Jordan Watch : Why Should I Blog?

Ever since I came across the blogging phenomenon three week ago I was so impressed and overlwhelmed by the characters of such an expression system. I have been thinking deeply whether I should start my own blog or not.

I needed to convince my self with the added value of blogging, and whether I am doing this out of fun, or to be a part of a new community or just to follow a hype.

The main reason behind my hesitance was the fact that I consider my self to be one of the very few people in Jordan who enjoy a direct channel of self-expression. I write a daily political/ economic column at Addustour newspaper, Jordan second daily in terms of distribution, and the first in terms of quality. I have been a daily columnist since 1999 when I was only 29 years and maybe the youngest daily columnist in Jordan. My articles kept improving with time and more freedom and i am currently writing on page 3 three times a week a longer analytical article on Jordanian issues that I know is read by the ministers and the parliament. I also have another website for my Arabic articles read by many people.

Although this can be considered as a success and full satisfaction, I still think I am not fullfilling my desire for true self expression for several reasons.

To begin with, the political writer is subject to many obstacles including the media legislation, the newspapers' own political stand and the need to be "balanced" in terms not to be totally frank so that you do not annoy a politician, another country, a political party, etc.. and even the "collective feelings" of the mass public.

Moreover, political writers tend to be engulfed daily in hardcore politics, needing to analyse the political context and respect their readers with providing facts and figures to prove a point or a statement. This puts a huge burden of responsibility and sometimes a tight framework of writing style in which the text should be hard and deviates from sarcastic sentences.

And as we live in a country that breathes politics every day it is difficult to write social, technological and even art articles. I have a great passion for many other things in the world that are not political and I need to express my views of them. For instance, I have a career and passion for environment. I have a master's degree in environmental sciences and work currently as a project coordinator in the Ministry of Environment and I have had a 10 years career in environmental management which I feel is so rich and important to reflect. I am also very committed to issues of science and technology and social solidarity being a "previous leftist" at the university. I am committed to human development issues and feel the urge to contribute in both knowledge and practice to such objectives.

Being such a workaholic, I tend to be also a family person. I have a beautiful wife and a lovely 5 years old daughter who sometimes feel the burden of work but I always try to give my family no less than 6 hours aday.

This leaves so little room for self expression on many other issues including reflecting on my life and the events around us. I am hoping this blog will be a type of therapy for self assessment during writing and being in a community of great bloggers and of course having the important feedback of my fellow bloggers, hoping I can also contribute some useful thoughts and information in this process.