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Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Burmese bloggers - Is the Internet Creating Habermas' Public Sphere?

Bloggers everywhere are fighting dictators tooth and nail. The latest examples are Burmese cyber dissidents. The internet is too fluid and complex for dictators to manage.  

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

don't try to use your mask Ethio Zagol!!!

ethio zagol


is



woyane


secret



agent!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

EZ,

It appears that you are out of lies and propaganda, and hence, you start to divert attention....gud new zendro. It is clear your attempt has backfired, so your briging burma in the mix, as if Ethiopians care.

Freeloaders & deceptive politicians have no shame at all!

Anonymous said...

I think Ethiopian monks and religious persons (Christian as well as Muslims) should have something to learn from the Burmese monks.

Anonymous said...

Ethiopians should draw a lesson from Burmese monks and civil society that you can tackle despotic regimes. TPLF is another dispotic regime that needs to be challenged by all civil society and religious figures, but watchout for Abune Paulos, he carries gun. I heard he pulled a gun by mistake once trying to draw his cross. The person came to kiss the cross was frozen, but the priest was drunk and he laughed it of. He called the young dcon who cme to pay his resppect to the cross "a chicken."

Anonymous said...

Ya you right. You want our poor people to die so that you can be a hero. What a shame. No question on the unEthiopiannes of MELES and his gangs but make no mistake that our poor Ethiopians learned a lot from what we praise as our freedom leaders. Where are they? what happned to their tireles talk of UNITY? they can`t even unite themselves forget the well organized WOYANE and the reich Al.Amudi. My friends enough is enough. ETHIOPIA will trust only GOD and when it is time only HE can free our people.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, EZ

As I read more about what is going on in the former Burma, I see a lesson to be learned and an insight to be gained.

For those who read history and current events, history and events have a way of repeating themsleves. Also, events such as the one in Burma can be a source of inspiration for people who are fighting for their God given human rights. I know the Ethiopian democracy movement has been inspired by the Ukranian yellow revolution and the Georgian revolution.

EZ, you are truly our Ethiopian hero in the sense that you are very insightful and visionary. You are critized because you see what many of us do not see ahead of time.

Ez, please be encouraged and continue your calling of serving your people through information and sharing your wise insights.

To my Ethiopian brothers and sisters who have given up due to the recent internal friction among our leaders, I understand your frustration. However, this is no reason to give up hope. The next time you watch a good movie, notice how the good guys run into insurmountable obstacles that you think will derail their good mission. You know in the end the good guys win. This is how life is and how national freedom struggles are. Please keep on keeping on. All is not lost.

The determination of the Ethiopian people for freedom from tyrany, democracy, rule of law, good governance and human rights shall be attained with or without kinjit. We embraced kinjit because it symbolized our imagination of the people's party. Many of us believe that the struggle will continue and we shall triumph with or without kinjit.

Having said all that kinjit will be alright as a viable opposition party. Organizational corrections are very natural in any organzational history.

In closing, thanks and admiration to EZ for maintaining your composure in the face of many of our brothers and sisters who tend to shoot the messenger.

Keep up the great work and God Bless you and yours.

God Bless Ethiopia and all its children.

Anonymous said...

"You want our poor people to die so that you can be a hero."

Anonymous said...

" We should be careful when we applaud our politicians, because there are those who, drunk with applause, go awry." Prof. Mesfin

Anonymous said...

Few questions to you all.
1. Is real "Zagol" still alive? or more to the point- is "Zagol" cloned?

Governemnts, especially the represive types, are known to eliminate their most prominent and effective critics and replace them with clones. It is entirely possible that EZ may have encountered the same fate. Once IDed, the owner of the blogspot can be eliminated and effectively "cloned" to turn the popular blogspot as an effective tool to confuse and divide his diaspora readers. All they had to do is get the password(I don't have to tell you how easy that is)


2. Why is aigaforum.com singing the praises of EZ?

Recently, aigaforum, the semiofficial mouthpiece of the tyrants in Addis, posted a comment by one called "satenaw" which paid homage to Zagol's recent posting. This is first for aigaforum.

And "satenaw" actually was commenting on recent posting of zagol "the way forward" where zagol suggested renaming and splitting KINIJIT.

"Satenaw" believes the people in Hailu Shawl's group are Amharas, therefore not ethnically representative, which is an almost identical but different way of saying what EZ said - "this crisis is an opportunity to create (for one of the groups) a more inclusive and representational... less confrontational political organization".

Either this EZ is a "plant" or EZ suddenly experienced epiphany in the way he sees the tyrants.

3. When did EZ installed broadband internet connection?

Many of you may find it hard to believe, but EZ has internet access, at midnight, Addis Ababa time. No one in Ethiopia, earning Ethiopian Salary, working for an Ethiopian government or business can afford internet connection of any kind. It costs several thousand Birr per month).

Zagol has been observed modifying entries after midnight(addis time). There are three possibilities.
a) He/she doesn't live in Ethiopia, as he/she claimed.
b)He/she lives in Ethiopia and has home connection. If this is the case he/she works for foreign institution. But, anyone installing internet is automatically put in government watch list, therefore impossible to blog anonymously)
c)He/she lives in Ethiopia and works as a Guard(zebegna)at one of international or NGO offices, accessing his/her company computer at night. But how many Zebegnas you know have keyboarskills?
d)He/she lives in Ethiopia, but sneaks back to office at night, through back door.
e)He/she lives in Ethiopia, but works for the government, with those all-nighter bleary-eyed hackers, sifting and documenting internet entries about Ethiopia(especially by diaspora), while posting their own scum in between.

The choice e), seems the likely senario.

But, the question is, is the real "Zagol" still alive?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous@1:48 pm,
Your script is mysteriously interesting.

On second thought, what if Zagol the original or the clone is so alive that he/she wrote the very post @1:48PM

From Zagol's recent blog, "the way for ward", we are aware that ER is complemented for starting to initiate "the debate".

There were times that on rear occasions, I could assume the closest clone who shares the shift with Zagol could be Elias of ER. People guess Andargachew Tsege. He could be behind it but doubt if he is either the real or the clone.

The rest of the puzzle pieces nan be "deliberated"....
MGP

Anonymous said...

Take a look @ Burma's news

http://www.myanmar.com/news/index.html

Anonymous said...

Anon 2:49,
ER and Andargachew don't need to be cloned. The are as virulent as they are to the struggle, thank you very much.

Why would the 'clone' or the 'donor' EZ want to write comment 1:48? If it were him you wouldn't see all the new postings by EZ(whichever one it may be)trying to bury the comments deep with the debris of his irrelevant postings in an effort to hide it from other readers.

But, to anon 1:48,
I have my own question? What if zagol posts his comments through a second individual living abroad?

I have known people emailing to their friends living, say for example, in USA, and asking them to email the same message to another friend living, say, Netherlands, for reasons I don't need to explain. That was long before proxy IP numbers were available. But this days free proxies do the job effortlessly.

My own take on EZs sudden "epiphany" is a)He/She is indeed a clone. b)He/She is scared shitless. c)He saw his opportunity to be in government slipping fast (with strong American support for the tyrant) and made a u-turn and flattering his way back in to power.

But again, I like the "clone" story better.

Anonymous said...

What if he uses a laptop and simply access the internet from one of the cafes that provide free wireless connections to their customers. There are two or three such cafes in town.{I am not sure if they are available 24hrs though.)

Anonymous said...

i know this blogger very well. I will announce it soon, unless he comes out clean first. Whether this lowlife blogging as EZ is the real one or a clone is really immaterial. The analysis put forth so far, are for the most part, basic and simplistic bordering hearsay, and devoid of any journalistic principles. If you ask me, it is the usual cadre work that was prevalent in the old days of party politics.

The bad news is we are wasting our time here, as if this idiot nows any better than the simple woyanne cadre. The good news is all his attempts are in vain and his mission is foiled.