RESPONSE #10. Lord of war – Lord of Internet
When I went to global voices online I first found a great number of bloggers providing current information. Then I dug into and found targeted information. There after I realized this information not only was targeted but also was openly independent. To conclude, this is the lens through which we can swiftly get a different view of the world events.
First of all I looked into my country despite the fact I should investigate about countries such as Russia or the Republic of Congo. I proudly came across many Colombians bloggers debating intelligently on more than 100 blogs in light of the last revelations in which our current government is involved into a scandal. Many of them are generating conversations, and even better, many of them are young people mobilizing youth. As a matter of fact, I already started contacting some of them. So thanks to this assignment I will be making the most out of this site to create a social network useful for my job.
Roberto as a name doesn’t have a huge variety of countries letter of which begins with R. Yet I ultimately picked Republic of Congo bloggers of which are discussing pivotal items like the economic crisis. Some bloggers are concerned about environment as others are excited about the World Cup in South Africa next year. Although just about all topics are debatable, there is a gloomy issue that no one is capable of writing: violence.
The world terrified still remembers the Ruanda war in the early nineties in which almost a million Tutsi were brutally killed. Today, the situation of violence in the Congo each day lamentably ends with the lives of 1.200 people, according to UNICEF. Over half of these victims are children, what makes this country one of the places with the world’s biggest killers of children. Consequently, there is no press freedom and much less expression of freedom. Just a few bloggers seem to be working to take those poor people away of their reality by conversing about the World Cup. To this day I saw just 15 entries while in my country are more than seventy on Global Voices Online Organization. Even Belize being a smaller country than the Congo has 29 entries. Fear is atomized within society and no blogger wants to put his life stupidly in risk despite blogging offers an opportunity to congregate people around a common cause.
The sinister hand of a phenomenon like violence is capable of silencing an entire people even today when there are many technological tools to express us. Not even disguising into Internet are the Congo bloggers willing to denounce these criminals. What it means that bloggers do have boundaries and there is no expression at all. Everything is subject to the environment.
