Score 1 for self-expression

Since starting this whole blogging thing, I've been doing a little bit of reading on the history of it. I'm all for self-expression, and sometimes I forget that not all of us have the freedom to do so, whether it be because we were never taught how to express ourselves, or because we live in a part of the world where freedom of speech/expression is denied.

This morning I was reading about the "blog revolution" in China . I'll summarize it here, but if you'd like to read the full article, check it out here: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996707

Not so long ago, China decided to allow Cybercafes, hoping it would help "westernize" the country and make it more economically competitive. The Chinese governmen maintains continual surveillance to censor and "sanitize" the Internet - the so-called "Great Firewall".
Politically sensitive topics, such as Falun Gong, human rights, democracy, and Taiwan independence, are routinely filtered out. A list recently obtained by the China Internet Project in Berkeley found that over 1000 words, including “dictatorship”, “truth”, and “riot police” are automatically banned in China’s online forums.

But the "blog revolution" is changing all this. China currently has more than half a million bloggers, and the government can't keep up - blogs are being created faster than they can be destroyed. Although the Chinese government has banned access to Blogger (the website that hosts my blog), web-savvy people have found ways to bypass the Great Firewall. What all of this means is that subcultures that fall outside of traditional social and moral norms now have an outlet to voice their opinion.

It's amazing that I take advantage of this blog-thing to whine about heartache, when people on the other side of the world use it to fight for the human right of self expression. Kinda puts thigns in perspective, eh?