[Imc-africa] congratulations!

[Glenda Loebell]

Dear jay and all
Your message is most welcome.
Yes virual networks are not always easy-to say the
least.
The energy at the conference was amazing and the
engagement and participation most rewarding.
The  Senegal indymedia IMC will without a doubt
establish themselves as soon as they have settled
down, after the Gorree Festival, the university exams,
and after the three core people arrange to meet.  They
have indicated that they would prefer to digest the
impact and then to plan for inclusion of more
significate key people within the alternative media
sector.
We establiished real significant contact with these
people and will wait until they approach the network.
Rather that pressure them from in the north.

While I empathise with the telephone bills of
Valentine many of it was unneccessary. Hour long calls
to Azis asking him to bypass the organisors in Dakar
was to say the least destructive and as we are seeing
now costly. Not only was he asked to bypass me but
also Fabian.
We lost in Aziz a valuable journalist and contact due
to the undue pressure exerted by Valentine on him.
Azis was not the Dakar conference organiser. He never
was and never agreed to be it. He is and will be the
contact and very good friend of Rafel.
He was in fact most generious. Given the
circumstances. 
Also long telephone call to check up on the African
delegation seemed unneccessay,as all the people
attending were all adults with much varied experience.
No shepard had to herd his sheep.
But as most  Africans people are,  were always kind
and gracious.

Yes, any idea should be owned by all, ensuring
planning with participation and consultation.
While much of the people talking of further visits to
Africa agree in principal, many see the need to digest
and consult with their local communities.

Many questions were asked about money and the
spenditure thereof.
Many questions were asked in respect to  who makes
decisions: 
who gets full visa reimbursements and who does not and
why,
why was tikets bought that was so costly

a ticket was bought and not used what are the
consequences thereof-Ofega did not arrive due to work
committments

Confereces are not functional in Africa or any where
else in the world expecting the local communities to
foot the bill.

In Africa everything that one wants or needs needs to
be purchased.
I will post the university story within the next few
days.
(they wanted over a million Cfr just for the use of a
hall + computer rooms. The prof. that agreed to host
us was accused of having accepted a financial bribe
from me. When in fact all he was donated was a printer
that we took with and on discovering that his office
did not have a printer made the donation. This was to
enable us to operate from a office base for
communication. The univeersity is an African
institution and has very clear hieracy rules. We were
seen as internation cooperation and therefore expected
to come with wheelbarrows of money.

For comedia a full presentation will be arranged with
invitations to people from Germany, they donated all
the money for conference logistics.Sfr.4000- with
clear conditions that it be used for resourses
ensuring the conference has facilities. As fundraiser
for this amount I had the role of  buser in
cooperation with all the other participants who helped
arrange the alternative.

Making a budget available based on no local experience
or input is very difficult. For example allowances for
African delegates food, transport etc was in some way
unrealistic, people had no real free choice. While we
from the north had the free choice.  We need to talk
about all being equal in such a situation.  people not
used to sharing a room having to sleep on the floor,
sharing beds etc.
People having no experience with owning sleeping bags
having to deal with one small blanket and not much
else. The list would be long to describe events which
in the end with all the good humour and fun turned out
to be a big adventure.

Much of the purchase of the cyber cafe was reduced as
the equipment in these services are of the most basic.
Had it not been for the expertise of Sven, Julien,
Fabian and Daniel we would have on many occassion been
without the use of internet and decent computers. Plus
the computer + digital camera donated here in CH to be
used for the conference + other such projects)
(Standards and needs are so different-even in Dakar
the gateway to outside)
The elite have much and the sharing is not down.
The exploitation by the elite is
unbelievable-everybody trying to make a buck off the
other.

What are the immediate plans:

Rafel + others those who stayed and many of us who
will mobilize.

A campaign for and in support of the Goree people 
Who experienced the Bush's visit in the most
oppressive manner-over a 1000 people from the island
was imprisoned to include the mayor of the island. In
preparion for the Bush vist which lasted for 5 mins
and a speech that contained much lies and blahh
blahhs.....
Rafel and the others have found people on the island
who want to talk and express their feelings.
(Cleansing for the Bush visit) Rubbish propoganda for
the further rape of Africa for it's natural resourse,
propoganda for the up and coming USA elections

We have all been asked to contribute to this action it
needs mobilisation for festival parties on the
3/4/2004 - being the Day of Independance Senegal
It needs about EU 10,000- we are talking about getting
radio cracks out to help wire the whole island for
radion-Berlin, Rafel has talked to the spainish
embassy, he is talking to the correct people in
senegal so not to embasses the Senegal government
etc.....
I have agreed to mobilise in Switzerland and to
mobilise in the countries where I have concrete
networks.
What about the New York- Roger Waheham African
communities who have been at the forefront of the
whole slavery debate.(for those who may not know the
Goree island was the emprison camp from where the
African slaves who exported from.
I know him personally and can contact him if others
are not able to do it.
We need ideas to  mobilise.
We need to mobilse all over African and any where
where people have been subjected to slavery of one
kind or the other.
Today we have new forms of slavery.
All there subjects are interconnected and we need to
draw the attention of the world to these factors.
It is supprising how the mainstream media manipulation
has worked where education has been lacking.

Just a small example: all of the student traveling
with us to the Goree island had never been there
before and the experice was so rich. it takes me back
to my South African experience with Robben Island.

Must go 
Will send Rafel a mail to connect this evening.

NeBe




--- Jay <jaypsand at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi imc-africa,
> 
> Congratulations and great thanks go out to everyone
> who worked so hard to 
> make the Dakar conference a success.  I know there
> were many tense moments, 
> much frustration, people angry at each other and
> some disappointments 
> too.  I also sense, from seeing the feature on
> www.indymedia.org, from 
> seeing the "imc in africa" web site and from reading
> the notes from people 
> who were at this conference sent to the list, that
> there were many, many 
> positive things that came out of Dakar.
> 
> After taking a couple weeks to relax and reflect,
> certainly we should 
> evalulate what went right and what went wrong this
> time to figure out how 
> the next conference can be best organized.  If the
> next suggested date for 
> a conference is a year from now, I guess the
> planning should start right 
> away so there won't be a scramble for funds as there
> was this time.  Plus, 
> I know Sphinx still has some very large cell phone
> bills that came from 
> planning the conference.  Paying those should be a
> first priority.
> 
> I wish I could have been there with you all in
> Dakar.
> 
> Jay
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Imc-africa mailing list
> Imc-africa at lists.indymedia.org
> http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-africa

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