Blog Recommendations And Thoughts On The Pakistani Blogosphere

Three recommendations for you guys today.

First, on U.S. politics, I don't believe I don't have Five Thirty Eight linked on our blog roll over on the right hand side of this page. I've been reading it for more than a year now; I basically got into it for the statistical analysis of the U.S. election and primaries last year. I read it pretty regularly even now, and it always has interesting (and non-statistical) posts. It's very empirical and well-reasoned, so check it out.

On the Pakistan side of things, two really excellent blogs you guys should check out. First up is Roznamcha-Bach maintained by Saesneg (no, I don't know what that blog title refers to either). It's really smart and well-written. The second is erase and rewind maintained by Saba Imtiaz. It is also really smart and well-written (I wish I had better adjectives, but in these cases, it's appropriate). I highly recommend both of them, and making them a part of your daily read.

By the way, the only reason I'm not recommending Saba's sister's blog (which is also very good, but I'm going to be spiteful and not link to it) is because I'm trying my level best to coerce them to consolidate their blogs. Seriously, does it make ANY sense to you guys that two sisters, who both have a blog, who both blog about basically the same things, would do it in different places on cyber space? I mean, what the hell happened in their childhood that forced them to do this?

On a related note, I want to make a couple of comments about the Pakistani blogosphere before I go to bed. Back when we started this blog almost three years ago, there were basically a grand total of zero Pakistani blogs that I read. I mean sure, there were a couple around that functioned as news aggregators or comment-free-for-alls, but there was little insight, analysis, and enjoyment to be had from perusing these blogs. There may have been a couple of exceptions but I must have been unaware of them.

I would say that over the last eighteen months, that has really changed (or maybe I have just been introduced to them that recently). There are some really smart and interesting and funny Pakistanis and Pakistani-origin people out there, making the Pakistani blogosphere vibrant and energetic and intelligent. Are there some really bad blogs out there? But of course. But they are being balanced, at least in my view.

One thing that has been good to see is that many of these blogs put forth views and analysis that we would not find from mainstream sources in Pakistan (no, Herald and Newsline, you don't count as mainstream). It's funny, I had a conversation about this exact topic very recently: I was interviewed the other day by this woman doing a report on, amongst other things, the state of the Pakistani blogosphere.

I told her, in so many words, that it was great to see some liberal (and I mean politically liberal, not my-dad-drinks-scotch liberal) voices out there, certainly more than proportionate to our true number as part of the population (my best guesstimate is that of the Pakistani population, about 0.5% is liberal the way I define it, and of the Pakistani blogosphere, about 30-35% is liberal the way I define it). She asked me why that is. In my opinion, selection biases can probably explain most of that discrepancy. We have to ask: who, amongst Pakistanis, is going to have a blog? Well, for one thing, it's going to be someone with an internet connection (that instantly disqualifies a vast majority of the population, don't you think?). For another, it's likely to be someone educated. For yet another, it's likely to be someone young, who actually reads other blogs and so knows what the hell a blog is.

Yes, it's true that not all young, educated Pakistanis with an internet connection are liberal (trust me, I know from personal experience). But certainly young, educated Pakistanis with an internet connection are more likely to be liberal than the average Pakistani. Thus, the average Pakistani blog is more likely to be liberal than the average Pakistani mainstream media source (though I'm positive that Zaid Hamid would destroy all of our readership statistics combined if he were to ever get a blog; luckily for him imacrazymotherfucker.blogspot.com is not yet taken).

Anyway, the basic point is this: it's great to see so many good Pakistani blogs come up in the last couple of years. May this trend continue well into the future, and may the government's dumbass Cyber Crime Act not interfere with that growth.

Speaking of good Pakistani blogs, does anyone know what the hell happened to Rabia at Grand Trunk Road?