Posted on 04/20/2004 5:04:03 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay
BAGHDAD —April 20 USAToday reports "A year ago, few Iraqis had ever had access to a computer, much less used it to communicate to the outside world. Now, Internet cafes seemingly dot every block in Baghdad, and new ones open often. That has led to a new phenomenon here: bloggers.
"We suffered for years under Saddam Hussein, not being able to speak out," says Omar Fadhil, 24, a dentist. "Now, you can make your voice heard around the world."
"There are about 30 Iraqi bloggers in Baghdad," reports USAToday, "plus a few other blogs written by Iraqis abroad."
And and is the economy getting better in Iraqi?
Another blogger and dentist, Ays,(whom I follow) seems to indicate so. He wrote on Saturday:
"Yesterday.. my brother-in-law and I were hiking in Baghdad streets, we noticed something unusual ( or was unusual !) we saw nearly all the workshops and some markets were closed, we asked “Why?!”.. after a while we remembered that yesterday was Friday.. And Friday is a holiday.. it means that the people started to have rest on Friday cause the economical status is getting better and better since the liberation so they can earn enough in 6 days and decided to have rest.. GREAT.. Iraqis were working day and night under Saddam.. they were about to die from working ! And poor people get a little money to keep their families alive..
Now they’re comfortable, I hope the security situation will be better in the coming days in order to make those families get out to picnics and travel… I’m sure everything will be OK.."
Ays reported back in March:
"...many vendors, most of them are enlightened and educated, some of them have the Master degrees in Art, science, some of them are teachers, engineers..etc, but, as you know, under Saddam they were forced to leave their jobs, so they used to sell books over there as a means of livelihood..
I like this place and I kept visiting it since 1992 ( I was in the intermediate school, I remember when I was insisting on my friends to drop by Al-Mutanabbe street, but they were always refusing!! So I used to go alone !).
"There are some buildings under maintenance and others under construction.."
I came across foreigners who were purchasing some books, a women said to her friend: “ wow.. Wonderful, nice and cheap”.. they liked the place, if you see it you’ll like it too, it’s interesting."
"The best point now is NOTHING PROHIBITED in Al-Mutanabbe St., you can find different types of books, regarding politics there are different books for different parties, authors and so many thoughts and opinions.
Ays writes, "During the ex-regime the vendors were showing only books that must not interfere with ‘ Baath Party principles’ ! , at that time the Baathist books were sooooo cheap and always covered with dust and never been respected !!.. many religious books weren’t allowed to be sold.. magazines and books that contained subjects criticizing the regime were surely forbidden." Now you can find hundreds of these books."
At the Twin Towers cafe, the three Fadhil blogging brothers, have received volumes of e-mails and some not in agreement of what they are reporting. A German reader, who one of the brothers says is "anti-everything; would like to kill them for their pro-American comments." They block this offender from their site.
"I am not afraid," Ali Fadhil says, "I was afraid all my life. I will not go back to living in fear."
The reincarnated Nazi skinhead bloggers are alive and well in Germany.
Freedom is growing in Iraq. Can the liberal world handle it?
..conspiracy theory?
The first candle. (The stirring words of an Iraqi blogger. A MUST READ!!!!)
BAGHDAD - "A year ago, few Iraqis had ever had access to a computer, much less used it to communicate to the outside world. Now, Internet cafes seemingly dot every block in Baghdad, and new ones open often. That has led to a new phenomenon here: bloggers.
"We suffered for years under Saddam Hussein, not being able to speak out," says Omar Fadhil, 24, a dentist. "Now, you can make your voice heard around the world."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The two "voices" most ignored by the press are the two groups paying the highest price for Iraq's freedom - the majority of Iraqis who suffered under Hussein the monster - and our awesome troops.
Thank God for the internet!
Potential (Iraqi) FReepers:
We are winning ~ the bad guys are losing ~ trolls, terrorists, democrats and the mainstream media are sad ~ very sad!
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