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Voices of African Women Bloggers

Sokari Ekine · 14:28 · Sub-Saharan Africa

Mshairi calls for the abuse of women bloggers to stop! She recalls two recent incidents in the blogosphere where male bloggers “discussed and described women in misogynistic terms.”

“The descriptions included ‘ignoramus’, ‘spiteful, angry menopausal bitch’, and ‘ruthless menopausal maniac’. All that remained was the blogger to call the woman a prostitute. Wait, he did.

In another incident the attack was on lesbians the blogger wrote
“lesbos probably need a dick whipping” later backtracked to ““lesbians would most likely have a change of heart on their sexual orientation if they had mind blowing sex with a guy”. Mshairi comments

Do you really need to prove your masculinity by putting women down, by belittling their reproductive functions, by dehumanising them, by reducing them to sex objects or a nothing? Is your self-esteem that low?

Nigeria's Youth Service Corp has often been the subject of jokes by Nigerian bloggers. Here The World of Adaure writes about the experience of not being able to sleep by her friend…

i didnt get registered that day, and therefore didnt get allocated a bed space so hundreds of us had to sleep OUTSIDE on the ROAD… im not even playing.. luckily, ‘Angela' and i bought a mat to sleep on, which was equally as bad because the ‘mat' was made of wood!! so can u please imagine how uncomfortable that was for starters..

As if that is not enough her friend is disturbed by sounds of Sunny Ade in the middle of the night and eventually…

at about three thirty, ppl had started getting up to take a bath outside, and by the time we managed to borrow buckets, fetch water from the well-like hole tank where there was water, they had brightened the lights, and so we still had to bathe like that with both guys and girls strolling about.. TALK ABOUT SERIOUS REDUCTION OF OUR BRIDE PRICE!!!!

Aqumada writes of her love for African soccer since the days of Roger Milla of Cameroon - remember those glorious matches?

The recent edition of the Nation’s cup has shown that African teams can be as complete as any of the teams from the top footballing nations. In addition to the traditional attacking football, defense and tactical awareness of many of the teams has improved tremendously. The Ivorian team which went to play Egypt in the final as well as being one of Africa’s representatives in the world cup was a prime example of this. Not only the Ivorian defense was brilliant but they also have dangerous strikers which can be a handful for any defense.

KenyanMusings has a question and answer session with her friends in the Kenyan blogosphere - everything you ever wanted to know about Kenyan bloggers!

the innermost essence has her own take on the religious violence taking place in Nigeria - once again it's those damn cartoons…

There are Christians and Muslims in Ghana. There are Christians and Muslims in Togo, in Cameroon, all over Africa. Nigeria is not the only country with both religions yet its only in Nigeria sporadic killings erupt and people are massacred.

An Unreasonsable Woman makes some true confessions - as one commenter writes “we all have our demons”… for Nehanda Oprah Winfrey plays some part in uncovering those secrets….

there were months when i'd be involved with a boyfriend & at those times i would be monogamous and try to be a typical normal person. it's only when things went down hill that id jump back to this old way of doing things.

Sticking with Oprah she is also the subject of a rant from More to Life over the Millions Little Pieces saga..

The smoking gun.com, finds exaggerated issues in the memoir's details. They don't claim the memoir has falsehoods. No. They claim Oprah has been duped. This would have had little to no effect had Oprah not bought into the falsehood that this book has anything to do with her because she picked it for her book club. It is just a book club Oprah!

Molara Wood and SisiOgeBlogs! both remember Lynden David Hall…

Some called him the nearest Britain had in RnB royalty, an artist who made one think of the best of African America Soul music. Lynden David Hall achieved a lot in his 31 years on earth

God bless Lynden David Hall….In our hearts you will stay, beautiful spirit!!!!

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This week in Israel: election campaigns, a kidnapping in France and more

Lisa N. Goldman · 13:46 · Middle East & North Africa

Israel is now six weeks before general elections, and the campaigning is starting to heat up.

Shai Tsur of Shaister has a concise and intelligent roundup of the campaign platforms of the major parties. He writes that he likes the ad campaign of Meretz, a leftist Zionist party, the best.

Each ad features one of the candidates on the Meretz list, a large semi-provocative slogan, and a smaller second line of text which explains it. For instance, a picture of party chairman Yossi Beilin, with the slogan “I don’t have an Arab mother” (a reference to rumors about Peres in elections past), and a sub-line saying “…but I will fight for minority rights.” Or a picture of Meretz’s token religious woman Dr. Tzvia Greenfeld with the slogan “I believe in the Almighty … but I will separate state and religion.”

This Meretz campaign poster shows Knesset member Avshalom Vilan. The slogan is: “I am a happily married man. But I will fight for a civil divorce law.” (In Israel the religious authorities control all matters of marriage and divorce).

And this campaign poster shows Arab-Israeli Meretz candidate Issawi Farij. The slogan, written in Arabic, reads, “Don't patronize me! My voice is influential and my conscience is serene.”

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Blogging Presentation in Zaghouan, Tunisia

Mohamed Marwen Meddah · 13:44 · Middle East & North Africa

In the Tunisian monthly blogger meetups, one of the issues that always comes up is what we can do to spread blogging even more in Tunisia and get more people writing and sharing online.

One of the ideas that we came up with is by giving presentations about blogging in cultural, internet or youth centers. We also thought it was important that we give such presentations in places outside the capital city where most Tunisian bloggers are from.

Last wednesday (22/02/06), we were able to take the first step in that direction, by holding a presentation about blogging in Zaghouan, a city that lies 55Km outside Tunis.

The presentation was held in the ISET institute in Zaghouan, in the presentation/activity room of one of the dormitories.
Around 50 students showed up, mostly girls, for the presentation, in which we tried to explain the basics of blogging, a bit of it's history, how to go on about it, …etc.
We also gave a little overview of the Tunisian blogosphere and the community of Tunisian bloggers.

We were four bloggers (Tom, Karim, Marouen and myself) and one non-blogger Moez, who is a friend of Karim's.

The themes we covered were:

- Introduction, definition and history of blogging: By MMM.
- Blogging approaches and objectives: By Tom.
- Blogospheres and the Tunisian blogosphere: By Marouen.
- Simulation of how to create a blog: By Karim.

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Lone Haiti-Based Haitian Blogger on Recent Haitian Elections

Alice Backer · 06:30 · Americas

Yon Ayisyen, the sole Haiti-based Haitian blogger complains (FR) that he does not have an internet connection at home. But that has not stopped him from blogging regularly if not always promptly about the recent presidential elections.

Special Rules for Favored Candidate?

Riots over the possibility of a runoff in Haiti's presidential elections received lots of press coverage two weeks ago. In a post titled “The VIP Candidate” Yon Ayisyen, devotes (FR) some blogging ink to the legal implications of the rioters' demands. He deplores an electoral culture that does not tolerate less than a landslide victory for a favored candidate, often at the detriment of existing rules:

Preval's followers “demanded” squarely that their candidate be “proclaimed” victor on the first round and that was true even before ballots were fully counted. They do not want blank votes to be counted … Question: Why contest the counting of blank votes now and not last year when the electoral decree was published? Answer: Because counting blank votes as valid votes does not favor their candidate.

Yon Ayisyen also deplores another manifestation of the lack of adherence to the rule of law during the electoral process. He points out that a commission of members of the electoral council, the government and of Preval's party LESPWA was created in violation of a clause of the electoral decree that provides for a period of contestation after the official publication of results. He adds:

But since candidate Preval is the big favorite, he couldn't possibly be treated like everybody else; those who are eyeing possible appointments in his future government must naturally start courting him now. … So LESPWA has the right to contest results even before they are published while other candidates must wait for the decreed contestation period. … The rule of law and other decrees apply to neither Preval nor his supporters.

A Chaotic Election

In his post “The Flatterers”, Yon Ayisyen reports irregularities that took place during the election:

While voters lined up well before voting was scheduled to start, voting booths did not open until hours later. … In certain voting centers, voters forced their way in because they were tired of waiting; in others they waited for the center to open but tripped over each other on the way in.

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A Look at the Syrian Blogsphere

Yazan Badran · 03:46 · Middle East & North Africa

After a tense month of anti-violence campaigns, the Syrian blogsphere seemed to be quite calm this week…

Discussions revolved about the new step from the US to give a $5 million to promote democratic governance and reform in Syria.
While Joshua Landis of SyriaComment.com sees this step as a good start, but a bit worried that it won't have the proper effect if not supported by other moves.

This is a good start. Now Syrians will have to figure out how they can apply for the funds without getting bashed by their government.

Ironically, American legislators are trying to have the embassy staff reduced even further, which will undermine the effectiveness of democracy promotion. Only by supporting effective representatives on the ground in Syria can America be expected to evaluate and judge how best to promote democracy. Building links to courageous and imaginative people working in Syria who are trying to expand the scope of local civic institutions should be key.

Rime Allaf from Mosaics says that this step falls short on all terms, compared to the support the US gave to the Iraqi opposition against Saddam Hussein regime. She feels that the regime feels more safe than ever as the US is not interested with a regime change in the near future.

Be that as it may, it seems perfectly clear now that America is not bothered with regime change in Syria, for the moment at least (which has been my hunch); had it been even remotely interested, it would have disbursed more than those peanuts. This amount merely allows the Syrian regime to complain about it without worrying, and to demonstrate that American designs are less than honorable.

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