[New-imc] Re: IMC Ambazonia - nearly ready - a comment + suggestions
valentine V eben
vally_x at lycos.com
Tue Nov 26 18:09:03 PST 2002
Hello Boud! Thanks for responding to our mail.
I hope I answer your concerns properly. If I don’t please do not hesitate to indicate. In trying to answer I assume that some other persons in the network have the same thoughts as evident in some other communication.
<### comment which IMHO requires some discussion ###
(1) diaspora vs local; electronic vs face-to-face decision-making?>
-Diaspora vs local
We really do not have a disapora versus local struggle. If ever there is a problem within an IMC it does not need to be a diaspora vs local, it needs to be one group in an IMC against another and the whole dynamics of consensus will be thrown out of other we saw that with IMC France and I think at some point with IMC UK and a couple of others.
We have activists leaving in the diaspora and some in the territory. Some of those leaving in the diaspora had to go into to exile because of their political activity. These activists are in constant contact with their comrades at home and kept up to date about life in the territory, to continue their new task like ambassadors for the struggles for which they were forced to go on exile. We equally have activists leaving in the diaspora that though not exiles are interested in the struggle for social justice in that country.
I wrote we . We’ve
> succeeded to assemble a solid team of activists, journalists and
students both from home and in the Diaspora.>
I called the it "solid team" because it is made up of some of the most respect and known political activist, students respected journalists in the territory; thought some happen to be in the diaspora.
-Electronic versus face-to-face decision-making
The whole group have never met for a face to face meeting, that obviously does not mean that we do not know how important face to face meetings are. I wonder if we will be the only IMC which will becoming part of the network and never had a face to face meeting. I think in every IMC as a well in the network those who have more online access turn to do most of the online work which in our case happens to be those in the diaspora. Yet the opinion of those at home count. Every document that is issued on behave of the group is sent to the list first to make sure that everyone can have their say on the destiny of the Ambazonia IMC.
> Ambazonia-Indymedia {WASHINGTON DC-Metropolis Branch}:
*********Call for OPEN MEETING:**************>
We have as known to me 5 active persons in the WDC and there are a couple of other persons from the Ambazonia activists community leaving in that area whom they have been talking to about our IMC project. While this people are ready to work in a project that gives the possibility for the oppressed to express themselves not all of them yet understand how basically how IMCs function . It is absolutely important for us that everybody in this project (our comrades in DC included) gets to know everything about the project; about the network, site and list administration, and how IMCs function. In the same light we were struggling the past weeks to make it possible for the people in the territory to get a meeting with IMC Nigeria and Jay from IMC Philadelphia.
< People in the network are generally uncomfortable with the idea of an
Indymedia collective controlled from abroad by a diaspora. This
doesn't mean that expats cannot be involved, but problems are, for
example, that expats can only get second-hand information, they cannot
do the face-to-face outreach to a wide variety of local groups of
people who experience the day-to-day hardships directly, they risk
dominating over the locals, and after all, they are not affected
by local news in the way that locals are affected.>
I think it is a bit hard to talk about working on consensus bases and control together. You are to a certain degree right about local outreach but the fact is that in our IMC like in others around the world stories of people being introduced to IMCs by people not leaving in the country or city are not news. I leave in Germany but was introduced to IMC by an activist from IMC-Austria . The main people involved in IMC Russia and Cyprus use to leave in Germany. Imc prague had an almost similar story. At the time Jay help set-up IMC DC he was not leaving in DC. The examples go on and on.
<Please don't take this negatively - as long as there *are* locals
involved, and the plan is to transfer most of the control to the locals,
and if there is a clearly functioning, open, communication between
diaspora and locals, where it is clear that the diaspora do not
dominate, i don't see people complaining too much.>
I do not take this negative but I hope you see the other side of how this good intentioned mail could reach someone. We hope to have a functioning IMC, a tool where people leaving in the community can say what they think without the worries of their article being thrown in the dustbin for fear or self censorship and we encourage and will continue to encourage all those who can make this happen to put their hands on the paddle. You can bet with me that if you check the editorial team of other IMCs around the world there are people participating in decision making who are not resident in the city or country of the IMC in question. As I said we do not have any issue here of domination or control. We have a group where everybody’s opinion counts.
<(1a) Roughly what are the proportions (numbers) of diaspora:locals involved?
50:50? 9:1? 1:9? 20:180?>
As at the last time we discussed that on our list we had, 5persons in the territory, 5 in Europe and 5 in the America; but in the meantime one person from Europe left and 3 other persons joined who have not yet introduced themselves to the group at the time of writing so I cannot say where they are based.
<(1b) Could you tell us a bit more how you see local grassroots groups
getting involved, *in* Ambazonia? Do you have a vision of how to cross
the electronic to non-electronic divide, including both content
production and consumption? Do you have goals for local internet
training, in free software, of course, so that more and more locals
can get involved >
Grassroots work will go on with mouth to mouth campaign, phone calls and emails to groups and individuals working on the ground just like it is done by lots of other IMCs. We plan to focus on print and we are thinking of radio(pirate radio) projects too. You sure do understand that this problem of electronic and non-electronic devide is not only between the countries in the global North and South it is as well a problem in the global North between the rich and the poor so we are going to try to be as practical as possible. Those who have online access can unload their and we will as well organise collection points were those with no online access can drop their hand written articles. We shall equally try to get activist come around for example in schools at given times of the week to pick up articles. The articles will be uploaded and amongst all the articles that are available we’ll propose which once go into the upcoming print and which once become features on the site or
go to both print and feature. Yes we plan to organise workshops for internet and free software training.
<(1c) In your decision-making method, you say nothing about how to know
that *every* or *all* member(s) has(ve) been consulted or agree on
something. At the moment your list archive>
We take decision in the same way they are taken in many other IMCs and in the network. There is a proposal and time is given for people to give their opinion about it. And a final version is drawn from the assembly of the comments and original proposal. When there is no comment after a while it means there is no person against and we go ahead with the proposal.
Decisions are taken on the list and till now the activists in the territory leaving in different cities have not been able to meet face-to-face.
After reading the clarification from your mail about the intrigue surrounding closed achieved mailing list we are going to open our achieves. May be it is worth saying that at the time we got the lists we where just eager to protect the activists in the territory from repression and did not give a long thought about it.
<### suggestion ###
(2) ImcAmbazonia TWiki pages>
Thanks for the twiki account. I had registered in twiki and we have been discussing twiki on our list.
<### suggestion ####
(3) open archives for the mailing list, or a second list with open archives?
Right now, your archives:
Fehler! Textmarke nicht definiert.
are closed to non-subscribers.
It might seem like this protects against policemen etc reading the
emails, but they simply have to subscribe and they'll read them
anyway. Unless you have a very paranoid policy regarding who may
subscribe, in which case the group would not be open and would be
contrary to indymedia organising principles.>
We are discussing about starting a second list that will be closed and the achieves of the present list are now open.
About how we’ve been dealing with subscription till now. Basically people where subscribed directly or through the web interface. Normally we wrote to people whom non in the list knew before and asked them to introduce themselves to the list as just as we have a roll call that is present going on. We only once took someone off the list when the person refused to introduce her/himself. But later a comrade complained that it may be due to lack of access thus we agreed on re-subscribing the person in question.
Some activists and surely Boud must have noticed the node in my reply.
Hello Boud! Thanks for responding to our mail.
I hope I answer your concerns properly. If I don’t please do not hesitate to indicate. In trying to answer I assume that some other persons in the network have the same thoughts as evident in some other communication.
<### comment which IMHO requires some discussion ###
(1) diaspora vs local; electronic vs face-to-face decision-making?>
-Diaspora vs local
We really do not have a disapora versus local struggle. If ever there is a problem within an IMC it does not need to be a diaspora vs local, it needs to be one group in an IMC against another and the whole dynamics of consensus will be thrown out of other we saw that with IMC France and I think at some point with IMC UK and a couple of others.
We have activists leaving in the diaspora and some in the territory. Some of those leaving in the diaspora had to go into to exile because of their political activity. These activists are in constant contact with their comrades at home and kept up to date about life in the territory, to continue their new task like ambassadors for the struggles for which they were forced to go on exile. We equally have activists leaving in the diaspora that though not exiles are interested in the struggle for social justice in that country.
I wrote we . We’ve
> succeeded to assemble a solid team of activists, journalists and
students both from home and in the Diaspora.>
I called the it "solid team" because it is made up of some of the most respect and known political activist, students respected journalists in the territory; thought some happen to be in the diaspora.
-Electronic versus face-to-face decision-making
The whole group have never met for a face to face meeting, that obviously does not mean that we do not know how important face to face meetings are. I wonder if we will be the only IMC which will becoming part of the network and never had a face to face meeting. I think in every IMC as a well in the network those who have more online access turn to do most of the online work which in our case happens to be those in the diaspora. Yet the opinion of those at home count. Every document that is issued on behave of the group is sent to the list first to make sure that everyone can have their say on the destiny of the Ambazonia IMC.
> Ambazonia-Indymedia {WASHINGTON DC-Metropolis Branch}:
*********Call for OPEN MEETING:**************>
We have as known to me 5 active persons in the WDC and there are a couple of other persons from the Ambazonia activists community leaving in that area whom they have been talking to about our IMC project. While this people are ready to work in a project that gives the possibility for the oppressed to express themselves not all of them yet understand how basically how IMCs function . It is absolutely important for us that everybody in this project (our comrades in DC included) gets to know everything about the project; about the network, site and list administration, and how IMCs function. In the same light we were struggling the past weeks to make it possible for the people in the territory to get a meeting with IMC Nigeria and Jay from IMC Philadelphia.
< People in the network are generally uncomfortable with the idea of an
Indymedia collective controlled from abroad by a diaspora. This
doesn't mean that expats cannot be involved, but problems are, for
example, that expats can only get second-hand information, they cannot
do the face-to-face outreach to a wide variety of local groups of
people who experience the day-to-day hardships directly, they risk
dominating over the locals, and after all, they are not affected
by local news in the way that locals are affected.>
I think it is a bit hard to talk about working on consensus bases and control together. You are to a certain degree right about local outreach but the fact is that in our IMC like in others around the world stories of people being introduced to IMCs by people not leaving in the country or city are not news. I leave in Germany but was introduced to IMC by an activist from IMC-Austria . The main people involved in IMC Russia and Cyprus use to leave in Germany. Imc prague had an almost similar story. At the time Jay help set-up IMC DC he was not leaving in DC. The examples go on and on.
<Please don't take this negatively - as long as there *are* locals
involved, and the plan is to transfer most of the control to the locals,
and if there is a clearly functioning, open, communication between
diaspora and locals, where it is clear that the diaspora do not
dominate, i don't see people complaining too much.>
I do not take this negative but I hope you see the other side of how this good intentioned mail could reach someone. We hope to have a functioning IMC, a tool where people leaving in the community can say what they think without the worries of their article being thrown in the dustbin for fear or self censorship and we encourage and will continue to encourage all those who can make this happen to put their hands on the paddle. You can bet with me that if you check the editorial team of other IMCs around the world there are people participating in decision making who are not resident in the city or country of the IMC in question. As I said we do not have any issue here of domination or control. We have a group where everybody’s opinion counts.
<(1a) Roughly what are the proportions (numbers) of diaspora:locals involved?
50:50? 9:1? 1:9? 20:180?>
As at the last time we discussed that on our list we had, 5persons in the territory, 5 in Europe and 5 in the America; but in the meantime one person from Europe left and 3 other persons joined who have not yet introduced themselves to the group at the time of writing so I cannot say where they are based.
<(1b) Could you tell us a bit more how you see local grassroots groups
getting involved, *in* Ambazonia? Do you have a vision of how to cross
the electronic to non-electronic divide, including both content
production and consumption? Do you have goals for local internet
training, in free software, of course, so that more and more locals
can get involved >
Grassroots work will go on with mouth to mouth campaign, phone calls and emails to groups and individuals working on the ground just like it is done by lots of other IMCs. We plan to focus on print and we are thinking of radio(pirate radio) projects too. You sure do understand that this problem of electronic and non-electronic devide is not only between the countries in the global North and South it is as well a problem in the global North between the rich and the poor so we are going to try to be as practical as possible. Those who have online access can unload their and we will as well organise collection points were those with no online access can drop their hand written articles. We shall equally try to get activist come around for example in schools at given times of the week to pick up articles. The articles will be uploaded and amongst all the articles that are available we’ll propose which once go into the upcoming print and which once become features on the site or
go to both print and feature. Yes we plan to organise workshops for internet and free software training.
<(1c) In your decision-making method, you say nothing about how to know
that *every* or *all* member(s) has(ve) been consulted or agree on
something. At the moment your list archive>
We take decision in the same way they are taken in many other IMCs and in the network. There is a proposal and time is given for people to give their opinion about it. And a final version is drawn from the assembly of the comments and original proposal. When there is no comment after a while it means there is no person against and we go ahead with the proposal.
Decisions are taken on the list and till now the activists in the territory leaving in different cities have not been able to meet face-to-face.
After reading the clarification from your mail about the intrigue surrounding closed achieved mailing list we are going to open our achieves. May be it is worth saying that at the time we got the lists we where just eager to protect the activists in the territory from repression and did not give a long thought about it.
<### suggestion ###
(2) ImcAmbazonia TWiki pages>
Thanks for the twiki account. I had registered in twiki and we have been discussing twiki on our list.
<### suggestion ####
(3) open archives for the mailing list, or a second list with open archives?
Right now, your archives:
Fehler! Textmarke nicht definiert.
are closed to non-subscribers.
It might seem like this protects against policemen etc reading the
emails, but they simply have to subscribe and they'll read them
anyway. Unless you have a very paranoid policy regarding who may
subscribe, in which case the group would not be open and would be
contrary to indymedia organising principles.>
We are discussing about starting a second list that will be closed and opening the achieves of the present list.
About how we’ve been dealing with subscription till now. Basically people where subscribed directly or through the web interface. Normally we wrote to people whom non in the list knew before and asked them to introduce themselves to the list as just as we have a roll call that is present going on. We only once took someone off the list when the person refused to introduce her/himself. But later a comrade complained that it may be due to lack of access thus we agreed on re-subscribing the person in question.
Some activists and surely Boud must have noticed the node in my reply. I hope this node will wake some of us in the network on how sometimes we unconsciously look at groups or individuals within certain frames that that can not be characterised of a network that is said to be build on consensus which implies respect and trust.
.For those of you who are in process for a while now you must remember the moment when it was almost fashionable for people to start quarrels without a cause on that list.
Reading the email from Boud below and remembering I read a very a strange email that reflected a maximum of rudeness from Pedros I though I should take sometime and bring this up hoping it will get us thinking the way we communicate by mails in the IMC network.
Sphinx
--
On Mon, 25 Nov 2002 02:53:36
boud wrote:
>Dear vally, edwin, other Ambazonians,
> Sorry that noone's replied to you so far on your new-imc
>application (apart from jay when you contacted initially, a month or
>so back) - please remember that Indymedia is purely based on
>volunteers. Despite several calls for new volunteers, we seem to be
>quite thin on the ground at new-imc. i've already talked through a
>few new IMCs, and i'm hoping to quit the group, which is why i didn't
>reply earlier.
>
>In the future, if you wish to volunteer someone to be part of the
>new-imc working group to help talk through other new African IMCs,
>please do so - for obvious reasons, you might be more sensitive and
>understand the local conditions better than someone like me who's
>never lived in Africa.
>
>Anyway, i'm delighted to see that you've worked through most of the
>steps for forming an IMC:
>- mission statement ("introductory statement")
>- editorial policy
>- decision making process
>- response to membership criteria
>http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2002-November/004187.html
>plus you have a functioning site.
>
>My feeling is that you're ready to be proposed to the new-imc group,
>but i have (1) one comment which i feel should at least be discussed, and
>(2),(3) two suggestions.
>
>i'd be more comfortable proposing you if you could at least give some
>responses.
>
>
>### comment which IMHO requires some discussion ###
>(1) diaspora vs local; electronic vs face-to-face decision-making?
>
>http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2002-November/004187.html
>
>> c. The political situation in Ambazonia makes it dangerous to hold
>> public meetings in the true sense of the word. We made phone calls ,
>> talked to people individually and send emails to many individuals
>> and mailing lists . We are continuing our outreach especially by
>> approaching individuals, as that is the way projects that could be
>> target for repression by the authorities are run out here. We’ve
>> succeeded to assemble a solid team of activists, journalists and
>> students both from home and in the Diaspora.
>
>http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2002-November/004195.html
>
>> Ambazonia-Indymedia {WASHINGTON DC-Metropolis Branch}:
>> *********Call for OPEN MEETING:**************
>>
>> This message is to solicit consensus from all members on when we can
>> meet this week as an Ambazonia-Indymedia group. Recall Chris of
>> DC-INDYMEDIA has already offered to be there (along with others) to
>> give us a preview of the IMC world and answer all our questions.
>
>People in the network are generally uncomfortable with the idea of an
>Indymedia collective controlled from abroad by a diaspora. This
>doesn't mean that expats cannot be involved, but problems are, for
>example, that expats can only get second-hand information, they cannot
>do the face-to-face outreach to a wide variety of local groups of
>people who experience the day-to-day hardships directly, they risk
>dominating over the locals, and after all, they are not affected
>by local news in the way that locals are affected.
>
>So the preference is that while expats can be very supportive, it
>really should be local people, who really live in the place of the
>IMC, who "control" the site and make sure that it's open,
>non-hierarchical, consensual, etc. and that there are reports on a
>wide variety of local events.
>
>Please don't take this negatively - as long as there *are* locals
>involved, and the plan is to transfer most of the control to the locals,
>and if there is a clearly functioning, open, communication between
>diaspora and locals, where it is clear that the diaspora do not
>dominate, i don't see people complaining too much.
>
>There are high-security-risk places where IMC's have been created,
>where local meetings *do* happen, like in Palestine - AFAIK, IMC
>Palestine is not an expat site, though i'm sure there are probably
>*some* expats involved. There are other places like India, where
>initially there only seemed to be an expat support group, but
>eventually a local collective took over. And there are some collectives,
>like Madrid, where there seems to be quite some fluidity between local
>and global.
>
>Anyway, please take the following questions as helping you to clarify
>or stimulate more thinking about these issues.
>
>(1a) Roughly what are the proportions (numbers) of diaspora:locals involved?
>50:50? 9:1? 1:9? 20:180?
>
>(1b) Could you tell us a bit more how you see local grassroots groups
>getting involved, *in* Ambazonia? Do you have a vision of how to cross
>the electronic to non-electronic divide, including both content
>production and consumption? Do you have goals for local internet
>training, in free software, of course, so that more and more locals
>can get involved
>
>(1c) In your decision-making method, you say nothing about how to know
>that *every* or *all* member(s) has(ve) been consulted or agree on
>something. At the moment your list archive
>
>http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-ambazonia-contact
>
>is closed to non-subscribers, so it's difficult to judge whether this
>is done on the list or not. Is this communication done purely on this
>one mailing list, or do local groups in Ambazonia also meet
>face-to-face and make sure everyone is consulted (according to the
>different elements of your decision-making method)?
>
>
>
>### suggestion ###
>(2) ImcAmbazonia TWiki pages
>
>A tool which i think can help as an extra communication tool, which
>encourages collective, constructive collaboration, is the TWiki pages.
>i've started one for you here:
>
>http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/ImcAmbazonia
>
>If you like it, please register
>http://docs.indymedia.org/view/TWiki/TWikiRegistration
>
>read the syntax info
>http://docs.indymedia.org/view/TWiki/TWikiShorthand
>
>and then just edit the page - and encourage everyone in the collective
>to contribute, edit, improve these pages.
>
>Given the practical difficulty in face-to-face meetings, the advantage
>in having an extra virtual meeting and document-organising spot seems
>to me like it could be very useful. (Although people with poor
>download rates are likely to prefer email to web, people who can read
>an Indymedia site should also be able to read and edit TWiki pages, it
>seems to me.)
>
>
>### suggestion ####
>(3) open archives for the mailing list, or a second list with open archives?
>
>Right now, your archives:
>http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-ambazonia-contact/
>are closed to non-subscribers.
>
>It might seem like this protects against policemen etc reading the
>emails, but they simply have to subscribe and they'll read them
>anyway. Unless you have a very paranoid policy regarding who may
>subscribe, in which case the group would not be open and would be
>contrary to indymedia organising principles.
>
>People needing high security should learn about anonymity (relative,
>not absolute) of email addresses. (E.g. French speakers can probably
>get an address at http://www.no-log.org )
>
>A problem with closed archives is that the authorities can make stupid
>claims, e.g. "this is a terrorist group", and the "ordinary public"
>cannot check up independently. The advantage of open archives is that
>any such ridiculous claims immediately are seen by the internet-connected
>community as rubbish.
>
>However, it is a local decision, for the people in Ambazonia, and
>diaspora supporters, to make "locally".
>
>An alternative to opening up your main list is to start a second list,
>which is openly archived, e.g. imc-ambazonia-open . Or when you are
>ready to open specialised lists, e.g. imc-ambazonia-editorial, you
>can make *these* lists openly archived.
>
>
>
>Hoping to hear from you soon,
>solidarity
>boud (volunteer IMC PL)
>
>
>
>
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