Sunday, April 1, 2007

Finding Neverland

A quick search of the word "blog" on the net shows you that there are lots of them on the fantastic world of wwws. Millions of them in fact! What is our share, Iranians I mean, among all these new ways of expressing minds, thoughts & cultures? Fortunately a lot again! There is a great number of Persian blogs on the net that are showing our feelings, activities & different ways of lives. Times Online says that Farsi is now the fourth most widely used language on weblogs. It is said that there are about 700000 Iranian blogs & at least 40000-110000 of them are active. Isn't it great? Sure it is; but there seems to be a paradox here. Having all these real, written lifestyles described on the unbordered web space, why we can't see any clear image of ours & our country in the world? Why all those tourists who come here for the first time, should be that astonished by our normal & some how modern lives & shout "Oh you are not those terrorists about whom I'd heard!"? Why they hear anything, but our own words directly from us? There is a simple answer: we don't write in English.
Nearly all those Iranian bloggers are writing in Persian, just for other Iranians. There are just very few individuals who are trying to show the real face of Iran to the world through their English blogs. You can find the address of most of them here. You see? The number of those who are inside Iran is so little! Maybe we've been sluggish or didn't have enough confidence to begin to write in a foreign language. But, in the world of communications, those who can't show themselves & their capabilities, can't live!
The blog you are reading is a little step, necessary, vital maybe but not enough. We, all should realize the necessity of direct contact to the world beyond our mother born language & try to make it real. If not, we may regret the lost opportunities of revealing the truth!

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