Something to Say

There's been an interesting conversation going on about the fact that very few political bloggers had written about the terrorism in Mumbai, at least in New Zealand.*

I think it's both a useful question, and an extremely frustrating one. Span and Russell Brown, but the question 'why isn't anyone writing about the bombing in Mumbai', can't be answered by 100 good reasons why not. The question is more 'so why is did everyone write about the bombing in London'?

Sitting down each day to write about anything which you have something to say shows each of our priorities in a pretty stark way. For me, the challenge is not just to write about things that I know a lot about (feminism & Joss Whedon), but also to speak about areas (I am going to write a follow-up post about immigration, hopefully tomorrow).

Before I started writing here, I wondered why New Zealand blogs were so parochial and only wrote about New Zealand issues. Once I started writing I felt the need to talk about what was happening here - where I lived - because no one else was going to. I go back and forwards on this, but generally the more I write about New Zealand the more I'm talking about concrete realities, and the less I'm talking about abstract ideas.

I still have nothing to say about the bombing in Mumbai - and I don't think I ever would - writing about terrorism just isn't something that interests me. But I think every blogger who thinks that a death in Mumbai is as important as a death in London could work a little bit at what they say. I'm going to try and write about what I don't know, as well as what I know.

* Now to me that seems some inordinate length of time ago there's been wars, earthquakes, tsunamis and the news making us feel like people get murdered in bizarre ways every week. But the fact that it can feel like a long time ago is part of the problem