Bloggers debate homosexuality and democracy

03/05/2007

Bloggers in the Maghreb debated homosexuality and its place in society and online, and discussed the state of the upcoming elections in Algeria.

[Getty Images] An Algerian looks at electoral posters in Algiers on May 1st. The official campaign for parliamentary elections in Algeria opened one week ago.

Some Tunisian bloggers are angered by the decision of Hou-Hou blog to allow the inclusion of the Gay Tunisia blog in his TN-blogs aggregator.

The first angry reaction was submitted by Tunisien Doctor, who wrote, "with the addition of Gay Tunisia to TN-blogs, I will leave you, dear blogger friends, in protest of a group whose sexual practices play no part in our culture, religion or legal system". The blogger then asked Hou-Hou Blog to delete his link from the TN-blogs list that he runs.

Responding to the whole affair, Gay Tunisia posted: "I did not really think that my first message would get the whole blogsphere this excited. The objective was certainly to launch a debate through my blog, initiate an exchange, an evolution of ideas as has happened for years in Europe or in the United States. I did not think, however, that it would go this far."

In a post about intolerance, Hou-Hou blog wrote, "what I found paradoxical and sad is that the communities that suffer the most from intolerance, discrimination, racism, marginalisation, incomprehension, xenophobia… are themselves the most intolerant, racist and ignorant when it comes to differences. When an Arab is categorised as a terrorist, when he is discriminated against or stigmatised by others (which happens a lot), he thunders indignantly against injustice, intolerance and racism. However the same people are the first to proudly declare themselves homophobes and scream loud and strong: 'death to gays'."

In a post titled "Racism," Karim also blogged against intolerance and xenophobia. "It is strange how we have adopted the idea that being Jewish means being…anti-Arab. And being Arab means anti-Semite and terrorist. They wanted to make us believe that we are enemies. That we do not have anything in common…only the absolute ignorance of the origins of these two peoples can lead to the conclusion that they are historical enemies. While if we search, even a little, we will find out that this war is between two 'brother' nations… let's stop transmitting [ridiculous] ideas and try to start listening to one another, and respect their beliefs," wrote the blogger.

Algerians are facing a lacklustre run up to this month’s elections, as "after five days of electoral campaigning, participating parties have not yet captivated the popular interest, and have not been able to convince [the electorate] of the importance…of the May 17th vote," explained Kharroubi Habib in a post on Kamel Chibout's blog.

According to Habib, most Algerian analysts believe this lack of interest is due to the extravagant promises made by parties, "that leave [Algerians] very sceptical…for they have no illusions when it comes to the way legislative power works in the country".

Tahia Bladi doubts the "voting game" will make any difference, as "it never leads to real democracy, that which…forces the judge to free the defendant as long as his guilt is not established, which prevents the security agent from abusing citizens, which gives consumers the right to fight against services that mistreat them, that which take away "hogra" [oppression], corruption, abuse of power, utilizing the public wealth for personal interest". The blogger argued that democracy is something that is not said, but practiced "like a national sport".