YOU'VE GOT STALK - Via Dave Winer's Scripting News today, a story from the BBC: "Jodi Plumb, 15, from Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, was horrified to discover an entire site had been created to insult and threaten her. The site contained abuse concerning her weight and even had a date for her 'death'."
Saturday, May 24
Friday, May 23
Friday, May 23
OUT OF TOUCH: Michael Gartner, who once ran NBC News and the Des Moines Register and won a Pulitzer Prize for his editorials in the Ames, Iowa, Tribune, has at times called civic journalism "mostly silly," "a strange trend" and a "goofy fad" that may also be sinister and harmful.
Thurs-Fri Overnight, May 23
EXTREME ZERO-SUM: Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine has found yet another Salam-obsessed writer who has published yet another tear-down of the Baghdad Blogger. Whether using their curiosity as a sleazy pretext to invade someone else's privacy or using the mainstream press to vitiate the value of cyber-publishing, these journalistic revanchists are set on a search-and-destroy mission to annihilate any competition for the public's attention.
In a paroxysm of wishful thinking, the writer of the piece at hand asserts that Pax's "life of irresponsible leisure has come to an abrupt end." As far as I know, Pax claims to be an architect; and, thus, one would have a reasonable expectation prima facie that his life will continue with him working in his chosen field.
The writer also profligately abuses Justice Jackson's Nuremberg standards by concluding that Pax is "guilty," and needs to "assuage his own guilt." ::Comments::
Thurs-Fri Overnight, May 23
WHY NORWAY? *Qatar's Jazeera television aired on Wednesday what it said was an audio tape by top Qaeda official Ayman al-Zawahri urging Muslims to strike the embassies and commercial interests of the United States, Britain, Australia and Norway in their own countries. Baffled experts and politicians try to fathom why Norway made the list.*
::From an article on Aftenposten Online in English.
*Norway's diplomatic efforts in the Middle East is considered a welcome activity by most of the Arab world and not a root cause for Muslim anger.*
::From an article by Lars Bevanger for the BBC in Oslo.
I think this is a tragically naive misapprehension of the reactions of this man and his group. Their objective is complete hegemony. The unwillingness of the Norwegians to accept this can only invite more of the same until the Norwegians indicate that they got the message. If your auntie had wheels, she'd be an autobus.
Thursday, May 22
Thursday, May 22
UNDER ARREST: The Iraqi governor of formerly-occupied Kuwait, Aziz Salih Numan, is in Coalition custody. Just guessing that Kuwait will probably want to put him on trial for war crimes. ::From an article on Al Bawaba today.
JOOOOZ 'n IRAQ - Ready or not, here it comes:
"I find it difficult to accept Kannan Makiya's remarks at an award ceremony in his honour at the University of Tel Aviv."
::From a provocative op-ed piece by Marwan Asmar in the Gulf News Online. No biographical or professional information is provided about the writer.
Thursday, May 22
IRAQI VICTIMS SURVEY: The most accurate survey is being conducted by the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, run by a Californian, Marla Ruzicka.
She has 150 surveyors at work checking each report of a civilian death against several different sources.
Ms Ruzicka, 26, ran a similar survey in Afghanistan last year . . . with the support of Democratic senator Patrick Leahy.
::From an article by Rory McCarthy for The UK Guardian.
Wed-Thurs, May 22
NEW IRAQI WOMEN'S GROUP: Iraqi women are studying the Kurdish-controlled north to see how women there have improved their status in the male-dominated Muslim society.
A newly formed Iraqi women's group has sent an eight-member delegation to meet with Kurdish women.
"Now that Iraq is free, we are demanding freedom and equal rights that Iraqi women have always been deprived of," Eman Ahmed, head of team for the Rising Iraqi Women's Organization, said Tuesday.
::From an article by Ali Akbar Dareeini for AP via Yahoo.
THE 101st COMPLAINT DESK: Few here are used to doing things for themselves, always running to the authorities to lodge even the smallest complaint.
"That many years of dictatorship will turn anyone into a zombie," he says. "We really need to wean them off this dependence."
::From an article by Danna Harman for the CS Monitor.
"We have a big problem-- we got rid of Saddam Hussein and got Saddam Fartusi." ::From an article by Peter Herman for The Baltimore Sun via Yahoo.
Tuesday, May 20
Tuesday, May 20
'SALAM PAX' - ENEMY AGENT?
A response to David Warren's article in The Ottawa Citizen:
'Salam Pax' plays Americans for fools in Iraq… [and] is part of an anti-Western conspiracy
In a rather dyspeptic jeremiad a few days ago, Canadian writer David Warren all but declared Salam Pax, the Baghdad Blogger, an Enemy Agent. But what is the basis for this pronouncement? Some ignorant misconceptions about the social landscape of Iraq; some misattributions of blame; and some proprietary feelings of threats to his hegemony over the real estate of punditry.
Early on, Warren makes a fundamental mistake, and from that point his polemic veers into left field. This is the critical juncture:
"Salam is the scion of a senior figure from Iraq's Baathist nomenclature."
Almost certainly, Salam is the scion of the Iraqi oligarchy. But the oligarchy is not one and the same as the Baath political party. The Iraqi oligarchy was recently featured in an article in the NY Times. This is the wealthy mercantile class of Iraq; these are the successful businessmen. These are men who own constructions companies, stores, foodstuff chains, etc. In most banana republics the principal allegiance of the oligarchy is to their own wealth. Short of an extreme communist takeover that would confiscate and "nationalize" their assets, nothing is going to displace them. Why? Because they are rain-makers.
"Bunnia, Khudhairy, Janabi, Duleimi and Kubba: their names may be unknown to most American officials, but these enormously wealthy families constitute the nucleus of the Iraqi business elite."
::Excerpted from an article in the NY Times by Edmund L. Andrews; cited in my blog entry dated May 11th.
Yet Warren is clearly hostile to them. Do we detect a class bias underlying this hostility? Does Warren sincerely believe that a man who operates a successful construction company is ipso facto evil? It would appear that Warren does harbor some deep, distrustful suspicions about them. But that may be because he has no familiarity with the business world. Perhaps Warren graduated college and went straight to work at a newspaper. Perhaps Warren needs to get out of the office a lot more. There is an oddly disconnected, mandarin-style sweep to his pronouncements. At best, this is very fuzzy thinking.
What will happen to the Iraqi oligarchy? Probably not much. Life will go on for them; they will continue to go to their cricket matches, ride around in their Rolls Royces, vacation in Marbella, or whatever they customarily do. If the US follows the model they established with Germany after WWII, the Iraqi oligarchy will be left largely intact.
Warren goes on to depict Salam's language skills in an almost magical way, as if they have the power to hypnotize. Warren claims that Salam's English is "superb and colloquial." More fuzzy thinking. Salam has been using an oral dialect which he transcribes. This is not colloquial English-- you won't be hearing his kind of language on Good Morning, America anytime soon. Many people look to him for what the football broadcasters call the 'color' announcer. When I inserted his URL into Technorati Links Cosmos for reaction to his latest posted entries and scanned the reactions informally (not scientifically), it seemed that numerically the most reactions expressed revolved around this point: readers were surprised and delighted to learn that there's a terrific ice cream parlor in Basra.
There are a few specific points in Warren's efforts to vilify Salam Pax which I find especially objectionable. Above and beyond the others, the following denunciation is horrendous:
'...this Salam is up to no good.'
In light of the chaos currently pervading Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, associating Salam with the Baathists and then singling him out in this way is like issuing an invitation to lynch him. At best, it is despicably irresponsible.
And then there's this smear tactic:
"And this from a person who shows no guilt whatever at his own family membership in a Baathist regime that killed some hundreds of thousands of civilians-- entirely on purpose."
Salam Pax is not responsible for anything a relative may have done and does not bear any guilt for someone else's actions. There is no evidence presented by Warren, persuasive or otherwise, that members of Salam's immediate family are murderers, but even if they were, Salam has no reason to feel guilty for that.
And then, there's this sly innuendo:
"...Salam would never have known any "ordinary" Iraqis, unless he was interrogating one privately."
Salam probably does not socially mix with "ordinary" Iraqis, but that has nothing to do with interrogations. It probably has more to do with literacy and education. The word "interrogating” as it is used here in this context is offensive. It is freighted with very malevolent baggage; it implies torture in the context of Iraq. I do not know of any evidence that Salam Pax has ever tortured anyone. And I would say that this remark flirts with slander or at least defamation.
Demonizing Salam Pax as a latter-day Kim Philby is just baselessly scapegoating him. There is no evidence that he is working against the United States. The "main immediate challenge to democratization in Iraq" is the current disorientation and confusion of a public conditioned to obey an authoritarian regime that suddenly now has to orient itself. And illiteracy doesn't help. It is currently impossible to get accurate literacy data on the population there. It is my informal impression at this point that the literacy rate in Baghdad is considerably higher than in the rest of the country where it may be rather low. A recent figure I came across asserted that 75% of Iraqi women may be illiterate.
Even information about the Baath Party is still murky. It appears that there are various groups of Baathists. There may be one group of "true believers" and another group that joined out of expedience. There are some scant indications that the current core leadership, which may still include Saddam Hussein, may be trying to field a cadre of "werewolves" in emulation of what the Nazis attempted at the end of WWII. But that doesn't mean that a nebulous 30,000 members of the party who hold membership cards are murderers.
Some of us are hoping that Salam's blog will inspire other Iraqi blogs which will help the Iraqis practice critical thinking and exercise their intellectual muscles while encouraging the growth of literacy.
But Mr. Warren seems hostile to this prospect because he seems to feel threatened by weblogs. This is a man who can command several column inches in a physical newspaper who seems resentful that others can express themselves on a small spot in cyberspace. How sad that in such a fit of petty pique one can get somebody else killed so easily.
Here are some of the other comments about the Warren article:
On The Third Hand -- Winds of Change -- Needle Nose -- LGF -- and you can find a Links Cosmos for it at Technorati.
Sometimes reading others' comments can help refine our own thinking about an issue.
Tuesday, May 20
BAATHIST FIGURES BEING ASSASINATED: *Iraqis have begun tracking down and killing former members of the ruling Baath Party...* ::From an article by Scott Wilson and Anthony Shadid in the Washington Post.
Monday, May 19
Monday, May 19
SORTING OUT THE "TRUE BELIEVERS" - *He followed the path chosen by many educated Iraqis to get ahead: In 1998, he joined Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, the organization that held a monopoly on the best jobs and virtually all meaningful power.* A story by Peter Herman in the Maryland Sun follows the path of one Raied al-Alani as an illustration of how the Baath Party and its power laced its network throughout the Iraqi society, making a simple "purge" unfeasible. This is yet another story that seems to impel the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Monday, May 19
THE FUTURE OF IRAQI WOMEN: *Very few women are seen on the streets of Iraq these days. Many believe this is due to the pervasive lack of security, and that once order is restored to the country, women will return to regular life. But the future role of women in a new, democratic Iraq remains unclear. RFE/RL talked to members of the country's leading political and religious groups about the future of Iraq's women.* ::From an article by Zamira Eshanova for RFERL.
SADDAM HUSSEIN PLANNING RETURN: According to a report on Al Bawaba, Saddam is in hiding in Iraq with a small group which includes his sons and has changed the name of his Baath party to Auda, meaning return.
Al Bawaba's running ticker says that Al Jazeera claims the Casablanca bombing is linked to an Al Qaeda cell in Belgium.
Monday, May 19
NO UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEM HERE ;-) *Foreign newspapers entering the [Saudi] kingdom, for example, are laboriously censored by hand. Someone goes through every copy with a marker-pen, blacking out the offending bits.* ::Today's Dispatch from Riyadh by Brian Whitaker for the UK Guardian.
Monday, May 19
INTERVIEW WITH 'SALAM PAX' - Stefan's complete "interview" with his friend and former roommate has been translated into English by Jeff Jarvis and has been posted on his BuzzMachine weblog. Also available, at least when I was there, is a hyperlink to Stefan's mini-profile and photo. It's a nice little "interview," but does not address a couple of burning questions expressed by many people I've encountered on the internet: how did Salam first learn about blogs and how did he get the idea to do one?
IRAQI MEDIA: Since the regime was overthrown in early April, a throng of freewheeling newspapers, radio and television stations have sprung up to replace the turgid, sycophantic media under Saddam.
:: The article above by Bassem Mroue for AP via Yahoo gives a good rundown of the various newspapers and other media now available in Baghdad and Iraq. Worth a glance if you have an interest in the issue.
More For Laughs . . . Six weeks after the fall of Saddam Hussein, a new weekly satirical newspaper called Habazbuz has appeared in Baghdad. ::From BBC Monitoring.
Sunday, May 18
Sunday, May 18
OUT OF THE PICTURE: Most Iraqi women now refuse to step outside their homes.
"... this period we're living in right now has completely canceled the role of women in society," says Thikra Nadr from the Mansour district of Baghdad.
Since the war, women have been missing from the markets, where men now shop for food. Nor can women be seen in the long lines that begin forming overnight at gas stations.
Most significantly, an interim government and scores of political parties are being formed with little to no input from women.
:: From an article by Carol Morello in the Washinton Post.
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