News from Egypt

Apparantly the country is going to hell in a hand basket.

Sandmonkey clarifies

The “Done” post after all was not his last post on the sandmonkey site, but don’t get your hopes up. This one probably is, at least for now.

Apart from a clarification of his motives, Sandmonkey also has a proposal:

I am proposing creating an organization that deals with championing the causes of blogger and freedom of speech in the middle-east, at least as the first step, since it seems that 90% of the cases of blogger intimidation and oppression comes from this region anyway. This new organization / committee / coalition / whatever would exclusively bring focus to our causes, champion them and push for our protection. It would do so by utilizing a strategy that doesn’t only rely on bloggers and the media to pressure governments. This new coalition would include 1) prominent bloggers from the US on both sides of the political divide (cause one of the few things that I think the left and the right can agree and co-operate on is the importance of free speech), who will bring light, focus and attention of the American public and the media to the plight of those bloggers, and help mobilize their readers to start letter campaigns and pressure against those governments who do oppress bloggers, 2) prominent bloggers from each and every middle-eastern country, who will provide us with the news of who is getting arrested or persecuted, and help mobilize their local blogosphere and media to come to aid of those who are being persecuted, 3)Human rights organizations and interest groups, local and international ones, to help with the legal, physical and moral support for those imprisoned or charged with crimes due to what they wrote, and 4) Members of American and Europeans Think Thanks and Interest groups, who will help with spreading the word and lobbying their respective government or the select lawmakers who do care about freedom of speech to apply pressure on our governments to leave us the hell alone. This way we would cover all fronts and apply pressure from everywhere: The Media, the blogosphere, both legally and physically on the ground , internationally through lobbying governments and lawmakers, and not to mention, most importantly, through the campaigning of the thousands of caring people world-wide that do give a damn about our freedom and spend their time and effort writing e-mails to our embassies and their government respresentitives, forwarding letters and informing others, and raising money through online donations to support those bloggers affected and in need. If something like this gets created and gets operated correctly, the playing field would be drastically changed in favor of the side of the middle-eastern bloggers, and eventually persecuted bloggers everywhere. It would eliminate a huge part of the worrying associated with blogging and would stop people like me from quitting, and even eventually get me, and others like me who quit, started on blogging again. Such an entity is essential, necessary and its time has come.

It has indeed, and it would be in everyones interest, including Western bloggers, to make this idea come true. Whiteberg is right: “The web – unfortunately – only gives us the freedom that the state decides to give us. Or more correctly, the freedom that we are willing to fight for.”

Sandmonkey quits

Yes, it’s over.

In retrospect, when rationalizing and all that, I’m not all that surprized that something like this has happened. After all, if he were to continue his blogging as usual, he would end up in jail in a relatively short amount of time. Who made me aware of this fact? He did. Even if a lot of people delude themselves into thinking that they are, no one is too smart to go to jail, and Sam knows this. He has also expressed some of his doubts, indirectly, several times lately.

I certainly do not think any less of him for doing this. But it is sad, and I will miss visiting his blog. Sam is quite unique.

A small consolation: Lars Hvidberg has started blogging again.