normblog

Talking blogs

Arnold Kling asks whether blogs are a trend or a fad and concludes, tentatively, that they aren't a fad. His argument is based on viewing blogs as 'a filtering mechanism in the dissemination of information'. Though that is obviously one central function of blogs, it isn't the only one. They are also a way of disseminating, exchanging and testing opinion. They extend the means of public conversation. Not that this need alter Kling's conclusion, but I'm wondering why he focuses his argument as narrowly as he does. (Via InstaPundit.)

'They will not kill my voice'

That's the voice of Afghanistan's most famous woman:

Malalai Joya is one of the most popular MPs in Afghanistan and has many a time taken [a] stand against the ex-Mujahideen fighters who dominate the country's new assembly.

But Ms Joya and many of her supporters fear she will be assassinated.
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"They will kill me but they will not kill my voice," she says, "because it will be the voice of all Afghan women. You can cut the flower, but you cannot stop the coming of spring."
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Ms Joya says that she continues to receive a constant stream of messages of support from ordinary Afghans.

"It gives me strength to keep telling the truth," she said.
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She continues to work for an NGO called the Organisation for Promoting Afghan Women's Capabilities (OPAWC).

"How can a country improve when 50% of its population are silenced?" she said. "It is like a bird with only one wing."

(Hat tip: RB.)

Good response

Here's a case of interactivity between the mainstream media and the blogosphere. Yesterday I posted an item about the bad pactice of reassigning links from old news stories to more recent ones. This morning I have an email from Stewart Kirkpatrick, editor of scotsman.com. I post it here with his permission:

I read with interest your post on expired links on our site. We receive a lot of traffic from blogs and it's important to us to keep as many links "live" as possible... I've passed the matter to our technical team to investigate.

Thanks, Stewart, for the prompt action.

Bus workers' action in Iran

Bus workers on strike in Tehran have been under assault by the regime:

The mass assemblies and picket lines of striking bus workers in all ten transport districts of Iran's capital, Tehran, came under violent attack by the security forces [yesterday] morning.

Thousands of workers were beaten up and forced to drive the buses. Several hundred drivers and many activists and leaders of the union have been arrested, including the wives and children of four members of the union executive.

From the early hours of this morning, a huge number of security forces were deployed at the bus depots throughout Tehran to stop the strike at any cost. However, displaying enormous courage, the drivers resisted the attacks, wherever they could, and went ahead with the strike. In solidarity with the strikers, many residents of Tehran have refused to board the buses.

The union officials said the security forces employed indescribable brutality towards the workers. Arrests, harassment and raids on the homes of the activists are continuing. The Islamic regime is intent on breaking the strike and smashing the union. The union executive is deciding on the next course of action.

For earlier reports see here and here (scroll down).

Rak echad

A friend sent me this link to a table of the Jewish population of the world, with estimates for each country. One of the things that strikes you immediately is the figure for the first country, Afghanistan - one. How do you arrive at an estimate like that? Turns out it's better than a mere estimate. (Thanks: JA.)

Bad practice

It's one of the predictabilities of blogging that links sometimes die: a press report disappears from its online spot; or you link to a blog post and later the blogger whose post it was packs it in and takes down her blog. Life, Jim. What I wasn't aware of till the last couple of days, however, was the practice of reassigning a link from an older item to a more recent one.

I name the Scotsman. I chanced upon a couple of cases of this yesterday looking for stuff in my archive, and pursuing the matter I find that it's not that rare an occurrence at that newspaper. A link seemingly to Emma Nicholson and WMD is now to a yachting item. One on the BBC licence fee has evolved into a bird flu story. Good-looking children have become a kidnapped aid worker. A Zimbabwe-related link now leads to Austrians.

Not only is this most blog-unfriendly, it is bad Internet practice. I'm not aware of its being done by either the Guardian or the Beeb.

Only by understanding

I posted in March last year about the small Holocaust research centre in Nazareth run by Khaled Mahameed. Here's a new report from the BBC about his efforts and some of the difficulties he faces. (Thanks: RB.)

Dangerous times

Last week Jacques Chirac made his nuclear statement, and I wondered about the meaning of it and about the muted reaction up to that point. Here is some follow-up. One country was not well pleased:

Iran slammed Chirac's remarks as "shameful" and "unacceptable".

"It is shameful for the people of France that their president brandishes atomic weapons on the pretext of fighting terrorism," Gholam Ali Hadad-Adel, speaker of Iran's right-wing parliament, said on Sunday.

Hossein Shariatmadari, managing director of the Tehran daily Keyhan, had this to say:

I believe that Chirac made the threat on behalf of the West, but they (Westerners) know that such threats are just propaganda and psychological war that can not be implemented.

On behalf of the West? I wouldn't know. But here is an email I had from a reader, suggesting the same thing:

Suppose he is doing just that, raising the stakes, but on behalf of all of Europe, the US, Australia and anybody else who might be the target of a terrorist dirty bomb.

Suppose western intelligence agencies have come to a joint conclusion that there is now a dirty bomb (or
something equally scary) out there in the wrong hands, even if they don't know whose hands it is in.

Who would be the best person to get a message across from the west to the terrorists? Chirac is the most anti-US of them all. As Nixon went to China, Chirac can beat his shoe on the table in a unique way.

That no other western leader has batted an eye makes me think he could be talking for all of them. If they continue to let it pass, they are effectively allowing him to speak for them as well, whether by design, or prior unspoken understanding, or not.

From the email of another reader, a different emphasis:

Interesting post re Chirac's nuclear speech. Both his statement and the reaction or non-reaction to it don't really surprise me. France has always had a much tougher and martial spirit than most people seem to imagine. I think he was speaking for the domestic gallery which believes France is always justified in taking whatever action it feels like. I don't think they're at all against using extreme means, they just don't like it if the US does that, as they see themselves as true rivals to the US... It's also a typically French message in its subtle feinting and swaggering bluster. They know they can't really attack Iran - which is, I guess, the target of this statement - but they're basically saying, watch out we know what you're up to - and perhaps hoping the Iranians may fear they know rather more than they do... It's also a case of France's love of running its own independent reckless policy without any regard for what others might want to do. It dislikes the unilateralism of the US only because it's not theirs. But it is every bit as unilateral.

One way or another, dangerous times.

'We note with regret...'

Further to the previous post, see the letter from the Iraqi Communist Party posted at Labour Friends of Iraq. The Party opposed the war, but the difference between their outlook and the attitude of much of the Western anti-war left is clear from this letter:

We are fully aware that democracy is a historical process of multisided dimensions: political, social, economic and cultural. No doubt, all the institutional prerequisites for democracy have not matured or fully developed within Iraqi society. However, instituting democracy, in all its aspects, is a long term and complex process. We consider that this process has already started in Iraq, and we have no illusions as to its completeness and shortcomings. But we are fighting to create the broadest alignment of forces possible in favour of pursuing this process, and fulfilling and consolidating the conditions for its success. Such a process may start under occupation, indeed it has, but cannot achieve all its requisites without regaining national sovereignty whose sole source is the free will of the people. Therefore, it is not right to invalidate all that has been achieved under this process, owing to the presence of foreign troops in the country. On the contrary, the struggle for consolidating democracy with all its constituent components is not only closely intertwined with that of ending occupation, but is considered as a supporting lever for the latter.
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Our evaluation... is that in the prevailing circumstances and balance of forces in Iraq, there is no alternative process, other than the existing one, that offers a political prospect of restoring security and order in the country and puts it on the path of reconstruction and development. Resorting to armed action may succeed in obstructing some aspects of the political process, causing hardships, and providing bargaining cards to secure additional stakes and positions for those who adopt this course of action. But it holds no political prospect for solving the problems of the country, whether ending occupation or rebuilding the state, let alone establishing democracy. This lack of a political prospect of armed action has been confirmed by the progress of the political process and the holding of general elections in January 2005.
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We struggle for creating the conditions for the withdrawal of foreign troops at the earliest possible time. However, we believe that calling for their immediate withdrawal does not take into consideration the sharp current polarization in our country, the existence of paramilitary organizations, and the insufficient preparedness of the Iraqi security forces. Hence we call for a timetable for withdrawal together with doubling the efforts to provide the internal political, institutional and security conditions for this withdrawal. As was evident in the statement of the National Accord Conference held in Cairo last November, there is an Iraqi consensus regarding such a withdrawal timetable in order to avoid chaos and additional suffering. This is a realistic agenda and can be implemented in a relatively short period.
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We have to note, with regret, that the Iraqi democratic forces have not received, in their difficult struggle, effective solidarity and support from international forces of the left. As a result, most of the latter have unfortunately been rendered observers of events, rather than exerting positive influence on the ongoing struggle over the future course of developments in Iraq, especially in supporting the struggle for a democratic prospect, at a time when the Iraqi patriotic and democratic forces are in urgent need for such concrete and multifarious support and solidarity. [Italics mine.]

Hopeful in Iraq

More on optimism in Afghanistan and Iraq, this time from Amir Taheri writing in asharq alawsat. The article is about a poll showing more hopeful attitudes in the Middle East than in Europe and America:

The latest argument for a reassessment of the situation in post-liberation Iraq comes from the WEF's latest "Voice of the People" poll, conducted by Gallup last November and December in 60 countries across the globe...
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The... reason for the good figures from the Middle East is the optimism that the pollsters found in two countries: Afghanistan and Iraq.

The WEF report asserts, "In both these countries, respondents were even more optimistic about future prospects. In Afghanistan, three-quarters (77%) think the next generation will live in a safer world, while in Iraq this view is held by six in every ten (61%) interviewed."
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To prove that the toppling of Saddam was wrong the politically correct crowd has prayed hard for Iraq to become "another Vietnam" or, fa[i]ling that, at least "a quagmire", or failing even that, a stage for ["]Yankee Go Home" demonstrations.

None of that has happened. Instead, the Iraqis have been forming political parties, writing a constitution, setting up an independent judiciary, learning about pluralist politics, creating privately owned newspapers and TV and radio stations, and holding elections - all that while the most vicious terrorists in recent history have been throwing at them whatever they could.

Read the whole thing. (Thanks: WS.)