[Imc-africa] Re: SA Delegate to Dakar Conference

[Peter van Heusden]

Date sent:      	Wed,  3 Mar 2004 20:05:52 +0000
From:           	sphinx <sphinx at indymedia.org>
To:             	imc-africa at lists.indymedia.org, pvh at wfeet.za.net
Copies to:      	nicolas dieltiens <nicolas at red.org.za>,
	southafrica at indymedia.org, imc-sa at lists.indymedia.org
Subject:        	SA Delegate to Dakar Conference

> Dear pvh and imc-Southafrica! As you probably know from all the mails I
> send to your lists, before for close to 8months we've been involved in
> preparing for an indymeedia regional meeting in Africa, Dakar-Senegal from
> the 1st to the 14th March2004. 

Hello Sphinx

I have seen emails about this conference on and off (the IndyMedia 
mailing list manager keeps throwing my email off its mailing lists, 
because of my over-eager spam filter). I have now read up the recent 
posts via the WWW archive, so I think I am up to date.

As I understand it, the current situation is that funding has been 
secured for delegates from various places in Africa, and that a group 
(Michaela, Maureen and NeBe/Glenda) from Switzerland are currently in 
Dakar, with the Department of Economics at the University there, doing 
initial preparations for this meeting.

I haven't had a chance to talk to the other members of the Cape Town 
collective yet, I'll do that tomorrow.

However, I would like to state that we in Cape Town know Nicolas - he is 
a good comrade from the Johannesburg IndyMedia collective. I have read 
the exchange between yourself and him and think that you are doing him a 
great injustice by the way that you describe his emails... I can 
personally hear Nic's voice when reading those texts, his slightly ironic 
tone, etc. The issues he raises are not personal issues but come out of 
our experience as IMC-SAers.

IMC-SA is weak compared to other IMCs worldwide in terms of financial 
resources (organising meetings in both Johannesburg and Cape Town is very 
tough because the average South African cannot even afford to move around 
their own city at will), but it is strong in terms of its members' 
embeddedness in social movements. We draw our membership from people 
engaged in broad struggles in post-Apartheid South Africa. As I said, the 
points Nic raise, about organising IndyMedia being something political, 
something not just technical, is 100%. This Senegal thing has been 
discussed sporadically for months, yes. But surely the low volume of 
emails should have said something? Clearly something is happening in 
Senegal, but to what purpose - us IMC-SAers remain confused.

Anyway, I'll email more in the morning after discussing with other IMC-
SAers.

Peter
--
Peter van Heusden                     pvh at wfeet.za.net
Tel: +27 (0)83 256 0457