Thanks for the comment. Sorry you took what Nicholas and I said about political blogging as a criticism or an effort to force others to write about politics. We were simply making an observation, but others seem to have drawn the similar conclusions to yours, so perhaps we could have expressed it better.

If you take a look at the roundups I have been doing for Global Voices (http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/author/georgia-popplewell/), you will notice that most of what I report upon is not at all political in the narrow sense of the term. My own blog/podcast (http://www.caribbeanfreeradio.com/blog) is also very far from being politically oriented.

Do you have a blog? If so, please send me the link as I’d be interested in including it in the list I draw upon for my roundups.

Georgia

Political games are stagnant, whereas the human lives that are affected by political decisions are dynamic. Who says that a post about a hurricane is not an oblique reference to the paucity of disaster relief services in the island? As a social researcher, personal stories help me to make sense of social issues from the inside out.

I haven’t read about anyone begging bloggers from the UK or the US to please speak up about politics. I think that the overwhelming desire to have people blog about politics is coming out of exposure to US culture and the media that more or less tells people what issues are relevant and what to talk about. The latent sense of inferiority makes us want to do something, but we need to remember that the internet, and indeed blogs, are boundary free.

What I would like to know is whether you have a plan for bloggers who do not post about political issues?

How will you support and defend bloggers whose views are being pressured out of the public domain because fellow not-so-serious bloggers don’t want to read that stuff? How many potentially good “political blogs” have been snuffed out because no one bothered to read them?

As a Caribbean national who has been educated in developed countries, I feel that my experiences have given me “choices” and not “privilege”. I do not wish to browbeat others with my first world perspective when in reality, I’ll blend into the background noise.

When was the last time someone from the US said “Okay, why don’t we hear a Caribbean national’s take on this?”

Even though I agree with a most of what was said during the above exchange, in principle I don’t feel comfortable with the criticism about what others write in their spare time. If you tell people what to write, then it opens you up to similar censure.

Finally, I’d like to say that if you would like to further your cause perhaps a more nurturing approach might suffice? We’re new to this blogging business, and there are few role-models. Criticism will only push us further away into our defensive shells.

As Anais Nin, writer said: “I fight off intrusion of world, of politics, war…because they kill the individual life when it is all we have, all I have. Others want this outer disintegration because it is a good pretext under which to accept their inner destruction.”

I want to share a different aspect of my country that never gets out…the weddings, funerals, feasts, laughter, tears…the lives of ordinary folks.

okay. I’ll stop here. for now.

I’m here WAVING MY ARMS WITH A VEANGEANCE. LOL. I’m that blogger from Haiti. (Okay, via New York where I now live but so do some of the people you mentioned.)

The idea is to offer a Caribbean perspective through Haitian lens –mine– but also to highlight Caribbean actors who seek to understand Haiti.

I think you’ll be interested in the following entries but feel free to check them all out:

http://kiskeyacity.blogspot.com/2005/09/university-of-west-indies-deejay-prof.html

http://kiskeyacity.blogspot.com/2005/08/figgy-on-uptown-jamaica-brown-girls.html

http://kiskeyacity.blogspot.com/2005/11/second-generation-nation-mill-polyn.html

It’s not a reluctance shared by younger bloggers on the Web, or those exposed to the net from outside.

as for the media… I’m not convinced that more than a minority of them actually understand online, far less to grok and participate.

Caripundit has views, but they are somewhat of an outlier, and probably not shared by the majority of Caribbean folk. ‘ll admit, I looked at the Caripundit blog, but the fact that she was happy to be recommended by Instapundt and Malkin AND does not permit feedback to his/her site… Two strikes already.

Which brings up another issue: how do you deal with people who persist in blogging from a factually inaccurate perspective yet refuse to acknowledge their error after being shown the proper facts? We’re not talking differences of opinion here, but someone proudly saying that 2+2=6. And ignoring everyone who tells you that the proper answer is 4.

We have those issues in Caribbean blogging too.