March 09, 2007

Ash about CTH & freedom of speech

I’m quite sure that Teeth & Tongue won’t have any problem by repeating activists’ statements. But to build the conditions through which one could spread out insults against religion, religious people or against the government may be dangerous. If they want to be asking for trouble with you, they will do. Generally the amount of reasons to sue you is so wide and at the same time so intransparent that you never know. Moreover the Egyptian society is not used to surf on the web but for searching for pornography, chats or contacts with girls. The few web users interested in political issues are the activists. Regarding the blogosphere the government wanted to make a case of Kareem, because in its perspective an increasing number of activists were going too far on the web. Well-educated, bourgeois are leading this growing but still little scene that could be able with the help of the capital to change the political order. The point with Kareem is that he has been assuming his words at the court. It would have been very easy to avoid the condemnation, because one hardly establish the responsibility of a web-based statement. If Teeth & Tongue now ask me if with their audioblog they add a web-based tool in favour of freedom of speech, I would say no. It’s a kind of joke. They make abstraction out of serious things, perhaps in order to show the beauty of the language, but this trick remains an ironical one. Of course it’s a way to say things indirectly and people love it. It reminds me of a show we have here with this guy who can perfectly imitate Sadat’s voice while saying bad things about Israel. People laugh about it but however it still transmits a clear political message. One may consider it as a hint to the work of the bloggers, if not as a contribution. But now if they want me to read a Kareem’s text in order to repeat it afterwards, I’ll accept. No problem. I hope I would then become a refugee in their country.

VOICE RECORDER

out of order