Syria Today | Finding Their Virtual Voices

Finding Their Virtual Voices

Words John Dagge
Photos Adel Samara

Sitting at the sleek Down Town Café in Damascus’ fashionable shopping precinct of Shaalan, 21-year-old Anas Takriti explains why he blogs. “I have a web blog so I have a voice. That is the main reason for any blogger,” Takriti said. “I think all bloggers have a sense of pride that they are out there.”

Takriti, an information technology student at the Syrian Virtual University, started his blog www.anaslife.com in 2005. He blogs about technology, but also includes general details about his day-to-day life. Like most new Syrian blogs, he writes in Arabic.

“I’m tech crazy so most of my writing is about technology,” Takriti said. “But I also put in stories from my life, what is happening with my friends, if I spoke to this girl, daily things like that. It’s about my life and my thoughts, the things that I am interested in.”

While nowhere near as developed as the mammoth-blogging communities of Egypt or Iran, growing numbers of Syrians are starting their own blogs. Syria Planet, a portal site aggregating blogs run by Syrians or about Syria, has more than 300 blogs listed. Despite efforts to limit blogging in Syria, such as banning access to popular blog-hosting sites Blogspot and Maktoob Blog, the number keeps rising, with most Syrian blogs now posted on private domains.

An alternative narrative

Sasa, a 29-year-old British-Syrian journalist, runs the popular Syrian News Wire blog (www.newsfromsyria.com), an English-language news blog. The site provides comment on the English- language news coverage of Syria, as well as independent reportage from the country. Sasa, who prefers to go by a pseudonym in interviews, said he started to blog in 2005 following the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and the subsequent barrage of international news coverage about Syria.

“Everyone was talking about Syria, but at that time it was almost all completely accusatory and quite negative,” Sasa said. “I started my blog to express what’s happening in Syria to people who don’t know much about Syria. It’s my way of explaining the country. There’s so much happening in Syria, so much is changing and there are a lot of exciting new developments that people outside the country don’t know about.”

The Hariri killing also inspired Yazan Badran, a 22-year-old who divides his time between his hometown of Lattakia and studying computer science in Japan, to start his blog Olives and Sake (www.yazanbadran.com). Frustrated by the one-dimensional view and tired lines repeated about Syria in both the Arabic and English-language media, Badran started blogging to challenge the stereotypes.

“I felt uneasy about being morphed into a one-dimensional world and had to speak out about what was on my mind, very subjectively and very personally, as opposed to the objectivity everyone claims in the media,” he said.

Promoting debate

For Badran, the most enjoyable aspect of blogging is the debate and exchange of ideas it promotes.

“The unbounded free flow of ideas is amazing,” he said. “There is so much to learn about yourself when you start typing it down, but there’s a lot more to discover by reading how others reflect on that, to read their own self-expressions.”

It is this desire to have a voice – and have someone reply to it – that motivates Badran to blog in English, like many of his fellow Syrian bloggers who comment on current news events. In doing so, he believes Syrian bloggers are playing an important role in providing the world with a fuller, more nuanced picture of the country.

“As bloggers, we help create a cloud of personal experiences, scenes, images, opinions and faces from that part of the world,” he said. “This cloud may or may not reflect the real lives of these people 100 percent, but it gives a more honest depiction of that country, a first-hand experience that is a lot more credible than the bulk of news and articles provided by official or international mainstream media outlets.”

Specifically, Badran points to the efforts made by Syrian bloggers during the Danish cartoon controversy and the subsequent torching of the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus in early 2006. The incidents were widely covered in the international press; comments from ordinary Syrians expressing their views about the attacks were not.

“At the time the Syrian blogosphere had just started with barely 50 bloggers in all, but we stood up and wrote endlessly about the incident for days to try and counter the images that were seen on every television channel around the world and put it in the context of the international and internal politics of that period,” he said.

English to Arabic

While the Syrian blogosphere was largely founded in the English language by expat Syrians or those who had spent time abroad – the first Syrian blog was authored by Syrian Chatham House associate fellow Rime Allaf in 2003 in the wake of the US-led invasion of Iraq – a new wave of Syrian bloggers are presently finding their online voice, one which is overwhelmingly Arabic.

Razan Ghazzawi, author of Razanisms (www.razanghazzawi.com), moved back to blogging in Arabic after blogging in English for a number of years. Her blog has generated a strong following among Syrian bloggers for tackling a wide range of issues, from Iraqi refugees in Syria to attitudes towards homosexuality.

“Blogging in Arabic to me is really about renewing the Arabic language itself, as well as the Arab mind, or at least the virtual ones,” the 28-year-old, who is completing a masters in literature at the American University of Beirut, said. “And I am done with addressing the English-speaking world. I want to address the locals, because I think they’re the change. Blogging in Arabic is the only way for those who want to add something productive and constructive to the region.”

Not without risk

Blogging on political issues in Syria is, however, not without risk. Tarek Baiassi, 24, was sentenced to three years prison in May last year after posting comments online criticising the state. Baiassi, from Tartous, had originally been sentenced to six years, but had the sentence cut in half. In another high-profile case, Kareem Arabji, 30, was arrested in June 2007, allegedly for moderating a popular online forum for Syrian youth covering social and political issues.

Both cases caught the attention of international groups including Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders. More uniquely, however, both cases also saw online campaigns launched within Syria to raise awareness about the trials and sentences.

Other Syrian-generated online campaigns include raising awareness about proposed developments to the Old City – a campaign which eventually resulted in international media coverage of plans to widen Al Malik Faisal Street adjoining the city walls – and last month’s Occupied Golan Blogging Week which marked the 40th anniversary of Israel’s annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights. All are evidence of the important role the internet and blogs are playing in developing Syria’s civil society.

“Discussion forums and blogs are serving as an alternative virtual platform for debate and expression for a non-existent one in real life,” Badran said. “The citizen media culture, which blogging is a fundamental part of, is on the rise all over the world.”

Not representative

The number of Syrian blogs may be increasing, but most bloggers concede their online community is still tiny and does not reflect the diversity of their society.

“Syrian bloggers represent a very narrow social class,” Sasa said. “It’s also quite insular in that it’s a group of people talking amongst themselves and not sharing anything with anyone outside.”

Razan adds: “There is a lot of dialogue on the Syrian blogosphere, but I am not sure if it has reached the point where it actually represents Syrian society, which is hard to even conceptualise given its diversity.”

Still, it’s early days yet. With one of the highest uptakes of the internet in the world, what’s not in doubt is that many more Syrians are sure to make their presence felt