[Imc-africa] dakar concerns

[Libby]

Hello Nicolas,

You are right. I've been envolved in setting up new imc's both by 
physically being present at the first few meetings for imc's in my 
vecinity and remote over the net (mail, irc) for  those further away. 
The technical stuff is not the most important issue. And we must not 
assume that people in developing countries have less technical skills. 
I've had proof of the contrary in dealing with new imc's. The group with 
the least technical skills and most limited internet access was one in a 
northern european metropole with over a million inhabitants. And those 
got all the priciples of how an imc website is set up and run down in 
two evenings, the actual admin and basic html took another two sessions, 
so basically all that can be done in two days  even when dealing with 
total newbies (over two thirds of the group had never even seen an imc 
website before the first session).

And these kids are doing a great job, they weren't focussed on running a 
website but on making media as a part of their activism and they come up 
with great new ideas like an imc wallnewspaper. Having little internet 
access themselves they realise imc should be more than a website, its 
the idea of making free media itsef thats pedominant in that collective.
They sort of reinvented imc all over again, in respect of the principles 
of unity, but they do not isolate themselves from the rest of the imc 
community, other imc's in the region can count on them( and vice versa) 
and their refreshing approach has a positive influence.

Setting up imc's in Africa is a good thing and i agree with you they 
shouldn't be made in the mould of european or US ones (if that is what i 
can deduct from your mail). there are huge differences between imc's 
from country to country and the diffrecnes grow even bigger if you start 
comparing continents, and yet most can be seen as subscribing to the 
principles of unity. African imc's cannot be carbon copy's of the 
european ones, just as latin american imc's were not happy with being 
carbon copy's of the northern american ones. We must at all costs avoid 
making that same mistake again, because its much tougher adapting 
something allready in place to ones own needs than creating something 
that will be an answer to the local situation and we can count ourselves 
lucky the people in latin america didn't give up and turned their imc's 
into tools that are usefull and doing a far better job in reaching out 
to local communities and giving voice to the voiceless than any imc in 
the norht or in europe.

Because, you see we are not the voiceless (we're hardly ever being 
heard, but that is not the same thing). We know about imc, we see what 
the use is of making and facilitating independent news, but we must get 
it into our local communities and in europe we are failing at that. This 
conference should not focus too much on tech, it should focus on how to 
be indymedia in Africa, not just indymedia  for the sophisticated, well 
educated critical youth in the big cities of Africa.  We should focus on 
exchanging ideas and learning from failures and successes. If we get it 
right we could come up with thins that could benefit to the whole 
network. If its to be only about tech stuff, i'm sure every collective 
will find a techie locally, so this whole conference would be a huge 
waste of money.

I'm sorry this is turning out to be rather a long mail and i would like 
to hear the ideas of the other participants on the questions raised by 
Nicolas.

Greetings,

Libby

nicolas dieltiens wrote:

>Dear all, for a two-week conference that's scheduled to begin at the end of the month, very little discussion has focused on the conference itself, its programme and objectives. Everyone on-list has been scurrying around for funds to make it happen when what it is that will occupy the few that will attend for two-weeks is actually quite unclear. The conference has been suggested as a technical workshop, and 9 volunteers are to offer workshops on skills still to be determined for 12 or less IMC-africa participants. If this is all the Dakar conference is hoping to achieve, I could think of better ways to spend our efforts and their money.
>
>Perhaps some responses could clarify my concerns, but at the moment the conference hasn't been conceptualised and organising the event lurches towards the question of funds. Let's better re-schedule and conceptualise the conference before exasperating volunteered contributions. I'd really be a reluctant participant in a conference of 6 with 9 workshop facilitators - for two-weeks (the count recommended recently by Jay (IMC Philadelphia)). The political agenda for the conference is entirely absent and subsumed by presumptions of African neediness and northern activists' benevolence.
>
>regards
>
>Nicolas
>Indymedia sa
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