This post does not have to do with whether censorship is a good or bad thing. It also does not talk about a specific book being censored as my other posts do. I needed a short break from all of the same ‘ol stuff.
This weekend I found an article that talked about awards that were handed out to people who went against censorship. Some of them wrote stories, others made films, and others simply spoke out about what they believed.
The journalism award went to Abdel Kareem Soliman who wrote using the name Kareem Amer. This post will be about him. You may be wondering why I would blog about a journalist instead of talking about the man who got the literature award. I understand that my topic is censorship in literature, but I chose Soliman because he was censored because of his blogging. If you want to see his site I have a link at the bottom of the page. You won’t be able to read it, but it is pretty cool anyways.
Even more that just being banned from the web, Soliman
“was recently sentenced to four years in prison after using his web log to criticize the country’s top Islamic institution, al-Azhar university, and President Hosni Mubarak, whom he called a dictator.”
It is odd because in our classroom we see blogging as an educational tool, something fun to do on the weekend, a way to connect with others, and a way to put our knowledge out for people to see. We don’t really think that there may be other people reading our stuff (besides the teacher and fellow classmates.) It really hit me in class on Thursday when Professor Rozema showed us the blog conversation that took place between the student and the author of the “This I Believe” essay. Then, I found the short article on censorship awards and the two of them combined made me really think about the things I write before I post.
As bloggers we need to be careful about what we say and how we say it. The internet has such potential for us now and for our future students. However, we all need to realize that what we post is out there for ALL to see and the things that we say should be closely monitored. Now, I’m not saying that we can’t take a stand for our beliefs—in fact I think that is what blogging is all about but I am saying that how we say things makes a big difference.
So, yeah I just thought it was neat to think about all the people who are potentially reading our blogs. So be careful what you say!
Abdel Kareem Soliman’s blog.
“Awards for free speech defenders”. BBC News. March 14, 2007
