[New-imc] Query re: IMC Zimbabwe
Kilibarda78 at aol.com
Kilibarda78 at aol.com
Sun Jun 2 04:34:04 PDT 2002
Dear Boud,
in terms of policy considerations I had two concerns regarding the
definitions being used. First of all what is the role of independent and
alternative media in providing information when a government in the South is
being demonized? That's a big question, and not one I expect you to answer
over email. Should it be working with that government to get an alternative
message out, or should it instead be working with internal opposition groups
that often share the same discourse as the West on many key points (including
many critical silences and ommissions - in IMC Zimbabwe's case, almost total
neglect of the land question)?
The point that we are all aware of should perhaps be reiterated, ie. that not
all "civil society" actors are engaged in a struggle against neoliberalsm,
not all trade-unions are progressive, and not all NGOs are "grassroots". In
fact it is precisely on the issue of what a "grassroots" organization is that
I have the most trouble.
The National Consitutional Assembly in Zimbabwe for instance receives funding
from the US congressionally funded National Endowment for Democracy, and most
NGOs with a web-presence receive some assistance from major donor
governments. In fact 85% of recognized professionalized NGOs receive
assistance from Northern governments. Professionalized NGOs need to be
distinguished from truly grass-roots movements in that they lack a mass-base,
are usually urban based, staffed by middle-class individuals, and have
widespread access to international networks. Many of these groups already
have sufficient space on the Internet and a strong voice in it as well.
What I am concerned about is the marginalization of rural voices, of those
poor Zimbabweans who support the land-reform program (including youth, women,
etc.), the views of black workers on white farms (who often face terrible
conditions and are also victims of intimidation and biased/narrow news
sources (i.e. exposed to corporate media instead of government media)), etc.
These are all important questions that should be addressed, instead of only
airing the views of the Western funded MDC and its supporters.
I am not against critical debate and imput from any party or faction in the
country, but I think it is important to consider what IMC's role should be in
this process. There are plenty of good reasons to criticize Mugabe and his
inner-circle - and I'm not suggesting that their positions that should be
placed front and centre - but there are millions of Zimbabweans who support
ZANU, its sectoral organizations and its democratic-mass-base that are also
dissolutioned with Mugabe in a way very different from most of the MDC
(thereby applying a similar critique to that of the ISO, with only a
difference in accent that seeks reform within ZANU instead of reform within
the MDC).
It is difficult to find such voices online, especially since ZANU supporters
are overwhelmingly concentrated in rural areas with low access to computers.
It is interesting to note that there is very little on land reform on the
Zimbabwe IMC site even though this is a major issue in the country. Anyway,
I trust your judgement overall, but just wanted to prod you guys a bit to
consider some of these issues and to throw alittle more critical eye on that
broad term "civil society". I really have nothing against the ISO and
especially not the Zimbabwean students struggle in the face of repression,
but I also think the other side of the story should be told - i.e. the
repressive acts carried out by white-farmers, the land-question, and the
grass-roots activists within the ZANU-PF, which hold critical views of the
government as well but are also far more critical of Western interference in
the country and collusion between the racist white-settler elite, corporate
interests in the country and the whole discourse of "economic emancipation"
and the "Third Chimurenga (liberation war)" that is the core of ZANU's
beliefs (including even industrial action to seize ownership of factories
and indigenize these). Anyway no point in coninuously repeating the same
points...Of course the difficulty is finding out why/how these voices are
marginalized, and how they can be brought into the mainstream. I will see
what I can do at my end, and I really love the work you cats are doing. keep
it up...
cheers!
Konstantin
In a message dated 30/05/02 07:13:12 Eastern Daylight Time, boud1 at wp.pl
writes:
> Subj:Re: [New-imc] Query re: IMC Zimbabwe
> Date:30/05/02 07:13:12 Eastern Daylight Time
> From:<A HREF="mailto:boud1 at wp.pl">boud1 at wp.pl</A>
> Reply-to:<A HREF="mailto:new-imc at indymedia.org">new-imc at indymedia.org</A>
> To:<A HREF="mailto:Kilibarda78 at aol.com">Kilibarda78 at aol.com</A>
> CC:<A HREF="mailto:new-imc at indymedia.org">new-imc at indymedia.org</A>, <A HREF="mailto:imc-zimbabwe at lists.indymedia.org">imc-zimbabwe at lists.indymedia.org</A>
> Sent from the Internet
>
>
>
> <cross-post new-imc, imc-zimbabwe, kilibarda78>
>
> Dear Konstantin,
>
> On Wed, 29 May 2002 Kilibarda78 at ... wrote:
>
> > I was just wondering whether or not IMC Zimbabwe is an IMC site or not?
> It
> > is very biased and partisan on an issue that seems to divide many on the
> old
> > factionalized left (no suprise), but also on the new left and within the
> > anti-globalization movement. In particular it is interesting that ISO
> seems
> > to run most of the site. I noticed Zimbabwe isn't listed under your
> Africa
>
> IMC Zimbabwe is a "requested" site, and has not yet been officially
> accepted. Most of the discussion (if i remember right) was in March:
>
> http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2002-March/thread.html
>
> In particular threads starting here:
> http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2002-March/002878.html
> http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2002-March/002891.html
> http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2002-March/002902.html
> http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2002-March/002907.html
>
> It was given the zimbabwe.indymedia.org address on the understanding
> that the locals presently involved had the right intentions (going
> through the new-imc process); that their existing site looked
> reasonably open; that for security reasons, physical, face-to-face,
> public meetings were dangerous; and that the situation (the elections)
> was urgent.
>
> The idea was that they committed themselves to working towards the
> indymedia style of openness and non-exclusion and a variety of
> viewpoints, especially grassroots involvement, consensus
> decision-making, and that they would ask for official recognition once
> this process got going seriously.
>
>
> > presented in the mainstream media. I wanted to get alternative
> information
> > on Zimbabwe, of which there is much and I only got the same old
> ...
> > the views of activists occupying white farms, etc. The struggle for
> > land and land-reform is a cross-cutting feature in the South, yet it
> > is precisely the voices of such peasants that are often marginalized
> > and shut-out. The MST is only ONE of many such movements world-wide
> > (many of which are spontaneous),
>
>
> Konstantin, could you help by taking constructive action?
>
> Could you contact some grassroots groups in Zimbabwe and help them
> post to the newswire, and participate in the mailing list:
>
> http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-zimbabwe
>
> If you search a bit with http://www.google.com i'm sure you could
> find internet contacts for some internet-connected activists who
> support these groups and are independent from the ISO. But maybe
> you already have other ways of contacting grassroots groups in
> Zimbabwe.
>
>
> On the other hand, it would be nice to see some comments from Zim Indy
> how they are progressing... There's only spam (as fas as i can see) in
> the last month of the imc-zimbabwe mailing list archive... (apart from
> the post on the IMC Africa caravana)
>
>
> BTW, since i'm cross-posting:
>
> Dear Zim Indymedia,
>
> (1) EDITORIAL POLICY
>
> Your editorial policy
>
> http://zimbabwe.indymedia.org/process/openpub.php
>
> seems to say that only double posts and spam are hidden.
>
> So i'm a bit puzzled why the following two articles were hidden,
> since neither seems to be a double post nor spam, nor even an
> "unexpected" category which could conceivably justify a modification
> of the editorial policy.
>
> Microsoft vs. Open Source
> by Martin Hu Thursday May 23, 2002 at 03:36 PM
> http://zimbabwe.indymedia.org/news/2002/05/307.php
>
> Women Bear Brunt of Suffering Caused by Angola War
> by Nicoloe Itano Thursday May 09, 2002 at 09:34 AM
> http://zimbabwe.indymedia.org/news/2002/05/303.php
>
> IMHO, both articles are good contributions.
>
> IMCs are supposed to encourage open source software, and the first article
> does refer specifically to a struggle going on right now between M$oft
> and the open source community in poor countries.
>
> As for the second article, while AFAIK, Angola is not part of
> Zimbabwe, i think that in the absence of IMC Lusaka or IMC Angola
> etc., it makes sense that someone posts this information to the
> geographically closest IMC.
>
> However, apart from my personal opinion (which doesn't count for much
> here) that both articles are good contributions, i think that very few
> IMCs accept the idea of distinguishing between "good quality, highly
> relevant" and "low quality, irrelevant" articles, since these sort of
> judgments are simply far too subjective.
>
>
> (2) OUTREACH TO OTHER GROUPS
>
> Let's be honest, there seems to be a strong involvement of ISO
> in the present Zim Indymedia group, committed to various political
> strategies, such as "libertarian socialism". As i understand
> Indymedia, this is *not* against our style of media activism.
>
> However, we would prefer to get away from general political "theory"
> (libertarian socialism, anti-capitalism, etc.) and concentrate on
> having *news* articles on the newswire. Discussion (and "theory") can
> follow in the comments, but the best way to get news from a variety of
> oppressed groups is to help *them* contribute directly and manage the
> site directly, themselves.
>
> Have you got any further in contacting various grassroots groups,
> in helping them get internet access, in inviting them to meetings,
> making sure that the meetings are organised non-hierarchically,
> with rotation of facilitators, etc.? Remember that the network
> supported your group at the time of the elections, in the expectation
> that you were planning to contact a wide variety of local, grassroots
> groups and get them involved. It does seem from some of the posts
> that ISO *is* contacting students and trade union groups, e.g.
>
> http://zimbabwe.indymedia.org/news/2002/05/319.php
>
> but if they have email contact, why don't you invite them to get
> involved directly in Zim Indymedia? If there were a dozen or so
> students, trade union people, women's rights activists, etc.
> who introduced themselves to the imc-zimbabwe mailing list, then
> there would at least be enough critical mass for people to openly
> talk about how to get into contact with and develop internet
> access for other grassroots groups, such as rural people.
> At the moment, there's nothing (but spam) on the list...
>
> (3) OPEN PUBLIC MEETINGS
>
> The same article
>
> http://zimbabwe.indymedia.org/news/2002/05/319.php
>
> says that 38 activists got together for the Anti-Privatisation
> Forum meeting, despite the risks someone said earlier about
> having public meetings.
>
> In that case, it seems that it should be possible to have open
> public meetings for the requested IMC Zimbabwe, with all sorts
> of grassroots groups participating.
>
> Is this a reasonable suggestion? Could you organise some regular
> meetings and advertise them widely to groups involved in the
> Anti-Privatisation Forum and other grassroots groups, and specifically
> include announcements on the zimbabwe.indymedia.org site and
> the mailing list?
>
>
>
> solidarity
> boud
>
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