Building Blogs

By ZP Heller, AlterNet. Posted February 22, 2005.

The Gutenberg of Persian weblogs, Hossein Derakhshan, thinks of the online journals known as blogs in terms of three metaphors. "Iranian weblogs are like bridges," Derkhshan said, "linking men and women, young and old, politicians and people, Iranians and the world." Derakhshan also believes blogs are cafes, serving as the only space for genuine public debates in Iran at present. Above all, however, blogs are windows into Iran, allowing the Iranian government to see what is on the minds of its citizens, as well as the West to view what is actually occurring in this closed nation.

Now that the United States has begun to shift its attention to Iran as the next phase of its Middle Eastern overhaul, Iranian weblogs offer unique cultural insights that mainstream media sources fail to present. According to N. Alavi, who blogs at IranBlog, "Western analysts, academics, and journalists have had little or no real access to Iran. They have at times relied unduly on partial inquiry and the images presented by state organs or longtime exiled groups who are drastically out of touch with the changes in Iran and at times just push their own political agendas." As a result, the little news that we do receive about Iran is either limited to stories relating to the globally perceived threat of violence stemming from the Middle East or by their own censorious government.

Alavi, like Derakhshan, claims that the only authentic voices in Iran can be found in its rapidly growing blogosphere. And while the Iranian blogging community is quickly becoming subject to an inordinate amount of draconian governmental sanctions and newly imposed punishments, even governmental higher-ups, including Iran's former reformist vice president, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, have embraced blogging. Blogging may prove to be the future of Iranian journalism, and it is also Iran's only chance of establishing a connection with its youth while attempting to alleviate tensions between the Iranian government and the West.

Now, a group called the Committee to Protect Bloggers has declared Feb. 22 a day of action to free two Iranian bloggers, Mojtaba Saminejad and Arash Sigarchi, imprisoned for the opinions expressed on their blogs. Curt Hopkins, director of the Committee, told BBC News, "I hope this day will focus people."

The Rise of the Blog

Ever since Derakhshan first found a way to create a blog in Farsi – the primary language spoken by Persians – in 2001, blogging has modernized Iranian culture, linking it with the West while preserving Islamic traditions. Derakhshan discovered blogs after the Sept. 11 attacks, when blogs really started to showcase their ability to provide in-depth coverage and gripping personal accounts that the mainstream media does not provide. A tech journalist living as an expatriate in Canada, Derakhshan felt compelled to start blogging in order to remain connected with Iranian culture, and because blogs were a perfect means for expressing himself to his former Persian readers. But writing his blog was just one small part of his initial mission; Derakhshan spent his first year introducing, promoting and keeping track of all Persian blogs to come on the scene. A Wired News article from 2003 estimated that 12,000 Persian blogs had spawned virtually overnight, and according to Alavi, writing in The Guardian, 75,000 Persian blogs were running as of December 2004 (experts now estimate that number to be well over 100,000), marking Farsi the fourth most popular language for blogging. "A phenomenal figure," Alavi wrote, "given that in neighboring countries such as Iraq, there are less than 50 known bloggers."

The recent preponderance of Iranian blogs is largely due to the fact that Iran is an educated society in which about two-thirds of the population is under the age of 30. Derakhshan refers to his generation of Iranians – the father of Persian blogs is also under 30 – as the "post-Revolution generation," since they have no memory of the Iranian revolution that took place in 1979. This generation is very individualistic, embracing Western culture while still taking pride in their own traditions. In IranBlog, Alavi tries to "capture and put across the voice of a new generation that tries to describe Iran as it sees it today."

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