Good Blogs

I've been laughing a lot during my blog-hunting these days, mostly due to:

ARIDO [ARABIC]

Ahmed Khalaf al-Musawi is an Iraqi atheist from a southern Shi'i background, who is well known in the Arab online atheist community as some sort of a godfather, his writings have a style that I daresay would rival Shalash al-Iraqi's in quality, his style is unique: complete disregard of punctuation that gives an impression of a classical Arabic book, complete ignorance of spelling, and a very flowing narrative filled with an extraordinarily surreal sense of words.

It somehow seems to me that Iraqi Atheists are the largest of all the Arab atheist communities, well, after what's going on in Iraq, who could blame them.

أرشيف طالب عجوزي Diaries of a Lazyass Student [Arabic]

a rather typical Iraqi blog for a college student in his early twenties, except that he can be extremely funny. don't miss احداث فتحت لاصحابها بوابة...الاردن

Less funny but more in the vein of mainstream Iraqi blogs is the serious and brooding is Baghdad Kassakhon [Storyteller], written by a journalist living in Baghdad.


Iraqi Interpreter is a great blog written live from where the action is by a 20-year-old Iraqi interpreter, giving us a much needed firsthand insight in the trials and tribulations of Iraqi interpreters, he is honest, angry and we get to watch him toughened by his life experiences.

Serendipity

A new blog by two new bloggers: Surreal and Ammar Kanno.

Surreal:

I was born here where am living now! in the eighth of May 1986, my name is..., its not important, "silliest things we hold are our names" NIZAR QABANI

I know him and I'm telling you, he's one humorous, helpful and intelligent man, and he looks very good in his black suit, red shirt and red tie that he wore to his graduation party! :)

Ammar Kanno:

"A very ordinary man..."

..whom I do not know.. but he seems to have such a talent as a poet.

They have very recently started to blog and so there's no telling how the blog is going to turn out.. Hopefully however, it's going to last as long as they can breathe!
That's what you told me Surreal and I'm not going to forget it ;)

Enjoy

Neurosurgery in Iraq

They say "blogging is difficult but its harldly brain surgery." But this one is. Dr. Haitham H. Shareef writes about all the latest developments in the field of neurology in Iraq. So if you are a brain surgeon looking for like-minded (no pun intended) people or desperate to know if you can get your suprasellar arachnoid cyst treated with endoscopy in Baghdad... this is the blog for you.

What I like about this blog is that it is so ordinary. It shows whatever happens to Iraq we will always bounce back.

So now we have brain surgery what next.. rocket science? oops lets not go there!

New Blogs

2 New Arabic Blogs (I'm thinking of adding them in a separate blogroll), and 2 English Blogs.

Arabic:

Ali العراق من الخارج
مدونة لعراقي في أمريكا يتكلم فيها عن رؤيته العلمانية للعراق و ضرورة فصل الدين عن الدولة
Free Human حاتم عبد الواحد
مدونة الكاتب و المثقف و الإعلامي العراقي حاتم عبد الواحد الذي تنشر مقالاته في عدة مواقع الكترونية عراقية- مدونة ثائرة على الدين عموما و فيها أيضا قصص عن بعض المثقفين العراقيين
English:
Iraqi Translator blogs from Iraq where he works as a translator with the American troops, this is the first blog of its type, his English is far from perfect and hasn't blogged so far about anything important but he's bound to have some interesting stories to tell in the near future.

I also advice you to check the blog Najma added below, Mosul is in heart, it's occasionally funny, lively and has a lot of personal feel in it.

Also, a blog we counted as "stopped" has recently featured a new article, Abbas Kadhim [not me, a published Iraqi academic in America] writes about a Post-Surge Iraq.

New Blogs Added

In addition to Baghdad Dentist and Iraqi Psychatrist, I have added links to two other Iraqi blogs.

Iraqi Plume holds the title of the only Iraqi blog actively detested by blog darling Sunshine, who accuses her of plagiarism, there are some [huge] angles to this claim, but still, some rather wonderful things began through imitation, besides, the blogosphere could use a few cheery girls anyway.

Inside Iraq is a blog written by Iraqi journalists working in the McClatchy newspapers, it often contains some useful insights.

Iraqi Psychatrist - Colors of Mind

A friend of mine told me this story: When he was six years old, he couldn't sleep at night, his parents decided to let him visit a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist asked him questions and perscribed him medicine, I asked my friend if it did anything, and he said: Yes, I became able to sleep, but only because I didn't want to see the psychiatrist again.

This little anecdote describes the idea that Iraqis in general are skeptical about a person visiting shrinks, automatically associating them with lunacy, and this is why we have today a refreshingly different blog about an Iraqi psychiatrist who stirs up conversations about the origin of Iraqi cockroaches during a formal dinner, talks to dead idols while he's alone, and quite simply just about everything you'd expect from an Iraqi who decided to choose the quizzical career of a psychiatrist in a land where mental disease is associated with Djinn possession. Saminkie is an interesting fresh graduate living in Iraq, often trekking between Baghdad and Mosul. His blog focuses more on personal experiences than dredging political commentary, an essential attraction of blogs and a severely missing one in the Iraqi Blogosphere. While Saminkie often commits gramatical errors, his posts are genuinely worthy to read, if anything, it's because of his unusual profession, he introduces himself as:

Wellcome to my blog, it is about my interests which I think many share me: PSYCHIATRY comes first cause am a resident doctor in psychiatry hoping that I will be a specialist in 4 years; IRAQ HISTORY cause am iraqi and like history especially the summerian and babylonian era; and all the siences that are linked to both psychiatry and Iraq history and that will be a long list.....
well you gonna have nice time with my blog...

Baghdad Dentist

With a recommendation from one of my favourite bloggers, this blog certainly got my attention. Baghdad Dentist is, well, a dentist and he's from Baghdad - but he's working in Mosul. Only into his third post, his reports of the events around him and his life in Mosul makes unmissable reading. Here is his introduction in his own words...

I'm a dentist (fresh graduate). I lived my 23 years in baghdad and living the 24th in mosul. I moved to mosul temporarily since the beginning of violence and the deteriorated security situation.
I lived the best times in baghdad especially in baghdad college secondary school where I graduated from.
I have an obcession of electronics especially computers and communication staff, so I studied in an institute of electronics during summer holiday when I was 15. my big desire was to be an electronic engineer, but the temptation of being a dentist and keen on progress in electronics field (being creative in two fields at the same time) override.
And that is what im going to achieve, working now in a specialized dental centre as a rotator dentist and the rest of the day with computers especially in baghdad I began to make deals to fix used laptops but it’s a small business for the while time. As a rotator dentist im trying my best to get use of my seniors' experience and im planning to get the master degree this year.

Uncensored ArabWomanBlues

Layla Anwar of the blog An Arab Woman Blues can hardly be described as a shrinking violet - for example, here she is writing about Islamists:

I absolutely detest, abhor, despise, hate, the current Iraqi government. I hate the fucking mullahs. I hate Sistani, Maliki, Jaafari, Muqtada al Sadr, Al Hakeem and there rest of the smelly retards - all those sectarian Shia shits from Iran. I can’t stand Iran’s Ahmadinajad, Khomeini, Khatemi, Khameini...Kha, kha, kha, khara...(khara is shit in Arabic) I am totally allergic to the snake Nasrallah and his fucked up sectarian Hezbollah, who says one thing and does another.

But it does not stop there...

I am a fed up with the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, the Salafists, the Wahabists...

And I am talking here as a WOMAN. These bastards stand against everything women of my generation fought for.

Erm, yes, quite ... you get the point. So it may come as some surprise to know that she has come up with a new blog called "Uncensored Arab Woman Blues". After diatribes of the kind above, what on earth has she got left to censor???

If you think about it, the answer is blindingly obvious. In her new blog, the hard woman of Iraqi blogs lets out her soft soft squishy side. And Layla comes over as a complex, vulnerable, sensitive person that you really want to get to know. I am slowly becoming a fan. Here is her own introduction...

This is proving more difficult than I imagined.
It's as if there are certain "red lines," I am not supposed to cross, transgress.

On the one hand, I am probably expected to continue fighting the fight - for the most part alone. My other blog is completely devoted to Iraq, even though that was not my only intention. I guess starting this one is an attempt on my part to affirm my own territory, my own space...Only for me. Hence no remarks will be allowed.

The other thing that feels like a stumbling block and which am hoping to turn into a stepping stone - is that old voice in my head that keep repeating in an automated fashion "what will people say"

Again, it feels as if I have stumbled on some big taboo that I need to break down, or chisle away at, sculpt it and change its forms hoping that the final product, will be a piece of personal art.

Two Iraqi Bloggers Off The Market

Eerily in sync with this blog post about Iraqis marrying all over the uneasy piece in Iraq ; two Iraqi bloggers publish freakishly similar picture-posts announcing their engagement ; Marshmallow26 and Micho Meme, alif mabrook.





To top it off, Micho Memo had apparently engaged into the 'family', into a reclusive blogger called Lion King. who celebrated himself on his blog.

This Is Too Much

Anyone complaining about rising Islamist influence in Iraq hasn't seen Iraqi blogs, where the hell are the Islamic blogs? I can't think of any! On the other hand, this is the third atheist blog in a row.

Poor Iraqi is a half-Kurdish man writing from Erbil, he has only two posts so far and the last one is in October, which might mean he lost interest, but anyway, this is his introductory post:

اولا السلام على الجميع اعرفكم بنفسي انا عراقي من اب كوردي و ام عربية وفي الرابعة والثلاثون من عمري متزوج ولدي 2 من الاولاد اكملت الدراسة الثانوية الفرع الادبي ومن ثم اكملت سنتين في معهد المعلمين وحصلت شهادة الدبلوم في بغداد ومن ثم اكملت الخدمة العسكرية الاجبارية البالغة سنة ونصف ,احب القرأة كثيرا وبعد تعمقي بالديانة الاسلامية وتأثري بأصدقائي من المسلمين ذوي المذهب السلفي السني الوهابي واطلعت ايضا على باقي المذاهب الاسلامية والفلسفية وقرات عن علم الكلام في الثقافة الاسلامية دخلت في متاهه فكرية ضلت تراود فكري حول تناقضات الدين ,وبعد دخول الامريكان واسقاط نظام صدام واطلاعي على الانترنت الذي كان ممنوعا في العراق او مراقبا في احسن الاحوال نمت لي قناعة ترك الدين من خلال الافكار التي ترسخت لي وتلك الحقائق الدامغة على ضعف هذا التفكيرالقاصر اي التفكير الديني , فالدين عبارة عن حاجة نفسية للأطمنان الذاتي والاستقرار فهو باختصار صنع الانسان كما صنع الانسان القديم صنما من الطين ليعبده , فيما تطور العقل فصار هذا الاله لا يرى ولكن يحسب له الف حساب,انا اقتناعي ليس الحاديا بل اعتقد ان هناك مكونا ذكيا كون الوجود لكن ما هو لا احد يدري لا عبقري يجمع الناس من حوله ويقول ان رسول الاله قد نزل عليه ولا مسكين قد قال انا ابن هذا الله. والانسانية تنتظر الجواب وشكرا

And his other post lays down his supposed theory of superior intelligence of some races over others, citing the black man's lack of civilization as an example.

Peace Angel & A Free Man

Hey! I can't remember for the life of me when was the last time somebody updated this blog, it seems like the Iraqi blogodrome is experiencing a menstrual pause, for what it's worth, let's skip speculations and stick to indexing.

Perhaps one of the effects of a religious war of any sort is an angry Godless reaction, while infidel Iraqi bloggers have long been a fixation here, i mean, hey, the first Iraqi blogger was an atheist, but it was not until Iraqi Atheist came about that blogs began to emerge totally focused upon religion-bashing, and today we present to you Iraq The Land of Sand and Ash, this arabic-language blog is heavily inspired by perhaps the most well-known Arab atheist blogger, the Emirati Ben Kerishan, going as far as copying his paragraph-image-paragraph writing rhythm and his own distinct phrases and terms such as 'the Land of Sands', unfortunately, he doesn't seem to possess the same uncanny wit or depth of Kerishan, ending up like a secondhand copycat, he introduces himself as :

في اوائل العشرينيات من عمري تركت العراق,فاقدا كل امالي في ان اعود اليها يوما,القيت بشرا برمجت ادمغتهم بايديولوجيات و افكار رمليه تحدد نمط حياتها و تفكيرها,جاعلين لانفسهم اعداء وهميين وليس لهم اعداء اصلا,انتبهوا هم اعدائكم,و هم يكذبون عليكم

اين هي عقولكم يا امه الرمال؟؟؟

On a less reactionary note, Peace Earth is a friendly blog in its formative weeks, blogging in Arabic about such fundamental truths as friendship, peace, and understanding. on his/her (but more likely her) most recent post, the Angel ponders the relativistic nature of 'best':

هل تذكرون اقلام المدرسة عندما كانا واحدا اطول من الاخر ففي بعض الاحيان كنت افضل الاكبر لانه مريح في الكتابة وفي بعض الاحيان كنت امسك اصغر قلم لكي اتحداه باصابعي الصغيرة اننا نرى الافضل بنسبة احدهما بالاخر انها نظرية النسبية التي قال بها انشتاين في احد الايام و تمشي معنا طوال ايام حياتنا فنحكم على الاشياء والاحداث كما تعلمنا فتكون هنالك افضلية لما هو اكبر واجمل واغنى ليس هنالك مشكلة في هذا انه شيء نسبي وموجود كل شيء ياخذ حقه في هذا ولكن المشكلة عندما يوجد شخص يحاول ان يصبح الافضل بان يقمع غيره ويحبطه ولايتكلم الا عن اشياء سلبية قد لاتوجد في الاخرين في الواقع! انهم الضعاف في علم النفس تسمى هذه بالاسقاط بان يحاول الفرد يخفي عيوبه عن طريق القاءها على غيره انهم نماذج موجودة بكثرة من لايعرفون طرق النجاح ولكن وان اصبحوا ناجحين يوجد دائما من هم افضل منهم انهم في الواقع الاناس الطيبون الذين لايعتبرون ظهور البشر سلما لنجاحهم وسيبقون افضل من كل من سبق انهم اصحاب رسالات السلام...

الأديـــان مـن صـنـع الإنـسـان .. أثير العرا

Atheeriraqi has dedicated his blog to the promotion of atheism (in Arabic). What more is there to say? Well quite a lot actually. If you read Arabic or want to use Google's web page translator you can read his (very) detailed arguments. Atheer writes:

"The blog is about criticizing relegions, mostly Islam because I know more about it, but also something about christianity and judism, focusing on the conflict between science and the holy books, which proves definetly(from my point of view) that the religions are man-made not from the creator, the blog does not discuss about the existance of a God(although I am interested in) because I do not have yet a clear opinion about that, I think that the existance of a God is a very complicated issue."

Indigo-Daisy

I know I am stretching the definition of 'Iraqi' here, but Deborah Abdulla is married to an Iraqi and her children are half Iraqi. Anyway, its such a great blog that I will have to make her my honorary Iraqi for the week just to include it.

Indigo-Daisy is about poetry (her own and others), peace, recipes and fun. Here is a sample...

The laws of my soul

there are three major types of laws that people will follow,

the laws of the land,
the laws of the church,
and the laws of the soul

if there should come a time when they are not equal, and I must choose one over the other
I shall choose to follow my soul,
for I can step outside of the land and the church,
but I can not step outside my soul.

~Deborah Abdulla

LGBTQ of Iraq

LGBTQ of Iraq blogs in Arabic and, he assures me, soon, in English about Lesbian and Gay issues in Iraq. Lesbians and Gays are regularly singled out and targeted by the various armed groups in Iraq.

Most Iraqis of my father generation will make a face like they have seen something disgusting when you mentions gays. But even my father would point out that a delegation of gays from the UK visited Iraq in the 1930's because, at that time, gays had more rights in Iraq than they did in Britain. This is because what you did in the privacy of your own home in Iraq is treated as your own business and nobody else's. Now with the extremist militias running freely imposing there own perverse laws not even the home is safe. And rights for gays and lesbians has become an important issue. Simply because if don't care about this one then you will be next.

Armenian Issues

I read today one Iraqi football fan saying "Iraqi is like a bunch of flowers not a pie to be divided". And Ara Ashjian is one of those flowers, reporting from Baghdad on the travails of the Iraqi Armenian community. Read here to find links to all the Armenian blogger, the latest issues worrying the Armenian community in Iraq to the Iraqi Armenian who became a health minister in the UK!

Being, the oppressed

NOTE: Original post by Salam Adil restored after a little "Konfusion".

They say "If you go looking for trouble, you will find it". April Girls goes looking for beauty and finds it in abundance. She introduces herself as:

I believe in God, in humanity, in non-violent communication and in a global-unity-in-diversity that allows each and every culture its own specialness, while setting them all in the context of a universal care and fairness that honors the uniqueness of each.

And she takes a unique perspective on world events. Here she writes about the second bombing of the Samarra shrine:

There are 6,601,676,326 ways to God. (Right now.) That many ways to worship, to think, to talk, to act, to take in this world. Has that not been realized? So what is with all this 'holier than thou' attitudes running rampant? And on a universal level I have to add! What is going on? Do you not believe you are walking on the One True Path? Is that not enough? Does your path force you to hurt, rape, murder and destroy this planet?

More Blogs

1. Last of Iraqis: Iraqi dentist who is a relative of Zeyad, still living in Iraq, and that's a big plus. A solid blog with perhaps the best blog-coverage so far of the 2nd Askari incident, as well as an interesting video of Adhamiya. Blogs dilligently.
2. Kurdistan Diary: Okay, don't flame me for this but Kurdistan is still part of Iraq at least nominally so far, this one anyway has interesting stuff to say, starting with this unusual post about wanting to fight for the troublesome PKK.
3. Check out this another Kurdish blog from an engineer in Irbil, The World Has Another Face, however if he didn't say he is Kurdish you would hardly recognize it, filled with the same emotions and sentiments for Iraq as any other normal Iraqi, this blog is mostly poems written in Arabic, he has another blog, which is mentioned on his sidebar, which is filled with interesting pictures.

I also added the new blog URL for 3eeraqimedic, who deleted her blog on a panic moment but we managed to persuade her otherwise.

Most Sectarian Blog Ever - Revisited

Following on from The Kid declaring The Shaqawa to be 'The Most Sectarian Blog Ever' it is time to revisit this award in light of the last blog I reviewed.

Having written a positive post about Layla Anwar's blog An Arab Woman Blues it is time for some balance. When I reviewed her blog for the previous post I just read through a couple of posts and thought "she has issues but that's OK." Then I wondered ... this blog has been going on for a year now why on earth has no other IraqBlogCount member picked it up.

A short scan through her archive and I realized... Layla Anwar represents a part of Iraqi society that most ordinary Iraqi's would rather block out or pass on as not Iraqi. Her blog blatantly and crudely embodies the fanatical pro-Saddam sect that dogged the existence of nearly every Iraqi with ties to their country. And sectarian she is. You see, during the thirty years of Saddam's reign he built around his personality cult his own sect just as fanatical as any Shia or Sunni extremists that makes life in Baghdad hell for ordinary Iraqis.

What interests me is that our two most-sectarian bloggers have much more in common than they would like to admit.

A reverential love for their sect leader....

Here Layla is writing to Saddam:

I will address you as Saddam Hussein, Sir.
Even though I still consider you to be the legitimate President of Iraq, allow me not to use any formalities here. Let us forget titles , ranks and the rest . ... I don't care what they say about You . The misuses and abuses of power, the Dujails, the Anfals and the rest of the well knitted pieces of grossly exaggerated melodramas. I know one Truth Sir,You stayed in Iraq and did not run away like the rest.

And here is Shaqawa writing about Hakim:

Hakim is of course the leader of SIIC, the largest group of the largest list in parliament. So he is very powerful. He is the son of the Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Mohsen al-Hakim, who was the most important leader of the Shi’a before Sayyid Abul-Qasim al-Khoei and Sayyid Ali al-Sistani. ... Of course there are so many sad stories in Iraq. Hakim getting sick is just one thing out of very many... I think there are some very good things about Hakim and also if Hakim is not acting as a leader for Iraq because of his health, it is bad for the Iraqi people

A pathological hatred of the opposition...

Compare...

Tawafuq MP Adnan al-Dulaimi ... this son of a bitch is suspected of crimes far beyond his most visible criminal act of wearing a stupid hat.

with...

Seems that the man in black, the turbaned, psychotic, farce called Muqtada al Sadr has returned as the Savior of Iraq.

And the irony that both bloggers do not consider themselves Sectarian. Layla talks proudly of her Shia roots while Shaqawa will write of his objectivity.

But, the real question is who wins. Well, after Layla's fawning letter to Saddam and labelling of Basra as an Iranian enclave; I am sorry Shaqawa you are going to have to hand over your award!

An Arab Woman's Blues

Layla Anwar gives the world a piece of her mind in beautifully powerful prose that leaves you simply awestruck. One commenter summed her blog up in one word - "wow". Here are her words on the plight of Iraqi women:

You know what woman battering is don't you?

It is basically when a man beats, strikes, punches, kicks, pounds...a woman and sometimes severly enough that she ends up in hospital and sometimes severly enough to bring about her death.

It is interesting to note that the verb "to batter" is also used in cooking i.e to make a dough. The French have similar anologies between battering a woman and food. They would say he turned her into a "compote".(compote is cooked fruits). Ditto for Arabic expressions. They would say he broke her bones, they became like "soup"...

Am sure other "cultures" have more analogies of the same sort. I will leave it to you to dig up some expressions that you are familiar with, along the same lines...

Did you notice something here? A common trait in the use of words, in the use of language?

It is as if they allude to render that "thing" liquefied, easily moulded, soft to the palate...
In sum, easily mixed and easily digestible. I will also leave it to you to make further associations on the same theme.

No society is immune from woman battering. I will not dwell on figures now. All societies are guilty of it. East and West, equally guilty. And R.Kipling was wrong when he said that East and West shall never meet. They do meet. They met. They met in Iraq.

They met in Iraq, the land, the earth, the Mother...
They also met and agreed on her daughters bodies - Iraqi Women.

That body which, since the "liberation", has become a public commodity. A public thing. A thing to be veiled, a thing to be controlled, a thing to be ordered about, a thing to be disposed of, a thing to be battered, moulded, shaped into a liquefied, soft, yielding thing. A digestible thing.

Yes, batter, pound, strike, punch, beat, rape, torture, imprison...that "thing" and ultimately dispose of it, annihilate it.

Both "East and West" are bent on the destruction of Iraqi women.
It is as if, plundered, occupied Iraq has become the center point, the "lieu" where these forces can pour out their venom, their deep hatred, their frustrated instincts, their perversities...In sum their collective misogyny.

Danger Zone

A new technology blog from Iraq! Everything is here from controlling USB devices without kernel modules in Linux to finding good cheep hotels and Internet access in Basra.

Hasan worked in Qatar and moved back to Iraq after his contract ended. He chose Basra because Baghdad is just too dangerous. Good luck and keep posting we need to hear more from that city. He writes:

unlike Baghdad , Basrah is full of life. The streets are always crowded and you don't have to take the same cautions like in Baghdad.

Police are army checkpoints are everywhere in the city which makes you feel safe , I saw some British patrols during the day there , I tried to avoid them. But they looked more friendly than the American army.

Bad to the Bone

Just what the Iraqi blogodrome needs another young woman with attitude. Glory Rose gives us the stream of conscience that passes through her mind from day to day in her blog 3adma (which is Arabic for bone). She introduces herself as "a half Iraqi half Egyptian girl living in Cairo, studying medicine, having a pretty much messed up life".

Metal Documentary and more blogs

Check the sidebar for this three-shot of blog additions, arranged by order of discovery:

1. Sheko Mako: The recent t