One such blog, Scary Azeri in Suburbs, touches upon the cultural clashes often encountered by locals and foreigners alike when they meet or interact.

I am 36 and a mother in suburbia. Yes, i know. There are too many blogs created by mothers. So what? I want to blog too. I am not just any suburban mother who is bored and wants to blog. I am a scary Azeri mother in an English suburb. If you don’t have any idea what that means, read on. I shall enlighten you in my typical Eastern European style and explain what it is like to change your worlds from a strange post-soviet muslim republic to a wealthy commuter village near London.

Unashamedly acerbic, but alway humorous, the blog has fast become popular with many interested in the region and posts have even been republished by the media in her native Azerbaijan. Today, Global Voices Online interviewed Scary Azeri about blogging, tweeting, cultural clashes, trolls and more.

Incidentally, and despite her name, Global Voices Online found Scary Azeri to be anything but.

Scary Azeri in Suburbs is at http://scaryazeri.blogspot.com and can be followed on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/scaryazeri. The podcast interview can be listened to online or downloaded below.

The story goes back to August 2008, when Marwa filed a defamation case against her killer, Axel, a 28-year unemployed German, after he called her a “terrorist” because she wears the hijab (Islamic veil).

However last Wednesday, Alex stabbed her 18 times to death in a German courtroom after the judges announced she won the case against him, and that he had to pay 2,800 Euros as a fine for his previous insults.

Marwa, 32-year-old Egyptian, was the wife of an Egyptian academic, who was on a scholarship in Germany. Her husband was also hurt in the incident and is now in critical condition in hospital, between life and death.

Zeinobia expressed her anger in a post titled “What If She Were A Lesbian“, and said:

The woman is 32 years Marwa El-Sherbini , she was a pregnant in her second child when she was was stabbed.
[…]
This is for sure a hate crime but unlike other hate crimes like homophobic crimes or anti-Semitic crimes, it did not make the headlines abroad and I do not know why !! This is a racism crime , a woman is shot down stabbed like that so simple in the court room for God sake and it is not important to be covered in the media as it should !! She was a mother who was a pregnant for God sake !!
May Allah bless her soul , she is a martyr of racism and hate.

Ahmed esmat questioned on Twitter

The same thought was echoed by Hisham Maged on his blog, playing the What if game:

Let us play the What IF game, just imagine if the situation was reversed and the victim was a westerner who was stabbed anywhere in the world or -God Heaven- in any Middle Eastern country by Muslim extremists, or even what the media used to call ‘minorities’ in Egypt! You definitely would have heard the world’s buzzing and the internet goes down too!

Bikya Masr, who was closely following the incident, asked if Marwa can be the symbol to bring people together. He demanded an immediate action on the diplomatic and national levels:

Across the Middle East, anger is high. This anger, however, cannot fall into random diatribes against Germans, or Germany. It must maintain some semblance of coherence for any campaign that should be established to succeed. And it will if Sherbini truly is a symbol that can bring people together much like Neda in Iran did.
[…]
Do people believe Sherbini is a symbol? […] Egyptians should be outraged that a woman was verbally abused for wearing the veil and being Egyptian in the first place. The government should be sending a strong signal to Europe that this behavior is unacceptable, but they remain silent. That leaves it to the Egyptian population to take action.
[…]
Let us walk the streets in front of the German Embassy and demand a full investigation and report. Because if Germany cannot do this, then it once more proves that European hate for Muslims and Arabs is stronger than their so-called “freedom.” Yes, Marwa is a symbol, but she should be a symbol to bring people together, not divide them.

Another blogger Sadafat wrote:

Egyptian bloggers commenting or venting out their frustrations on Twitter.

As for myself, I found myself writing these lines on my blog Lasto Adri:

On June 19, about a hundred of Iranian students studying in Hungary held a silent commemoration at Heroes’ Square in Budapest, the Hungarian capital. The rally had been organised via Facebook. The second demonstration, by Hungarian supporters, took place in front of the Iranian Embassy in Budapest on June 21: it was called the Green Flashmob.

The third rally “for democracy and human rights” in Iran was held on June 26, also in front of the Iranian Embassy. On the community blog site Lehet Más a Világ! (”The World Can Be Different!”), Redjade shared information and photos about the June 21 protest and wrote this about the June 26 one:

[…] It was a big contrast from the previous protest last Sunday where there was no police presence, at all. Not only was there a fence this time (borrowed from the Parliament?) but dozens of police including four police vans and six cars. But the entire event was a friendly and calm situation, however. But I wonder if the lower turn out by Iranian students may have been the result of the intimidating police presence. […]

The Hungarian media reported on the meeting between state secretary of foreign affairs Gábor Iklódy and the Iranian ambassador Ali Reza Irvas, after which the Hungarian official declared that the Iranian protestors had the right to protest peacefully and that Hungary was concerned about the restraints placed on the media in Iran.

Also on June 21, a different type of rally took place in Budapest: members and supporters of the Two-Tailed Dog Party (HUN) held a so-called General Demonstration against things that don’t make any sense. The Two-Tailed Dog Party is a fake political party known for its extremely humorous criticism of political issues in Hungary. Some 200-300 people gathered in front of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office: according to the blog (HUN) of the demonstration, the reason was that the existence of this office didn’t make any sense.

On the art blog Képgyár (”Image Factory”), journalist András Földes reported (HUN) on the Two-Tailed Dog Party's demonstration:

[…] ‘What do we want? Nothing! When? Never!' Protesters in front of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH) are shouting their demands for long minutes but they can’t gain a hearing. Nobody comes out from the office to receive the petition and to start dialogue.

Though there are enough demands. ‘Let tomorrow be yesterday!' ‘Dissmiss us!' ‘Main stage!' ‘Let's bring everyone who is under the radical sign to a square!' […]

Some of the users of Képgyár (HUN) mentioned in the comments section that one of the protesters with the ‘Dissmiss us!' slogan was actually sending a hidden political message about frequent demonstrations against the present Hungarian government that have been taking place since 2006. Others noted that this kind of rallying for nothing already had a cultural background in Europe and represented an anarchist or radical liberal view, which contradicts the main goal: rallying for nothing.