소, 급식 등등의 학교 생활 내에서 꾸준히 습관화 할 수 있게 하도록 하였다. 이런 좋은 의도를 단지 자신이 하기 싫다는 이유로 나도 인권이 있으니 명령받을 필요 없다는 이유로 거부하는 우리나라 학생들이 참 안타깝다.
물론 쓰레기를 줍지 않는 선생님 등등
나쁜 선생님들도 있다는 것에는 동의한다.
하지만 그런 꼴 때문에 화가 나서 “나도 안 할래!”
이건 아니라 본다.
저 사람이 무단 횡단 하니 “나도 무단횡단 할래!” 이래야 되나?
무엇이 옳은 자세라고 생각하나? 스스로 자신이 있었던 이곳 저곳을 청소하려하지는 못 할 망정 “청소부 아줌마를 고용하자.””선생들도 청소 도와라.” 라는 말부터 먼저 나오는 요즘..
요즘 학생들의 정신상태가 과연 진보된건지 바르게 커가고 있는지 궁금하다.
Another blogger agreed with this opinion.
네이버뉴스에 참.. 욕나오는 기사를 읽게 되었습니다.
내용인 즉,
교실 바닥을 청소하는 것은 받아들일 수 있지만 복도나 화장실 등 공동이용 구역을 청소하는 것은 부당하다는 것입니다.
“왜 제가 해요?” 반발하는 학생들이 생기고 있으며 선풍기를 닦으라는 선생님의 말에 아이들은 “사전 통보되지 않은 청소를 왜 내가 하느냐”고 따졌답니다.
결국 선생님이 남아서 청소하고 갔답니다.
이런 폐해를 막기 위해 한 선생님은 자발적으로 애들이 교실청소시 기타를 치면서 노래를 불러주고 있답니다.
왜 이렇게까지 되었습니까? 이게 도대체 뭡니까?
도 어릴적 선생님에게 많이 맞기도 했고 미워도 해봤습니다.
그러나 이건 아닙니다.
이렇게 까지 해야합니까?
학교는 인간을 교육하기 위한 방편입니다.
예로부터 학교라는 단체는 가장 효율성이 좋은 사회화 도구로 여겨져 왔습니다.
그런데 이게 뭡니까?
아무리 자식이 귀해지고 사회구조가 평등, 인권존중, 개개인의 존엄성 확립으로 가고 있다고는 하나 이건 정말 말도 안됩니다.
선생님이라는 분이 왜 이렇게 나약해졌습니까?
이 사회가 구조적으로 모순을 향해 치닫고 있다고 생각하지 않으신지요..
미웠던 고마웠던 나의 선생님들이 눈 앞에 그려집니다.
정말 이 사회의 구성원으로서 하염없이 분통해집니다.
It seems that this argument leads to the issue of conflicts between teachers and students. A blogger, marimo, says,
난 다른 곳은 그냥 다 쓰는곳이니까 그렇다쳐도 교사들이 쓰는 곳은 스스로 청소했으면 좋겠다.그러니까 교무실이나 교직원 화장실, 교사 휴게실 등등..
용역을 주는곳도 있지만, 기사보니 아직 학생들이 청소하는 곳도 있는 것 같다.
지금은 학교 졸업했다만, 학교 다닐때부터 마음에 안들었다. -_-;
스스로 할 수 있는일을 왜 굳이 시키는걸까.
그렇다고 애들이 교실청소 안하는 것도 아니고 ‘자기가 쓴곳은 스스로 청소한다’ 라고 가르치려면 교사들도 그래야 하지 않을까.
선생님이 직접 대걸레 들고 하는거 보면 애들중에도 그거 보고 알아서 하는 애들이 있겠지.

author: Hyejin Kim


text:
Landing at the Iraqi Blogodrome · Global Voices
Salam Adil

Politics is the order of the day this week. Events in Iraq can be confusing at the best of times – so why not let Iraqi bloggers put things straight. But it is not all dry subjects, I also have snipers in Baghdad, two weddings and a funeral. And, if read to the end, the kittens are back!
Dead House
In the hallows of my soul
the brown birds sing
One tried to build a nest of stone
and broke a wing
The windows of my eyes are shattered
a dead house I stand
and all of God’s sun will not bring in
enlightenment…
Too long the ghosts of tomorrow have wandered
unabated
through these aging walls
too long
they have made this arid structure
their home
They walk this soul in silence
for them the brown birds sing
hating transition
unlike me
they already know
there will never be spring…
If you read no other blog post this week read this one…
Mohammed recounts the harrowing story of being targeted by a sniper:
At 9:00 we were at Antar Square and as soon as we got down from the taxi and walked a few steps near the Olympic club, I heard a gun shot!! It was loud with echo!! … Then there was another shot …..It was so scary, so close and so loud, my wife was in panic, she was so scared I pushed her from the side-walk to the building wall (so that we would be a harder target) there was no one in the street but us. We stood there for a few seconds, then there was silence, we decided to continue, we walked and just before the concrete ex-checkpoint there was a gunshot and I saw the impact of the bullet beside me, another one in front of me, I pushed my wife to the nearest building and we hided there
He concludes:
The sniper thing isn't new, but it's the first time that I've been in the situation. It's a very difficult situation; I don't know when will death get me!!! I have cheated him many times now.
The Week in Politics
Zappy gives his definition of progress in Iraq. Bottom arrow reads “Target to be reached scheduled as of 09 April      2105″
There is another war rumbling – this time over water. Baghdad Connect explains:
Baghdad has become the first modern capital in the world to actually experience the Water War which is widely thought to be the future world war III.
There wasn't any fresh drinking water in large parts of Baghdad and for 4 days. We had a mere of 5 liters of water a day in our house of 4 bedrooms.
In some areas the water trickled down to zero since last week. The invaders had cut off the water in Al-Khadimiya area since morning as a retribution for Al-Khadimiya’s residents’ support for the Sadrists.
The Water War commenced since the confrontation between the Sadrists and the invaders backed armed forces escalated in El-Shula, Al-Biya, Al-Thawra and Al-Ammel – all have been isolated separately.
The Shaqawa looks to an Iraq after America leaves:
I do not think Baghdad would be better. Right now the Sunni terrorists will attack the Americans and the Shi'a, so only the Shi'a will be attacked. Also the Americans try to stop some of the Shi'a from attacking Sunnis (sometimes innocent ones and sometimes terrorists) so without the Americans the Shi'ite fighters will be more powerful. What does that mean?
In Baghdad it means more fighting but also some areas can be safer if the Shi'ite militias can act like they want. In other areas like last year in February probably some groups like the Mahdi Army will commit crimes against innocent Sunnis and more violence will be there. In the south of Iraq I think that the Shi'ite groups should take over security and be very tough. …
When the USA leaves also I think other countries will try to be stronger in Iraq. This means especially Iran and Saudi Arabia and Arabs. … Iraq is a site of battle for everyone unfortunately… None of them care about Iraq or Iraqis, and usually they hate Iraqis or at least hate the Shi'a….
Iraq is a country with rivers and holy places and deserts and mountains and history and many kinds of different people. But it is surrounded by bastards and criminals.
Omar sees signs of a shift in policy of the Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki against the Sadrist Movement. He writes, “You probably heard about the message Maliki sent yesterday to the Sadr movement demanding they clarify their position from the violent elements among their followers. It wasn't as tough a message as we were hoping but it's still an interesting step that broke the fear barrier that Maliki put between himself and Sadr.” but Baghdad Connect puts the rift more blatantly:
Al-Maliki has, for the first time and unintentionally, uncovered the big game behind the myth of the Shia crescent, when he coined some Sadrtists elements as Baathists in disguise!! Which triggered the ancient struggle within the Shia sect between one faction that supports the Ayatollah state (in favor: Maliki, Hakim, Iran, the invaders, and the Baathists) and the counter faction that supports Ahl El-Bayt state – which stipulates a future emergent Imam that will rule the nation (in favor: Sardrists and Ahl El-Sahan)
When the invaders wage propaganda warfare by insinuating Muqtada’s escape to Iran, they are in fact playing the internecine deep-rooted faith differences between the Iranians and the Shia culture of Iraq. If Sadr is in Iran it means his large number of his followers are left without a divine providence and will be under the merci of Ayatollahs. Bear in mind, more than 70% of Iraqi soldiers that fought the Iran-Iraq war were Shiites!
The draft Oil Law is being given a rocky ride by Hammorabi:
[George Bush] and his Generals inside Iraq are trying to glue the rips but not to cure the whole situation. On the other hand they want the oil new system to be agreed and signed by the government and the parliament so quickly to control the oil of Iraq. Almost all Iraqis are opposing the new system about the oil. It is going to create more chaos and resistance. Indeed some of the resistance groups threatened to kill any one who is going to sign the new law about Iraq oil. George W Bush and Dick Cheney are trying to get their own companies to control and steal the Iraqi oil.
And he hints at frustrations within the Iraqi Shia community against Iran:
Indeed we do not know how and Iranian origin person like Dr. Shahrastani who is the present Oil minister became and oil minister in spite of many other Iraqis who are more experienced in this field?
A new anti terrorism advertisement in Iraq gets reviewed. Iraqi Mojo links to a YouTube clip and adds, “I find it strange that Al Arabiya is funded by the Saudi government, and yet they continue to broadcast these ads, while Al Jazeera no longer airs them” while Truth About Iraqis is somewhat taken aback by the obviously non-Iraqi accents of the actors:
a man is being beaten and asked whether he is Shia or Sunni. After being beaten to a pulp he manages to say “I am Iragi”. The letter G (pronounced ghee) is used.
No Iraqi would EVER EVER EVER say Iragi. They would say I R A Q Q Q Q I.
Pffffffffffffft.
Meanwhile, the American army are efficiently losing hearts and minds bombing a busy shopping street in Mosul. Aunt Najma posts photos and writes:
What the reason was, I do not know.. but the American forces did a horrible thing when they threw missiles from their plane on Al-Majmo3a street (the most active street in Mosul just in front of the university, full of computer, mobile, clothes and other shops).
Two Weddings and a Funeral
Even at one of the poshest Iraqi weddings in Jordan (they can afford Adel Ogla as the entertainment), Iraqis find a reason to cry, writes Yasamine:
Iraqi women bumping into each other started the common conversation, one asks the other are you residing here or visiting?” Um Hussam answered “just visiting, and how about you?” the other replied “I have decided finally to stay in Amman.”
“What about your house did you sell it or rent it?” asked Um Hussam. “Neither” answered the lady, “we left with barely the shirts on our backs, following a death threat.” Then with a sigh the lady asked “we haven’t met for such a long time, remember our weekly gatherings, God our lives have been turned upside down?” Um Hussam , responded idly “I only see people when I come to Amman , as for Baghdad I do not go out. Every once in a while I go to the doctor and that’s it or to see my sick mother.”
Aunt Najma attends her cousin's wedding. But being in Iraq has its own problems:
There were some Iraqi soldiers close by the house, they knew there was a wedding because of all the beeping. They usually get too excited and fire their arms when the cars pass by. My aunt opened the window and specifically asked them not to. My cousin's car arrived before us, and me, being the one in charge of videoing as usual, had to get there before they entered the house.. I left our car and ran towards the house, and the soldiers decided it was time to fire.. I was so ANGRY I really wanted to turn and shout at them but I was sane enough and decided to go on. I'm sure for few moments after the shooting the video would be all shaky!
And 24 Steps to Liberty writes a eulogy to a fellow journalist who was murdered recently in Iraq:
He was amazing. I never saw him without the beautiful smile on his face. When we reported on news conferences, we joked about the government and what it had to say. We were always sure that there was nothing in the conference that would help the Iraqis. We always thought the conferences were made to fill our newspapers only.
Although he worked for another newspaper, a competition to the one I work for, we never felt competing with each other. He called me to check quotes, he asked me to send him transcriptions. And I did. …
When I told him what “Feeh” meant, he didn’t get it. But that’s how we ended our phone calls. Even the one a few weeks ago, when he called to talk about something private, he said “feeh” at the end. He said “I didn’t forget.”
He was a brave, professional journalist and a human being. That’s why they killed him…
Iraqi will always miss you Khalid. You won’t miss anything. But we will miss you.
Feeh Khalid. Feeh
And finally…
Baghdad Girl is back! And cat bloggers every where can breath a sigh of relief. With titles like “I just want to carry them…” and “Happy and sad” you know you will be getting a regular dose of cuteness. Now everyone join in with me… aaah!

author: Salam Adil