Blogging among the Euro-Taliban: Talking about the EU (Twitter tag #bkaeb)

It is like campaigning in Helmand province or other parts of Afghanistan with a heavy Taliban presence. There is still a considerable groundswell of traditionalist support for fundamentalist media “madrassa teachers” and insurgent political “warlords”, despite the efforts to win the hearts and minds of the population since deployment in membership conditions since 1973. Successive national governments have been unwilling or unable to make a convincing enough case for more constructive engagement.



According to the latest Angus Reid poll, 79 per cent of the British population is against adopting the common EU currency, 42 per cent would want to pull out of the European Union (with only 35 per cent wanting the UK to remain inside) and 51 per cent evaluate Britain’s membership negatively (with only 38 per cent holding a positive view).



Talking about the EU (Euonym)



Among the hostile natives, Antonia Mochan does her day job as Head of Media at the European Commission’s London office. One part of her action is her Euonym blog Talking about the EU.



The Euroblog Waltzing Matilda published an interview with Antonia Mochan, where she tells how the UK Representation “goes local” with social media.



Antonia’s (Euonym’s) latest blog post on Talking about the EU is a roundup called Links 3 August 2010.



#bkaeb Twitter tag



The Twitter tag #bkaeb stands for Better Know A EuroBlog, and it is meant for blog posts recommending a certain Euroblog to potential readers. The new tag has been described as a #followfriday (or #ff) for blogs related to EU affairs.



Despite holiday season for the EU institutions, the real world and the online world do not aestivate (pass the summer in a state of torpor). For the Better Know A EuroBlog August 2010 challenge I decided to endorse blogs listed on Bloggingportal.eu and active during the last week (stream of new posts). In addition to the objective criteria, I narrowed down the potential endorsements to Euroblogs I follow (a developing list).



On Bloggingportal.eu, Talking about the EU is listed in the category Commissioners. It has published one entry (mentioned above) during the last seven days.




The public affairs consultancy Fleishman-Hillard Brussels has listed Talking about the EU in the more exact category of EU officials.



The #bkaeb medal recognises the valour of Talking about the EU under “enemy fire” and it is intended as an inspiration for continued Euroblogging.



Table607



Women who combine techie stuff and EU issues gather at the EU girl geeks’ Table607, where you find some of the active female Eurobloggers, including Euonym’s blog or Talking about the EU.



Table607 has a Contact page for female Eurobloggers who may want to join.



Bloggingportal.eu



By the way, Bloggingportal.eu has grown to 645 listed Euroblogs, offering increasing scope for interaction between blogs related to EU affairs. The Posts button gives you access to all the blog entries as they are aggregated during the day (and you can subscribe to the all posts stream).




Ralf Grahn



P.S. It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we could and should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:

I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.