One of the problems of writing about current affairs is that your claims are often overtaken by events. So it goes for the article that Dan Drezner and I have in the current issue of Foreign Policy. We said (accurately at the time of writing) that blogs in Iran have provided a partial substitute for reformist newspapers that have been shut down, and that “government efforts to [censor the Internet] have been sporadic and only partially successful.” The Iranian blogosphere is one of the very few inarguable cases of how the Internet can sometimes create more pressure towards democratization. However, almost immediately after our article went to press, hardliners in Iran began to crack down on reformist websites and blogs. Now that the anti-reformist elements in the government have decided to take action, I suspect that the outlook for political blogs in Iran isn’t very good, although outside protests and negative publicity may help limit the extent of the backlash (it’s worked, at least in part, in the past).
Ouch. Do you have any idea how sophisticated the Iranian authorities are?
The reason I ask is that posts on an open blog like Unity are inherently anonymous… but an unfriendly ISP could obviously log the act of form submission at an IP address tagged as subversive. Not a whole lot you can do about that, but the ISP would have to be going above and beyond the call to catch that sort of thing.
I wonder how many would.
Anyway, I know I speak for my colleagues when I say that all of us at The Dead Hand would be more than pleased to host that kind of traffic. We fully understand that to do so involves a certain personal risk, and I for one say: bring it on.
Freedom is worth precisely what you’re willing to pay for it.
Or just run your own damn blog, but use Onion Routing (www.onion-router.net) to hide your origins.
Powerline blog, via one of its readers, brings to our attention the results of an opinion poll, which is not getting any publicity outside Iraq. “[The] poll taken in Baghdad, Mosul and Dehok and published in Iraq on October 25. The poll probably over-sampled Sunnis, which makes its results even more striking:
“63% of Iraqis say that the withdrawal of American and allied forces will not be in the best interest of Iraq, it will undermine the work towards security and control of the country. 27% say that it would be in the best interest of Iraq. 9% had no opinion.
“58% say that terrorists do the kidnappings and assassination of police and soldiers. 9% say that patriots fighting for Iraq carry them out. 32% say ignorant Iraqis who have been brain washed & misled carry them out.
“89% said that the terrorism, kidnapping, beheadings and assassination of police and security forces do not help the freeing of Iraq and the building of a stable country. 6% said that it would help free Iraq and build stability. 4% had no opinion.”
It seems that insurgents are failing not only to win popular support but also to slow down the march towards democracy. Iraq’s Shia religious establishment have now thrown their weight and moral authority behind the election:
“Ahmed Al Safi, a senior aide of Ayatollah Sistani announced… that ‘Those who don’t participate in the elections will end up in hell’ and he added in his speech ‘We must bear the responsibility and we must all participate in the elections because it’s a patriotic duty and not doing so is like treason.’ He also denied the news that spread about Sistani preparing or supporting a particular list of candidates.”
Iraqi blogger Zeyad has more. Buoyed by religious imprimatur, the country’s Shia majority is increasingly looking forward to exercising their democratic rights:
Iranian authorities are not only heavyhanded but have enough technological smarts that non-hacker bloggers are very likely to be identified.
When I worked there (1992), you even had to be licenced by the state to send a fax, to prevent subversive information spreading.
Moderate muslims are the people even more at risk than ferangis like Van Gogh. In Iran and worldwide, they are vulnerable wherever they are because they and their families are exposed to individual local extremists, organised killer groups and the actual state arms that will happily kill worldwide.
How can ordinary people not only express solidarity but help them protect their lives and those of their families?
I can’t help but remark to the extent to which the innocent belief that the “good” people are with us and the “bad” people are against us prevails.
US policies in the Middle East are widely opposed by people living there, for good reason.
As for the Iraqi poll, one wonders about the accuracy of a poll that apparently offers as a choice for the perpetrators of car bombings “ignorant, brainwashed Iraqis”. Still, I’m pretty sure that most Iraqis do abhor such acts.
Well, Chris, there goes another bubble.
It’s so tempting to believe that the education necessary to do something technologically challenging—like run an ISP or build a nuclear reactor—would inoculate a person against the kind of thinking that appears to prevail among the ruling classes in Iran.
Evidently not.
Is this a case where the Drezner/Brighouse article precipitated the crackdown, since it brought the government’s attention to the blogging? Your posting (“almost immediately after our article went to press”) seems to imply that.
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review