The Best Libyan Blogs: Highlander's Award and the Ramadan Spirit

I have not done the monthly roundups of Libyan blogs for quite a while and lately it crossed my mind that instead I could do my own Libyan blogs competition and give the Highlander Award for excellence or originality once every three months or bi-annually. It's just a way to keep track of the blogger family and increase our exposure and keep us on our toes LOL.

The first one which crossed my mind was Hibo's blog about her late father . I searched and searched and could not find it anymore. It was going to be a brilliant homage to a great contemporary Libyan academic. Hibo explained that she has deleted it.

I know that it has been about a month now since a big misunderstanding took place between a few Libyan bloggers. I was advised to leave sleeping dragons alone since things might be cooling down and the waters may start to flow back again. Yet I feel that everyone is a bit on the edge now and I don't want the Libyan blogs to go the way of some others. I am extremely proud of our family and I want to see the same spirit of collaboration and jest that was there until a month ago. There has been a noticeable decrease in comments on some people's blogs and I think that affects the quality of the conversation. We are all mature people; Piccolina, Hibo and Ahmed have all made an apology, which is very generous of them and shows what pure souls they have.

In my opinion as someone who is neutral, I'd say none of you guys made any mistakes. The story if I recall was that Hibo started a lovely game, in fact her idea is so brilliant that I thought we could follow it up with more quizzes. It would have been so innovative. Piccolina picked on that and made a post from it in which she demonstrated her theory for the correct answer to the quiz. That post was so funny as well and it was absolutely flattering and great as it put Hibo in such a wonderful light. In fact is showed that Hibo is a genius at inventing games and making the Libyan blogs so interesting. The response on both posts was wonderful. Hibo and Piccolina you made such a wonderful team and Ahmed you were so nice to allow yourself to be the first in this online quiz.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure what happened then- why the misunderstanding? But it got out of hand and as the Arab proverb says "if speech is of silver then silence is golden". Things escalated and posts were deleted. What a pity, as those were some of the most beautiful posts which demonstrated the joy, fun, originality and brotherly spirit of the Libyan bloggers and how much we are all young at heart and one family.

So what is my point ? I wish those posts would go up again. If there is something unsuitable in the comment section you can make that not show. The technology is available for that. It is also a few days only to Ramadan. This is the time of the year when we should not hold any grudges anymore not feel any anger/hurt towards anyone. I wish to see the two factions have a virtual hug, kiss and forgive.
Let bygones be bygones.

ما خلقنا السماوات و الارض و ما بينهما الا بالحق وان الساعة لاتية فاصفح الصفح الجمــــيل* إِنَّ رَبَّكَ هُوَ الْخَلاَّقُ العَلِيمُ

الحجر / 85 ـ 86


وسارعوا الى مغفرة من ربكم وجنه عرضها السماوات والأرض أعدت للمتقين الذين ينفقون فى السراء والضراء والكاظمين الغيط والعافين عن الناس ان الله يحب المحسنين

ال عمران/ 134

After all is not this what Ramadan is all about?

The Highlander Award for Excellence© will be ushered in on December 2007 until then keep the Ramadan Spirit on.

May the Blessed Spirit of Ramadan guide us all.

Love
Highlander