[Imc-finance] Ford Foundation and confidence-unity issues

[Ilias]

Reading the mails following mine's, i find it nessesary to clarify some 
things. First of all, i know that the "volume" of my mail was too high: 
this is not because i like to tell other people what to do red kitten, 
but because i was really upset after just having learnt about the 
issue - and i was upset because i felt losing my confidence in (but not 
my respect to the people of) the imc-network procedures. It seemed to 
me that the network was just about to take a substancial amount of 
money from a foundation related to a multinational company, whithout 
any discussion taking place and wihout anybody knowing about that. 
After calming down and reading the e-mails more carefully, i can see 
that this is not exactly the case: however it still seems to me pretty 
close to it. 

I understand that the reason that the issue was not brought to the imc-
finance list is because the money aren't supposed to be spent through 
the imc-finance procedure. However it is still going to be spent in a 
way that will benefit the whole of the indymedia community: paying 
travel expenses for indymedia people to attend regional meetings. The 
UCIMC is used mostly as a legal "channel" for getting and spending the 
money, just like in the imc-finance situation, and the organizers of 
the project include people from other imc's , forming a project group 
called imc-encuentros. And the ford foundation has in mind giving the 
money to indymedia as a whole, not the UCIMC.

So when we are talking about AUTONOMY here, we are not talking about 
the autonomy of a single imc. The money will be used for the benefit of 
imc people throughout the globe, not for the needs of UCIMC. We are 
talking about the autonomy of a group of people inside indymedia, or 
else an imc-project. A similar situation would be if imc-tech, for 
example, was receiving that money. That would be closer to saying that 
imc-urbana is receiving the money. 

So what matters is not the definitions, but the essence of the matter. 
Do imc-projects have full autonomy in making choices as controversial 
as this one and how does that affect the sense of unity and confidence 
whithin the network? Let's say, for example, that the Ford Foundation 
had chosen to give the money to imc-server, let's say a group formed by 
imc people in the same manner that imc-encuentros was,in order to buy a 
new hi-tech server for hosting indymedia sites. Would it be reasonable 
to say that the imc's that don't agree are free not to use the server? 
What would the effect be in terms of unity and confidence between the 
two sides?

What i am saying is that people in imc-projects have to take
into account the whole Indymedia community when making choices that 
affects it. Not by asking permission, but by contemplating the effects 
of their moves on the unity and strength of the network. And by 
informing the whole network of their project - i say again, not in 
order to take "permission" - but in the sake of transparency, mutual 
trust and strengthening the international imc community. And, on the 
other hand, it's always better to utilise the network procedures for 
network-wide issues: even though i know that this is not always 
functioning. But bypassing the network-wide structures in the sake of 
functionality and flexibility can have some substancial side-effects..

There is no case of a "veto" here. We will discuss the issue in imc-
athens in our next meeting and possibly come up with a position 
(certainly not a "desicion") regarding the Ford grant.    

And again, Sheri, Shacha, John and everyone else involved in this 
project, pardon my unnessesary high spirit in my last e-mail. Tempers 
can get out of hand sometimes :-(

In solidarity,

Ilias from IMC-Athens