Global Voices Online

Jonathan Lundqvist is a Swedish blogger who visited Iran and shared with us his travel experience in his blog. By reading this we discover many interesting things about Iran such as how western magazines are censored in this country:

Q: Please tell us about your thesis about Iran and your trip to this country?

A: I went to Iran to research my masters thesis on Iranian blogs. The project was funded with help from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, who are promoting democracy in the world. I stayed for around six weeks in Iran.

In short, the thesis (to be published after peer-review, later this fall) is about if and how blogs can help Iran to move towards democracy. I do this first by redefining the concept of what is considered political action to better adjust it to the Iranian situation, and second to relate it to western theories of democratization.

I met and interviewed twelve bloggers about their motivations to participate in the public sphere – some in English and some in Persian using an interpreter.

Q: Is there any difference between reality in Iran & image that we have about country through our media?

A: There’s a huge difference! Although Iran is very close to Europe in terms of geography, the media portrays it like completely different world – and mainstream media often try their best to polarize it according to the simple, easy-to-chew good guys/bad guys dichotomy. This isn’t true – we all know this – but it’s really overwhelming when you get there. I found people to be very interested in, and open-minded about, western culture. Very different from the simplified version the western media presents. Sure, there are the official anti-usa wall paintings, but at the same time young people are wearing t-shirts with the American flag printed on them!

Another interesting angle on this is that a lot of Iranians watch western satellite-TV, and are indeed very conscious about how they are described. And they can’t recognize themselves. One of the more common things people I met said to me was “Please, when you go back to Sweden – tell them about the real Iran. How it really is!”

I’m sure there are fanatics in Iran, just like anywhere else in the world. But the people I talked to - some I just met briefly in a store, others at museums or over a cup of coffee - were not gun crazy Hezbollahs. That’s the real Iran. There might be reasons to fear the Iranian government. But do not fear the Iranian people.

Q: What was your experience of Iranian cafe net/cyber cafes? How are people cope with filtering?

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