Bloggers in Iran and Iraq Write Their Realities

I wanted to write on the bloggers posting out of Iraq and Iran.
Reading through them I realised that their everyday reality includes a deep sadness, frustration and anger. Sure, there's joy and humour and all kinds of other things ... but the overall feeling left me quite sad. Iran has a dark shadow of war threatening it and Iraq ... well, who can imagine, but tragedies are an everyday occurence there.

One of things I love about blogs is the unfiltered nature of them ... you get the feeling, the emotion, the individual's truth ...

Baghdad Burning recently wrote a post titled 'Thank you for the Music' It was about the life of one man, his impact on others ... his recent death in Iraq. It gives a name and a history to the interpreter who was shot and killed when journalist Jill Carroll was abducted earlier this month. It's tragic.

Then there is Raed's Blog and he recently wrote 'Can you believe that Noam Chomsky, yes the Noam Chomsky, said he is “most interested -- and impressed” to learn about my work for Iraq! He said this in an email giving me his feedback about the “Compensation for Iraq” project I’m planning to launch soon. This Compensation project is a part of the “Iraqi Road-Map” I’ve been promoting for the last couple of years

Another Irani Online and Iranians for Peace give a range of comments and perspectives on news and events concerning them.

You know, reading these blogs and others I realised it's all too easy to turn off the news that makes us sad, uncomfortable or unhappy. It's easy to avoid knowing the world that exists outside of our everyday reality. And I realised it's simple to have opinions on 'the war in Iraq' or 'sanctions on Iran' based on our experience or understanding of those worlds ...

Kevin Sites wrote something I liked in one of his reports 'from the Hot Zone. 'The world becomes countries, the countries become people, the people become stories, the stories become understanding..

I read it a few months ago and borrowed a part of it for my blog title. I think he's right.

That's all.