Bloggers hitting 'Repressive Regimes' hard: A million mutinies erupting fast and furious

Certainly, there can be no pact between a lion and a man, however, when the lion is rendered toothless, apparently, the dagger rules the game on the battlefield. And this time, the dagger is in the hands of bloggers, who've already unleashed quite a revolution against repressive regimes worldwide writing the demise of the self-proclaimed lions who are now feeling the heat of the new fangled activism in their crumbling dens.

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Reporters without borders: Heads held high against all odds

As Negar Azimi in her article 'Bloggers Against Torture', where she describes in detail how bloggers in Egypt have triggered a revolt and are facing the brunt from the frustrated oppressive regime, says, 'But how threatening, we may wonder, can a handful of bloggers be--and how much of a threat could they be to the twenty-five-year-and-running rule of a leader like Mubarak?', we cannot deny the way bloggers have emerged as a collective force giving nightmares to tyrannical regimes worldwide.

Bloggers are affecting election results like never before and in a way traditional media failed to do. Of course, they've invited troubles too in the course of time. We are seeing increasing number of arrests of bloggers. However, despite the atrocities they're facing, they have made one thing clear that 'the phenomenon is not a bubble, it's an iron ball ready to take the hammering and capable of melting down the hammer, engulfing it to make it a part of the rolling ball showing no signs of fading away.'

In fact, this is not about a common person giving way to his/her voice in Egypt, Zimbabwe, Iraq or Iran, this is not just about citizen journalism, this is also not just about publishing through the newly discovered media. Apparently, it's about a whole new 'guerilla tactic', it's about the emergence of each and every individual armed to give the necessary blow with a minimum of fuss and that too powerful enough to give rise to a million mutinies.

A whole new battleground: Tyrants facing the heat

'Give a young man a blog and he will start a revolution.'

I would love to see a blogger in each and every street armed with hi-tech gadgetry fueling this new revolution. And this revolution, as we've witnessed, is not just a spark, it's a wild fire, showing no signs of abatement. You never know how far a single act of uploading a video to your blog can take the matter and catapult the situation altogether. The main thing is its power to unleash a storm of attention globally with the help of simple tools new media has provided, including podcasts, mblogs, videos, MMS, social networks, et al.

In Zimbabwe, bloggers openly discuss their outlook against Robert Mugabe's rule. Hosny Mubarak too is quite busy tracking and hammering emerging bloggers posing threat to his regime (Please refer Omraneya, an Egyptian Blogs Aggregator). The same is going on a large scale in China, Iraq, Iran, Cuba, Vietnam, Burma, and other countries where democracy still remains a distant dream.

The increasing number of arrests of bloggers and the cruelty they are facing clearly shows that the tyrants are not oblivious of the rising force. However, their reaction, which is expected, shows nothing but cowardice. But, this is exactly what we want, we want them to react and provide more fuel to the engines driving our mission. We enjoy the freedom of writing anonymously and only need a strong, reliable and consistent voice to convey our message and make the desired impact, the domino effect will automatically do the rest of the job. We're fighting for democracy with blogs as advocacy tools and no amount of censorship can put us down.

Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have. Technology will make it increasingly difficult for the state to control the information its people receive. The Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip. [Ronald Reagan]

Thanks: All bloggers trying to make ends meet