RSS

In recent years the blogosphere in the Middle East has experienced significant growth. Blogs have become an essential medium for dissidence against the autocratic regime and its state-controlled media. Iran has one of the strictest censorship policies in the Middle East. Thus, blogs offer Iranians the only platform to peacefully exchange their political thought, emotions, and opinions while overcoming the boundaries that have been imposed by the government.

Iran has experienced remarkable Internet growth in recent years. Between 2000 and 2007, the number of users in Iran has increased from 250,000 to 18 Million, which accounts for 53.7% of the users in the region. Filtering systems are now applied that eliminate sites harming the principles of the Islamic Republic. Various Internet sites - particularly Western media - are blocked. Although the Internet has been denounced as a product of Western decadence, the regime has not been able to forgo the advantages that the medium offers; it participates in cyberspace to promulgate its own ideological interests by jumping on the blog bandwagon.

In 2001 a former Iranian journalist published online instructions on how to create a Persian language weblog, which essentially marked the beginning of the Iranian blogosphere, known as "Weblogistan." There are now around 700,000 blogs in Iran, of which 60,000 are supposedly active. Consequently, it is no surprise that Farsi is among the top ten most used languages on the Internet. Weblogistan is now one of the few safe places for free communication, helping to compensate for the loss of free speech in the country. Blogs in Iran are guaranteed; they are "Iranianized" and are not viewed as a Western threat, since the religious leadership is exploiting them for their own interests.

Many bloggers in Iran are actually journalists contributing to political blogs, thereby circumventing censorship. 70 precent of Iranians are under the age of 30- not suprisingly the "children of the revolution" constitute the majority of bloggers. More importantly there is a rising figure of women blogging. They are aware of the rights that are given in a democratic system, and they reveal their discontent by forming political groups and using blogs as tools to fight oppression and gain access to some democratic qualities.

The cyber world is not just used as a safe space to reflect on politics in the Iranian system. Most bloggers simply talk about their everyday lives, their desire for freedom and a different life. At first glance most of these blogs do not have a political impact but they still have political aspects. Even when bloggers just write about their interests, they are already challenging the government's control over their lives. This means that simple topics become automatically politicized. Furthermore, many blogs are used to consume and discuss American pop-culture. The government tries to shield Iranians from these influences, but the black market offers a variety of pirated music, movies, art, and books from the West that are sold inexpensively. Unlike the way it is often presented in Western media, Iranians readily welcome and enjoy American culture.

For the past 28 years, the Iranian regime has tried hard to cleanse the country of any kind of democratic movement. Today, Iranian society's desire for freedom, self-expression and Western culture seems to be more intense than ever. There is a liberating movement in Iranian society that flies in the face of the government ideology. Blogs provide Iranians with a forum to practice and push for democratic progress. The Iranian people have shown they do not fear the punishment of their government and that they have found ways to overcome restrictions imposed by the regime.

Nevertheless, the regime is still able to observe the blogosphere and imposes restrictions. Free access to information is fundamental for international understanding, and free media can be used as tool for spreading democracy. Many Western nations have already begun to support Iran and other countries where the media is subjected to limitiations by providing them with proxy servers and software to avoid filtering. In order to better protect themselves from the regime's interference, the Iranian people would certainly benefit from further technological know-how from the West. Western governments, however, would have to make sure, that the technological or financial support that they would be willing to offer would actually be received by the blogosphere. This kind of support could be a way to expose societies that are living under autocratic regimes to democratic priciples and further bolster a fledgling democratic movement.

Sepideh Parsa in an editorial intern at atlantic-community.org

Related materials from the Atlantic Community:

• Fabian Martin Lieschke: Iran's Strategy is Working
• Sanam Vakil: Iran's Political Shadow War
• Ryan R. Miller: Russia Profits from the Iran Nuclear Standoff