Tag Archives blogs

Taking a page out of my friend John’s book, allow me to spread the love a little;

There are quite a lot of blogs (obviously) around the world, and the Bahraini scene is really exploding with new blogs appearing almost every week and it won’t be too long when we discover that the frequency will increase to daily exposures. It’s only natural. We Bahrainis do like to write and we are an opinionated bunch!

So let me share with you some hidden gems which I frequent and enjoy:

• Jaffar Al-Omran: who writes mostly in Arabic, angrily, on thorny subjects that no one attacks normally. He is very much worth a read, if not for anything but to indulge in the oxymoronic religious and political scenes.
• Dr. Abduljalil Al-Singace: is a founding member of the Haqq Movement, a secular political society (yes, their members are varied and include all Islamic religious and political streams) and he doesn’t leave you with any doubt as to where his heart is at and what he wants done as far as the country’s political scene is concerned. He has no qualms whatsoever in calling a spade and spade and demanding the resignation of the prime minister! He writes in Arabic mostly.
• Khalid Qambar: is a patriotic and deeply concerned person in regards to Bahrain and its current political scene. He exposing some damning things about corruption and collusion. His blog is most definitely worth keeping in your Feed reader. He too writes in Arabic.
• Madas Ayatallah: If you want heavy-duty sarcasm, you’ve reached the right blog! This one is written by a journalist in my favourite Bahraini newspaper Al-Waqt but I think even they won’t dare publish what he gets up to in his blog! The only thing I’ve got against Hussain is he uses Jeeran, an Arabic free blogging platform that sucks, big time! It is heavy and awkward to use from a reader’s perspective, but even with that I do visit his blog on a daily basis and can’t wait to read his latest salvo! He too writes exclusively in Arabic.
• Adel Marzooq: is another of my favourite journalists, but Adel is a lot more than that, he is one of the very few investigative journalists in Bahrain and I always look forward to read his articles and reports in my other favourite paper in Bahrain Al-Wasat. Although he mirrors what he writes in the paper in his blog (which is good, we can have permalinks that won’t change – we hope!) but he does have exclusive content too. Well worth the read and subscription. In Arabic too I’m afraid.
• Papillon Path: belongs to my favourite journalist, barring none! Mohammed Fadhel used to write for Al-Wasat but now moved over to Al-Waqt^[1] and is the lead for various international news agencies like France Press. His writing style is quite unique and he draws you into his piece slowly but inexorably that when you finish you just have to sit and smile for a bit before having to go back and re-read the piece! The content of his blog doesn’t change that often unfortunately (come on Mohammed, your fans want more!) but it is one of my regular haunts. Arabic again (maybe you lot should start learning the language, you’re missing a lot!
• The Forgotten: is the best translation I can come up with for my friend Waheed Al-Balooshi’s blog. He is an IT expert who raised the first concerns about the vagaries of the Central Informatics Organisation‘s attempt to delude the whole country with their attempt to “electronify” the recent parliamentary elections and joins my concerns as well with their (is it aborted yet?) so called “smart card”. He exposes a lot of mis-applied technologies in Bahrain, and he talks facts and figures. Sit up and listen! And yep, he writes exclusively in Arabic.
• The Maze: is another translation of mine, and I hope that Khalil Buhaza’a finds the translation accurate. I really enjoy Khalil’s blog, he is very much a liberal and like me, a Wa’ad supporter. His articles are cutting and to the bone. He also uses his blog to collect interesting news clippings which his visitors I am sure will find useful.

These are some of the blogs I enjoy reading regularly. More are listed in our aggregator which is well worth keeping an eye on for new gems being discovered all the time.

So go on, give the above some love, and don’t forget to send some over to John as well, as he was the inspiration behind this post.

[1] Thanks to Bint Battuta who corrected me regarding Mohammed Fadhel’s current paper which is Al-Waqt rather than Al-Wasat, which he used to write for.