What’s it like being a blogger in a war torn country?
My commitment to blogging brings a huge responsibility with it, and a potential risk as well!
Bloggers under fire
Blogging from a civil war zone is really dangerous, where the wrong word or opinion could mean the end, especially when people in charge can’t read and won’t read, and even if they read (god forbid) they don’t understand what they read or try to do anything about it (except trying to harm who ever wrote that to make sure that they never write again!).
Imagine this: you are sitting minding your business and you hear gunshots, you don’t know where they come from or why they happened, but you know it’s going to affect you one way or the other, and there is always that fear that one of them will land in your house or near your head (happened to me once or twice already).
Priorities
Libyan authorities always had means to track down activist and bloggers on-line, the equipments and systems that came from France and other countries allowed the previous regime from pin pointing blogger’s locations and enabled them to hack the blogger’s personal accounts, even with the regime change these systems are still active and at large, aimed against the wrong people!
This system allows killers, drug dealers and human traffickers to roam the streets like crowned kings while focusing on social media activists and bloggers, I guess that arresting human traffickers isn’t a priority after all, they are running a travels agency! With no visas or accommodation of any kind..
A bit of the same old
I guess things aren’t much different from the previous regime for bloggers, opinion prisoners were common back then and things are pretty much the same, freedom of speech and privacy are non existent in Libya, unless you say what “they” want you to say.
How does the people view bloggers?
Sadly even the people who are the victims here can’t see the point in blogging, won’t blog and will make fun of bloggers and try to bring them down, won’t even read the posts! (would spend all day on Facebook but won’t read a 500 word post!) saying that it’s a total waste of time!
Actual risks bloggers face
As a blogger you can lose your job, receive death threats, get arrested for no reason and receive bad treatment if your blog doesn’t appeal to “someone” and it could be anyone now days!
Kidnapping is common, a blogger could be “kidnapped” for his opinions, tortured and killed without a trace.
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| Just one of many militia fighters running wild in Libya |
There is no law enforcement in Libya, just militias roaming the streets and terrorizing people, it would be interesting to see a militia blogger (although the grammar would be horrible!).
We need to blog
Blogging feels like a luxury at times. Especially when people in here (and I am one of them by the way) can’t find money to buy goods and services, inflation made the price of everything sore high , with non existing health care, and the ongoing war between rivaling militias every now and then making life impossible, closing roads and creating barricades and fighting inside residential areas!
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| The airport road, one of the main roads in Tripoli blocked by angry protests |
Despite all these conditions someone needs to document this daily suffering and get the message out to the world, that there are people who live here in dire situations, I guess I’m that someone in this case.
Even if it’s a risk to my safety, I am afraid it’s a risk I’m willing to take, I can’t just stand here and watch my people suffer and do nothing about it, my passions and interests can take a pause now until the situation improves a little.
Actual blogging experience
It’s almost impossible to predict the power outages and adjust blogging time to it, and it’s affecting blogs negatively because no one is reading the blog, my main demographic is suffering from all day power outages! Let alone the damage it does to laptops and other hardware, I lost two laptop batteries, and that’s nothing compared what others lost in this mess!
Uploading images takes forever and so does loading blogger, this won’t stop me from posting as often as I can!
Giving the people a voice
Blogging is my way to reach out to the world and speak my mind out about how things are truly are in here, even if it’s dangerous, we need to break away from fear and speak out against this sham!
While politicians spend their days in luxurious hotels around the world, Libyans are dying every day, and the situation is getting worse by the minute. I started to think that they benefit from extending this crisis indefinitely, who would need them if life is OK in Libya?
Who is calling the shots?
As a person I lost count of how many governments we have working head to head, or how many legislation bodies this country has, who is running Libya today or when will the constitution will be written (if ever). everyone is talking like they run the place while in reality no one has control over anything.
Libya does have a constitution, why not use that and modify it? Since it has been disabled by the previous regime since 1977. I don’t know the answer to that either.
As I write this, there is no electricity as usual, I haven’t been able to draw money from the bank for months, and its a 120 degrees outside with no means to cool down, and I’m still doing much better than people in camps and immigrants who live in unimaginable conditions here in Libya.
Tripoli voted the second least livable city in the world 2016
I thought I was just ranting and complaining about how bad it is really, turns out I was right!
Tripoli was voted the second least livable city in the world 2016 according to the independent with Damascus taking home the first place. I’m sure if Libyans work a little bit harder they will take home the first place.
Libya, what a waste!
It’s really sad to see a country with such potential like Libya go to waste! We have so many assets to work with! The youth, oil and gas, tourism, a huge space and just a handful of people, with proper management we could be living like royalty. But we aren’t sadly, we are dying slowly everyday with the world watching.
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| Leptis Magna, one of Libya’s most recognized monuments |
I hope this post is noticed by the right people, I know there has been a dialog in Libya for years now but no one stopped to ask what does the people think, I speak for myself here but I dare to think that many will agree that we want peace and security.
We want our country back, is that possible?
Thank you for reading this post, please let me know what you think in the comments section below, and please share it with your friends and family, that would help me a lot!
