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Chilean Inexplicable Traditions

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Photo by nstark

This is your first day in university. You feel all the expectations in your skin. You feel proud of your self because you passed the national test, which gives you the necessary points you need to apply for university. Everything is new: faces, places, conversations, smells, and people.

Suddenly, an egg smashes into your face. Welcome to university!!! Automatically your status is “mechón” (that means lock, but the translation is freshman”). Every March and April, when all the new students enter university, the upperclassmen offer them a welcoming that is called “mechoneo”. The date of the mechoneo is secret and sometimes focuses on making student pass through embarrassing situations.

In “Choose Your Destiny”(ES) a post titled “expensive mechoneo” refers to graduate students that gave a beating to three new students at a mechoneo party. It ended with one broken nose. Universities are working to end the practice, but some times people just ask for it. “Funkshop”(ES) a new student posts, “today I awake with only one purpose: to be mechoneado. How can be possible that it is the 28th of March and they haven’t gotten us wet yet? I feel like they forgot about us”. On other hand, Marcelo posted, “yesterday at 5 o’clock the entertainment activities started with the support of the Student Union. Our students have understood the message; that the eradication of violence and humiliation as a start to university life… was a necessary evolution.”

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US Dollars, Human Rights & War

Farid Pouya · 14:21 · Middle East & North Africa

Mehrangize Kar US based human rights activist, lawyer & blogger discusses a hot issue: US 75 million dollar help to promote democracy in Iran. She does not believe that US dollars can be helpful for Iranian human rights activists. She says:

“Not only the present government but also the judgment of the Iranian public opinion will prevent the activity of those human rights organizations that receive financial support from abroad. They would become suspect in the eyes of Iranians. The increasing number of destitute, the poor and victims of violence and other social ills in Iran will storm the offices of organizations that receive foreign funds to demand their share of these monies. It is even possible that conspiratorial elements within the government itself would instigate a group of such people to shut down and destroy foreign-funded human rights organizations. Given the Iranian Government’s past record of fabricating such scenarios, such an outcome appears quite possible.
In sum, it can be said that any political approach aimed at ameliorating the present conditions, if it does not correspond to the reality of the internal situation of Iran, is bound to backfire and destroy the limited advancements that have already been achieved in the area of human rights in Iran.”

On Webgardian blog same issue has been discussed by Iranian European and American bloggers or non bloggers.

The Spirit of Man, a Canada based blogger, talks about raising tension between US & Iran. Blogger reports:

“An Iranian hardliner party which controls both the Islamic parliament and the government, named Abadgaran, has suggested that Iran should conduct a military exercise with Cuba, Venezuela and other anti-America countries in that region of the world to send a message to the United States of America.”

Hanif Mazroi (Persian), Iran based reformist journalist & blogger, says propaganda in Iranian TV reminds him Iran-Iraq war. Propaganda is about nuclear energy and oppressed population of Iraq! He says it seems that Iranian TV woke up and realised suddenly there is a war in Iraq!Blogger adds he does not know what is use of this all propaganda.

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Troll causes Sri Lankan blog riot

Mahangu · 14:12 · South Asia

Wikipedia defines an online troll as someone who comes into an established community such as an online discussion forum, and posts inflammatory, rude or offensive messages designed to annoy and antagonize the existing members or disrupt the flow of discussion.

In a nutshell, that's what the Sri Lankan weblog community has been plagued by during the past two weeks. Although Internet trolling is by no means a new phenomenon, this is the first time that the Lankan blogspace has been seriously affected by it.

The troll, who we will not link here for fear of feeding it, seems to have an in depth knowledge of the community and its members - something which is not often seen in troublemakers of this kind.

What is most interesting however, is the filth the blog has fueled. The comment threads of the offending posts have filled up with messages that vary from mildly rude to thoroughly disturbing, with varying degrees of profanity. I've tried to sum up what's happening in a blog post of my own, which outlines, among other things, a possible explanation for this behaviour.

All in all though, the .lk community is going through a bit of a slump, with many bloggers refraining from posting in fear of being targeted by the newcomer. The upside however is that these recent happenings are a sure sign that the Sri Lanka weblogging community has finally arrived. And of course, never forget that drama brings hits.

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Asking the Blogosphere: Is the media telling the real story on Iraq?

Rebecca MacKinnon · 12:10 · Middle East & North Africa

Is the media telling the truth about Iraq? Do you have an opinion on this issue? How does the nature, quality, and content of media coverage of the Iraq war ultimately impact the lives of people in Iraq, the Middle East and around the planet?

In your country, how does the media’s Iraq coverage rate? Fair and balanced? Biased? Which way? How about bloggers’ reporting and discussion of the issue? Have blogs helped clarify things or added to the confusion? We want to bring the opinions of the world’s bloggers on this issue directly into the debate. Please join us for a live discussion on Wednesday at 22:00–24:00 GMT (6–8pm EDT).

Here’s the plan: Reuters will be hosting a panel discussion which will be videocast and audio cast via this link: http://reuters.com/IraqNewsmakers.

Several members of the Global Voices community will be live-blogging the event: Middle East/North Africa Editor Haitham Sabbah, Iraq contributor Salam Adil, Iraqi-Australian blogger who now lives in the U.S., Fayrouz Hancock, Omar of Iraq the Model blogging from Baghdad, and Iraqi blogger Raed Jarrar (who will be present in the room in New York).

Panelists in the room will include CBS’s Lara Logan, independent Iraqi photo journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, Reuters’ Iraq Bureau Chief Alastair MacDonald, Lt. Col. Steven Boylan, Chief of Strategic Communication, Combined Arms Center, U.S. Army, and others.

We will have a live IRC chat which you can join (via the link above or on Freenode at #globalvoices. Read here for more instructions for getting on IRC, or you can use the client on the Reuters event site.). I will be present in the room as “IRC ambassador,” representing your questions and comments in the room and making sure that the panelists address as many as possible.

If you have views in advance, you can start sharing them now in several ways:

- Write a comment on this post.

- Write your views on your own blog and trackback to this post.

- When you find blog posts and articles related to this issue that you want to share please tag them “gv-iraq” in Technorati or del.icio.us.

Feel free to tag your own posts that way too so we can find them easily and re-blog them for the world to see.

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DRC: Public Transportation and Free Speech Tribulations

Alice Backer · 08:28 · Sub-Saharan Africa

Daily links don't do all discussions justice. Here are translations of eloquent quotes posted in the last two weeks on two such issues by D.R of Congo blogger Tony Katombe.

Public Transportation in Kinshasa: a Workout Before Work

Tony Katombe treated us (FR) to a funny illustrated account of his personal experience with Kinshasa's public transportation. A new chaotic line of “express ” taxis is hindering his ability to get to work for a reasonable price and on time. Let's just say reading about the trials and tribulations involved in his morning commute could make you as tired as a full day's work! And his account comes complete with the requisite dose of tension between the sexes:

Je m’approche du taxi et exprime ma désapprobation au gars qui a bousculé Grâce. ‘‘Mais c’est la parité, que voulez-vous’’, me répond-il. Eh oui, ces Kinois ont appliqué cette histoire de parité à leurs réalités au point que leur légendaire galanterie s’en est trouvée fortement érodée. Et les Kinoises ne sont pas en reste. Elles d’habitude si respectueuses des hommes en sont aussi venues à réclamer les mêmes traitements avec les males en tout et pour tout, au nom de la parité. A 12 heures, un de nos chauffeurs [… ] me raconte une mésaventure qu’il a vécue avec une participante à une manifestation des femmes. Le chauffeur qui voyait un groupe des dames chanter et danser sur le boulevard en avait appelée une pour s’enquérir du motif de leur exhibition. La bonne dame lui avait rétorqué : ‘‘ Yo yaka nde, parité teee’’ (Toi plutôt viens, parité oblige).

I get closer to the taxi and I express my disapproval to the man who's just pushed [my friend] Grace. “Well, we're equal, aren't we?” he says. Kinshasa men are abiding to gender equality principles to the point that their legendary chivalry has now considerably eroded. And Kinshasa women aren't doing any better. Though they are usually respectful of men they are now requiring the very same treatment as men in everything, in the name of equality. At noon, one of our drivers […] tells me of a confrontation he had with a participant to a women's march. A group of women were singing and dancing on the boulevard and he called on one to ask about the reason for their exuberance. The woman responded: “Yo yaka nde, parite teee” (No you come to me. We're equal, remember?)

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This Week in Palestinian Blogs: They Bloom Again!

Shaden Abdul Rahman · 00:01 · Middle East & North Africa

From the soul unfolds itself :

In 1976, Israeli policy of expropriating Palestinian land in northern Israel to build Jewish settlements provoked Palestinian residents in the Galilee town of Sakhnin to protest on March 30. Six Palestinians were killed during the demonstration. Since then, Palestinians inside Israel and the West Bank have commemorated March 30 as “Land Day” and turned the day into a general protest against what they view as discriminatory practices by the government.

freckle attended a demonstration in Rafat village in the West Bank where 3000 Dunam were taking out of 3500 by the Annexation Barrier.

The 30th of March 2006 marks the thirtieth anniversary of Land Day in Palestine. Umkahlil posts the declaration made by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine on the occasion. al-falasteeniya posts a picture by Ismail Shammout.

Springtime in Gaza. Photo credit: Raising Yousuf