Censorship pt. II

Saba first appeared in my personal blog world early last February, when she suddenly planted a comment in the middle of yet another debate/rant session I was having with Goemagog on the Pave's Peculiar Pabulum site. It wasn't the most profound comment in the world, to be sure, but it struck me as being very much the right thing to say at the right time. At any rate, I was intrigued by this woman and curious to find out what she was about, so I visited her own blog.

When it appeared in my browser it was like a two-by-four across the face. Her site, entitled "Bahrain and Beyond", was anything but subtle. A young woman with a taste for Metallica and sassy deadpan, she was also a very vociferous champion of the Palestinian cause, and for a good reason. Her family hails from the West Bank city of Ramallah, once known as "the Prague of the Middle East" for its supersized share of poets, thinkers, and writers. Not surprisingly, Saba was all of the above. She was scarcely older than my senior students at ye olde academy, but she was clearly gifted, knowledgeable, well-traveled, and mature beyond her years. Some of the views she expressed on her site were rather extreme, but if anyone confronted her (as they often did) they quickly found they were dealing with no mere, empty-headed ranter. Her ability to back herself up by delivering on demand a massive barrage of documented information was impressive. She was a force to be reckoned with, and she attracted lots of attention.

Already an international controversy before the age of 20, Saba had the ability to grab people's attention and hold it with both hands. That also gave her the ironic ability to bring people together. A lot of surfers and bloggers visited her site, and many of them became regular visitors, myself included. In fact, several of the people in my current blog "family" I met either directly or indirectly thanks to "Bahrain and Beyond".

Of course, if one champions an extreme cause, one can expect extreme opposition, and Saba got it. The Jewish/Israeli reaction was swift, strong, and at times brutal. Even I was not immune; no sooner did I post an article praising "Bahrain and Beyond" on the Snabulus website than Snabulus , this blog, and a few others linked to it started getting hammered by anti-Palestinian propaganda spam. However, ironically, once again Saba's uncanny ability to bring people together came into play. In the process of the debate I came to be acquainted with some very interesting Jewish/Israeli bloggers including Shlemazl, Oleh, and especially Greg, who I now count among my blog friends.

Perhaps most ironic of all was the deep friendship that wound up sprouting between Saba and Greg. A visit to Russian-born, Chicago-raised, Tel Aviv-based Greg's site, "Hear O Israel", will show you that he is a Zionist in no uncertain terms. However, just like Dr. Epstein, my undisputed favorite of all the teachers I had in college, he is a Zionist of sense, reason, intelligence, and sensitivity and very much worthy of respect. His beliefs and Saba's seemed almost diametrically opposed, and yet they both shared support for the "two-state solution" of Israel/Palestine. They also realized that they were both equally sick to death of the whole Israel/Palestine conflict thing and wanted to distance themselves from it.

Together with Oleh, they created a joint blog appropriately called "Hope". It was a place where they could put aside all the ethnic/political/religious differences and just talk about life...and poetry. It was really a wonderful and inspiring project, and several of us more or less made ourselves at home there so we could try to be a part of this online oasis of humanity in a world gripped by an ice age of intolerance. Yes, it was a very good thing, and, unfortunately, good things seldom last long.

I often wondered why neither Saba nor Greg ever really tried to conceal their respective identities. In fact, it was almost like they went out of their way to make themselves accessible. That turned out to be a very dangerous gamble. In Greg's case, all he got was a lot of hate mail from extremists in the Israeli camp. As for Saba, her eagerly-anticipated dream summer holidays back home in Bahrain, Jordan, and the West Bank ended with a threat on her life...one that she had reason to take very seriously. The aggressor had only one demand: cease all blog-related activities. Unwilling to put herself or her family in unnecessary danger, she submitted to his demands. "Bahrain and Beyond" suddenly turned into a blank template before any of us knew what was going on. Then, like a symbol of everything that is wrong with this age, "Hope" vanished.

The freedom to be and say what we want to in the wonderful world of blogland is something we all tend to take for granted, but we shouldn't. What we have here is a remarkable privilege, and there are many who would happily take it from us if they could. We should cherish this and defend it. Most of all, we should do our best to make it what we want it to be while respecting others' right to do the same. Who knows? Even your worst enemy might wind up turning out to be one of your best friends.

Best wishes to you, Greg, and good luck. Saba, all my best, and we will all miss you.