Media-Shy Khatami Becomes Blogger

It's always dangerous to trust a politician, even when he is no longer in the office, since his murky intentions are less predictable than a haphazard dance of oceanic fish.

Iran's ex-president Mohammad Khatami is no exception. In his latest attempt to cast his media-shy image away, he has accepted his fans' invitation to join the booming bonanza of Iranian blogoshphere, affectionately termed Weblogistan.

But what are his motives, and agenda?

The introvert and overcautious former president sheds no light in his maiden post in khatamionline.com. "The yearning and struggle for truth and the longing and battle for freedom make up the blueprint of human beings," pens Mr. Khatami, who won two landslide victories in 1997 and 2001 on promises of promoting political and social liberties.

His consequent power struggle with inflexible conservatives, though, proved that, much to his voters' chagrin, he is merely a man of charisma, hardly a shrewd media-savvy leader.

Instead of harnessing enormous popular support, Mr. Khatami sullenly witnessed how hardliners dictated their dominance with a massive shut down of reformist newspapers and blogs.

The latter medium turned out to be more resilient, partly because it is less labor-intensive and more cost-efficient. There are other reasons, of course.

"Decentralized, informal and versatile, blogs offer a potential for secrecy, anonymity and evasion unthinkable in a hierarchical, paper-based information system." says Ben Macintyre, in a column in the British newspaper, The Times. "A blogger may be arrested, but once his words are out there and replicable, they are effectively immortal and invulnerable.”

Have the same lures tempted Mr. Khatami to outrank his former deputy Mohammad Ali Abtahi as the most high-profile blogger in Iran's blogoshphere? Would the sartorially-conscious cleric adopt a blunt tone in his fancifully titled blog, The Man with the Chocolate Robe? Or would he keep spitting out veiled criticism at diehard conservatives?

Most viewers of his newborn blog, for now, are thrilled that Mr. Khatami has joined their outcast community of 'cacophony of voices," to quote Ben Macintyre of The Times.

Some reactions to his soft-core opening post are quite blunt, however. "Mr. Khatami, I beg you to put aside this diction. Believe me, here you'd better be a blogger than a former president, otherwise your blog would reek of nasty old days, which would just lead to worse days," warns a blogger nicknamed Maryam Mirza.

Others are too frustrated to warmly greet the new net citizen. "In the real world, you failed to promote the cause of your desperate people and the poor youth," writes Sadaf. "In the virtual world, you could hopefully appreciate how regretful Iranian people are for misplacing their trust in your promises."

Having risked the big gamble of joining the growing voice of bloggers, Mr. Khatami has hinted he is willing to alter his tone. If so, the former president would be welcome to act as a conductor for the cacophonous bloggers, orchestrating their rumbling into an ear-piercing choir of freedom fighters.

Crooning with the old lullaby monotone would further alienate him. His advisors have, undoubtedly, warned him the waters of this ocean of blogs are highly shark-infested.