Can we expect this from Pakistani bloggers?
Things are pretty tense in Burma and dictatorship is demonstrating its true colors. Everything has been siezed but there re few young chaps who have put their lives in danger and reporting outside world about current situation of Burma.
Internet geeks share a common style, and Ko Latt and his four friends would not be out of place in cyber cafés across the world. They have the skinny arms and the long hair, the dark T-shirts and the jokey nicknames. But few such figures have ever taken the risks that they have in the past few weeks, or achieved so much in a noble and dangerous cause.
Armed with small digital cameras, they have documented the spectacular growth of the demonstrations from crowds of a few hundred to as many as 100,000. On weblogs they have recorded in words and pictures the regime’s bloody crackdown, in a city where only a handful of foreign journalists work undercover. With downloaded software, they have dodged and weaved around the regime’s increasingly desperate attempts to thwart their work. Now the bloggers, too, have been crushed. Having failed to stop the cyber-dissidents broadcasting to the world, the authorities have simply switched off the internet.
Further:
Now Ko Latt and his blogging comrades have abandoned their keyboards and gone underground, sleeping in a different place every night, watching and waiting to see if the democracy movement has been truly crushed or is simply on hold. “When things were hot on the streets, we were not the main worry,” Ko Latt says. “But as the situation cools down, they will follow us. They know who we are, they know we are bloggers, and I am afraid.”
now since we Pakistanis also facing a military dictatorship, I wonder whether we Pakistani bloggers boys and girls could do same if things go further worst? Can we do such street blogging?
Even in normal times it was hard to be a blogger in Burma. With characteristic paranoia, the Government monitored and controlled every aspect of the process, from licensing computers to issuing accounts through government-monitored internet service providers (ISPs). This is what makes political blogging so dangerous here — it is easy for military intelligence to identify a dissident’s name and address through his registered account.
We are also facing something similar, ban on Media has already been started, different blogs are banned for one reason to another, could we face it with grace? I know Pakistani bloggers did splendid job during earth quake’05 but that was different situation.
I think we should start pondering and analyze our own strength. Burmese bloggers have demonstrated the power of blogging to outside world. We Pakistanis have yet to experience this situation.
Read fascinating story here, it really reveals many things.
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October 2nd, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Internet can do wonders but the thing is, change comes from within. If it would be East Timor, USA, UN, EU and every tom, dick and harry would have intervened. People of Mayanmar have to fight their own fight, which they are doing very bravely. Its a lesson for us Pakistanis that we can’t just be couch potatoes, watching TV and surfing the net. Unless we won’t come on the roads, things will remain the same or go for the worse.