Matchsticks in the spotlight

SMN No. 2, May 24, 2010

He comments on corruption, politics, social phenomena in Syria and the Arab world – Abdul-Salam Ismael, 31, runs one of the most popular Syrian blogs, Matchsticks.

Ismael, a Syrian national who lives and works in Kuwait, started blogging in 2008.

“Most of my posts are about politics, the social and economic situation. Some are on media and freedom of expression,” he said by email.

He added that the posts that get most attention from his 200 daily readers are the ones that discuss the “economic situation, corruption and despotism”.

In a post on May 12, Ismael talked about economic hardship in Syria. He wrote that employees were compelled to ask for bribes because they found it hard to make ends meet with their meagre salaries.

In an earlier post, he said corruption was deeply rooted in Syrian culture and deplored how that was preventing the development and modernisation of the country.

He suggested strengthening the judicial system and the media would help to combat corruption.

“Matchsticks” was selected as the top blog by the leading Syrian bloggers’ aggregator site last year. It also reached the finals of a blogging competition in the Arab world.

Ismael’s interests are not limited to the situation in Syria.

In his last post, he criticised a recent campaign by Islamists in Egypt against “One thousand and one nights”, a classic work of Arabic literature. Islamist lawmakers in Egypt had called on the authorities to ban the book on the grounds that it contained “obscene” material.

Ismael said in his post that this incident showed the extent of “despotism” in the region and the shallowness of cultural understanding.

The blogger believes that Syrian blogs are starting to gain popularity in the Arab world but he added that their reach was limited because of “complications related to the internal situation”.

In past years, the Syrian authorities have sentenced several bloggers to jail for material they had posted online.