[New-imc] Re: Zimbabwe IMC ready to go...

[boud]

On Sat, 2 Mar 2002 evan at protest.net wrote:

> One thing we could do is kind of weird. We should point
> zimbabwe.indymedia.org at a temp page which has a logo and says something
> about zimbabwe indymedia joing the network then we could redirect to the
> current url until you've finished the process.
> 
> Or we could say this is an extenuating circumstance and link
> zimbabwe.indymedia.org directly and wait on the cities list for later. I
> personally would be find with that but then i've met and talked with you
> in person which makes a difference. What do the rest of you all doing
> new-imc work thing?
> 
> in solidarity,
> evan
> 
> On Sat, 2 Mar 2002, Zimbabwe Indymedia wrote:
> 
> > Hey y'all
> >
> > Update from Zimbabwe again. Thanks MR for the comment - you're more right
> > than you know; we had to abandon our Bulawayo meeting yesterday because we'd
> > been told that the govt goons had heard about it, and were coming for us
> > with large sticks. Discretion being the better part of valour, we cancelled
> > and ran.

Well, I think the existing site looks good, and it seems clear that
the Zim team have the right intentions.  After all, trying to organise
face-to-face meetings where you risk having to run away from goons
with sticks is surely a sign of commitment! And they have had some
face-to-face contact with IMC people like Evan, which helps in making
sure that a relationship with the wider IMC network is there.

Before responding to the question of new-imc approval, I do have a
question and a comment:

Question - Couldn't there be a lot more activity on the imc-zimbabwe
mailing list? This can be done relatively safely compared to face-to-face
meetings, though hopefully after the election face-to-face meetings will
be easier, and ZimIMC seems to have ideas such as newspaper advertisements
to build up numbers so that there are simply too many people in a meeting
for goons to act.

Comment - Someone seems to have found a bunch of grassroots women's
groups who seem pretty well e-connected, with both web sites and
contact emails:

http://zimbabwe.syntac.net/news/2002/02/13.php

           - 70 different AIDS support groups 
           http://www.kubatana.net/html/sectors/sector_cont.asp?sector=HIVAID 


           - Savings Clubs [Self-help Development Foundation] 
           http://www.gdrc.org/icm/sdf.html 
           > There are over 10,000 clubs nation-wide and women account for up 
           > to 85 percent of membership (SDF, 1995). 

           Exactly what the IMF/WB/WTO are scared shitless by! 

           mailto:DYDA6038 at bureau.ucc.ie,hsrinivas at gdrc.org 

           Any other links to AIDS support groups and/or Savings Clubs groups? 


           - Women's Action Group (WAG), 
           http://www.wag.org.zw/ 
           mailto:wag at wag.org.zw 

           - Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF), 
           http://www.wildaf.org.zw/ 
           mailto:wildaf at wildaf.org.zw 

           - Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA), 
           http://www.wlsa.co.zw/ 
           mailto:wlsa at samara.co.zw 

           - the Zimbabwe Women's Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN) 
           http://www.zwrcn.org.zw/ 
           mailto:zwrcn at zwrcn.org.zw 

           - the Federation of African Media Women Zimbabwe (FAMWZ)] 
           http://www.sn.apc.org/sangonet/class99/famw/famwz.htm 
           mailto:famwz at samara.co.zw 

new-imc approval?

As for the formalities of the URL zimbabwe.indymedia.org and cities
listing, and of course I'm only representing myself(!), I think that
giving the URL would be justified, but I have mixed feelings about a
"fast track" cities listing, without anyone submitting the standard
documents. (Of course, the idea of an intermediate screen saying
approval is pending also seems reasonable to me. It would even help
educate many Indymedia users about the new-imc process...!)

There is the urgent situation of the elections, but there's a link
on the main Indy page pointing to Zimbabwe - which should be enough
for anyone who knows the page well enough. And having the 
zimbabwe.indymedia.org  URL would already help give the site some
"legitimacy" and implicit support from the network for motivating
various Zimbabwe groups.

I don't see the difficulty of the online Zimbabwe people - in
combination with "mini" meetings (in backs of people's houses, etc.) -
filling out the "membership criteria" and "principles of unity"
documents, posting these to the imc-zimbabwe list for comment and
criticism by grassroots groups such as the above women's groups (this
requires someone to email them!), setting a deadline for dissent, and
then submitting them to new-imc along with their introductory
why-we-want-to-be-an-IMC essay (or maybe that's already submitted?).

They can put in draft answers and of course some sentences about why
face-to-face meetings are difficult for the moment compared to IMC
groups in locations with less dangerous security situations.

And I expect it will be a lot less controversial than IMC-Palestine...
(If the request had been for  rhodesia.indymedia.org  it might have
raised a few eyebrows...)


Back to my comment - maybe I missed it, but I didn't see much about
outreach to grassroots contacts in earlier emails, and IMHO it's
important that changes in Zimbabwe are not just about giving the
IMF/WB more power to impose SAPs with privatisations and all sorts of
other transfers from one form of authoritarianism to another... And it
does look like quite a few grassroots groups are actually e-connected
and easily contactable... Can this be done?

In any case, I'm delighted that ZimIMC is on its way and am looking
forward to it thinking through, debating and deciding on the new-imc
documents...

boud (just one volunteer)

PS: Are local languages in Zimbabwe normally written in roman script,
or is another script (font + coding) required?