[Imc-africa] re: imc africa, meeting... caravana?

[imc-africa@lists.indymedia.org]

Hello Francois and all ! I'm sorry that it took so long for me to 
express my opinion on SOME points raised by Francois on his mail 
below. I should start by thank Francois for taking time to
reply as detail as he did.


Quoting "françois.l'écuyer" <francois@red.org.za>:

> 
> -- 
> hi everybody
> 
> apologies for not getting on the imc-africa list yet. A few of us at 
> Indymedia South Africa have access to internet on a regular basis, 
> then have to follow many different imc lists after the web work is 
> done - which, at the end, take us away from our main focus, struggles 
> happening on the ground. IMC South Africa activists are not "imc 
> activists": we are activists in different movements. Some of us, 
> already busy with media within our respective groups, saw IMC as an 
> important way to strengthen,  diffuse and promote our struggles. Also 
> as a way to unite several radical movements who, amid a certain 
> degree of disagreement, have similar political perspectives and are 
> using similar strategies of direct action. This perhaps distorts or 
> contradicts the original vision of IMC in 1999 north america. But we 
> also believe that it was a relatively successful adaptation of what 
> IMC could be in Africa or anywhere else, in terms of media 
> production, involvement *within* social movements, networking with 
> activists groups around the world and revolutionary ways of doing 
> media to support social struggles.
> 
> We are also concerned about IMC developments around us. I wanted to 
> raise some questions in november after Petros (IMC Greece) email on, 
> which I prefered not to after winters bitterly read it as "tagging 
> some IMC BAD". Our collective largely agreed with the issues raised 
> by Petros regarding the lack of media production in Nigeria (two 
> paragraphs over the lasts six month, same for Zimbabwe) and the fact 
> that money should not be seen as the main recourse. So, please guys, 
> lets discuss seriously these problems, lets not hide behind the 
> eternal excuse of 'being in the south' to justify a lack of 
> production, a separation between African IMCs and African social 
> movements and, in certain cases, sectarianism or monopole of IMC by 
> one political organization.

I think that I, like some others who replied to Pedro's mail also agreed 
that it was and is ok to ASK QUESTIONS about what is going on in an IMC in
 this case IMC Nigeria . And I also think that those questions should be out
of concern to help if one can help and not out of the desire to redicule; which
in my opion was the way Pedro's mail sounded. 
 Concerning Pedro's request that IMC Nigeria needed to have report to process 
about support it got from UCIMC(hope is correct), I did not agree to. Becuase 
I saw it like using different standards to judge different IMCs.First becuase
 it is not written anywhere in the network that IMCs need to inform IMC Process 
of all support they get from other IMCs and also becuase lots of other IMCs 
arround the world where getting support from other IMCs and Pedro did not ask 
them
to give a report to process (e.g. Russia from Nederlands, Argentina from 
Germany). 
You are correct that that money should not be seen as the main recourse
 but in the case in question the money was needed for a meeting of IMC Ambazonia
and IMC Nigeria with Jay (IMC Philiadelphia).
I think we need to discuss how the present African IMCs can get to function more 
efficiently as well as how to get all activists as well as ordinary people in 
the street to use the resources of IMCS to inform themselves and to inform 
others about their society.

> 
> - Making social movements part of imc
> 
> What is IMC without social struggles? What are we without the people 
> taking up these struggles? Obviously nothing. I see quite a big 
> difference between an 'alternative journalist' and a 'media 
> activist'. Could IMC people be journalists who, after complaining 
> against the political and oppressive role played by the 'rule of 
> objectivity', reproduce the separation of the journalist and the 
> activist? Or couldn't IMC be a media network owned and used directly 
> by the people in struggle?
> 
> I certainly agree with the later. So then, the question of diffusing 
> IMC in africa becomes one of networking movements around the powerful 
> use of media through imc. Who really need to be empowered? Who needs 
> IMC to spread the struggle? The community movements themselves, not 
> some high-tech kids with free time. To the extreme, who should 
> receive 250 computers? African IMC who could hardly use productively 
> so many toys (and I do include south africa here), or community 
> groups already busy with a revolutionary small-media production, 
> whose news, articles and statements are not even caught by our 
> african imc collectives?

I doubt if I did understand the point you where trying to make. I agree that 
people already invovled in social struggle should be able to use the computers. 
Yet I think it also known that indymedia wishes to involved all members of a 
society. Thus the computers should remain avaliable for the public under the 
canopy of indymedia and both those involved in social struggle and those not 
affilialted in any already existing Organisations should be able to use the 
computers or any other resources of an IMC.   
> 
> The question of diffusing IMC in africa will not be solved with money 
> or computers. It will be solved the day our current imc activists 
> will reach community movements and tell them "we exist, please 
> publish and get involved in our meetings, we'll then do our best for 
> you".
This is absolutely true especially for countries where IMCs exist. But the point
 is there are some countries and places in Africa where community movement exist
 and will use imc resources if they knew about IMC or had them in their areas.
But they do not know about IMC nor do they have an IMC arround them. Thus the 
question how do we get people in those areas too to know about IMC 
> 
> re: imc africa meeting
> After saying this and realising serious problems with our IMCs, I'm 
> not sure at all if a meeting for african IMCs is really needed at 
> this stage, i'm not sure who could represent local IMCs, or if any 
> form of representation could be acceptable understanding the 
> weaknesses and the small size of our collectives. I would rather 
> suggest a kind of regional cooperation between different IMCs in the 
> same region, and if some money comes through it should be use to 
> organize short-distance visits between experienced imc activists. 
> Technical training could be needed, but I think the main priority 
> must be about political dialogue between us, in order for us to 
> understand what have been our successes and failures.

I think the idea of an imc Africa meeting is not meant to only bring together 
people already involved in IMCs. It should as well bring together others who are 
involved in social movements as well as to make IMC people both in Africa and if 
possible invovled in other IMCs out of Africa to shear ideas on how to make it 
possible, 4 people in Africa to use the resources of the network for their local  
struggles for a better society. Thus the focus should be awareness. Asia and 
Eastern Europe as well as South America suffer some of the same infrastructural 
problems like Africa. But imc and social struggles are growing there faster 
than in African and the question is why?? We need to discuss that. The said 
meeting should just be a step from regional co-operation and not a replacement 
of regional co-operation. And I seriously believe that people from the various 
IMCs will in the discussions learn how to get more people in their local 
community involved by knowledge from others. I see that happening in Europe and 
I think in South America as well.
> 
> and honestly, how can we talk about putting resources and energy on 
> an imc africa meeting while we are unable, on one side, to sread IMC 
> in our respective countries, and, on the other, to engage among us on 
> critical issues regarding the sustainability and democracy of our 
> IMCs.
> 
> re: african caravan
> I'm a bit surprised the idea is still coming up. Around june last 
> year, IMC South Africa took the decision not to support (but rather 
> to fight against) the request of 20 000$ from the global funds by IMC 
> Nigeria to organize a caravan across the continent. For many people 
> who took part in the previous caravan in latin american, it was 
> relatively a failure: lack of preparation, lack of understanding of 
> social dynamics, lack of knowledge about social movements in the 
> visited countries.

When I wrote about the idea of a Caravan, It was a continuation of a discussion 
we had on the last Global network IRC meeting. Lots of people complain that the 
last Caravan in South America was a failure as but as you pointed out it was an 
issue of lack of good preparation and not the idea itself. Basically a similar 
thing was being is being discussed about East Europe. Either on bus or on train. 
I even remember that towards the end of the year lots of activists in Germany 
where discussing the Trip to Poland and Eastern Europe. I think we need to think 
all uptions and analyse them well. We need not get into any hurried figures.  
> 
> I don't think that the 'getting everywhere' is the best way to help 
> the creation of IMCs in africa or elsewhere, and this feeling is 
> largely shared by IMC-SA activists. The previous proposal of a 
> caravan in africa, as planned apparently by IMC-UK nessuno (marcus 
> sky) with the (obscure) support of IMC Nigeria, was proposing to 
> create imc collectives everywhere they would have gone to, from 
> Nigeria to Ghana, and then down to South Africa - in less than three 
> months. I am concerned that the very principle of a caravan - getting 
> to as many places as possible in a short period of time - carries a 
> great risk of creating unlegitimate and weak collectives because of 
> the small amount of groups/people involved, reached or targeted. Even 
> if the 'new-imc' process is supposed to make sure questions of 
> democracy/openness are respected, i fear that the establishment of a 
> monopolistic or sectarian imc becomes a long-term obstacle to the 
> emergence of a wealthy, open and democratic IMC (as it happen to be 
> the case, unfortunately, in Zimbabwe, their IMC being monopolised 
> largely, if not exclusively, by the International Socialist 
> Organisation (ISO-ZIM), their accreditation still pending)

On the other if many small IMCs where to be created through out Africa; they 
will not be isolated. They will be in comunication with other IMCs in the region 
as well as in the network thus helping them to be able to grow. Look arround in 
Europe, IMC DC and others they where started by a relatively few people but they
have been able to grow and to deliver. Some are still relatively small but 
function really good. If we keep waiting till groups suddenly Organise 
themselves and ask to be in the network we may wait too long because some 
countries may take many years before they ever hear of anything like indymedia 
until someone tells them about it some how(conference, Caravan, regional visits 
etc).
> 
> [[[ honestly, some of us were quite disgusted and pissed off when we 
> realised, in september during WSSD, that ISO-ZIM asked us to borrow a 
> room (which we agreed to) at the IMC Centre for their meeting with 
> Keep Left (their south african counterpart) without even approaching 
> us as IMC. What a missed opportunity... :( ]]]
> 
> Again, to reply to the idea of a caravan, I would strongly rather 
> recommand a closer relationship between IMCs in the same region as a 
> first step to strengthen - whether IMCs are interested in this still 
> remain a question for our closest neighbour...
You are correct. This does not need to be a one time thing but and ever going 
process. Also if the other IMC does not take the innitiative to contact our IMC
you should take the inintiative to contact them. It is consensus; understanding 
co-operation from both ends. It is to our net interest that there is an IMC in 
every city of the world doing alternative media.
> 
> I think we have enough serious issues to deal with before talking 
> about 'imc africa', a caravan or a continental meeting. Sorry for 
> criticizing particular IMCs, but the problematic examples are so 
> obvious that it would hypocritical not to mention them. But I truly 
> hope we can address these problems without taking the critique as a 
> personal attack.
> 
> solidarity,
> francois

It will be nice to hear from you guys soon.
Solidarity Sphinx 

\"But for fate we could have been one another\\\"