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The Layalina Review

VOL. V NO. 5, February 13-February 26, 2009

Blogging: A Gateway to Empowerment and Peril

Darren Krape uses his blog to narrate the short history of blogging in the Middle East, primarily drawing from a speech by Marc Lynch, professor at The George Washington University and author of the Middle East-focused Abu Aardvark blog.

Lynch sees three distinct blogging "phases." Initially, the majority of Middle East blogs were written in English, described by Lynch as "bridge" blogs, and were predominantly aimed at an American audience.

In the second phase, which peaked in 2005, "internal social change" was the focus of activists-cum-bloggers who wrote in local languages and dialects about police brutality, freedom of speech, government corruption, and oppression. The content of these blogs soon attracted the attention of oppressive governments, and many bloggers were jailed and often tortured.

Eventually, Lynch sees this development as potentially important, creating "channels of communication between some divergent, but equally oppressed groups."

In an article for The Daily Campus, Almastella Ekong interviews Esra'a Al Shafei, the founder of The Mideast Youth Foundation, an example of Lynch's contemporary third phase blog. The site is innovative in that it encourages and empowers young Middle Easterners to "express opposing ideologies…without retaliation from their governments."

A review of the Maghreb blogosphere by Magharebia also finds a "broad range of critical commentary" about various issues. Tunisian blogger 3amrouch complains of a "culture and creativity crisis" in Tunisia when compared to the more prolific European film and entertainment industries. "In Tunis, we create one film a year and a play every five years." Meanwhile, Algerian blogger Karim Almeur describes the apathetic approach of Algerian politicians to new technologies. Almeur notes the politicians are "turning their backs away from the youth."

The blogosphere can also be used as an organizing tool, explains Lucy Tobin in The Jewish Chronicle. Tobin uses the recent Israeli incursion into Gaza, in which pro-Israeli internet users such as Joel Leyden were able to "use the internet to put across the Israel perspective to a huge and growing audience."

Nat Hentoff expands on this in a piece for the Milford Daily News. Hentoff writes about an online bilingual "bridge" newspaper, Dugrinet, the brainchild of Rabbi Marc Rosenstein. Rosenstein's site was founded in northern Israel's Galilee, a region of 1.1 million citizens evenly divided between Jews and Arabs.

Rosenstein sees Dugrinet, which has Hebrew and Arabic sections, as "a safe space characterized by openness, fairness, and balance - where all opinions can be expressed, civilly." Rosenstein aims to attract contributors from throughout Galilee to address what he views as "disconnectness and mutual ignorance." In doing so, Rosenstein hopes to prove that "continuous dialogue can be far more durably effective than violence."

Finally, the recent detention and subsequent release without charge of Egyptian-German blogger and graduate student Philip Rizk has brought fresh attention to freedom of speech issues in Egypt. Reporting for the International Herald Tribune, Michael Slackman laments "it is all too common for the security services to grab citizens [and] detain them without charge."

Egyptian writer Fahmy Howeidy describes an unwritten rule. "You can say what you want. But you cannot act." Unfortunately for Egyptian bloggers, "blogging seems to cross the line from speaking to acting."

Interior Ministry spokesman General Hamdy Abdel Karim denies Slackman's "false allegations," saying that his "impression is wrong, wrong, wrong, because [he's] listening to some bloggers"

Karim's denial is scant consolation to jailed "cyber-dissident" blogger Kareem Amer, who is interviewed by Menassat. Amer, imprisoned since November 2006, was sentenced to four years for "defamatory" writings on Islam and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. According to fellow blogger "Wahda Masrya", Amer is "very lonely," and in a letter Amer admits, "Prison has become a part of my imagination. I don't remember what life was like before."

Unlike Amer, Rizk was released after five days of interrogation, having been arrested at a protest march outside Cairo to raise awareness for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, reports the Los Angeles Times. Using his Tabula Gaza blog, Rizk had chided both Egypt and Israel for their respective roles in the 22-day Gaza conflict.

According to Jeannette Rizk, Philip's sister, "They were trying frantically to build a case against Philip, but they didn't have a case, and this was getting to be an embarrassment for them." Back to articles.