Iranian blogs

A good blog is supposed to inform, with panache.

When I learned that the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had started his own blog I was shocked. Remember, this is a country that has heavily censored internet traffic, even jailing bloggers who voice political dissent. Ahmadinejad recently hosted a forum to discuss: The Holocaust – did it actually happen? He also shutdown access to Amazon, YouTube, Wikipedia and the New York Times in an attempt to “purge the country of western cultural influences”, according to the Guardian.

[Image from Berryburger]

And one of my favourite recent Guardian stories, Shoppers see red and President feels the heat over tomatoes, began with: “History is not littered with cases of heads of state being brought down by the price of tomatoes but, with his critics growing by the day, Ahmadinejad could be in danger of earning such a distinction.”

With all this in mind I was eager to check out his blog.

But it’s a bore. I knew it when I found myself reading the comments with more interest than the posts themselves. Due to the nature of my work – subediting and writing – the broken, disjointed, badly spelled and grammatically error-strewn text had my mind quickly wandering.

The comments from readers are rather more interesting, saying a whole lot more than the President lets slip. Not least, “What a joke this blog never updates!” chirruped Adil Kamal. “Very nice, but could you update this more? Its been the same thing for nearly two months,” sighed Eric Sortomme. I couldn’t agree more. Tokenism anyone?

Okay, so you’re unlikely to ever read George W Bush’s hilarious but caustic From within the Whitehouse blogspot.com, but President Ahmadinejad has broken the first rule of blogging: KEEP BLOGGING!

And with that comment I hide my hide deep in the sand. I apologise. I have been absent for too long.

So what about the Iranian people? Well, while countless blogs seem to concentrate on the female form and little else, Amir Normandi takes a rather more intelligent view of the body and censorship in an Iranian photo-blog which believes, “it is unconscionable to accept … extreme gender inequality”.

A good blog is also a gateway, providing useful and related links to other websites, blogs and news stories. For up to date information on Iran (and a host of links to liberal blogs) look no further than Dr. Zin’s. It analyses the various bodies providing (mis)information regarding the country’s political stance and interpretation of human rights. Not a lot of laughs, you might expect.

But Dr. Zin is a smart, witty writer. For instance, he reported that our poor blogger, President Ahmadinejad, has (apparently) backed an alarming law that would enforce strict dress codes to separate Islamic followers from other minorities. Dr Zin writes: “’Iranians have always worn trousers,’ says Mostafa Pourhardani, minister of Islamic orientation. What men will wear on top is not clear yet. Some … propose only a waistcoat.”

[Image from JeffreyDeanFoster]

More worrying to me was that “some Majlis members tried to include articles determining the shape and size of men's beards and moustaches and impose an Islamic standard for male facial hair”.

These are worrying times indeed. Thank you, Dr. Zin, for informing with panache.