Archive for
July 7th, 2005
Stories
Muslim Blogosphere Reacts to London Blast
We hope that multi-lingual bridge-bloggers can help translate more of what bloggers are saying in Arabic, Farsi and other languages. (If you have done so please let us know in the comments section at the bottom of this post.) Meanwhile, here is what has come through our aggregator in English (and a little French):
Mahmood at Mahmood's Den sends his condolences to the bereaved, and calls the terrorists “animals.” He writes:
The way to beat them is not to give in to them, and more democracy and democratic institutions, a complete overhaul of the education system in the Arab and Muslim worlds and the full separation of Mosque and State.
The time is now. We have to get this done. Otherwise we will be completely left behind and will suffer much more at the hands of these terrorists.
My heart and thoughts go to the people of the United Kingdom in this very difficult time.
Ali Mostashari at Free Thoughts on Iran calls for moderates everywhere to unite against extremism of all stripes:
The choice of the Islamic fundamentalists, the Neocons and Christian Fundamentalists seems clear. What is unclear in this period of time is the role of the progressive peoples representing the multiple civilizations at odds. For long the only thing we have achieved is to condemn acts of wars and atrocities, without an actual and concrete alternative to offer. So how about it? Do we want to sit and watch while the hatemongers in our nations take over the destiny of mankind and steer us towards massive bloodshed? What concrete ways are there to address issues of terrorism and bigotry in the Middle East, the growth of the military-industrial complex and religious fundamentalism and the retreat of rationality and human ideals in the West? Are there ways to address these issues on a global level? What I would like to see is something beyond the conventional intellectual response of demonstrating outside the White House etc. Where do we start? What do we learn? What ways can we propose? What organizations can help get our agendas on the table? I personally don’t have any answers to these, but I believe in collective wisdom. If we think about it together we might be able to do things beyond just empty talk.
Progressives of the World Unite!!!
From Cairo With Love tells the terrorists to go to hell, but has no love lost for the Bush administration's war on terror, either:
Damn. One hell of a terrorist attack in London. Devastating. We already know how mindless sick bastards those terrorists are. But I have one question, what the hell have Bush and Co. been doing for the last few years? Four years fighting that alleged war on terror, making us live hell in the process. And our Ambassador to Iraq has just been executed today. Boy, do I feel safer now!
Iraqi Expat (who lives in London) had a friend who is only alive today because he mistakenly got off at the wrong subway stop and decided to go for a smoke. A Muslim himself, he describes the “rage” and “irrational thoughts” he and his family experienced all day:
Today's attacks must - and they will - strengthen our commitment to defeat this barbaric hateful terrorism. We will not bow - I will never bow - to these despicable terrorists, even if my life depends on it. What happened to London today was an outrageous evil act by shameless criminals who, sadly, call themselves Muslims. Today, my family and I are ashamed of being Muslims.
Hammorabi in Iraq extends his condolences from a people who understand how Londoners feel today:
We know the pain, sadness and chaos that such inhumane acts may bring to a lot of innocent people and families because we experiencing it on a daily basis from the same thugs, the Wahabi terrorists cockroaches.
We wrote before about cutting the route of such terrorism from the doctrine of the wahabism which gave birth to Al-Qaida and its barbaric groups. Again we repeat the same call here; f the world wants to cut the route of terrorism it has to be done from the wahabism not from the tails.
Jordanian blogger Natasha at Mental Mayhem is horrified.
Pakistani blogger Hardly Innovative writes:
To anyone out there who thinks they can change the world by hurting others: Terrorism is NOT OKAY. Killing people is NOT OKAY. This is NOT ISLAM. This will NOT get you to heaven. Terrorism is SATANIC and barbaric! Islam even forgave the very people who wanted to destroy it from the moment it was brought to the world!
People everywhere, raise your voice against terrorism, dont be intimidated by it! Raise your voices against the crimes of the terrorists, against the state-led terrorist acts, against war, against poverty!! Dont sit back and take whatever your governments give you. Dont just watch CNN and blindly believe whatever they say and not think about what they dont! Make yourselves aware, and make sure you are heard!!!!
We all deserve better leaders and a better world, a more peaceful world. May common sense prevail.
Turkish blogger Serdar Kaya writes at Socioeconomics:
Be it Al-Qaida or not, most people today are suffering from the actions of those who believe to be in the possession of ultimate truth, and do not feel a need to check their premises or try and see the world from other viewpoints.
Tunisian blogger Neila Charchour Hachicha asks: “is condemnation enough?” [fr]
London blast blogging
(Image by “alfie” posted at moblog.co.uk)
Thanks to Erica George for pointing us to this Livejournal Community devoted to information sharing in the aftermath of today's bomb blasts in London.
DoWire.org has put together a “London Responds” wiki.
Metroblogging London has been going all day, as have thousands of other blogs, chatrooms, flickr pages, moblog sites, etc. Boingboing has an excellent set of links.
The best way to find blog posts and photos as they hit the internet is through technorati and flickr tags.
You can now subscribe to RSS feeds of the following Technorati tags:
London
bombs
July 7
7 July
terrorism
London bomb
London blast
London explosion
On Flickr, see the bomb blast pool and the London explosions pool.
Also the following tags:
London
bomb
blast
On buzznet:
http://www.buzznet.com/buzzwords/london/
Please let us know of any other good sites and tagging systems that are aggregating London blast related blogging.
All major media are putting together tremendous staff resources to aggregate and collect eyewitness stories and images from todays bomb blasts in London. The BBC in particular is doing an excellent job, showing how professionals and citizens can work together to cover a story. The Wall Street Journal has a useful page here where new links will be updated. Wikinews is also aggregating a lot of stories - both from professional and citizen sources.
Seeking “Bridge Bloggers”
Global Voices Online is looking for “bridge-bloggers.”
What is a bridge-blogger? Somebody who acts as a “bridge” between their blogging community and the rest of the world. Lots of blogospheres are springing up around the world, in lots of languages, but many of them don't communicate with each other. That's unfortunate, as there is much potential for dialogue across these communities.
We hope you will help us change that. For examples of bridge-blogging, here's a post I did summarizing Chinese blogger reaction to the registration deadline and internet censorship. Here's one on Mexican blogs by David Sasaki, bridging between Spanish and English. And here is some bridge-blogging by Ory Okolloh and Ndesanjo Macha about the Kenyan and Kiswahili blogospheres. Ethan Zuckerman has done some great bridge blogging about African bloggers' views of the G8, which has helped bring media attention to actual African perspectives.
If you're interested in doing this kind of bridge-blogging between your country's or region's blogosphere and the rest of the world, please let us know. The best way to start is by doing some bridge-blogging on your own blog. For example: write a post in English (with links to the original posts) about what the Arabic blogosphere is buzzing about this week, or tell us what the Russian bloggers are concerned about, what the Chinese blogs are discussing lately, or what the Francophone blogosphere is currently reacting to. Once you've done this, please email us with the link at: globalvoices DOT dailylinks AT gmail DOT com, and we'll be sure to point to it.
If you're already doing this and we don't know about it, by all means please let us know. We are also trying to build an index of bridge blogs on this wiki. So if you know of blogs not listed there please add them.
Then, after doing this a few times, if you like the response to your work and feel that this is something you have the time and energy to do regularly on the Global Voices site, please let us know at globalvoices DOT online AT gmail DOT com.
International Human Rights Funding
Global Voices has agreed to pass on the following announcement from the International Human Rights Funders Group. This specific grant opportunity may be of special interest to human rights activists and bloggers in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco.
Fund for Global Human Rights
Michael Chertok - 01:00pm Jun 20, 2005 PSTThe Fund for Global Human Rights seeks to strengthen the human rights movement globally through grantmaking to local, national, and regional human rights organizations. The Fund seeks to serve as a resource for human rights organizations working to strengthen their institutional capacity, forge new initiatives, and pursue far-reaching strategies to promote human rights.
Proposed activities should contribute to the overall goal of advancing human rights. This includes activities focused on mobilizing popular opinion through human rights skills-building and organizing; exposing abuse through documentation; addressing violations through direct action, policy/legal reform and litigation; networking and coalition building to further the effectiveness of human rights work; and capacity building for organizations engaged in the above work, locally and regionally.
The grants will be for one year (January-December 2006) and may be renewed in 2007. The Fund will consider proposals seeking general support, as well as those seeking support for a particular project. Grants will range from $5,000 to $30,000. First-time applicants are strongly encouraged to apply in the $5,000 to $15,000 range.
To be eligible for funding, applicant organizations must work to defend or promote human rights; be based in India, Bangladesh, or Pakistan and be working, in whole or in part, on human rights issues in the country in which the organization is based; or be based in Algeria, Tunisia, or Morocco and be working, in whole or in part, on human rights issues in the country in which the organization is based.
Proposed activities should contribute to the overall goal of advancing human rights. Grants will range from $5,000 to $30,000.
More information and application materials in English, French and Arabic are
available at: http://www.hrfunders.org/fghr/
Links for Thu, 2005-07
Altered Argentina has begun a three part series on Debt for Education swaps in Latin America.
Planetablog asks if Haiti and the Dominican Republic could ever form one single nation [es].
Argenuatas links to the Argentinian version of Post Secret.
Bolivian bloggers MABB, Blog from Bolivia, and Ciao! all write in support of Londoners.
Lawrence Lessig has finally written at lenght about his visit to Chile. A good deal of the post is spent summarizing and flattering Chilean blogger and senator, Fernando Flores [es].
Ticias points to an article about a Latin-Jewish rap duo.
Aventuras de un webmaster discusses e-learning in Guatemala [es].
ALT1040 seems to have the most thorough blog post on the London terrorist attack in Spanish [es].
The Shǐt’ē Place has written a long and insightful post entitled Are Mexicans Racist?
The Nepalese blog United We Blog! covers, with photographs, an anti-monarchy student protest in the city of New Baneshwor that was marked by violent confrontations with the police. The protest was in response to official celebrations marking the King's birthday.
Bangladeshi blogger Rezwan is delighted to find that his blog is featured in an article about Asian blogs and bloggers published in Asia! magazine, a new in-flight publication for airlines that service the region.
Dilip D'Souza continues his tour of tsunami-devastated south India.
Bloggers.sg, Singapore's upcoming blog conference, gets a short write-up in the Straits Times, reports Mr.Brown.
Japanpundit reports that, for the first time, an iced green tea beverage will probably beat out Coca-Cola for the number two spot in Japan's soft-drink wars. The number one spot is held by a brand of canned coffee.
Hong Kong group blog Chatter Garden responds to a comment left by HK blogger Glutter about their commitment to democracy.
Tibetblogger notes that it will be ‘Tibetean Cultural Week' in Hong Kong from July 15 to the 22nd. No doubt the events and displays will emphasize Tibet's affinity with Chinese culture.
Embattled Philippine President Gloria Arroyo gave a speech today in which she came out swinging, defiantly refusing to resign and attacking her enemies. Unfortunately for President Arroyo, her public support is plummeting, and some blogs are already talking about ‘extraconstitutional options'.
Blog de Connard reports that the Ukrainian parliament has, after some arm-twisting, passed legislation designed to ease Ukraine's entry into the WTO.
Three malls in Budapest were evacuated after copycat bomb threats were called in, reports Pesticide.
The Daily Czech notes that Mikulas Dzurinda, the Slovak Prime Minister barely survived a no-confidence vote earlier this week; apparently, 22 MPs didn't bother to show up for the vote.
Blogrel points us to a blog written by American teen-aged missionaries in Armenia; for many of these youths, it's the first time they've ever been to a foreign country.
Afghan Warrior has two stories of note: first, he reports that three Afghani journalists were arrested in Kunar province and apparently abused while in custody; the specific charges against the journalists is unclear. On a more optimistic note, twenty Taliban commanders handed over their weapons and signed pledges to support the Afghan government last week in western Afghanistan; they're only the latest former Taliban military troops to pledge allegiance to the government under an amnesty program.
The blog Egyptian Person comments on a ruling that requires TV stations to put on hostesses who choose to wear the hijab; he asks what the decision will do to those women and girls who are bullied into wearing the headscarf.
Iranian Truth looks at some of the potential candidates for cabinet positions in President Ahmedinejad's administration and is not encouraged by their resumes.
Mahmood's Den brings us the news that the Kuwaiti Information Minister has made his own unemployment his goal; however, things are hardly the same in Bahrain.
Syria is stopping Lebanese trucks at the border for no apparent reason, reports A Lebanese Abroad.
Beirut Spring is asking for Lebanese writers to express their thoughts on the new government.
The Arabist Network notes that there has been a shake-up at the top of Egypt's three state-owned newspapers and wonders what the motive behind the action was.
Saudi Blogs is a new blog that aggregates posts from around the Saudi blogosphere.
Saudi Jeans notes that Saudi Arabia will soon allow photography in (most) public places.
Thinker's Room posts a gedankenexperiment to explain why he feels the way he does about Live 8.
A new website dedicated to preventing the return of former military dictator Ibrahim Babangida to Nigeria has been launched, according to Black Looks.
Koranteng Ofosu-Amaah, who writes Koranteng's Toli, was interviewed on the radio by Chris Lydon on Wednesday. It's a long post, but it's an interesting read.
The Zimbabwean Pundit suggests that to protest the ‘clean-up operation', people send faxes President Mugabe's office.
Jeff Barry spreads the word about early 20th century Argentine artist, Xul Solar.
Barrio Flores has an excellent post about Bolivian cinema.
Blog de Bolivia seeks to explain Carlos Mesa's increasing popularity [es] as the December general elections approach.
MABB covers former Bolivian president, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada's thoughts on both Carlos Mesa and Evo Morales.
Chilean presidential candidate Sebastian Pinera has inspired a long list of thoughtful comments regarding his post on Chilean women in the work place [es].
Both Libardo Buitrago and Fernando Flores [es] write on Chile's relations with China.
Leo Prieto of FayerWayer announces that Hector Vergara has created RSS feeds for seven major Chilean media outlets [es].
Val Prieto of Babalu Blog discusses why he is against lifting the travel restriction to Cuba.
Tim's El Salvador Blog discusses two recently released reports on El Salvador's labor conditions and how things got political during the CAFTA vote.
Isopixel posts a reminder that July 15th marks the first annual Weblogs.Communication Conference in Mexico City [es].
The Peruvian blog, Bitter Sweet Simphony has initiated a storm of commentary over a post (the first in a series, it appears) on gay marriage [es].
Morena discussed the importance of blogs for Latin American politicians [es].
The Devil's Excrement explains the term Magnicidio and why Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez uses it.
Venezuela News and Views gives an incredibly thorough summary of Venezuelan politics in the year 2005. If you ever wanted to clear up any doubts, this is the time and place to do so.
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