The Blogma’s Whims

Unlike many of my fellow bloggers, I don’t see the blogma as an integrated force of opinion. The value of the blogma lies in its ability to alert international and national organizations to transgressions that would otherwise go unnoticed. Without the support and the active involvement of these organizations, the blogma would be impotent. Let’s face it; it is not because a few blogs went on strike that Erraji was provisionally freed and subsequently acquitted. He was granted due process because international and national human rights advocacy groups intervened. The blogma’s virtual involvement alone could have never achieved it; most certainly not in Morocco.

I don’t think that the blogma was ever designed to be a unified front. I am not aware that it has a mission statement. The subjects the bloggers expose and the causes they take on are so diverse that I consider each and every blog a front in and by itself. We pick and choose our battles. We all have different interests, in the case of some of us, I would say agendas. And each has a target audience. Our delimitations are the language we use (English, French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Amazigh…) and the subjects we tackle. Not all of us are militant bloggers. Within the militant bloggers’ group, the definitions of democracy, justice, freedom of expression and other such concepts differ widely. But, we tend to all converge on the broad titles of certain issues. For instance, almost all of us agreed that Mourtada’s use of Facebook was irresponsible, but also agreed that his sentencing was unfair.

The “Erraji” affair unified the blogma, albeit for a few days. We unambiguously took a stand against the arbitrary judgment pronounced against him. Unlike other issues such as the casablanca factory fire, this affair touches the very act of blogging. The sentence Erraji was slapped with sent shockwaves through the Moroccan blogging community. It was a loud and clear message from the government: there are red lines not to cross even within the internet. Most of us who find refuge in blogging because there are so many red lines outside of it could not stand still while the activity of blogging is being paralyzed by the same archaic norms the other media are victims of. There were numerous occasions when a newspaper or a magazine journalist was dragged into a courtroom to answer to the government’s convoluted reading of a given article without arousing much of an interest in the blogma. We did not then offer the unequivocal support we so lavished Erraji with. Just recently, a few blogs mentioned Tariq Mouhib’s plight. Despite the deep political and judicial implications of the incident - the equality of all Moroccan citizens before the law, the reform of the Moroccan justice system, the servitude instinct ingrained in the psyche of officials preventing them from recognizing right from wrong, etc …, it is no longer the topic du jour in the blogma today.

The blogma does have the potential to affect the political, economic, social, and cultural scenes. Elections could be decided on the blogma, boycotts could be called on it, cultural trends could be set on it. If organized into a cohesive element, the blogma could be a force to reckon with. The government knows it. It fears it. It is also a force that could easily be manipulated by intelligence services – foreign or local, political parties, business groups, and rogue organizations. We should all be aware of that and fear it. We are unified then in our responsibility to remain vigilant against it and to prevent it.

Unlike Citoyenhmida, I only see two categories in the blogma: the leaders and the followers. And we all are both.

Ahmed T. B. Copyright © 2008