Fri, 6th Jun '03, 2:45 am::

Salam Pax, the Baghdad Blogger, who asks 'Where is Raed?' has finally been recognized by his employer - Peter Maass. It's an interesting story. Salam Pax is an Iraqi whose journal has become one of the most famous 'blogs ever and has recently been recruited by The Guardian to publish articles about life in Iraq. Despite being an Iraqi, he broke all social norms and admitted that he was gay and spoke about Saddam's evil dictatorship. He went offline a while ago, but is back now. And just recently, his employer Peter Maass confirmed that Salam Pax is real and was in fact his interpreter when Maass was in Iraq. Iraq is a dangerous place to be defiant in. It's a big risk Salam's taking, though all he does is 'blog away like everyone else. Isn't it funny how he and I do the same thing but what he writes can be dangerous and potentially lethal to his existance, while what I do, can at worst result in people thinking that I am a bad speller or boring 'blogger? For him to live in Iraq and speak openly about the cultural taboos is playing with death. It takes courage even to speak up in a post-war dictator-raped regime, let alone bring about a revolution. But then if there IS a revolution ever, it'll only come around as an inspiration from someone so average and bluntly honest like him. The fact that honesty still exists somewhere in the world, even in some media-adultered form, makes me think there's still hope for mankind.

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