On Peace & Doing Great Things With Blogs

I have blogged about my client iUpload's involvement with Spirit of America a couple of times over the last week, including news on the Arabic blogging tool project and face time at the Harvard Internet & Society event last weekend.

What still baffles me are some of the negative responses and skepticism I have received from 'traditional press' - or perhaps its mistrust. On what grounds?

Some say the content won't get through. Maybe true in Iran, but apparently this is not much of an issue in Iraq. Some ask 'who are we' - meaning America, to decide whether its right to advance democracy in a country that isn't ours...

I attended an event sponsored by Spirit of America and Friends of Democracy today in Palo Alto and was fortunate enough to meet two of the three Iraqi brothers involved in the project, who currently write for Iraq The Model blog, now written in English.

Let's take politics out of this. As Dan Gillmor pointed out at the event, this project transcends politics; it leaves politics aside to do 'something right,' and I'd add -- 'good.' He also highlighted Mohammed and Om Alis (brothers) courage to get this grassroots project off the ground in a country that is still at war, its infrastructure has been brutalized and its citizens have been inflicted with a great deal of pain for over three decades.

Mohammed speaks and there's no doubt, its from the heart. "After 35 years, we couldn't write or see. After so many years of darkness, I am now able to express myself. Starting a blog allowed me to clarify some of the misunderstandings about life in Iraq that we read about in the media."

So my question is this. How is giving tools to the Iraqi people to express their voice, their stories, their experiences......a bad thing? Freedom of speech is so damn important in this country - it's important to others too.

It's not the Americans -- in this case -- who are telling the Iraqis what they can write about, dictating the tone of communication. These tools, now available in Arabic, are giving Iraqis tools to express themselves for the first time, share content and knowledge in a way that not only gets the inside voice out, but gives them independence, positive self esteem and new friendships that develop across blogging communities.

Mohammed continues, "we can now voice our experiences and our views.....not told by western media, but by us, Iraqis. It's hard when you feel you're alone in the midst of this transition, but when you can write about it and read about others going through similar pain and uncertainty, you feel more confident that we'll overcome those fears together."

He continues - "A democratic Iraq scares many people around us. Through our blogs, we can let people know we are not alone. People are hungry for information.....giving free blogs away will enable people to voice what is going on here, from their perspective."

They claim that access to the Internet in Iraq is easier than most people realize. In a small town in the marshes, Om found an Internet Cafe with a long line of people waiting to get in and log on. Most universities apparently have their own servers and there are over 200 Internet Cafes in Baghdad alone.

Someone asks them about the level of awareness of blogs in Iraq? Om says - "awareness is growing." 75% of readers of their English speaking blog on Iraq come from the U.S. and England today with only about 10,000 readers inside Iraq.

Given that the top newspaper in Iraq has a hard time reaching 10,000 in volume, even 2-3% is a good indicator that progress is being made.

There are currently more than 100 Iraqi bloggers and only 1 in Egypt, 0 in Syria and 2 in Saudi Arabia. The brothers feel that thousands of Iraqis will be blogging once the Arabic blogging tool is widely available. Tim Oren also blogged about the event and includes a handful of useful links.

The issue of Aljazeera.net was raised and many agreed that the site deletes any positive responses from Iraqis and focuses on the ongoing trauma and chaos instead.

But regardless of your political views and your opinion about whether we should be there in the first place, why not focus on positive things we can do to alleviate the pain over there and to help Iraqis advance freedom, democracy and peace -- on their terms.

I think its fabulous that we're providing the tools and that Om, Mohammed and others who are following their lead, are starting to blog. Now, we can read about what's happening on the ground "in their voice," rather than what we're dished on Fox TV.

While the transition may not be an easy one and they're bound to face glitches along the way, progress and positive advancement has never been easy. And peace is even harder.

"At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal force in the heart of man: one very reasonably tells the man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of avoiding it; the other even more reasonable says that it is too painful and harassing to think of the danger, since it is not a man's power to provide for everything and escape from the general march of events'; and that it is therefore better to turn aside from the painful subject till it has come, and to think of what is pleasant. in solitude a man generally yields to the first voice; in society to the second." --Leo Tolstoy War & Peace