[New-imc] Re: [iraq-supporters] Funding al-muajaha - some questions

[Petros Evdokas]

Thanks Boud, 

for your swift and diplomatic responses, and valuable
information. Even if occasionally we disagree from time
to time, I appreciate your tone and presence in this
discussion.

You are probably aware that as a member of the new-imc
group, I have a special interest in the indymedia
groups forming in our part of the globe, the eastern
mediterranean and the middle east. Exactly *who*
controls them, and *what politics* our imc groups have
around here, is a tangible part of the political
landscape, which determines the path of bullets,
questions of life and death for millions of people.  

Also thanks to "Majid A.Jarrar  - thE MajiTriX™"
<koolme^mj at uruklink.net> who responds to my occasional
outbursts or questions, and seems to be honestly
committed to (even if unsure of ) what indymedia is.
Friend, please convey these letters from Boud and from
myself to the rest of the group in Baghdad.

I feel particularly concerned because there has been
much avoidance and  fraud surrounding the formation of
this group, not by the group in Baghdad, but among us
"supporters" (with friends like this - who needs
enemies?).
 
Again, I wish to say that group in Baghdad is not
responsible yet at this point, but it is being misled
by "interested parties" disguised as supporters, toward
positions and actions which have discredited it in the
eyes of local, regional, and global imc groupings and
allied radicals. They also keep misleading the group 
down  a path of mis-information about imc operations,
and about the particular role that the baghdad group
might have in the global resistance movement, if it
were to become an imc group (more on this later). 

So, to start:
· - the phrase "Baghdad Imc" has been on the very top
of the pages (top blue band) of the website of
http://www.almuajaha.com/ from the first day it went
online, and has not been removed, and none of the
"advisors" to the group seem to care even when they and
we keep saying it’s not an imc group. What does it
matter if privately, on some obscure page, global imc
says that this group is not one of us yet? But the
label "Baghdad Imc", there on top, helps the fraud, and
makes the local group seem dishonest, when they are
simply kept unaware of the subtleties.

· - there has been a lot of fundraising for this group,
*specifically* presenting this as an imc project, or an
"unofficial imc project". Don’t take may word for it,
read the letters. The amounts are of money that other
imc groups only dream of ever smelling from a long
distance. 

· -  there’s a continued reluctance by the "supporters’
group" to discuss invasion, occupation, and resistance
politics, and our own role as a free, radical and
independent section of the global media which *already*
has a position on these issues, along with the 15
million people who this spring marched and protested
against this war everywhere around the globe. IndyMedia
has a political position on the invasion and occupation
of Iraq - no-one in the support group has a right to
ridicule the question about where we stand on these
issues. Our support for a future baghdad-imc stems
directly from our position. If and when an imc group
forms locally, and if it changes its position in the
future, we have a duty to respect that local autonomy.
But for now, we have no right to shit in the face of
the global Peace movement just so that those with
connections to money can keep promising donations to
the baghdad group.

· - the baghdad group keeps getting disoriented by
offers of money and technology coming from sources
supposedly in the name of imc. Don’t take may word for
it, read the letters.  There are imc groups and imc-
connected groups which are directly involved in this.
This is huge project, involving many imc-related
people. Bit not one of them is really involved in
helping the local group in Iraq understand what we are
,what we do, how we operate. There’s other agendas.

· - we keep seeing the same obsession with "website"
versus "organization" . The lure of money and
technology keeps the local group disoriented, dizzy,
and unable to comprehend that imc is not a website, not
a charity, not a technology crusade, but a global,
regional,  and local political association of radical
and free media activists, a branch of the global
liberation movement.  
 
·  The most important thing is the actuality of
Resistance to the occupation, in the present here and
now. There are two main forms of resistance right now,
and they reflect *interpenetrating* realities: 
1.  clandestine armed resistance, some of it by various
independent groups of patriots, internationalists,
religious groups, and some of it by elements of the old
regime,
2.  civilian resistance (demonstrations, strikes,
campaigns of non- co-operation, etc), exercised by
large numbers of people in various places and
opportunities around broad-based demands for basic
democratic rights and sovereignty. 
IndyMedia needs to be a part of that continuum, and the
local group shows that it has what is necessary to gain
the trust of the population and of the resistance, and
to become one more of its instruments of expression.
But as long as the outside influences (from
"supporters") keep coming to the local group and
confusing our colleagues there, the group and its print
organ AlMuajaha, will be bypassed (ignored) by the
population and its struggles.

I believe that the local group must be allowed to do
its political work without interference. If it wants to
become a local imc, we must encourage it to start
alliances with other regional neighboring imc groups,
and primarily to start a relationship with the new-imc
working group. Also, to stop allowing everyone in
Europe and the US who has some vague connection with
imc, to be representing its needs - the local group in
baghdad must be encouraged to speak for itself. 
Everything else is disorienting the group and not
allowing it to become a full-fledged imc group. 

Just to illustrate this, the pernicious influence of
interference, perhaps we can ask the local group for a
clarification:
At a local gathering of independent radicals "somewhere
in the middle east" recently, it was said that the
local group in baghdad was encouraged to censor an
article from AlMuajaha  which was documenting the
mistreatment of some civilians by the occupation forces
during an incident in the city, because the article
"might be too anti-american". Is this true? The story,
was linked to Majid’s name, though I do not know if
Majid was the victim/ author  of the article that was
censored, or if Majid was related at all to the story.

Majid, as we explore the possibility of building better
alliances, we’d like to know your views about these
stories. Also, the views of others in the group. There
are many of us concerned about how indymedia is going
to be actualized in baghdad, just as many of us were
also concerned that the city’s resistance became for a
short while the entire world’s focus of the global
resistance to the planetary empire, and then suddenly,
by treason and unreason, its defenses were collapsed
from the inside. 

I’d like to encourage you to cut out the "imc
middlemen", even if they seem like nice people,  even
if they keep dangling money and promises of computers
in front of you, and to please re-orient toward
alliances with local and regional radicals, and to open
*direct* lines of communication with the new-imc
working- group.  I believe that all these other voices
you hear are disorienting the group, and not allowing
it to become a full-fledged imc group. And even if most
of the wrong messages you receive are perhaps from
people with good intentions, not all of them are good. 

The new-imc group, which has the ability to guide you
step by step toward becoming a member of this global
organization, does not have the ability to silence
anyone who speaks to you "from  imc" - you have the
responsibility to verify your sources yourselves (and
it’s important that you start doing this -
disinformation and deceit are extensions of the
imperial war against Iraq, and even the imc name is not
immune from being used by the opposition). 

I hope you feel comfortable to share this letter with
our other colleagues in Baghdad. Your responses would
be very highly valued. 

I know that email access is difficult there, so if a
fax is easier, please send it to this number - make
sure the letters are big and easy to read:
001-530-482-2192 . 
If you prefer to communicate in the Arabic language
with imc members in our region, I would strongly
recommend discussing all these problems with Raida
Hatoum of the lebanon imc group,  raida55 at hotmail.com .
She can tell you some excellent stories of deceit and
disinformation disguised as if it’s coming "from imc"!

We can help the almuajaha.com group become a valid
section of imc, if that’s  what you want. But the first
step would be a direct communication with imc
volunteers whose task is just that: the new-imc work
group. We are not able to compete for your attention
with offers for money, jobs at bbc, business
enterprises, offers to give you computers and other
high-tech gizmo to uplink with satellites - but we can
start a good solid political alliance with you, which
may lead all of us together to unknown horizons.

Thanks,
Looking forward to your views,
Petros
Cyprus IndyMedia, and occasional new-imc working-group
helper
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