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Editorial Blog it out By Naila Inayat Early morning, well, it's not that early, on my first log in I get this message on google talk, "Why don't you update your blog?" Completely surprised, I write back, "Yeah, but who gets the time to really blog!" But who knew then I was talking to someone who has devoted his life to just blogging. "Well, I'm a professional blogger," says Nayyar Afaq, who now blogs on "Autumn Green". The
'watchblogs' By Farah Zia To me blogging of all kinds is a form of journalism. Both have commonalities and differences. Commonalities first: blogging also involves writers, photographers, readers and, of course, the feedback. The writings vary between opinion pieces, comments, rants and first-hand accounts. Like journalism, blogging is changing people's views. It is different from traditional journalism in many ways, too. It is not supposed to follow the normal journalistic principles of objectivity, balance and accuracy. The blogger is "subjective and honest". There is no editor in between the blogger and their writings. Unlike the linear and rare feedback in journalism, the bloggers' feedback is interactive and like a chain. And, of course, there is the difference of scale between the actual/physical and the virtual world. Amateur and professional writers can print online By Ammara Ahmad The blogosphere is now a fast growing world in Pakistan. There are two broad categories of literary blogs -- one that includes edited magazines like "Asian Cha", "Filter", "Our Stories", "Feminist Review", "Brainripples" etc, and the other contains unedited ones. Pakistani blogosphere is a more participatory, democratic and citizen-centric medium than parliament, local governments and budgets that make up the conventional news media By Adnan Rehmat Take a look at Pakistan's mainstream, conventional current affairs media: a handful of newspapers worth reading and some TV channels worth watching -- both mediums with the ability to hold your attention in degrees proportional to the numbers and types of crises, scandals and outrage (natural or manufactured) of the moment. The pluralisms of this sort of media have impressively grown in the past few years, which means there are all types of issues, people and places to prune, pummel and even pimp. Just what the doctor ordered! Artist, writer & educator raania.wordpress.com There was a time when private diaries, fitted with precious locks, held hardbound mysteries and secrets of the self. Where almost whatever one expressed, text or image, was only for one's own set of eyes and comprehension. In retrospect, all those years of noting down events and feelings made me confident to emote and write.
Blogging they say has democratised the world. Everyone now has a voice. It is difficult to make this kind of assertion about a country like Pakistan where the number of internet users is extremely limited. Someone suggests that 30 percent of those limited users have a blog of their own. We know for sure some of these blogs carry incredible influence. Therefore we thought it was time to do a Special Report about blogging in Pakistan and how it is impacting this society. Of course, we recognise the irony contained in the democratising impact of blogging by keeping the majority of population out. We know that we shall only talk about a tiny internet-using English-literate part of the society but still we thought we could pull it off. We could see the parallel blogging draws with English language journalism in this country -- it too may be talking about the issues of the majority and impacting policies. Beyond this optimistic assumption, we were curious to find out why people blog. What is it about the sphere that turns ordinary people into writers. Is it only a "virtual diary" or something more than that. We also wanted to know if the readers took blogs seriously. Is there a financial incentive involved. True, blogging is all about absolute freedom but what about rumours and slanderous campaigns. Is there a legal mechanism available for people to save their reputations on blogs. True, blogging is easy and cheap compared to organised publishing but are we seeing the arrival of citizen journalist and virtual poet and short story writer in Pakistan. Surpisingly, despite the limited users, we got some positive response on all the questions raised above. Blogging has filled in the vacuum in terms of information, knowledge, censorship, lack of opportunities, and what not. There is the downside as well. Sometimes innovations lead to disruption. Sometimes "net activism" prevents actual physical action. But it is hoped that ultimately the democratic discourse shall win the day.
The influx of blogs has made writers -- or bloggers -- out of the ordinary people By Haneya H. Zuberi Digital has taken over analogue. People have stopped
keeping secret diaries or any diaries of their own, for that matter, and
have switched to blogs. A blog (aportmanteau of the term "web
log") is a type of website or part of a website. Blogs are usually
maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions
of events, or other material such as graphics or video. While many blogs
provide a commentary or news on a particular subject, others function as
more personal, online diaries. Who needs to go through the hassle of filling
ink in a pen in order to inscribe when they can sit in front of a computer
screen and effortlessly type away all that comes to mind -- open or
anonymously. The Pakistani web galaxy has formed a new layer, Blogosphere. In just a few years' time, it has been developed to an extent that out of the 10 percent Pakistanis who use the internet, approximately 3 percent have blogs of their own. Today, many notables have their personal blogs which are widely read. At the same time, many bloggers have become notables just through their blogs! Raza Rumi, a development professional, editor and a blogger, says that his introduction to the blog world was accidental: "I write for the Pakistani publications and was looking for a space to post the writings until I came to know of. As I set up a blog, much of my pent-up energy found an outlet. Initially, it was quite private but I was hugely encouraged by the response I received from Pakistanis as well as bloggers and internet users across the globe. Here I am, now addicted to this medium, and earlier this year I moved to my own domain. My blog, I suppose, like my finger prints and soul reflects me as an individual. So whatever two-penny worth individuality I have been endowed with or I have cultivated is well reflected in my blog". Blogs which start as something personal when acquire hits also hold the potential of becoming commercialised. According to Zeerak Ahmed, a sophomore at Princeton University who made a blog to fill in a requirement for his journalism class and has now become a regular blogger, says that "some bloggers are hired by larger parent companies to publish their material, at times even unedited and uncensored, that's perhaps hitting gold. But, otherwise I think blogs will mostly be just a way to get exposure to find something that actually pays. I thought that people who do get picked up don't lose the freedom of their blog that got them there." He speculates that in the future "a lot more blogs will probably pop up. But mostly I've noticed that bloggers hang out in cliques, everyone knows everyone in certain groups. What you might get is pockets of bloggers that think similarly and readers choosing to follow a particular pack. As more ideas pop up more bloggers that share the same ideas or know each other anyway will also pop up, and these sorts of divisions might occur. For everyone's sake I hope it doesn't become this almost politicised battle of sorts. But otherwise things seem great!" While according to Raza, the Pakistani blogosphere is "in its infancy stage, Abhi ishq ke imtihan aur bhee hain." Ziyad Faisal, a student activist, journalist and a blogger, started blogging because "I just needed an outlet for what I wanted to say and blogging appeared to be the ideal solution. For free, too! In Pakistan today, writing is very heavily intertwined with cyberspace. Internet is a convenient platform for anyone who writes in English here. You can easily reach your targeted audience, much more easily on the internet than even through printing and publishing. I hope to express some of my views through blogging and I hope to influence some of the debates and discussions. If I can't influence them, well at the very least, I can throw in my two paisas. They could, if allowed to flourish freely, promote democracy. But they could also be used by anti-democratic forces to promote their own agenda. The war-mongering media personality, Zaid Hamid, for instance, encourages his many followers to use blogs to spread their views. If blogs are used by such people, with very dodgy political and financial links, then blogs (and the internet in general) can become another tool of expression, rather than democracy". Ayeshah Alam Khan, a TV anchor and a blogger, says that "the best thing about blogging is that one can put themselves in the line of fire, unrestricted and completely free of censorship, and express like they can unlike all other mediums of communication." Nur Nasreen Ibrahim, a Pakistani student at Harvard, takes her blog as her "virtual diary". She blogs about her teaching experience as an art teacher in a government high school for girls in Nathia Gali and wants the international community to be aware of the efforts made towards this school and the many faces of the Pakistani community through her blog. Ali Yahya is a photo blogger who takes conceptual pictures and blogs about those pictures feels that "pictures convey a message of their own, it is deep and needs to be understood and I do that by writing about them. It is my favorite hobby". Beena Sarwar, an activist, journalist and documentary film maker, started blogging because of "the desire to reach out to more people, have more control over what I publish and maintain archives of the articles I post. Besides, I can post photos and graphics." She feels that blogs ensure a "greater spread of information and accountability. The possible downside is 'net activism' which doesn't always translate to physical action. These tools cannot replace good old-fashioned political organisations and should be used in addition to, not instead of, such organisations." With respect to blogs promoting democracy she says, "Blogs are contributing towards awareness, accountability etc. But it is not and never will be a substitute for solid political organisation. Many factors contribute to democracy, like education, information, accountability and a continuation of the political process. That last factor is particularly crucial in Pakistan right now. If the government doesn't keep blocking the net on one pretext or other, blogging has a bright future here. My only concern is that there are too many people out there spreading rumour and misinformation. On the upside, there are others who counter the falsehoods, which at least are out in the open for all to see." The influx of blogs has made writers, or should I say bloggers, out of the ordinary people. It is true that it occupies a growing niche within internet use in Pakistan. But to what extend it goes, only time will tell.
There's money in blogging. Did you know? By Naila Inayat Early morning, well, it's not that early, on my first log in I get this message on google talk, "Why don't you update your blog?" Completely surprised, I write back, "Yeah, but who gets the time to really blog!" But who knew then I was talking to someone who has devoted his life to just blogging. "Well, I'm a professional blogger," says Nayyar Afaq, who now blogs on "Autumn Green". For Nayyar, it all began after he had finished his MPhil
and, unlike most of us, he never wanted to do a job, "I had problems
with working because of my socially isolated nature. I always knew it would
be difficult for me to cope with the day-to-day pressures." And it was at this juncture that Nayyar decided to turn to his natural ability -- of writing and thinking. He started his blog on wordpress with "Autumn Green". "'Autumn Green' marks the 5th season for me," he says. "Season of smiles, regrets, fears and tears... It's like a journey down memory lane, while I shape my feelings into words…" His blog comprises original material -- poems, teasers, prose and issues of global concerns such as poverty, war, anger and violence. "It was last year that I discovered that blogging was also a money-making proposition. Through an American blog-hosting website I started earning. In a matter of a few months, I was ranked among the top 50 of the site. Still I never took it seriously." Nayyar is right. After all, whoever takes mails like 'You have won £750,000.00 in the British forum' seriously? At least I don't. Why would anyone want to pay me for just surfing a forum? "This was exactly my outlook towards the whole pay-thing, but after three or four emails I got to know that it was no joke," he relates his experience to TNS. "They were actually paying me for my writings. To date, he has earned Rs 0.1 million from his blogging spree and the story doesn't end here. The 5th season of the "Autumn Green" is out! While Nayyar calls blogging a silent revolution, Muhammad Zeeshan terms it as an alternate medium which is not being used by vibrant audiences like those of TV and newspapers. "Last year if he earned Rs 0.1million, this year the earnings won't be more than 20,000 to 30,000," says Zeehsan, CEO of a software house in Karachi. "You get paid per click, like 10-20 cents and for that also the system varies from source to source. Currently there are two major hosts Yahoo search marketing and Google AdSense who facilitate our bloggers to get a fair chance of earning," says Zeeshan who also blogs at "Change Pakistan". The idea is -- the more ads you get the more you earn -- applying the context-based advertising that makes the bloggers utilise the phenomena and strategically according to the nature of their blog. "Blog about Pak-India relations might pick up keywords like Pakistan, America and Terror then you will get ads according to these keywords. Any visitor who blogs on your blog will automatically click on the advert too," he says.
IT experts believe if the law is passed, objectionable blogging will be identified as cyber stalking liable to be punished heavily By Shahzada Irfan Ahmed Bloggers in Pakistan have discussed several contentious issues on their blogs and, as a consequence, faced repeated censorships. The mode of this censorship, however, has almost been the same on each occasion. What happens in these cases is that federal IT department directs Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) -- the country's telecom regulatory authority -- to ensure that certain websites or blogs are blocked and made inaccessible to the public. PTA, in return, asks the Pakistan Internet Exchange (PIE) to do the needful. PIE is an Internet Protocol (IP) enabled network and a PTCL subsidiary that monitors all the Internet traffic coming to and going out of Pakistan. Not many years back, in a bid to block a handful of blogs, the authorities concerned blocked the entire blogspot.com domain which resulted in blockage of millions of blogs hosted on it to internet users in Pakistan. Apart from these blockages, there haven't been any major
punitive actions against bloggers producing content unacceptable to state or
defamatory in nature, says Fouad Bajwa, an IT expert based in Lahore. Fouad, who is a member of the Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group (IGF-MAG), United Nations Internet Governance Forum, tells TNS that the government tried to address this issue by promulgating a cyber crime law in 2009. Called Prevention of Electronic Crimes Ordinance, this law stands revoked mainly due to the opposition from different stakeholders including the Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan (ISPAK), he adds. Fouad says general understanding among bloggers is that barring blasphemous and anti-state material (as perceived by the state), the content posted on blogs goes unnoticed by the watchdogs. The draft of the cyber crime law defines a crime with the name of "cyber stalking" that means use of computer, computer network or internet to harm others. IT experts believe if the law is passed, objectionable blogging will be identified as cyber stalking liable to be punished heavily. Distribution of pictures or photographs of any person without his consent or knowledge also falls under cyber stalking and the culprit, according to this law, shall be punishable with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years or with fine not exceeding three hundred thousand rupees, or with both. PTA Deputy Director Khurram Mehran tells TNS that the authority does not act on its own and simply executes the directives it receives. He says it is possible to track a person with the help of its IP address and the Federal Investigation Authority (FIA) has arrested several hackers in the recent past. However, he says, he doesn't remember a single case where a blogger was arrested because of the content he had posted on his blog.
No need for comparisons with good ol', conventional journalism; blogging is just infinitely fascinating By Farah Zia To me blogging of all kinds is a form of journalism. Both have commonalities and differences. Commonalities first: blogging also involves writers,
photographers, readers and, of course, the feedback. The writings vary
between opinion pieces, comments, rants and first-hand accounts. Like
journalism, blogging is changing people's views. It is different from traditional journalism in many ways, too. It is not supposed to follow the normal journalistic principles of objectivity, balance and accuracy. The blogger is "subjective and honest". There is no editor in between the blogger and their writings. Unlike the linear and rare feedback in journalism, the bloggers' feedback is interactive and like a chain. And, of course, there is the difference of scale between the actual/physical and the virtual world. Beyond these commonalities and differences, there are areas where this distinction is blurred. Blogging is liberating because there are no marketing constraints, no restrictions on the length of the piece, and no censorship. But it is also criticised on some of these grounds. There is no editor to process the piece and check it for facts. Blogs may well be about rumours and slander campaigns -- this may turn out to be the most exciting part -- but that is what deprives them of credibility. Speaking of credibility, it has been pointed out that the mainstream journalism too does not follow the glorious principles of objectivity, balance and accuracy anymore. Just because the bloggers write with no strings attached, they can afford to be more responsible, some people say. As for the lack of institution of editor or subeditor, it is the nature of a blog that the readers and their feedback substitute for the editors. The links and the sources mentioned by the bloggers enable the reader to check about the veracity of the story. I don't disagree with those who suggest that blogging has become popular only because of the irrelevance of institutionalised media. No wonder, journalists who have an avenue to write opinion pieces or do investigative stories in print or on television are maintaining a blog alongside. There is also some weight in the argument that blogs flourish because there is no public-interest journalism in the mainstream media. Actually, both journalism and blogging have their share of critics. In our context, blogging has brought some value to journalism. If we recognise journalism's role in a democratic society, we must acknowledge that blogging has made it even better. It has democratised Pakistan -- giving voice to a lot more people than before. The May 12, 2007 rioting in Karachi could not have been reported in the mainstream media were it not for blogs. It is through blogs that journalists can pick story ideas. The potential is endless. Someone has rightly remarked that blogging is neither superior nor inferior to traditional journalism; it is just infinitely fascinating.
Amateur and professional writers can print online By Ammara Ahmad The blogosphere is now a fast growing world in Pakistan. There are two broad categories of literary blogs -- one that includes edited magazines like "Asian Cha", "Filter", "Our Stories", "Feminist Review", "Brainripples" etc, and the other contains unedited ones. Magazine blogs have increased since several layouts (templates) are available, particularly on Wordpress. Getting a blog to your own name (e.g ammarawrites.com) requires a meagre $10 on blogger.com. Therefore, some published journals substitute websites with blogs like "The Toronto Quarterly", "California Quarterly" etc. A blog can focus on anything, from historical fiction to Haikus -- any topic and theme is freely available. For example, the blog magazine "Indivisible" focuses on Asian American poets; "The 365 days of novel writing" exclusively reports its bloggers' novels in progress to encourage other writers. There are two kinds of writers' blogs -- amateurs and professionals. Many authors blog occasionally for larger sites, such as the Papercuts blog on The New York Times (Martin Amis, Jhumpa Lahiri), or websites like Amazon.com (Khalid Hosseini), New Yorker.com (Susan Orleans), Chicago University blog (Ha Jin). Pakistani authors who blog include Muhammad Hanif, Bina Shah and Nadeem Farooq Paracha on wordpress.com, Mohsin Hamid for The New York Times, Bapsi Sidhwa on her own official site. Urdu blogs connect the Urdu diaspora through blogs like "Urdu India", "Delhi Urdu" and "Baad-e-Naseem". Desi blog magazines like "Pak Tea House" present Pakistani Urdu and English poetry, short stories, translations and reviews. There are innumerable poetry blogs but some such as "Poets who Blog" and "Poet in Residence" have a respectable following. Traditionally, poets find it hard to print their work. Potential Keats or Eliot can emerge through these online avenues. Serial blog novels are now a rising phenomenon. The success of "Julie & Julia", a serial blog novel was heartening. No editors, agents or publishers were needed in this "push button publishing". Unknown novelists can attract big readerships and eventually publishers, like the author of the serial novel Bridge Chronicles. Interestingly, blog awards are also granted these days, the most prestigious being Deutsche Welle's International Weblog Award which has been operative since 2004. These awards are selected by bloggers, journalists and experts worldwide in 11 languages and voted online. Pakistan Blog awards were recently introduced. These include categories like Best Humour, Culture, Diarist, Local Humour, Satire etc. Blogs represent authors from oppressed communities, like the gay author from Karachi whose blog "Tuzk-e-Jallali" was quoted by The Times of India, "Wild Abandon" by a bipolar disorder patient and a prostitute's blog named "My Secret Life as a Former Prostitute". One of these could be the future Anne Frank. Blogs form a permanent and global footprint of Pakistani literature. Their influence will only increase in the future.
Pakistani blogosphere is a more participatory, democratic and citizen-centric medium than parliament, local governments and budgets that make up the conventional news media By Adnan Rehmat Take a look at Pakistan's mainstream, conventional
current affairs media: a handful of newspapers worth reading and some TV
channels worth watching -- both mediums with the ability to hold your
attention in degrees proportional to the numbers and types of crises,
scandals and outrage (natural or manufactured) of the moment. The pluralisms
of this sort of media have impressively grown in the past few years, which
means there are all types of issues, people and places to prune, pummel and
even pimp. However, it is remarkable that all this current affairs conventional media is consumed largely by people in their thirties and forties only, or older. No one in their 'tweens' or teens will be caught dead with a copy of a daily (except the fashion and entertainment pages/magazine supplements over the weekend) or watching an 8pm-9pm talk show or the 9pm-10-pm national bulletin on any TV channel. And therein lies the conundrum of the new millennium for Pakistan: a majority of Pakistanis (about 65%) were not even born when Benazir Bhutto first assumed office -- a political shift so radical that it changed the country forever -- and reintroduced participatory politics to the polity. The democratic (even if flawed) decade of 1990s passed this Pakistani majority by when another theatrical military dictator seized power in 1999. So it is a paradox that a majority of Pakistanis are apolitical (by dent of their demographic age bracket) in a milieu that is highly politicised and all they find in the mainstream media is only politics and pseudo politics. The 100 million youth of Pakistan can't seem to connect to the time-warped media and its unchanging narrative and emphases in a high-tech environment. Hence, for at least a quarter of this demographic bulge based in Pakistan's urban areas with access to technology, Internet is a way of life. Apart from the obvious (Google and Yahoo last year reported Pakistan as the largest single geographic repository of the search word "sex"), this youth demographic finds Internet the perfect opportunity -- and platform -- to articulate themselves on a variety of topics: from politics to jobs and from relationships to technology; from science to religion (more religion than science admittedly) and from America to Afghanistan. The reason is simple: there is not a single hour of dedicated time slot on the 25-odd current affairs TV channels for youth where they can articulate themselves. And no dedicated youth pages in newspapers either. Pakistan's youth bulge is primed for articulation in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-nationalist milieu on a platform -- the Internet -- that offers them a more secular space to say all that they want as opposed to the conservative conventional media. Online social media suits the average Pakistani (who is a 21-year old) just fine -- they don't have to be the recipient of a "monologueist" media that newspapers and TV channels actually are. They are comfortable with Facebook -- an astonishing 18m Pakistanis use it -- rather than the bookish newspapers and TV channels they find stiflingly rhetorical. While the percentage of the slice of 25m Pakistanis that are online (through 5m Internet connections) and who blog is a fraction, there are still thousands of them that make an effort to contribute, in many cases quiet brilliantly, capturing the spirit of the time and the "young eye view" of today's Pakistan -- a place where the premium to be upwardly mobile is on being clever beyond your years and being adept in underhand practices to be above the fray. These bloggers and their blogs articulate the refreshingly open stance of non-participants in the national project of (non-)progress. While the conventional media is obsessed with politics and conspiracy theories -- the obsessions of the non-young, the Pakistani blogosphere is a more participatory, democratic and citizen-centric medium -- "my media" -- that is more often than not likely to talk about jobs, education, civic issues and the urban-rural divide -- the issues of the young -- than parliament, local governments and budgets that find no youth representatives.
…a liberating space"
Raania A. K. Durrani Artist, writer & educator raania.wordpress.com There was a time when private diaries, fitted with precious locks, held hardbound mysteries and secrets of the self. Where almost whatever one expressed, text or image, was only for one's own set of eyes and comprehension. In retrospect, all those years of noting down events and feelings made me confident to emote and write. To be able to write not only for oneself, but also for those who one can reach out to, in forms of visual imagery, clandestine messages and metaphors, is liberating. My first two blogs were a solution for me, a place where I could document myself, my art and create a point for outreach. Titled "Unfinished Stories" and "Art & Aspirations", these blogs contained writings in progress, images of artwork, concept notes and reviews of exhibits. Within a few years I realised that for me documentation was not the only benefit of self-publishing. As a freelance writer, I find great strength and confidence knowing I am being read. Being read and critically analysed, by strangers in cyber space, is an unbelievably strengthening tool. Every so often I will post a reflection and will get some interesting feedback regarding the content and style. Sometimes readers will surprise me with emails sharing their own personal stories, some of which have been emotional and overwhelming to read and definitely a motivation to keep posting. Moving feedback from the father who lost a son, memories of a Sikh man in India who missed Lahore or the woman in Japan who works at an army base; all these readers make my blog for me, a living and breathing space unlike the virtual plastic kingdom of almost everything else on the internet. There are some interesting trends in the way people search for matter on the Internet or how they come across your blog. The majority of visitors on my current blog are directed there from facebook, twitter or any of my frequently published writings in papers and magazines that mention the blog address. My blog is an amalgam of documentation, art and personal reflective writing. The greatest traffic in the recent past was when I published in The Hindustan Times this spring. A majority of Indian and Pakistani readers investigated the blog, sending messages of peace and nostalgia. Of course, I also received a lot of negativity, and an unending string of angry emails. Feedback is king, and readers are gold. My blog for me is a liberating space where I can play with my artistic license and practice my craft. "Empower yourself!" Zeeshan Suhail Board member for Americans For Informed Democracy zeeshansuhail.blogspot.com Some IT geek in a land far, far away must have thought to himself, "There has to be a way in which one writes informally, in the first person, links to other external sources and actually sounds interesting". Well, lo and behold, blogging was born. My first encounter with blogs wasn't too exciting. I probably read a few blogs here and there but was never too enthusiastic about it. Then I started blogging on my own. This was in October 2005. My blog has received over 21,000 hits since then. This is nothing in comparison to many other blogs which receive hundreds of thousands of hits -- on a daily basis. But I am content with the visitors and feedback I receive. Unfortunately, I have not had as much time to update my blog lately. Instead, I have been avidly reading other blogs. It is remarkable how many blogs these days have become a credible news source. Just a few years ago, media relations professionals did not know whether they should accredit bloggers at events. After all, many did not have a reputation -- or a following. In theory, any one off the street could walk into a large gathering and proclaim to cover it for a media outlet. Today, there are bloggers like Perez Hilton who runs a widely read and followed blog, which can single-handedly make or break a reputation for those in the entertainment industry. I always considered blogging to be very cathartic for me, but more importantly, it was empowering. One learns important skills and if the blog is public, one can reach out to virtually the entire realm of cyberspace. Imagine the impact a blogger can have on public discourse! I assume this is precisely why those not in favour of people power are such ardent supporters of policies that clamp down on bloggers. I'm sure anti-democratic entities look at an independent voice as a threat to society; why let it speak loud, free and clear? Yet bloggers have found ways to circumvent those who suppress their voices. They – and their supporters – have grown in such tremendous numbers that they are truly a force to contend with. Look at blogs like "Pakistan Policy", "Café Pyala", "Goat Milk", "Pakistaniat", "Changing up Pakistan" and many others. They are so insightful, pleasant and informative that it is surprising how we ever survived without them! They are changing not only the face of the media, but of the essence of information and knowledge. The time is not far when most people will not only use blogs frequently, but also blog on a regular basis themselves. It is part of human nature to express one's thoughts and perspectives. What better way than in a blog? If you've read this far, I trust you will immediately open a browser and begin taking your first steps towards becoming a blogger. Don't be scared! Empower yourself, and those around you. You will be glad you did. "An absolute godsend" Waqqas Mir Barrister; qualified from Lincoln's Inn and was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 2007 www.mirsmusings82.wordpress.com If two or three decades ago, someone had suggested to us the possibility of there being a giant publishing house which prints everyone's writing we would probably have found the idea laughable; although the idea would have delighted Smith. Along came the internet then; probably the most democratic forum of expression that man has ever come up with. There is the theory that internet was devised by a bunch of monkeys in a forest and/or research lab (no metaphors there) but I will not get into that. In a country where governments of men, as well as laws, control to a depressing extent what can and cannot be published, blogging is an absolute godsend; unless you live in China. You can pick an argument with either God or China over that. The fact that anyone who blogs does not need the approval of a newspaper editor that a view will sell or not offend anyone speaks volumes about the democratisation of the freedom of expression at a mass scale. More importantly, the fact that you can write with the pure intent and subsequent joy of offending someone is another plus. Newspapers can often try too hard to be politically correct, but insensitivity (in humour among other things) has its own redeeming power. Notwithstanding the above, the fact that you have your own blog means that you have to sell it to people. There is no longer the curtain of the printed newspaper that will carry your opinion. Your opinion is the brand. How to sell the brand then? I frankly do not know how. What depresses me is that I am supposed to know some hi-fi technology of adding applications, hyper links, photos of animals (well, not always) to make it more attractive. But you do not have to care about that either. If you realise how rare it is for us to get the chance to bare ourselves through words, and communicate through words unadulterated by conformity or professional editing then enjoy the ride of simply writing a blog. I write irregularly, incoherently and I write about society, politics, laws and the mess that it all is including my brain. I let rage visit me late at night and I let it out on my blog. That is satisfying. But being perennially confused I also feel violated at times if someone calls me up and says, 'oh, I was reading your blog…'. There is the advantage and drawback of forgetting that others have eyes on you and writing with reckless abandon. I do not claim to write well or to make any sense. I just enjoy blogging partly because I remember feeling like an outcast in my 'Art' class when the kids with the most talent exhibited their work for the rest. In those terms, blogging allows me to draw my own Mickey Mouse without fear. I never drew it with favour, affection or malice. Those emotions had other outlets. However, I still feel that I am missing out on the best of blogging by letting people know about my blog. I want to be completely anonymous and write a blog about people I know at my workplace, among my friends and family. I want to poke fun at them and myself and reveal what a neurotic bunch we all are. Maybe I also want to confess certain prejudices and fears. Even excesses; and they make the best stories. The present story though needs to come to an end. I am not anonymous here and till I write that anonymous blog I definitely do not want to reveal more about this haunting woman in front of me in the flight across the Pacific. The urge to put her down on a blog is irresistible. Will a newspaper publish it? No chance. But will I have an absolute ball writing about her? Absolutely! All you need to know for now is that she had this unforgettable scream signaling her children to the lavatory. 'Chal Chala jaa latreen…'. Haunting.
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