Raif Badawi: so much more than a “blogger”
I spoke briefly to Spanish national radio yesterday about the European Parliament’s decision to award the Sakharov Human Rights Prize to Saudi dissident Raif Badawi.
Badawi was arrested in 2012 for his involvement in setting up a website, Free Saudi Liberals, accused of “insulting Islam through electronic means,” tried for, among other things, apostasy, and sentenced to seven years in jail and six hundred lashes, a punishment that was later increased to ten years, one thousand lashes, and a fine. After receiving his first 50 lashes, the remainder have been delayed on 12 occasions, due to his poor health.
Badawi, who is often simply referred to as a blogger in the media, used his blog to question the Saudi regime, an absolute monarchy that is one of the world’s worst human rights abusers and that does not tolerate dissent of any kind. But due to its immense oil wealth the country is not only tolerated internationally, but is courted by the West as a military and economic ally. Over recent years the regime has taken some small steps toward greater openness, such as granting women voting rights and a presence in local councils, and is aware that it must begin preparing for a future without oil: its reserves are dwindling, prices are falling, and the West is fast-developing sustainable energy alternatives.
Badawi’s importance is that he represents the views of many Saudis who wish to see their country move more quickly and decisively toward greater freedom of expression, but who are afraid to voice their opinions. He is sometimes referred to simply as a “blogger”: a term that grossly understates his importance. As the Spain-based Argentinean writer Hernán Casciari noted back in 2008, calling somebody like Badawi simply as a blogger is like describing the journalists of the past as “ballpoint penners” or “typingwriters”. Blogging isn’t a condition, a religion, or a disease; it’s not even an identity or a trend. A blog is just a tool: what counts are the ideas within it.
Aside from reminding us of the importance of activism, Raif Badawi also highlights the importance of technology: without an internet able to provide simple but effective tools such as blogs or the social networks, very few people in the world would know about Badawi, and his work would be limited to small circles and distributed by hand, like the Samizdat of the Soviet Union.
Badawi has come to represent the clash between the desire for greater freedom that erupted during the Arab Spring and the determination of the Saudi monarchy to hold onto power at any cost. He is not just a blogger, in the same way that I am not: he is an activist, and I am an academic. We both use blogs because they are one of the most efficient ways for our writing to reach the largest number of people possible.
So let’s be clear about this: Badawi isn’t facing a further 950 lashes because he has a blog, but because he has the temerity to question a despotic, medieval regime that will not tolerate criticism of any kind. By awarding Badawi the Sakharov Prize, the European Parliament is not recognizing the importance of bloggers, but of activism, freedom of speech, and the struggle of those who try to express themselves despite the efforts of a powerful and intimidating state. Badawi’s blog is simply the means to an end. No more… and no less.
(En español, aquí)
