“Blogging for change” initiative by Syrian blogger

SMN No. 10, November 8, 2010

A Syrian blogger has launched a new project to support Arab bloggers working towards change in their societies. Omar Mushaweh hopes the Blogging for Change initiative will help internet activists “tackle issues that could change our reality and societies”.

Mushaweh told Damascus Bureau that there was already a lot of what he called “resistance blogging” on the internet covering issues such as illegal occupation, poverty, ignorance and corruption. However, most contributors are individuals working on their own and often lacking networks and good writing techniques.

The Arabic-language project, said Mushaweh, is open to all countries, but its main focus will be on Arab countries “which need change more urgently than others”.

His plan is to provide technical expertise and background knowledge to all bloggers who write for change or are involved in cyber-campaigns, and to spread the culture of blogging in the Arab world. Mushaweh also wants to create a guide on making make online campaigns with political or social aims more effective through following a few, but crucial steps.

The project website will include articles and research papers, and will be run by a team of specialists, he added.  Mushaweh, who lives outside Syria, said that “continuity and collectivity” were vital to create change through blogging; a large number of bloggers need to keep writing about certain cases over a long period of time to have an effect.

Mushaweh, a veteran Syrian blogger and editor-in-chief of the website Arab Tech , said he was convinced that blogging was an important step “to break the wall of fear” and to overcome pessimism and hesitation, in order to encourage people to continue to voice their opinion in writing.

This would hopefully lead to other steps on the long journey towards change, he added.