[New-imc] imc Bagdad

[boud]

hi everyone,

SUMMARY:
[en]
(1) IMHO, we should support creation of a list like
  imc-iraq-support at lists.indymedia.org 
so that issues related to Baghdad/Iraq independent
media organising can be openly discussed and networked. 
(2) The "-support" would make it clear that it
might be a long time before locals can be
active on any mailing list. 
(3) mike from IMC Bristol seems willing and eager
to administer an Iraq list.

[fr]
(1) A mon avis, nous devrions soutenir la création d'une liste comme
  imc-iraq-support at lists.indymedia.org 
afin que les questions liées à l'organisation d'un média
indépendant à Baghdad/en Iraq puissent être discuté de façon
transparente et coordonnée.
(2) Le « -support » ferait en sorte qu'il y aurait peut-être
un long délai avant qu'il soit possible que les locaux 
participent activement dans une liste de diffusion quelconque.
(3) mike d'IMC Bristol souhaite administrer une liste pour l'Irak.



On Mon, 28 Apr 2003, blue.pi wrote:

> boud wrote: 
> 
> >hi everyone,
> >  So how about blue pi and petros facilitating together and getting
> >the imc-baghdad list going, maybe as initial administrators? If you
> >two could work together constructively ;), then i think things would
> >look promising for supporting iraqis to work together and take over.
> 
> Mmh, don't think that's a good idea, after all, I left this list because I 
> am of the opinion that petros and I have such differing political opinions 
> that we can't work together. 

i should apologise for joking about your differences, that was not
nice of me: sorry!
 
> Besides that: While I believe it is perfectly o.k. to help with setting up a 
> website, I do believe locals should administer their own mailinglists - just 
> because it is something really easy to do and if an imc can't manage that, 
> it is probably not sustainable or as maybe in the case of Iraq: mailinglists 
> are not an appropriate way of communicating. Last time I was in Bagdad I saw 
> only Internet places in five star hotels - not a good condition to do 
> anything web based. 

The fact remains that if IMC Baghdad develops (or any other IMC in a
low internet penetration region) and wants to be part of the IMC network,
there needs to be email communication with the rest of the network in
some way or other: most of our global communication is by mailing lists
(for those with the least web access, anyway).

This means that the locals need to interact and communicate by whatever
way with intermediaries, who *do* have relatively good email access.

Isn't it better in this case that the intermediaries, even if many are,
say, from the invading countries (USA + UK), can communicate with each
other and with the network on an open participation, publicly archived
mailing list?

We have "new" people coming along like mike from IMC Bristol, and
surely it would make things much easier for "new" people like mike to
understand all the arguments on local control and enthusiasm and big
funding ideas and counterarguments etc if these could at least be
collected on one mailing list. i don't see the point of going through
the same arguments again and again on new-imc each time "new" people
come up with the same sort of idea, especially when it's difficult
for them to read what's already been said, who said it, how to
contact them, etc etc.

So the question is: can "intermediaries" talk on the subject on 
a mailing list, in the hope that it might lead to an indymedia
project in the long run, and if not, at least to some sort of
independent media activity, while making it clear that everyone
is aware of the "dangers" of non-locals being too heavily involved,
especially in the beginning stages?

How about, to make it clear that to start off with, the list would
probably be dominated by non-locals, what do people (especially East
Med people like blue.pi and petros!) think of the following? 

mike could start a list with a name like:

imc-baghdad-support
or
imc-iraq-support   (if he really is interested in Iraq-wide stuff)

so that there's at least some chance that people on the list are
constantly reminded that they don't have the legitimacy of claiming
to be locals.

The alternative is that we try to stop US/UK people (interested in
something like Indymedia in Iraq) from trying to talk to each other
directly by email, and insist that instead they filter all their
emails via  IMC Beirut and IMC Cyprus in some way.

The problem with the first part of that is that i don't see how we're
going to stop people from emailing each other - this is clearly a
ridiculous suggestion. People will make informal mailing lists if we
don't give them a real mailing list. At best we could slow them down
and confuse them and make them feel (once again) guilty about their
governments, but again this is clearly not constructive.

As for the second bit, if a list like  imc-iraq-support is created,
surely it would be enough that a few IMC Beirut and IMC Cyprus people
join the lists, and then they can remind non-locals of local realities.

So IMHO we should encourage mike to create a list, since noone else
seems interested so far, but with a name clearly showing that it may
be a long way from becoming a locally managed list, e.g. 

imc-iraq-support at lists.indymedia.org

(It's long to type, but that's a small price to pay.)

Of course if blue pi or petros or someone else more local wants to
be admin, of course that would be better, but since more admins can
be added, i don't see any point in slowing down the creation of a list,
if at least one person we know is committed to facilitating there.

> What I will do, is to inform people going to Bagdad about the forming IMC 
> there and hopefully they will meet up. Such travel plans are at the moment 
> highly uncertain though, one of our volonteers has just postponed her plans 
> by a couple weeks, becasue it still seems too dangerous. I just wanted to 
> point out in general that you should inform IMC Beirut about new indymedias 
> in neighboring countries, because people do travel quite a lot. 
> 
> 

> > That way, if VITW and AFSC do raise the money for computers,
> > >satellite phone etc, they'll at least be under pressure to give
> > it to a >local, non-hierarchical group in a way that there are no
> > strings >attached. Or at least, the local group will be able to
> > talk directly by email to the network and consense with other
> > Iraqis (contacted via IMC Beirut, IMC East Med,...)  on developing
> > a local, independent media group with > >no strings pulled by any
> > authoritarian group (US as a State or other).
 
> I don't think the later is such a big problem, but I want to raise another 
> issue, because we discussed that recently on a media activist meeting in 
> Spain. It's the problem of funding in general. It seems like there are 
> currently large amounts of funds around. Of course, I totally welcome it if 
> this means e.g. enabling activists here to travel to all kinds of 
> conferences and events in Europe and Africa. 
> 
> But when it involves large amounts of money spend on equipement and 
> equipement no ordinary person in that country would own like satellite 
> phones and maybe to some extent video cameras, then we are at risk of 
> creating hierarchies through that. 
> 
> I think we should ask if these things are really essential. Computer of 
> course are to make a newspaper, but do all IMC's start out with video 
> cameras? And why would you need satellite phones? (I know the phone lines in 
> Bagdad are shity, but I also believe people will manage) I am not saying a 
> new IMC Bagdad shouldn't have these things period. I am just saying: What 
> happens if it never takes off or if it becomes a cliquee group? 

IMHO, most of us probably consense on these worries. The problem is
that most people on new-imc are not the people who wrote up the
funding plans. IMHO, imc-iraq-support would be a good place to make
this sort of comment - we can't sort out this sort of question on 
new-imc.

solidarity
boud

PS: mike: Please look through
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2003-April/
for quite a bit of discussion on what might be something which could
turn into IMC Baghdad, or at least some sort of independent media
in Baghdad.