Weblogistan

From Wired Magazine’s Sidebar called “Jargon Watch”

“Weblogistan: n. The Iranian blogosphere, where activists go to vent anonymously in the face of Iran's oppressive regime. Weblogistan is now so vast that Persian is the fourth most widely used language on blogs.”

I love this! In the 1980s the Reagan administration fought the psychological war of ideas through the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe. These institutions passed messages of hope and liberty to the trapped and the enslaved behind the Iron Curtain. When I say messages of “hope” and “liberty,” I mean it literally. The Voice of America would pipe recordings of Mass being held by Pope John II behind the borders of the U.S.S.R. where people had to worship secretly. News of the world unfiltered by “Pravda” provided Soviet citizens with alternative sources of information.

In his book on Reagan, Dinesh D’Souza calls out the importance of these messages to the people inside the U.S.S.R. “…several former dissidents told Reagan that when they heard he had called the Soviets an “evil empire,” it gave them home, and they said to each other that America finally had a leader who clearly understood the nature of communism.”

Clearly, the Internet is the new medium of choice for the message of freedom. Now instead of just broadcasting messages into an oppressed country, the message can come from within, from the people themselves. Can you imagine the type of courage it must take to post an anti-establishment blog message inside Iran? Check out the Cartside blog for a further write up of the Weblogistan phenomenon. “A young man who calls himself Hoder has started nothing short of a media revolution in Iran. In the 'islamic republic', which human rights reporters label the biggest prison for journalists in the Middle East, a new form of publicity is budding. Here of all places.”

The significance of this type of communication can not be emphasized enough. How does the saying go, “the first rule after you conquer a new country – take over the airways.” Controlling information is a way of keeping people down, of keeping them under control. Well, that’s no longer possible, is it? The emergence of the Internet means oppressed people can communicate with the rest of the world still.

The United States should adopt a policy of doing everything it can to nurture Internet communications between people in oppressive regimes. In Iran, this may not even be necessary. The country already has over 100,000 blogs (see a directory of many English/Farsi blogs at http://blogsbyiranians.com/). It is possible that one day Axis of Evil countries such as Iran and North Korea will stumble and fall—eaten out from within by the free flow of messages of hope and liberty.