Just too much hatred
Iraq nowdays December 30th, 2007Everyday I look into about 40 to 50 websites to look for news, views, and discussions about Iraq. Many of the websites I browse are Iraqi. And it is just disgusting how much hatred everyone is spreading. It is actually starting to get into me. I mean I used to be a very calm person. I used to turn the other cheek". And I used to get angry when someone keeps annoying me with very harmful things for like a thousand years. But now, when I look into what everyone around is writing, I just feel disgusted. How have we turned to this?
I'll list to you some of the most annoying sites that I browse daily to find out what is happening in Iraq. I look into THE most sectarian websites and news sources. And sometimes they just disgust me more when their news is right. I look into the Shiaa-biased websites to find out the news about the Shiaa areas. And equally, I look into the Sunni-biased websites to find out the news about the Sunni areas. And I just can not stop this habit, because I have family members and very close friends everywhere in Iraq and in every sect and ethnic group you can think of. I'll start by a website that used to be balanced but lately got biased to the Sunni side, its called the Iraqi News Agency. It is one of a series of sites to the same owner and publish the same news. I used to follow that site regularly because they used to do like 50 updates a day. They used to get the fresh news during the hot sectarian "near" civil war earlier this year. But now, all they publish is stuff against Iran and press releases of some party that is doing nothing but talking. By the way, this site ranks 291,803 in the websites world in terms of visitors and page views.
My choice of the most sectarian news site on the Shiaa side definitely goes to Buratha News. These guys are the most hateful Shiaas I have ever came across in my whole life. Their biggest goal is to criminalize the Sunni politicians. And the amount of hatred you can feel in their writings is just unbearable. And they just twist the facts to the way they want. I'll give you an example of that. Few months ago, they used to describe Parliament Member "Mithal Al-Alousi" as the betrayer who brags about visiting Israel. A couple of weeks ago, Al-Alousi was appointed as the head of the parliament committee formed to investigate the incident of finding weapons and terrorists in Adnan Al-Dulaimi's house. Since then, Al-Alousi became the patriotic hero that recommends arresting Adnan Al-Dulaimi for his terrorist activities. These guys are just the most disgusting Shiaa news website. And they rank 56,375 on the websites of the world in terms of number of visitors and page views.
A well-known Sunni-biased news and reports website is the Iraqi Rabita (Iraqi League). These guys just keep talking about how they look for the best for ALL Iraqis. While in fact, they only talk about crimes that Shiaa militias commit and keep mutilating and disrespecting the Shiaa figures and the government people. They have a page stating the steps to survive a militia attack and how to convince the militias that you are Shiite not Sunni. They present the news in such a hateful context that makes you want to kill all the Shiaa. No matter how much they brag about being non-sectarian, they never brought any dirty laundry about Adnan Al-Dulaimi or Harith Al-Dhari or even Al-Qaeda. Despite the good sides of their website that gather donations for Iraqis abroad, they are just too hateful. This site ranks 41,664 in terms of number of visitors and page views.
Another famous Shiaa-biased website is the website of Al-Forat TV channel. They did a very hateful coverage after the Samarra bombing in February 2006. They push you to conclude that any Sunni you see in the street have participated in the bombing and this Sunni should be killed in revenge. They almost call any Sunni a terrorist. This site ranks 113,500.
The last news site that I would like to stop at, which is no less hateful than all the previous, is Haq Agency. This site is quickly updated with the Sunni-biased news written in a very sectarian tone. They like to call a lot of the terrorism acts "Iraqi Resistance" acts. They have good sympathy towards Al-Qaeda and its followers. They talk about Shiaa as if all of them are criminals. They cover the news about the attacks on the American troops very quickly and sometime with videos, so ??
Anyway, this site ranks 98,610.
Of course I do not need to talk about the media sites of the Iraqi government, because these guys live in a different planet where Iraq is a very calm country and the development is going faster than Dubai. The most famous of all of these sites is the Iraqi Media Network.
I will not stop by the non-Iraqi media, because these guys talk about something they do not actually live or feel. Sometimes the western media try to point some bad things in the overall way in which the world is handling the Iraqi situation, starting from wrong military decisions, and ending with crimes committed by the multi-national forces in Iraq. But most of the time, the non-Iraqi media live on the same planet on which the Iraqi governmental media lives. Where heaven looks just like Iraq.
Now lets move to the blogsphere. Every blog I visit is somehow biased and full of hollow debates that is merely a race of "who-can-google-best". These debates usually end with someone prevailing, but the essence of discussion is not there. The essence of discussing something is to have a flexible logical mind that tends to go with whatever is proved by logic. This does not happen in the blog discussions. Everyone leaves the debate with the same opinion they came into the discussion with, no matter how logical and evident other opinions might seem. This continuous nagging leads to hatred too. It leads to lots of curses and F words eventually. I do not want to give examples of these situation because I am taking a wild guess that everyone reading this post have seen it. And also I do not want to disturb my fellow Iraqi bloggers.
How did we turn out to be this way?
Was Saddam the cover of this big garbage can called Iraq, which is full of hatred and sectarianism?
Did all this hatred start after the invasion of Iraq? Is that really possible?
Its just too much hatred that I can not live with. Its shameful and disgusting how things have ended up. I wish there will come one day when we all look back and thank God that all of this hatred is gone.
December 31st, 2007 at 12:10 pm
It just makes me sad. The Iraqi media is hurting Iraqis just as much as the terrorists do.
Well done BI. Keep up the good work.
December 31st, 2007 at 5:34 pm
M,
Indeed Iraqi media is being harmful in the tone in which they present the news. I did not want to stop at the Iraqi TV channels because it just breaks my heart to see the sectarian tone they speak in.
Its getting harder to live with this crap day by day. Its emotionally draining and makes me just worry more about the future of Iraq.
December 31st, 2007 at 11:18 pm
Hi BlogIraqi,
Is the Iraqi media much different than media in other Arab countries, which have a mixture of sects and factions? It seems that in places like Lebanon for instance, each faction has their own newspaper or radio/TV station broadcasting their own views. At least, there is some variety of news offered in Iraq now, as compared to before under Saddam. Of course, many of the new views
are the expressions of the Saddam wannabees that multiplied forth in Iraq after the invasion.
Personally, I’d like to see a Gay and Lesbian station in Iraq, a network broadcasting the views of women’s rights activists in Iraq, and an anti-Mullah/Imam secular channel calling for the “religious leaders” to be hung from their balls. “Down with the back turbans”…LOL.
January 1st, 2008 at 11:38 am
Mr.Ghost,
Even if the Lebanese have a media outlet for every sect, they do not speak in the same hateful tone that the Iraqi media uses. I am sorry that all the websites I have pointed to are in Arabic, and the translation would make it loose a lot of the content meaning.
There is indeed an increase in the pro-Saddam media going on. I think this has developed to the manner that we see now because these guys are feeling too much hatred towards them and they are rock-headed enough to fight back with an increasing amount of hatred.
Personally, I’d like to see a Gay and Lesbian station in Iraq,
Personally, I disagree. There are some things that are just not acceptable in the Arab and Muslim community. I don’t mean that these people just do not exist, I know they are. But I will give you a small example of the effect of media on people in the Arab world.
Children of unmarried single parent situation was, and still, gets the mother killed. And sometimes the father, if they managed to know who he is. It was extremely unacceptable before. But also existed in small proportions of the community and they managed to keep the truth unknown to other people. When the “freedom” knocked hardly on the sleeping Arab countries doors (and that was when Saddam was thrown out by the Americans, the Arab leaders felt the heat), reports, meetings, and discussions, began to appear in the Arab media about that. And they started discussing the future of these children and their mothers.
Do you know what that led to?
25,000 bastard children in Egypt alone in 2006. This number was less than 1,000 in the year 2001.
Of course you’ll ask now if my point is that the gay and lesbians do not deserve freedom and are not entitled to be heard. No sir, thats not what I mean. My point is, in the Muslim and Arab community, these people will not be accepted. So, giving them a media channel to make every one feel that its OK to be gay in the Arab world is wrong. Because more people will become gay, and their lives will be living hell, if they were not killed initially.
The Islamic religion forbids being gay or lesbian because it is thought of as a change in God’s creation. I don’t want to get religious with you, but if some one is gay, let them just leave the Arab world and go somewhere else where it is acceptable.
a network broadcasting the views of women’s rights activists in Iraq, and an anti-Mullah/Imam secular channel
I could not agree more on that. But just as a side note, women were not suppressed in Saddam’s time as they are now. We had female ministers since the 1930s. And in Saddam’s time too. Women where members in the “parliament”, although no one there did a thing.
The religious figures should be out of the political process. They can be very useful as references for people seeking religious help. But they just got to stay out of the political arena.
PS: Although I do not like them all, please try not to be disrespectful to any religious figure here. Thanks.
January 2nd, 2008 at 8:49 pm
I’ve never seen a gay tv or radio station anywhere. Why is the west so eager to project their wishful, liberal thinking on their colonial projects, yet not at home?
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:17 am
Fine Nadia, then stop being a hypocrite and living in the West. Move back to Iraq so you can be cleansed of the West’s liberal and colonizing ways.
It’s laughable for you to complain about the West’s ways, when you live in the cradle-to-grave uber-Western Swedish welfare system.
And what is wrong with Gays and Lesbians having their own media outlet in the Middle East? This is the 21st century. If you don’t like the modern era, Saudi Arabia is a good place for conservative Muslims to barricade themselves from the modern ways.
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:08 am
Mr.Ghost,
Being in the 21st century does not require the loss of the Middle-eastern ethical heritage. Gays and lesbians will not be accepted in the middle east in the same manner they are accepted in the west. As I have stated before, it is forbidden for Muslims to become gay or lesbian. And creating a media channel for them in the middle east would only increase them and their public appearance. This will lead to them being hurt or killed.
And honestly I don’t see how what you said to Nadia can fit into the subject we are discussing here.
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:13 am
Move back to Iraq
LOL
can be cleansed of the West’s liberal and colonizing ways.
You missed the point, unsurprisingly, that the folks using gays, or womens’s rights as an excuse to bomb certain places don’t give a shit about the ones that live in their own countries.
So to live here it’s required I can’t call anyone out on hipocrisy, ever? I shouldn’t care about the Bush admin using gays as bait to win the support the fucking crosslicking douchebags like Pat Robertson that won him the election(just like he used racism to win against mccain?) Or all the concern they have for women in Afghanistan and Iran that for some nebulous reason never crosses over to the total decimation of women’s status in post Saddam Iraq? Admitting that their intervention has pulled them out of a “modern era” doesn’t really bode well for foreign policy.
And what is wrong with Gays and Lesbians having their own media outlet in the Middle East?
Why aren’t you wanting to see one in the United States? Or stringing up hateful assholes here up by their nuts? Or asking your politicians about their friendly policies towards the government of saudi arabia and the reasons for it for that matter?
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:22 am
Sorry about that, I usually try to stay out of these kinds of debates, personally I find them kind of tired. Anyways BlogIraqi I don’t agree with you, but there is something to the point that the way these issues are drawn attention to can be incredibly damaging. For instance alot of gay activists in Iran, Africa, and the Middle East have huge problems with Outrage in the UK, for their methods and also not consulting with them and completely ignoring them when they contacted him to correct misinformation in his campaigns. I believe these issues are universal, but they obviously can’t be handled in the same noisy way that they are in the West in areas where absolute basic tolerance is still a challenge.
Either way I don’t like seeing them used as mere political pawns by anybody.
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:33 pm
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 01/03/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
January 13th, 2008 at 11:25 am
[…] 1. The rise of public awareness in Iraq about the importance of voting in a non-sectarian, non-tribal, objective way. This can occur through non-biased media, which is very rare. […]
January 13th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
“Children of unmarried single parent situation was, and still, gets the mother killed.”
Hi there!
I saw a documentary I think it was from Algeria where there was women organisations work to help single unmarried mothers.
Starting up a safehouse where they can live. Even education and help to promote skills to find work for these girls/women was included in this social development project. It was really very good to see how local people worked for change. Hard work but they do their best.
I mean lets also remember things were not that good even here in the western world when it came to unmarried mothers not so long a go. In fact in some parts there is still the stigma of shame over it.
BlogIraq when it comes to the hate you talk about. Its heartbreaking. Most of the people in power whether political, religious or economical use it for their own best interests. And being in power makes it easier for them to get their hateful messages out and the dangerous part is people do get effected when their lives are not safe. I mean Germans thought all Gypsies, Gays, Communist and Jews where out to get them because of the German media at the time. And we all know what happened after that. What about all the white racist people in the USA who hanged black people just for being black. We humans are easily brainwashed when its done in away we think our own life is a stake. And on top of it I think in periods of extreme stress such as war and conflicts people tend to out of pure tiredness many times wanting a solutions which point to that it is OTHERS fault that things are the way they are. Instead of the healthy thoughts that we are all in it together because that means one is responsible and that sometimes is so difficult to acknowledge because the guilt might tear you apart.
Here in Sweden there is something called sned vrede which means crooked anger. Crooked anger that is something I think a lot of Iraqis who express secretarian anger have. You express your anger at what’s really not the problem at all.
An example to make it clear what crooked anger means. A family has a very abusive father. He hits his kids, use threats and physical abuse. The kids are too weak to protect themselves from the father. So it ends up in the kids fighting each other instead. But we all know where the real problem is.
January 13th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Hi Nadia,
The people in power now have to send these continuous messages of hatred and sectarianism. This is cause by the fact that their existence relies on sectarianism. I mean what is Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim if he is not the representative of the poor slaughtered Shiaa? What is he worth as a “politician”? What is his party’s political program?
And the same goes for Adnan Al-Dulaimi. What is he if he is not the representative of the poor oppressed Sunnis? What is his “political” program?
And this goes for all of the dominant parties in the parliament. The all don’t worth a crap. Their existence is based on sectarianism. And they just can’t let it go. They have to have enemies to be able to justify their existence.
January 14th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
I totally agree with that comment BlogIraqi. The same goes even for the Kurdish leaders and the rest too.
History tells us this is a technique all dangerous politicians and dangerous governments use. Of all the US governments I have lived thru they all needed enemies to survive. I mean what would Bush do if it wasn’t for “enemies”? I mean what would the powerful weapon industry do without these “enemies”? Their existence is dependent on them. And if they don’t have them they create them.
Change is indeed needed in the world.
January 14th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Sorry I left out the Kurdish politicians, they are just the same.
I guess that applies to Castro in Cuba too. He lives on being enemy of the US. If you take that away from him, people will just find out that Cuba is so f*cked up because of him.
I guess every one we mentioned has his own way to wag the dog.
January 14th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Cuba is not f*cked up, it is just different. Castro is not Cuba. The way climate change will effect us all in the future we might very well have to look at Cuba’s people’s way of handling agriculture.
Do you know that if all people on this planet lived as people here in Sweden live we would need more then 6 planets. That IS a f*ucked up way of living.
: )
January 15th, 2008 at 12:24 am
I think I did not clear up this one. I did not mean that Cuba’s people are f*ckedup. I meant that their country can provide more to them and improve the quality of their lives if Castro was not in-charge. And saying Castro is bad does not mean by anyway that Cubans are bad. I don’t mean to disrespect them at all. On the opposite, I mean that they deserve more than what Castro is offering them.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:32 am
BlogIraqi here is a good book to read to understand why there is a lot to learn from Cuba’s organic farming:
Sustainable Agriculture and Resistance: Transforming Food Production in Cuba
http://www.foodfirst.org/node/361
http://www.rightlivelihood.org/gao.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1409898.stm
And lets remember the WWF important report that Cuba is the only country in the world with sustainable development.
Okay no more Cuba here from me ; )
January 15th, 2008 at 11:39 am
BlogIraq, were did my comment on Cuba’s organic revolution, BBC and Food First article and WWF go? Could it be that links are not allowed on the comment section?
Cuba’s sustainable agriculture, organic farming, urban gardens, smaller farms, animal traction, and biological pest control are all part of the new Cuban agriculture that have made Cuba according a WWF report the only country with sustainable development.
January 15th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
The comments with too much links are automatically queued for moderation, and your was just waiting for my approval.
And you’re right, no more Cuba here. Lets just get back to wagging the dog.
I am working on a big project now to try to decrease the hatred in the Iraqi media. I hope it will stand on its feet soon.
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:36 pm
A funny update –
Google has flagged the site of the Iraqi Media Network as Badware. Which is a warning of an insecure website.
A reminder that this is the site of the official media network of the Iraqi government.