To censure or not.

Since one of my greatest hobbies in my spare times nowadays is to read comments left in Alarabiya.net, not only I find these comments amusing, and vulgarly entertaining to give me a good impulse of a good heartache, but it is a great source to learn how low the Arab mind thinks in its epitome zenith to reach the gutter of shallow thinking, racism, derogatory stereotypes, xenophobia and of course sexism. And of course I can not generalize, but these negative elements are fully found in that's site's comments column.

This uncensored phenomenon of leaving distasteful comments wide open to the public, made me really think, why the people in charge are not censuring these uncalled, low-class comments, even in public discussion forums they replace moderators to moderate foul commentary, how come in a "professional" website like Alarabiya.net such thing is not conducted up bar to the acceptable level of civilized discussion.
Thinking I am really right, I was complaining to sis about how lowly some people are, and how disgraceful some Iraqis that leave comments in Alarabiya leaving me utterly ashamed for their tribal, supremacist, racist thinking.

She on the other hand agreed with my moral principles but she said what I am calling for is just against freedom of speech, she continued with her argument, saying those people are representing their environments, and the comments are just excretion of such environments, and by letting such secretions, pus and disgusting crap out there, is but to give it chances to reform, as the filth is not fermenting but exposed to sterilized sun. And she also, added something really personal of how I always used to tell her to confront my parents with what she is thinking and to stop being miss diplomatic and an a$$ kisser, in order for the thesis and the anti-thesis melt into each other and to make something out of it. I could not reply back to that comment, but thinking now, such analogy does not make sense, maybe because I think "I make more sense" :D than my parents when it comes to my freedoms and that I respect people as long as they respect my freedoms.

As for me, I see the comments as poisonous, defamatory for me as an Iraqi, and will only spread hatred in a time where division is thriving and unity is needed.

She added, that people laying their hatred to the wide public to read is also, a good defensive mechanism as it will educate people from other nations of ill intentions felt by other people, so they will be more savvy. This reminds me of this Turkish guy back in university, he quite confidently told me that northern Iraq belongs to Turkey lol

But my argument, this untainted person who have not heard a horrible comment made by his peer from a neighboring country will act naturally when confronted with that neighbor who may harbor such horrible feelings but vanishes as he/she sees the opposite of what he accepted as he/she is tainted. (now this is generally but I am not interested to make it complicate but just to give the idea), so basically it is an action and reaction argument.
But there are also countries that do not need its people to divulge top notch secrets, just yesterday Iran announced that Bahrain is part of Iran, however, if I go to an Iranian discussion forum could I be learning something different, hence the public might is not necessarily similar to the gov.


But I guess it is the Middle East, lets give war a chance, yammy lets people learn by experience, respectable eh!

"In Baghdad there are only killers and victims. I cannot be a killer and I do not want to be a victim," said Basim Hamed, a sculptor who left Iraq to stay in Syria.

I just wanted to share this quote I read in Emirates Today newspaper.

Bosoms, not so seductive in this case!

Beware, alert, beware, bosom showcase ---A fully covered woman, from head to toe yet publicly breast feeding her baby!! Is not that like an oxymoron, and should not breast be covered?

I do not remember what ailment it was, but I think it was extreme dryness or diarrhea that many Iraqi kids suffered from during the sanctions, and there was this small t.v. segment in Iraq advising mothers to opt for natural milks and to breast feed their babies, and I was shocked to see a bare breast in t.v. yet the lady was muhajaba wearing 3abaya? I do not get it.

But also I remember when I was a kid traveling with my uncle’s family in a taxi from Basra to Baghdad, my uncle’s wife did not showcase her breast just like that, she covered! So why women show and others do not. But my uncle’s wife is known to be a very shy person!

And in the west, through my friend’s witness account, he was shocked to see a woman breast feeding her baby publicly. So now, it is international, it is like bosom liberation day, ooops I mean woman liberation day, but these are innocent accounts I guess, like
Janet Jackson, she is no mother but the whole universe got all hyped up when her nipple showed in the American national t.v.

So it seems, it is about innocence versus intentional seduction. So breasts lose their seductive, lecherous appeal when they are used for other purposes, and they look merely like milk containers? :D

But I still do not get it, even the face is not showing but the breast is. Weird. Can not she go somewhere more private? No honestly it is the 21 century with great edifices built; I am sure there are places women can scurry to and be unseen.

I just do not get it.

You have to say what is happening, and how it happened, and where, when. You got to complete the story; you got to find all details, and quirks of that story.

But who chooses this story over the other story, even though if you are covering the whole. There are empirical details side by side as others, so why choose certain empirical nuggets over others to shape the ‘conspicuous truth’ of that story, or why leave some stories uncovered.

Is not all relating to a perspective, each of our own, as we all maintain a lens of our own mental making envisaged through our needles we sew to make our “story material”.

Does an independent news agency exist, can it ever exist? Given the intricacies of wider networks of people, so how many perspectives are there, and why it becomes a sole, prime one at the end? We all can define what alarabiya is, or aljazeera, cnn ect….

Even if we tell a story against all the immoral oddballs or phenomenon of war crimes, nahr al barid, genocides, Nigeria, Al-hashimi killing al-alousi kids, civil strives, and Paris Hilton’s rubbish auction reaching 1.5 million dollars

How cultural relative is this “moral vs. immoral” paradigm is?

And what is even more disturbing and deleterious --how much of moral responsibility do we carry to spread the news of those ever so immoral-imbeciles to awaken yes surely the consciousness, but also smothering the mind of those untouched with dirt, desensitivizing the consciousness level even to a lower level. I do not like violent movies too.

So what makes a good journalism, and is there such thing as a “neutral being” can it ever exist? and who owns these institutions, the thoughtful, sensitive plebian…of course not.

God, it feels a lot better to write questions, than boring dictum.