I’m glad we agree. This whole thing was blown out of proportion for no real purpose. I hope this long ongoing feud ends and people start feeling that disagreement on certain topics is not a threat to the “Syrian way of life.” However you define that.

Regards

The issue is not arabic or english blogging it is an issue of different opinions and the perception that different bloggers get when someone expresses an opinion on their own blog. Why is it ridiculous (a comment said by alot even on some responses here) to start a blogging campaign to raise awareness to the negative effects of masturbation? Abufares in his latest post wrote “disparity of opinions should never degrade to a personal conflict.” and this is exactly what happened.

It is not necessary that a person mentions the word masturbation in order to ridicule the topic, i can ridicule and mock an issue that you raised by not mentioning the main issue in the first place. Again check Abu fares’s post on “Blogging week against anal orifices” and you would see that these are responses to the initial campaign against masturbation, or am i wrong?

The way that some people reacted to the campaigns that happen to be in the Arabic Syrian blogosphere, were in a way that whatever issue was raised was meant to limit the personal freedom of other members in a society by bringing back islamic values, and this is true for any situation where islam and secularism.

Correct me if i was wrong but didn’t the masturbation campaign contain some islamic elements within?

An individual islamic perspective and not the perspective of all the different sects within islam. I didn’t read everything about the campaign, all I read was a couple of responses in english to those campaigns, and since I have been following some of those blogs for a while now I know that those people disagree with most of the things that are said from an islamic perspective, therefore it is not baseless and is not bad faith.

Again it is an islamic perspective of an individual. It is not a myth, we all know that there are different sects within islam however they mostly only differ in more important elements of the islamic faith.

I read Anas’s post not as a reaction to the weekly blogging campaigns-even though he wrote it as a reaction to these campaigns- but about the problem between two “teams” in the blogsphere. it’s worth to note, that these campaigns did not offend the arab blogsphere as a whole, only a few of them. Jabi’s comment is an evidence that we are not talking about arabic or english blogging.

Who exactly did initiate the weekly blogging campaigns against the blogger who blogged against masturbation? Of all the bloggers who participated in the campaigns only two mentioned the word “masturbation” and in different contexts. does that mean any blogger who mentions the word masturbation is necessarily ridiculing that blogger? they might be responding, and what if they are? why is it ok when a handful of bloggers discuss censorship, the imprisonment of prisoners of conscience, honor crimes etc but it’s not ok to talk about how they view masturbation? it seems to me that what we’re saying, when it comes to taboos, we should blog to support these taboos and not to blog against them even if this is what we believe in “as syrians”.

so seriously, i think this is getting ridiculous. my problem is that there are no initiatives to clarify the misunderstanding between these two teams. there should be no problem whatsoever if someone blogged about the same “topic”, it’s should be about “how” they blogged it, and i don’t think anyone in this campaign was offensive to any blogger, but rather, to the “morals” of some bloggers who assume “all syrians” share.

I enjoyed these campaigns and I related to most of them.

Jabi, you said:

“It was unfortunate that some of the Syrian bloggers took some initiatives and blogging campaigns as an attack to their personal freedom and not as an opportunity to start a dialogue with those who started those initiatives.”

Who do you speak of and how did they exactly attacked the blogger’s personal freedom?

you also said:

“I wonder if the person starting the campaign was aiming to spread awareness of the negative effects of masturbation without raising the issue from an Islamic perspective, would have received the same ridicule from the bloggers who attacked the campaign in an unnecessary vehement manner..?”

So you’re wondering whether these campaigns are an attack on the “the Islamic perspective” of maturation?

is there something called “Islamic perspective” in the first place? aren’t there Islamic perspectives countering Islamic perspectives? Do ALL Muslims share and believe in ALL Islamic perspectives to how they should be better Muslims?
Most importantly, aren’t there Muslims, in these campaigns who you assume they’re attacking that blogger’s Islamic perspective on masturbation? furthermore, why didn’t you read these bloggers campaign, since to you it’s a direct response to that blogger, that perhaps, they’re Muslims countering this Islamic perspective? why did you read it as a campaign “against” islam than a “dialogue” amongst muslims on this islamic perspective?

Your comment Jabi assumes: one: bad faith from these bloggers, which i think is baseless. two, that there is a consensus amongst muslims’ reading to Islam, which is a myth some Muslims can’t seem to bypass it.

I think the comment above only proves how

As Syrians most of us for a very long time didn’t have the opportunity to share our opinions with fellow Syrians due to restrictions upon our freedom to say and express our opinions in a public forum due to either societal barriers or government barriers. However, blogging gave us that opportunity, and we are able to put forward issues (whether they were important to other bloggers or not) up for discussion. It was unfortunate that some of the Syrian bloggers took some initiatives and blogging campaigns as an attack to their personal freedom and not as an opportunity to start a dialogue with those who started those initiatives.

In regards to the issue of the current campaign against masturbation, I wonder if the person starting the campaign was aiming to spread awareness of the negative effects of masturbation without raising the issue from an Islamic perspective, would have received the same ridicule from the bloggers who attacked the campaign in an unnecessary vehement manner..?

I think that blogging, in addition to it being a means to express and deliver ones opinions to those who care, is also a means to create an understanding between different people with different ideas and not something that creates differences between different people and creates an atmosphere of intolerance and narrow mindedness to each others opinions which is exactly what has happened.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say by “CUT IT OUT”. Exactly, cut what out?

Irony is that I blogged about something I really detest: tribalism. I always try to distance myself from the herd mentality. I’d like to think of myself as a free-thinker who relies on himself for guidance and is always skeptical of broad generalizations.

So unlike you, I don’t really see a sinister pattern….