Archive for
July 11th, 2008
Stories
Iran: Balatarin, a successful citizen media story
Mehdi Yahyanejad is the founder of the very successful Balatarin site. Balatarin (which means ‘the highest' in Persian) is a community website through which users can post links to webpages of their interest, with an emphasis on the Iranian audience. The underlying idea is a mixture of reddit, digg, newsvine, and del.icio.us.
In less than two years Balatarin has become a valuable source of information and communication. In this interview Mehdi, who holds a PhD at Physics from MIT and is also currently co-founder and CEO of Adoptic.com, shares with us his Balatrin adventure.
Please tell us when you started Balatarin and how you evaluate its success. Any statistics?
I launched Balatarin on August 16, 2006. So far there have been 300,000 news summaries posted on the site. 5 million votes and 1 million comments have also been entered. I, however, evaluate Balatarin's success beyond its statistics: Balatarin is widely read by Iranian journalists and bloggers in and outside of Iran. As a result, the discussions taking place on Balatarin get coverage in multiple countries and platforms.
You used Digg as a model. Do you think an Iranian facebook will become popular too?
Yes. I think that having a Persian facebook that encompasses Iranian universities and high schools can be very attractive. Obviously, it depends on how well the site is designed.
How is the weight of bloggers in Balatarin?
Quite a bit. Most of the active users are bloggers. Balatarin is also the place for Persian bloggers to get wide coverage for what they write. Blog posts that are submitted to Balatarin often get more comments than the original posts on the blogs.
Balatarin was a leap forward for citizen media for Iranians. How you see the development of citizen media in the country?
Iran had a head start in citizen media by being one of the first countries where blogging became widely popular. However, it hasn't been able to follow up with the pace. Any type of citizen media, even if it's online, needs to be promoted by meet-ups and seminars as well as businesses which support its survival. This has not been the case in Iran.
Are you planning to launch an English version of Balatarin?
Not any time soon. At the moment, I am focusing on another project, Adoptic.com, which was inspired by my experience in Balatarin. The idea is to allow bloggers to promote their content by using their own and other fellow blog spaces. I am trying to create a very smooth way of content discovery and promotion. There are also a ton of cool algorithms being used in the process.
Any ideas to share with our audience?
I try to keep myself exposed to new ideas. It's very easy to be consumed with what we do everyday. Something what I do, is I buy a new and random magazine each time I fly. This exposes me to ideas from many different domains.
Serbia: Arts Roundup
Here are some picks from the blogosphere on Serbian literature, architecture, design, film, music, visual arts and cuisine. Enjoy!
Literature
Semanario Serbio [Es] writes about the recent passing of Dejan Medaković, a writer and art historian who was the president of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts from 1999 to 2003. Quoting the director of a publishing house, Zoran Kolundžija, he commented on Medaković's contribution to Serbian arts:
Esta obra sólo hay que leerla, simplemente porque allí están muchas respuestas a nuestros problemas prácticos […] Durante su larga y fructuosa vida Medaković nos ha enseñado que lo más importante es seguir siendo fiel a tu pueblo, su cultura, a la afirmación de esa cultura y su conexión con el mundo.
Architecture
Sandra Drašković of Demystifying Serbian Design informs of the results of the competition “Boathouse” that were announced last Sunday during the Architecture Week in Belgrade. The competition was open to architects and students under 35 and its goal was to “give a new development model, functional distribution and visual identity” to commercial floating structures on the river banks of the Danube and the Sava. Drašković also posted several pictures of the winning projects, such as the one below:
(Photo of the winning project by Studio Poligon)
Nothing Against Serbia describes in a post full of photos the blokovi of New Belgrade, apartment blocks built in 1948 by the communist regime of the time. These blocks, which are home to 100,000 “socio-economically mixed inhabitants because most people in blokovi received their apartments through government-funded social programs,” have appeared in a number of Serbian movies, and have also been the protagonists of two documentaries in 1973-74 about the artists and intellectuals who used to live there, mostly on Block 45 and 70.
The blogger concludes by saying:
Although the blocks have an image of grayness and drabness (shown in movies like Rane, Apsolutnih sto, Jedan na jedan, Sutra ujutro, and Sedam i po), the reality is much friendlier than portrayed in the movies.
(Photo by Elia Varela Serra)
Music
In a later post, Nothing Against Serbia gives some examples of the artists inspired by the blocks:
From the 90's till now also the belgradian Hip-Hop scene gets its inspiration from the “blokovi” where it's kind of standard to choose the blocks as a location for videos. (see for exemple “Struka feat. Demian - 1001 plan“).
Another rap artist got his name from the blocks and made is record label (carski rez) there: Blokovski. His entire image is built around New Belgrade's Blocks!
Speaking of 1990's Serbian music, Balkan File posted a music video from 1995 by a boy band called Beat Street (Bit strit), with the comment “Glad to see that British and Serbian 90s pop share the same awful dance moves”.
Film
The first post of the brand new collective blog Balkan Crew [It] reviewed the film Apsolutnih Sto by Srđan Golubović. The review highlights the very blokovi mentioned above, where a few scenes are set, as well as the disco-restaurants on the Danube river banks also mentioned earlier.
One of their latest posts reviews another Serbian movie, Zona Zamfirova by Zdravko Šotra, set in the southern town of Niš in the 19th century. The review quotes the director speaking of the film's success:
La nostra cinematografia da 10 anni si occupa di temi contemporanei, di questi giorni tristi, delle guerre, delle sanzioni. Il pubblico dice basta a questi film. “Zona” è una commedia romantica senza parolacce e scene brutte, una storia d’amore con un po’ di melodramma. Forse la gente voleva un po’ di serenità dopo le tante cose brutte successe, rappresentate in film carichi di violenza.
Visual Arts
Diario de una serbia [Es] introduces her readers to Milena Pavlović Barilli, a Serbian painter and poet who lived between 1909 and 1945. She says that the style of her art is hard to define:
… en su obra coohabitan […] modernismo y realismo con las reminiscencias históricas en los retratos y pinturas de flores, el realismo poético o mágico están reflejados en sus retratos y composiciones de mujeres trajeadas; además existe el surrealismo que complica el tema, llevando a varios objetos a una relación irracional, liberando una misteriosa poesía de horror y aguardamiento en las pinturas con estatuas, sillas de hierro, abanicos, guantes, pájaros nocturnos, estrellas, chicas, cartas, actrices con trajes, viejas.
Cuisine
And to end this roundup on a sweet note, we recommend that you try the recipe for tulumbe, described by Marija Petrović in her blog Palachinka. She calls it “one of the most loved desserts in the Balkans, probably originally brought here during the Ottoman rule in this region.” Take a look at the picture below and see if you get inspired!
(Photo by Marija Petrović)
Serbia: “Face to Face With Digitalization”
The Parliament of the Republic of Serbia elected a new government a few days ago. The basic goals now are for the new Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic to strive for European integration, defend Kosovo, strengthen the economy and social responsibility, step up the struggle against corruption and crime, and fulfill Serbia’s international commitments.
Bloggers paid attention to this event. However, one of them was also thinking about a very important issue for the government, something the new Prime Minister has so far failed to address.
Miroslav Jankovic, a B92's blogger, wrote this in his post titled “Face to face with digitalization”:
As time goes by, the significance of Internet as a source of information is growing. Just in Serbia the number of users has increased from 6% of the total population in 2003 to 16% in 2008. Because of that, governments are more and more interested in the information available on the web. Unfortunately, as an unavoidable consequence of this growth, there appears to be a desire of the governments to filter Internet content as well.
Some other countries around the world have already adopted laws that regulate freedom of expression on the Internet. In Serbia, this idea sounds like science fiction. Although the first impression of this statement is negative, maybe after all our position is not very bad at the moment. Maybe this can be an opportunity for us to put in order the behavior on the Internet which will not endanger the freedom of expression and media freedom, and human rights in general. Surely, not like in Saudi Arabia, or China, or Turkey, where there is, for example, censorship of YouTube and Wordpress.
When legislators engage in this issue, they sometime intend to do a good thing. But, until they don't understand completely the whole complexity of Internet, their efforts can be unintentionally turned into a limitation of freedom of expression (at best), leading to excessive filtering and blocking of the web.
For example, blocking of some of the content that seems undesirable to them could lead to blocking of an entire web site or even an entire domain. However, “filtering” is the most frequent result in combination with excessive blocking, when more information gets blocked than planned initially. It has little effect, too, as such measures can be easily overcome by the average educated users of Internet. It is true that freedom of expression on the Internet cannot be unlimited: there is, obviously, some “illegal” content out there. I'll just mention child pornography or hate speech that appears most often on neo-Nazi organizations’ sites. Because of all that, it's quite a challenge to identify the difference between content that is illegal everywhere and always (such as child pornography) and content that is undesirable from the viewpoint of authorities and may be banned for political reasons.
There is one more dimension of the future of the Internet that attracts attention. Today, the Internet is considered as a kind of a supplement to the mainstream media. This situation will change soon. Digitalization of the media will decrease the influence of the national electronic media. The term “local media” will not be precise and correct anymore because of the immediacy that the Internet offers. Actual frequency distribution will be seriously shaken by alternative forms of distribution of information, such as the Internet. Also, it seems that blogs now have the power to transform the traditional ideas about ways of forming the public opinion. It forces on a question about a potential monopoly of Internet because of its lucrative feature. […]
In the comments section, dracena looked back at the following sentence from Miroslav Jankovic's post: “Digitalization of the media will decrease the influence of the national electronic media.”
She replied:
It is not clear to me what you mean by digitalization and about which media you are talking, but I have two absolutely different anticipations. More and more, there is a complementary relationship between the electronic media and the Internet. Developed countries are already using interactive TV, which, in other words, is a combination of TV and the Internet. And this medium right here - B92 - as you can see, it is going in the same direction. It is true that it will be very difficult for traditional TV stations to survive, but their competitors are modern TV stations, not the Internet. However, if you think about big national TV and radio stations, then you are probably right, because production and broadcast with modern technology is becoming cheaper and is available to many creative people.
Miroslav Jankovic believes that modern technologies, such as Internet, seriously endanger the traditional media. He explains what he meant when he used the term “digitalization”:
I’m thinking about a shift from the analog to digital media. That is something that all European countries should be finished with by 2015 and members of the EU by 2012, according to recommendation of the European Commission.
He adds:
I think that the new media, Internet, web presentations, multimedia, virtual reality will be pushing the traditional media (TV, radio, press) backstage more and more. So there will be a decreased influence of big national TV and radio stations, as you've guessed very well, and there will be increased influence of local (traditional) media. I think that will be a consequence of the transfer from the analog to digital system.
I don't read newspapers anymore. I exclusively use Internet as a source of information. Many of my acquaintances do the same…
Dracena, however, believes in compatibility of the mainstream media and Internet:
[…] If the print media are dynamic and inventive, they will not have damage from the Internet. They can also have an additional electronic form. […]
She also identified some issues that concern the Internet in Serbia:
[…] I think that the biggest obstacle to popularization of Internet in our country is the desire of many that everything published online should be lucrative, even those texts that have public importance, such as laws. Because of that many of them are not available online. Government should publish all laws and they should be free. Also, spelling and grammar of the Serbian language should be available online, because there are 33% of functionally illiterate people in Serbia. Generally speaking, the government should consider which content its institutions should be publishing on the Internet.
[…]
If we want to increase the use of Internet in Serbia, then “our Internet” will have to be useful to ordinary citizens. “Our Internet” is still empty now. Apart from companies whose sites are full of advertising, there is almost no other content, at least without subscription. When will we start to make the base of Serbian language? All European languages have already got software for translation. We are moving at a snail's pace because we have no electronic base of knowledge of the language. Internet is excellent, fast and useful, but it has to be “fed” smartly and healthily. […]
Miroslav Jankovic replies:
[…] Establishing the electronic form of the media instead of the print form will, above all, be important to the local media. Today local press is available in local areas. If they would be published on the Internet, they would be available all over the world. It is true, for now their topics have local character, but the Internet might be inspiration for them to engage in topics that are important beyond local areas. In this way, a strong competition will be created. That will be a challenge for the big media.
Jankovic is skeptical about law regulation. He says:
Law regulation requires too much effort and understanding of the complexity and I ask myself who will do this job if many of the mayors in Serbia have not got computers in their offices. […]
Serbia: "Face to Face With Digitalization" (audio version) [9:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadJapan: View from Ecuador on WaiWai “Child Hunt”
The story of the end of “WaiWai” has exploded on the English and Japanese [ja] Internet in Japan over the past few weeks, with no lack of Internet users expressing both outrage and support. For those who have not followed this story, WaiWai was a regular column in Japan's fourth largest newspaper Mainichi, published for many years on the English version of their website. Written by chief editor Australian RyanRyann Connell, WaiWai featured some of the most scandalous articles from Japan's weekly tabloids, translated to English with added “embellishments”. The authenticity of claims in the articles, which over the years increasingly featured sexual themes, was dubious to say the least.
News broadcast about the WaiWai controversy
Up until recently, WaiWai was virtually unknown to Japanese audiences, few of whom read the content on the English-language Mainichi website. According to reports, this changed when blogger Mozu wrote a post [ja] translating and commenting on a post in English at Neojaponisme entitled: “How the World Learns About Japan“. This discussion was later picked up on 2channel (Japan's largest bulletin board) and then by the news site J-CAST [ja], and from there it became a major news story, sparking protests that eventually made to TV news. A whole site devoted to the topic [ja], as well as a wiki [ja] with additional resources such as a full timeline of events [ja], have also been created.
Mainichi quickly removed the articles in question from the web and issued an apology, also announcing a third-party investigation of the WaiWai column, but this has not satisfied many in Japan. The situation has become so extreme that advertisers have pulled their ads from the Mainichi site [ja], where now only self-promotional ads [ja] to Mainichi itself can be found.
One of many anti-WaiWai videos broadcast on YouTube
One of the most controversial articles in the former WaiWai column was entitled “Sex, rape & slaves inserted in sick holiday menu”, in which one passage reads:
In Ecuador, Japanese can, according to the men’s weekly, hunt for children in a different manner as they are armed with a rifle and permitted to track down a youth let loose in the jungle. About 10 Japanese have so far taken part in the tours, with only three getting a shot off at their target and no fatalities reported.
In all the uproar over WaiWai, one Japanese resident in Ecuador discovered this article and wrote a blog post at a blog entiled Nanmei (南瞑) that was heavily linked to and commented on, in which the blogger describes an email they wrote to Mainichi:
すでに、２ちゃんなどを見てる方はご承知でしょうが、毎日新聞のweb版コラムで、低俗極まりない虚偽情報を足掛け9年にも亘って英文で世界に発信していた、という事が報じられました。すでに毎日新聞社はこれについての謝罪文を掲載、関係者の処分を行ったと発表しています。しかし、忘れている事があります。すでに発信してしまった情報の処置です。すでにコラムは閉鎖、発信された情報のアーカイブも削除されていますが、世界を駆け巡る情報は、毎日新聞の手を離れ、世界の様々な処で、「毎日新聞発」という権威付けをされて、残存しています。
ところで、その発信された虚偽情報の中に「エクアドルで日本人が子供をジャングルに放し、それを銃で狩る」というものがありました。これについて、ネット上に存在するキャッシュを添付、毎日新聞社宛、問い合わせのメールを致しました。毎日新聞の問い合わせフォームを使い、丁寧に確認をお願いした次第ですが、残念ながら三日という余裕を提示したにも関わらず、その三日を過ぎても返信を戴けませんでした。以下に、私が問い合わせをしたメールを全文公開致します。
In the email, the blogger explains their concerns about the WaiWai article:
ご理解願えるかと存じますが、私はエクアドルに在住する日本人でございます。仮にこれが本当に御社により配信されたものであるとしましたならば、場合によっては当地在住の全ての日本人及びその家族に「生命の危険」がございます。何卒、事情ご賢察の上、早急にご返答願えれば幸甚です。
Later in the post, the blogger continues:
さて、エクアドルに在住する日本人であるところの私たちは、この毎日新聞社の発信した記事で将来の可能性も含めて、大変な一般生活上での危険を背負い込む事になりました。エクアドルの現状の治安状態を考慮すれば、相当に由々しき問題と言えます。この件は毎日新聞社が国内、国外に謝罪しただけでは済みません。エクアドルという国名を挙げ、そして、日本人と国籍を特定して、「子供を銃で撃っている」と書いたのです。これをエクアドル人が知ったなら、どういう反応をするでしょうか？その程度の想像力もこの新聞社の従業員には欠如しているのでしょうか？
このエクアドルには、少なからぬ日本人が住んで、それぞれに安寧な生活基盤を築き、平和に生活しています。毎日新聞社は、一体、どんな資格、権利をもって、私たちエクアドル在住の日本人の安全を毀損したのでしょうか？仮にこの記事の内容が事実だったとしても、それをもって、この国に在住する全ての日本人の安全を毀損して良いのでしょうか？ましてや、この記事に書かれた内容は、まったく信憑性のかけらすら無い、ゴシップとすら言えない「妄想」に近いものです。このようなもので、私たちエクアドル在住日本人が、その生命を危険に晒されなければならない正当な理由を、毎日新聞社は私たちに開示出来るのでしょうか？
The vast majority of comments and trackbacks to the blog post are supportive of Nanmei. Blogger r_o_k, for example, expresses this view:
英語ブログをつけたことのある人なら誰でもその影響範囲にびびった経験があると思う。もっとも最盛期は2、3年前くらいかな。今はコミュニティサービスが停滞期に入りブログも日本語が世界一になっているから、私の放置英語ブログもアクセスが激減しているけど、ニュースポータルやミニブログは未ださかんなようだ。つまり、こういう報道起因の英文ネタ情報は、細かく無数にコピペされ、もとが消えても痕跡が残り、時間をこえて残り話題にされつづけるのが今。
One comment at Nanmei however questioned the seriousness of the concerns:
少し気にしすぎなんじゃないの？
元の記事が配信されたのが2003年、それから5年、何も問題なく生活できてるんでしょ？
エクアドルで。
だったら、今後、あなたの言う「毎日新聞社の記事によって生命を失う危険に直面しています。」ような状態にはならないと思うよ。
あなたのことではないですが、2ちゃんねらーのなかにはどうも低レベルなマスコミ叩きをしたいだけの連中が多いようですね。
彼らの行動は、理解に苦しみます。
The original article was published in 2003, and 5 years later [you're] living your life without any problems, right?
In Ecuador.
So if that's the case, then I don't think that the situation you describe, of “confronting a threat to your life as a result of the article in Mainichi newspaper”, will ever come to be in the future.
You are not one of them I know, but among 2channel users there are a lot of guys who only want to hurl childish abuse at the mass media.
I have a hard time understanding the actions of these guys.
In a follow-up post, Nanmei responds specifically to this comment, explaining the situation in Ecuador:
このような国で、国名を特定し、国籍を明示して、「狩りとして子供を銃で撃つ」という行為している、という記事を、その真偽に関わらず、「新聞」と言う権威付けが行われた状態で一般に発信した場合、どうなると思いますか？おそらく、大半の人は、自分の経験に照らして、そんな事がこの国で行われているはずが無い、とすぐに気付くでしょう。しかし、ごく一部かも知れませんが、この記事を鵜呑みに信じてしまう人たちがいます。
この、ごく少数かも知れない人たちでも、銃器は所持できます。もちろん実弾が入った状態で。
Even though there are very few of these people, it is possible for them to possess firearms. With live bullets in them, of course.
多分、それが強盗だったなら、助かるかも知れません。強盗の目的はカネです。カネさえ盗れば、それで満足して撃たないかも知れません。でもそれが、意図して「日本人を撃つ」ためだったらどうでしょう。必ず撃たれます。この記事の問題は、「意図して日本人を撃つ」動機を与える事にあるのです。そして、その日本人とは、この記事に書かれた「ツアーで子供を撃った」日本人ではありませんし、記事を書いた豪州人でもなく、毎日新聞の記者でもありません。
2003年にこの記事が掲載されて以来、幸いな事に明らかにこの記事が動機となって殺された日本人はこの国では知られていません。それは幸運な事に、この記事をスペイン語に翻訳したものが無かったというのも理由でしょう。私が検索した限りでは、簡単に検索にかかるサイトでこの記事をスペイン語で書いたものはありませんでした。しかし、それは僥倖です。いつまでも僥倖に頼る訳には行きません。明日、この記事のスペイン語訳が新聞やwebサイトに現れたらどうなるのでしょうか？そして英語だからと安心するわけにも行かないのです。この国ではまともな学校へ通える子供達は6歳から英語を習うのですから。
Members of the GV team have searched for Spanish-language and Ecuador-based blogs mentioning the WaiWai controversy, but nothing seems to be out there. If any readers know of such conversations, please let us know.
Guatemala: Was Antigua the Inspiration for the Little Prince?
Photo of Ceiba Tree taken by Suttonhoo and used under a Creative Commons license.
For a relatively small country, Guatemala's magnificent scenery can awaken one's imagination. From the 37 volcanoes [es] that rise up from the landscape to the mystical Lake Atitlan, it is a country that has attracted intellectuals in the field of culture and arts, who may have been drawn to this magical land. Visitors such as Simone de Beauvoir, Louis de Aragon, Pablo Neruda, Ché Guevara, even Aldous Huxley visited this land of Ceiba trees and roses. One other author, Antoine De Sain Exupéry, who is best known for writing “The Little Prince,” also visited Guatemala by accident, and leads to the question: Was Antigua, Guatemala his Muse for writing about Asteroid B-612?
Bonjour Guate [es], a blog dedicated to the francophonie, tells us the introduction to our story:
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry conoció Guatemala por accidente. Uno que destruyó su avión y lo dejó malherido.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry visited Guatemala by accident. He had a plane crash in Guatemala, his airplane was destroyed and he was seriously injured.
And as Bonjour Guate continues:
Han surgido teorías acerca de los lugares que inspiraron a De Saint-Exupéry a escribir El Principito: una de las suposiciones da cuenta de que el Asteroide B-612, la casa del Principito, es La Antigua Guatemala, donde el aviador se recuperó de los golpes de su percance aéreo
Enchiel, a Guatemalan blogger that enjoys The Little Prince, explores the theories connecting Antigua Guatemala, the city of Roses saying that was Antoine's muse [es]:
¿Presunción o no la de afirmar tal cosa? Quien sabe! Pero lo cierto es que hay detalles de su asteroide que coinciden con Antigua, ejemplo: el asteroide del principito tenía dos volcanes activos y uno inactivo. De todos los lugares a los que viajó Exupéry, ¿qué otro lugar sino sólo Antigua Guatemala tiene igualmente dos volcanes inactivos (el de Agua y Acatenango) y uno activo (el de Fuego)?
Blogger Jorge Palmieri has another theory, he met his widow in 1972, the Salvadoran Consuelo Suncín , and he asserts that she was the spoiled rose :
Consuelo era una mujercita sumamente coqueta y excesivamente generosa con sus amores. Sin embargo, a pesar de sus defectos humanos, es indiscutible su papel de musa que jugó para El Principito . Sus defensores argumentan que el volcán extingido del minúsculo asteroide es un guiño metafórico a El Salvador, país natal de su problemática consorte, donde pudo haber sido inspirado por el extinguido volcán Izalco para escribir sobre el volcán extinguido en el asteroide B 612 donde vivía El Principito y se dedicaba a cuidar a la rosa que era para él.
Consuelo was a tiny, flirty woman, excessively generous with her lovers. However, in spite of her human defects, no one can contradict that she was The Little Prince's muse. Her supporters argue that the volcano of the small asteroid was a metaphor mocking her country, El Salvador. He could have been inspired by the extinguished volcano Izalco and wrote about Little Prince's home, Asteroid B 612 where he took care of a rose.
It might be the correct theory since De Saint Exúpery said once: “I recall my wife's eyes again. I will never see anything more but those eyes. They question.”
One Guatemalan blogger living and working in Africa, Desde Kinshasha [es], tells a small story about Baobabs, the famous tree in the book, paradoxically similar to the Ceiba, the national tree of Guatemala. Before coming back home, she was really sorry that she did not see a Baobab, but in the end she did see one:
Volví la vista a la derecha y a la izquierda y reconocí varios más. En ese último día de mayo en Kinshasa me di cuenta que siempre habían estado ahí, que los baobabs eran ceibas, y que, finalmente, no estaba tan lejos de casa.
I turned my eyes to the right, to the left and I saw many of them. On the last day of May in Kinshasha, I realized that the Baobabs were always there, and that they were Ceibas , and in the end, I was not that far from home.
Antoine de Saint Exúpery, the famous French writer of The Little Prince, the one who once said, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eyes,” saw our volcanoes, smelled our roses, and lived with our people before writing his master piece. He walked the streets of Antigua, loved a Central American girl, and spent time drawing while recovering from the plane crash. From there, hewent to New York City with a lot of inspiration. Whether or not Guatemala was the true inspiration, some accidents and random encounters with strangers have happy endings, like the book that I am holding in my hands.
Belarus: The Blast, the Arrests, and Bloggers' Solidarity
A week ago, a homemade bomb packed with bolts and screws tore through a crowd of thousands of people who had gathered for the Independence Day all-night concert near the World War II monument in central Minsk. The blast occurred around 12:30 a.m on July 4; some 54 people were wounded; Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko happened to be nearby when the bomb went off, but was not hurt.
Following the bombing, police interrogated a number of Belarusian opposition members and human rights activists and searched their homes and offices. On July 9, four people were detained: Sergei Chislov, Igor Korsak, Viktor Leshchinsky and Miroslav Lozovsky, all members of the White Legion, the youth wing of the Belarusian Union of Military Personnel, banned in 1996.
Andrei Khrapavitsky of the recently re-launched Belarusan American Blog has written (ENG) about the blast and the subsequent arrests - as well as about the Belarusian bloggers' response:
[…] I guess there’s hardly a blogger in Belarus who hasn’t commented on the bomb blast. People are guessing what happened and what consequences it would have. There are lots of different versions, but I doubt there is much sense to recapitulate them here. One is for sure. This is the first major terror act in Belarus. Even if the regime itself is not involved (and most probably, it isn’t as many prominent analysts, like Silitski and Feduta, think), there’s a damn good pretense to use this bomb blast for intimidation of the opposition. The blast is especially handy for this matter, as it happened a few days after the parliamentary race had officially started in Belarus.
LJ user kabierac posted Martin Niemöller's poem “First they came…” on his blog and called Belarusian fellow-bloggers to use the emblem of the White Legion as their userpic image, to express solidarity with the four individuals detained in connection with July 4 blast. His post (BEL, RUS) has made it into the Top 30 of the Yandex Blogs portal.
Many Belarusian bloggers have supported the initiative. LJ user coipish is one of them; according to some reports (BEL), he has also been detained by the police. He wrote this (BEL, RUS):
What you see on my userpic now is the emblem of what used to be the White Legion, whose former members are now being blamed for the recent blast. I join the initiative to support them by at least changing my userpic. I really sympathize with all the victims of the terrorist act, but, unfortunately, the real perpetrators are not likely to be ever held responsible for it :((
LJ user z_hunter chose to use an alternative userpic image - with the same symbol but a different color scheme:
Here is why (a discussion in the comments section on LJ user coipish's post):
z_hunter:
A good emblem, but the colors are bad. Not our colors - black and red. I like the white-red-white variation better.
kostas14:
Traditional for the Belarusian culture and art. […]
z_hunter:
That's right. But red flag is also associated with some not very good periods in the history of the USSR and Germany. And all this had a very destructive and sad effect on our Belarus.
As for the reactions of the relatively apolitical Minsk residents, Kartina Mira (”Picture of the World”) blog, run by a Belarus-based Russian citizen, has this sketch (RUS), featuring a conversation overheard at one of the city's hairdressing salons:
[…]
- Oh, have you heard about the blast? A real terrorist act…
- Yes. Chechnya is way over there, and we are here. They are totally getting out of control.That is, these events are so unnatural for Belarus that ordinary people come up with only one direct association for the blast: “terrorist act - Chechnya.”
The realities of the country I live in. Quiet, peaceful, nice, stable. Sometimes even boring. But it's so much better than what the neighbors have.
Links for Fri, 2008-07
Abed Tavancheha, an Iranian leftist student and blogger, was sentenced to 8 months prison for his political activities. He has less than 3 weeks to request an appeal. More than 100 students signed a petition in Sos Tavancheh to support this leftist student.
Trinidadian blogger, The Coffee Wallah, isn't impressed by the G8 leaders' tree-planting exercise, and says our approach to the environment reminds her of a Hollywood action movie. “Are we really going to wait until we have four minutes to save the world?”, she asks.
To Each Its Own on the role of law in the issue of pre-marital HIV testing.
GroundView on the farmers in Sri Lanka facing hardships as a result of the scarcity of seed paddy for them to sow.
In the follow-up to Prime Minister David Thompson's first Budget Speech, Opposition Leader Mia Mottley declares her assets, becoming the first Barbadian politician to do so. De Standpipe and Bajan Global Report give the details of this surprise move.
As Barbados gears up for its annual “Crop Over” carnival, Boyce Voice protests the inclusion of several Trinidadian performers as headliners in the festival's biggest event.
News that the Bermuda Department of Tourism is retrenching workers at its New York office, and outsourcing to an unnamed US sales company, leaves Vexed Bermoothes asking a lot of questions.
My View of JamDown From Up So uses recent international news events to illustrate how the Jamaican authorities and media may handle—or not handle—similar stories.
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