The first that cought my attention this morning was Silly Bahraini Girl where she tells us in no uncertain terms that there is no connection between our blogs and the oppossition, I know what prompted that one, or at least think I do, but in any case it is absolutely true: as far as I know and observed there is absolutely no connection between any of the blogs (currently alive) and the government or the opposition, we are an independent bunch and hope that this situation will continue.
emoodz once again has a thought provoking post asking the simple question about patriotism, and more importantly to me is his observation that
Ever since the opposition movement was lead by the turban, sugarcoated with the sweet and drugging ideologies of Islam, people followed without question, without doubt and with a lot of trust, to a dead end. It is as I write this that people around me are awakening, realizing that this is not the way to go.
The Joker on the other hand is not joking when he talks about shisha smoking digital whores and their customers the flavours of which at the moment seem to be Qataris and Saudis… and an incident which typifies that the customs people at the Causeway MUST give a 5 minute driving lesson to other Gulf nationals before they are allowed to drive in Bahrain, or at least give them a pamphlet warning them that Bahrain won’t prosecute a Bahraini for road rage. Especially if they’ve been given the finger and still can’t get it.
Ba7rania on the other hand has a new design, which she asks Allah to bless, quite nice animated graphics, girl you’re the bee’s knees! Just don’t wait to long for Allah’s approval though… He’s a bit busy!
Comments
Today’s Bahraini Blogosphere clipping service
Just to clarify, but I’m near certain that it isn’t the same Bahrainia we’re talking about here. Style and character are completely different, and with the exception of one comment on another blog I haven’t seen a peep out of here since her “Historic Fart”.
Re(3): Today’s Bahraini Blogosphere clipping service
receiving a gift is not beneath me. i gladly welcome flowers and chocolates… (hint hint **)
and would be alarmed if i got BD200 worth of flowers and chocolates. that would be a waste of money 😉
i know the meaning of money Mahmood, because i earned every fil i have made. i don’t get handouts. i actually work for a living. this is why i find it demeaning that after all the fuss made in parliament over this ‘charity’ bonus, the amount is so small – considering it is the first bonus across the board for the government employees!
And the next bloggers meeting should be on me.. as a penalty for missing last week’s get together, because I would love to treat u guys and because u all deserve it – no matter what the differences in opinion between us are!
at the time those people got their BD200 bonuses, there was word going around that others in higher positions got something in the range of 25 times that amount to spend on [b]SUMMER HOLIDAYS! [/b]
everytime i write a column, it’s like i am playing Chinese whispers. my intentions are [b]never[/b] bad. I don’t harbour ill-feelings towards my country. I have nothing against the government. And believe it or not, but I really am a very positive person. On days I don’t feel that positive, I don’t get out of bed. I don’t have two faces. I really dont..
I am glad u understood the gist of the column, where i point out how much of a difference it has made in those poor people’s lives. buying ACs in this heat is a blessing. but this bonus was like the carrot dangled by everyone for a very long time in front of those poor people. it was a bargaining card. it was a dirty game. those people were drooling all over the place waiting for it.
and no! I don’t envy anyone at all in the public sector! I never did and hopefully i won’t have to bite my words: I never will. not if people are being humiliated with a demeaning bonus as low as BD200!
Today’s Bahraini Blogosphere clipping service
That’s not THE Bahranina, the one we know..
Re(4): Today’s Bahraini Blogosphere clipping service
I know who you are and where your heart is Amira. I have known that fact for a long time now. But it is so easy to interpret your article into the extreme because of it’s wording, or spirit. I won’t speak for you, but if I were you I would have replaced that last sentance with “I would immediately donate my BD200.” Makes for a better positive spin.
Irony is WASTED on most people here!
Re(5): Today’s Bahraini Blogosphere clipping service
thanks 😉
means a lot to me!
Today’s Bahraini Blogosphere clipping service
thanks mahmood for the mention 😉
nope.. it’s not the same Ba7rania…whose loss from the local bloggers scene is a real shame.
it’s always a blessing to be able to see the other side of the coin, another perspective (backed by evidence) to enable you to think and see where you stand on things and whether all that you knew and believed in and fought for is worth it or not. it doesnt matter whether you agree with all that you read and hear. that shouldnt matter. at all. as long as you are a rational human being, with a free will, that is! access to information is a right. an important right we bahrainis are being denied in bahrain because of censorship and people who believe they have the right to tell us what we should read and write and eat and think and …
free thought should be encouraged. people writing and expressing themselves and their dreams and their fears should be promoted, whether we agree with the ideas being generated or not.
the key is to move from this state-sponsorsed-terrorist-mindset of ‘you either think and do what i want the way i want it or you are aganist me’ mentality.
i am becoming more and more resigned to the idea that there is no one at all against bahrain. that bahrain is its very own enemy, thanks to the stupidity of some irrational decisions being made here and there. add to that is a real mess: a wanna be opposition which doesnt know its left from its right.
ok…that’s my rant for today and i am saving it here! thanks 😉
Amira
Today’s Bahraini Blogosphere clipping service
hmm.. I smell “the call� fever again..
Will someone please tell us darn it!!
moodz
Today’s Bahraini Blogosphere clipping service
Blah!
I hate Westerners that don’t understand politics. Just because you don’t like the turbans doesn’t mean that you support the beards. While some bloggers’ ideas may coincide with the opposition, I’m sure that you cannot make the blanket satement that all Bahraini bloggers are with the opposition!
Same as with the Kafiyah movement. Sam (the Sandmonkey) is an Egyptian Blogger, and BP is another, but they both have supported different political ideas.
–Ethan
ps. Mahmood, I keep having issues logging in. I’m using Firefox at home and Galeon at work, and as of late, I have gotten Xaraya errors when I hit the login button. Any clues? Or do I ned to clear my cache and turn javascript on for mahmood.tv?
Re: Today’s Bahraini Blogosphere clipping service
I too am fed up Amira. But unlike you I am fed up of the continuous portrayal of “Bahrain the Bad!”
I am an optimist, but with all that has happened in the past year especially has tainted that optimism so I’m determined to get it back. Enough with the bad news. Enough with continuously hitting on Bahrain being the baddest place on Earth, and enough of moaning! I am sure that we all realise that Bahrain is in fact NOT the worst place on Earth. I fully recognise that it has its shortcomings, and it is our duty as Bahrainis to highlight areas of concern in order for those areas to be addressed and ultimately corrected.
I know for a fact that the government has woken up to the unpopularity of some of its decisions, the least of which of course is the Ministry of Information’s administrative order requiring the registration of websites. I know too from a well-placed source that the government has nixed it. They’re probably trying to find a face-saving gesture to announce it. I highly encourage them to do that as soon as possible to counter the wealth of bad news we have had over the past few months. This will show the world that we do in fact have a democracy (regardless of how small it is and how dumbed down people think it is, the essence is that we CAN speak, as we have been doing in all of our blogs) and through democracy the government has listened to our voices through which we expressed our dissatisfaction with an order such as that, and it has now responded to the people, as any democratic society should.
I was exasperated reading Global Voices over the last couple of weeks especially where they seem to highlight the negative about Bahrain and portraying it as a hell-hole. It isn’t. But looking back at the same period on all of our blogs, we have only really concentrated on the bad and the ugly, without pausing for a second to think that as we have been criticising, we should really stop at the good things and highlight them too. Things like the removal of the Demistan wall for example. I am now determined that I shall pursue the good news and highlight those, with as much vigour as I have with the bad news. I encourage you all to do so as well, otherwise, with the spotlight fully on our blogs for some reason, we will have only ourselves to blame for portraying our country as a dump. It isn’t. We do have a long way to go, but we need some optimism for goodness’ sake to get there!
Come on then, I double dare you to plaster a beaming smile on your face the next time you approach a keyboard to write another post on any of your blogs!
🙂
Re: Today’s Bahraini Blogosphere clipping service
Ok let me put you out of your misery! I was interviewed by the Christian Science Monitor a couple of days ago, the thrust of the interview was to ascertain whether bloggers in Bahrain are really against the government and are WITH the opposition, the reporter implied that we are with the opposition against the government, just like most bloggers in Egypt with the Kifaya campaign.
I put him to rights.
As Amira put that article up on the same day, I assumed that she too was interviewed because the subject of her post was uncannily similar to the interview!
Re: Today’s Bahraini Blogosphere clipping service
Thank goodness that that name is not trademarked! Otherwise there would be more than 150,000 Bahranias destitute and have to find another name for themselves!
Re: Today’s Bahraini Blogosphere clipping service
A lot of whats been said recently is plain stupid and near hysterical. Try the same approach anywhere else in the region and youll be in for a big surprise. Its as absurd as flushing a BD200 bonus down the toilet because you feel your worth more than that. http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=118880&Sn=COMM&IssueID=28141
Re(1): Today’s Bahraini Blogosphere clipping service
I didn’t agree with Amira’s point of view on that one either. I was happy to learn from the same article that two families used their bonus to buy A/Cs to improve their children’s quality of life. BD 200 is a lot of money (unfortunately) for a lot of Bahraini families. I guess this is what she wanted to portray, but the article came out completely wrong.
I wouldn’t like to be her in the next few days.. I guess a lot of letter would be in attack mode.
And if Amira thinks that 200 dinars is too little, then SHE is paying for the next bloggers meeting!
Re(1): Today’s Bahraini Blogosphere clipping service
I AM NOT BEING UNGRATEFUL… but yes.. If and when I do get a BD200 BONUS, I would flush it down the toilet — with no regrets.
Re(2): Today’s Bahraini Blogosphere clipping service
Why?
Because receiving the gift is beneath you? Or is it because it was given by the government? Or is it because the private sector workers were excluded?
Why?
Re: Today’s Bahraini Blogosphere clipping service
This version of Xaraya has problems with transformation of bbcodes (the paragraph marker) rendering, but other than that it seems to be stable enough. I have however in an attempt to get better performance have been playing around with various cache settings and theme components as well as blocks. In order to tighten up security a bit I turned the security sessions on that will throw people out if their session is longer than 30 minutes inactive etc. So there has been quite a number of under-the-hood changes. It might be worth your while clearning the cache. However I don’t use javascript other than for loading images in very very old articles (pop-up image, which I no longer use but keep the javascript code just in case a google hit happens etc)