Includes interesting articles by Fijian military members.
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
Fiji: from the inside
Have just found a great blog in which Fijians and others can post articles airing their own views from inside the coup of Fiji and rule by tin-pot dictator, Frank Bainimarama.
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I am intrigued as to how this blog is surviving. Surely the military govt would shut it down in their crackdown on dissident media? Or maybe they just do not see this blog as a threat? Apparently 80,000 of Fiji's total population (837 000) have internet access. This is a relatively small proportion, so does this mean the govt do not believe the internet is a significant enough medium in the country to constitute a threat?
ReplyDeleteI would challenge this by suggesting that those people who have access to the internet and actively contribute to blogs are those who are likely to have the skills and resources to overcome collective action problems and mobilise the population against the government.
Of course, the govt may just not realise the blog exists... :P
How easy is it for a government to shut down a blog? I'm really pretty ignorant when it comes to how the internet and government interacts. Does a military government like Bainirama's in a country where less than 10% of the population have the necessary skills to monitor internet access?
ReplyDeleteI can see how China manages it as the network there is a government controlled entity and I imagine they have a whole dept devoted to trwling for dissidents. It still amazes me that their are so many dissident Chinese blogs though. Can't silence every voice
Andrew, I'm not quite sure who you are in the blog (other people are named Andrew) - please e-mail me so I can assign points.
ReplyDeleteEven if the government could somehow shut it down, another one would pop up. People will always find ways to express their views, and especially with the internet, it makes it difficult to trace who is actually involved.
ReplyDeleteNat White, sometimes other blogs pop up again, but they are not necessarily accessible inside the country, or they are only accessible to people with great technical skill - this happens all the time in China, where people with sufficient technical skills can often circumvent the firewalls to access forbidden websites, but the vast majority cannot. In that case, is it useful to blog against the government?
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