Talk Islam

Latest Updates: blogger activism RSS

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  johnpi 1:25 am on March 5, 2010 | 12 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: blogger activism, blogger ethics (5), bloggers (59), blogging (50), converts (13), Muslim bloggers (15)

  Willow wrote:

  There is clearly something deeper going on that you’re worried about or have doubts about

  You are correct about being troubled, specifically, spiritually troubled. This response is to Aziz too. Abu Noor, I think you’ve been reading too much of Umar’s long goodbye and seem to be stuck on the notion of ‘progressive devils’ being a fifth column of something or other…

  When I first exchanged some emails with Aziz and he invited me to blog here, I told him that I had been closely following TI for some time, but I hadn’t really engaged or participated because I wasn’t in a very good headspace, I was somewhat angry about some of my conversion experiences, and I didn’t want to engage poorly or from a bad place (I was also upset about how some orthodox problem-solving seemed to create dysfunction in modern life – Islam should give us all the tools we need to succeed anywhere at any time). I was particularly upset about feeling ’silenced’ (don’t ask disrespectful questions) and how – internally – that imbued those questions or concerns with more power and interest than they probably merited just from being bottled up. The initial blogging I did was helpful for deflating that material and kind of getting it out of the way, and it was at about that point that I started blogging here.

  I’ve continued to use the blogging to try to ‘process’ what comes in from the dunya and from other Muslim perspectives and communities, but I think that what may be happening is that in driving myself up against every point of contention in the media and every point of seeming incoherence within the ummah and within Islam, that it’s having an unhealthy spiritual effect, and I’m falling back into that bad headspace again, or at least not a very good space in which to be engaging other Muslims.

  So I need to take a break from being a media junkie, abstain from the blogging and find other diversions for awhile. Finding more and new Muslim community offline in another context might be a good idea too.

  To try to sum up the point, I do believe it’s a matter of spiritual integrity not to ignore the world and what’s happening in it if it challenges your faith or your practice, but wading out into this stuff day after day – seeking it out – for too long is also bad for your spiritual health.

  So I’m going to dial my blogging way back for a bit…

   

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  johnpi 7:28 pm on December 25, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: blogger activism, bloggers (59), freedom of expression (8), freedom of speech (71), Malaysia (99), retaliation against bloggers (13), retaliation/attacks against bloggers and journalists (17)

  Malaysian blogger defamation ’shocker.’

  A politician named Zaid Ibrahim who made a name for himself as a defender of speech freedom for Malaysian bloggers is now suing a blogger in that country for defamation.

  One blogger wrote:

  …if this is ruled as defamation, then we’ll see at least 10 such cases being filed at the courts daily!

  In the ‘offending’ post, blogger A Kadir Jasin compares Ibrahim to a cartoon character named ‘Hurricane Hattie.’

  No malice intended, but the Parti Keadilan Rakyat’s new wunder kinder, Senator Zaid Ibrahim reminds me of the cartoon character Hurricane Hattie.

  In the comic strip The Born Loser, by Art Sansom, which started in 1965, Hurricane Hattie was the mischievous girl next door, who delighted in menacing pretty much any adult she encountered, especially the main character, Brutus Thornapple.

  Wherever she went in Thornapple’s household, she created havoc. So is the Umno-nominated Kelantan Senator. Wherever he goes, controversy is not far behind.

  Wow, that’s rough stuff. Ibrahim better get out of politics if that’s the way they roll in Malaysia.

   
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  johnpi 9:11 am on December 16, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: anonymous blogging (4), arab blogs (3), blog content (3), blogger activism, blogger ethics (5), bloggers (59), bloggers and journalists (13), blogging (50), blogosphere (9), blogs (23), Muslim bloggers (15), Muslim blogs (8), Muslim children bloggers (4)

  Where are they now? A few blogs and bloggers mentioned in the last year:

  • “Dear God” – A nondenominational website where desperate or struggling people could post often disturbing ‘letters to God’ with a prayer and a description of their travails. Readers offer words of hope and encouragement. “Dear God” was put up for sale just before Thanksgiving.

  • “Hal786″ – A blog by a Muslim girl, one of several Muslim children bloggers mentioned on the site. ‘Hal’ most recently blogged about her hopes for the Copenhagen climate change conference. “I can’t wait to see what’s going to be done by the world leaders to help save our planet!”

  • “malekat_el7oriya” – A blog by a Muslim teen girl who was most recently blogging about racial profiling of men wearing the ghutra and agal (the red and white scarf that men wear on their head and the black band that holds it on).

  • “Mahaguru58″ – Zainol Abideen is writing about his own made-up word: ‘Blogodementia.’ “Isn’t it quite absurd to see some of our fellow bloggers resort to abusing the blogosphere…to spread slander and ill will through their blogs and websites on an almost daily basis?”

  Mr. Abideen, the ‘pro-tem president’ of the Muslim Bloggers Alliance in Malaysia, first came to attention for “abusing the blogosphere” with his racist rantings against the Royhinga and for his odd takfiring of poor Muslims. He has never retracted his comments nor apologized.

  • “The Arabist” – A blogger who proudly wears the title ‘State Department Arabist,’ a term used derisively and that became widespread in Washington DC when the neocons took over under the administration of George W Bush.

  The implication is that anyone who takes such interest in the region is inherently suspicious and must have “gone native.”

  He also defends the word from leftists who try to conflate it with Orientalism. The Arabist drew attention for his review of the book, “What’s Really Wrong With The Middle East.”

  More blog updates later…

   
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  johnpi 9:15 am on November 20, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: anti-blasphemy law (2), blasphemy (7), blogger activism, blogger ethics (5), bloggers (59), bloggers and journalists (13), blogging (50), censorship (44), jafis (22), Jafiwatch (7), Muslim bloggers (15), retaliation against bloggers (13), retaliation/attacks against bloggers and journalists (17), zainol abideen (2)

  The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission is investigating 71 cases of Internet abuse by disseminating false and lewed contents and contents that insult Islam.

  Information Communication and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim said out of the 71, eight had been acted upon under the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 for defaming others.

  “One had pleaded guilty and fined RM10,000 and the court also imposed certain conditions on the accused, while seven are awaiting trial,” he said in reply to a question from Matulidi Jusoh (BN-Dungun) in the Dewan Rakyat today.
  ….

  He disclosed that the ministry had also taken action under Section 263 of the Act against seven websites which insulted Islam, namely http://www.syurga-islam.blogspot.com, http://www.faithfreedom.org, manatuhanallah.wordpress.com, adibahahmed.blogspot.com, surind.blogspot.com, tokbatinsenoi.blogspot.com and http://www.malaysia-today.net/2008/content/view/1252.

  One of the blogs is operated by Indian Malaysian atheist Surind Raj who was reported by ‘protem President of the Muslim Bloggers Alliance’ Zainol Abideen which prompted Raj’s supporters to launch an Internet campaign against Abideen. I can’t tell if this action against Raj is the result of Abideen’s complaint.

   
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  johnpi 11:05 am on November 12, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: blogger activism, bloggers (59), bloggers and journalists (13), blogging (50), islamsphere (34), Muslim bloggers (15), Muslim children bloggers (4)

  Someone should start an endowment to pay money to good Muslim bloggers like Umar Lee and Hijabman to ‘incentivize’ the perpetuation of good Muslim blogging.

  For critics of anonymous blogging, this would also ‘incentivize’ people coming out from behind their acronyms. Can’t write a check to an anonymous person…

   
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  johnpi 11:06 pm on October 28, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: blogger activism, child abuse (31), child exploitation (4), child labor (2), crime and punishment (9), morocco (14)

  

  Last Fall, a 10-year-old Moroccan girl named Zaineb Chtit (Zaineb is spelled Zineb in many of these stories) who had been contracted as a domestic servant to an affluent Moroccan family by her impoverished parents was hospitalized. Her injuries, inflicted by her employer, were described:

  Zainab looked emaciated. Her body was bruised and bleeding from beatings. She was branded on her lips with a red-hot iron. She was burned with boiling oil on her chest and private areas.

  She was also illiterate, having never attended school, and had been locked in a cellar while not working. Moroccan bloggers highlighted her story and the fact that Morocco has 177,000 child workers, 66,000 of whom work as domestic servants, many of them girls.

  Last week, Zaineb’s attacker Nawal Houmin, the wife of the couple who had hired her, was sentenced to three years in prison without possibility of parole and a $13,000 fine.

  Human rights groups have complained that the sentence is too lenient, but a local blogger reports that most people in the community were shocked, expecting that there would not be a penalty of more than a few months, given it was a prominent local family, and the husband is a judge.

  Moroccan bloggers are now advocating for a campaign to address the problem of child labor at its roots with more resource put toward social aid and subsidized tuition and school supplies for poor children, as well as more substantial enforcement of child labor laws in that country.