[New-imc] imc-baghdad /imc- iraq

[blue.pi]

Hi all, 

I am writing to this list because Imad told me about this discussion and 
there are some things I want to clarify as someone who has observed this 
process with Baghdad and as the imc beirut liason for imc finance. 

There are a lot of things to be said and I am surprised nobody on this list 
does it, e.g. people in the Gloabl South aren't stupid and can't be as 
easily misled as Petros claims here and has done so before. 

Certainly, there have been mistakes but I don't know if they occure more 
often in the Global South than in the West. There are many "dead" and 
disfunctional indymedias e.g. in the US, but we don't write emails to each 
forming collective in the US saying that there were so many problems with 
American indymedias before and thus we have to have a really intense 
dialogue with them (I am not against dialogue, but against having different 
standards). 

As the liason for imc beirut in finance I would like to say: To my knowledge 
this group in Baghdad has not directly received anything from Global IMC, 
but received funding from other groups and people. IMC Beirut received $300 
for Imad to travel to Baghdad. And that certainly is not much at all 
compared to what other imcs get. 

Also, to my knowledge no American/European IMC person went to Baghdad. When 
Ramzi from Voices in the Wilderness met us in Beirut and told us about the 
Baghdad collective one of the problems he addressed was that no one from imc 
had so far gone there but just communicated online with them. After that 
Imad took the decision to go. 

cheers,
blue 

thE MajiTriX wrote:
>
>
>     Hi,
>     I wish that i had some of the spare time that you
have, man.
>     unfortunately, I am too busy.. studying and working
all the time. so
>     I'm sorry for not having that much of spare time to
read and write msgs.
>     I will clarify couple of things, anyway:
>
>     )) although that you have more experience with
Indymedia more than I
>     do, you just don't have the right to go blaming
everyone for things
>     happened in the past times.. without those "mistakes"
that u don't
>     like, nothing in the world, including Indymedia, can
improve.
>     *to light the candle is much better than to curse the
darkness*
>
>     )) almuajaha has decided more than 7 months ago, with
a consensus
>     decision, that it would no longer be apart of
Indymedia. the reason
>     was, the group was not ready yet to be exposed to so many
>     internationals.
>
>     back in time, we decided once we founded almuajaha:
members of
>     almuajaha are free to participate with any political
movement, group
>     or party that they find themselves fit in, as long as
they do not
>     try to mix their political ideas with almuajaha
policy. And from
>     that point, members of almuajaha could join Indymedia
network,
>     individually. That is what Waleed Rabiaa and I have done.
>
>     [so Petros, i guess you werent up to date with our
news, but we've
>     already said that before.]
>
>     ))the only two things that were donated to almuajaha
as apart of
>     Indymedia network were (1) two Digital Video Cameras,
from Jacquie
>     soohen [when are you comin, jacquie?] and Andrew
stern. (2) some
>     money that Ramzi did a summary at that time to
explain where did all
>     that money go.
>     if someone found that this information was incorrect,
please let
>     him/her speak out.
>
>     I admit that neither almuajaha, nor the candidate
group for IMC-Bag
>     are representing the Iraqi society, and actually no
one does, not
>     even the so-called GC. We are trying to expand our
membership to as
>     more slides of community as we can. and that starts
in Iraq with one
>     way, students.((aaccording to 1997 population
counting in Iraq, 51%
>     of the society was under 15)) that means, we can
reach half of
>     Iraqis only through universities and highschools.
thats basically
>     what we are focusing our efforts on right now. Trying
to introduce
>     both almuajaha and Indymedia to as many groups of
youth as we can.
>
>     Please if anyone would like to ask/suggest/inquire
something about
>     Imc-baghdad and/or almuajaha... let it be briefy...
Waleed has a
>     full time job, Raed is often busy with NGO work and makin
>     documentaries, I get too busy with study and activism
thing ...
>     three of us dont have the time to sit and write long
emails currently.
>
>     now you go guyz talk about new-imc policy as much as you
>     like/want/need... i have to study Merchant of Venice
now... i have
>     E.Literature test tomorrow !.
>     take care.
>
 --------------------- 

Majid, 

Thanks for writing.
I agree with much of the reasoning you shared with us, even
if we have a different understanding of procedures. 

All the reasons you mentioned, including the problem of
time- constraints, speak about the need for us to proceed
together, and to be vigilant about politics and free media
issues, organizational forms, and a lot of other things. A
dialogue is the best way to do them. I trust that your
dialogue with Imad created good foundations for us to
explore more things together. 

I'm very glad that you and Waleed want to work with
IndyMedia. I believe that eventually there will be
possibilities for us to develop good working relationships
as colleagues and comrades - but not without clarity!
We still need to clarify the relationship of imc to
AlMuajaha, because there seems to be a source of confusion
among imc people about who our allies are in Baghdad. A lot
of this clarifying needs to come from us - indymedia -
because our own process, our relationship toward you has
been faulty from the beginning. 

{I still believe that certain IndyMedia members and groups
have misled you, and this is not your fault at all. It
delayed the development of our presence there by
mismanagement of our communications (by keeping the new-imc
group excluded from the relationship, for example); by
setting up financial projects for Baghdad outside of imc and
pretending that they were ours; by representing you to the
west as your ambassadors while their politics and behaviours
reflected negatively on the Bagdhad group. I want to help
you Majid, to regain a better standing among us. 

Any of our IndyMedia colleagues who want to see the
background that Majid is referring to, please read the
Archives of the email lists: 

This list has been operating for almost a year on indymedia
networks. 

There, you will find the sitution around the financial
exchanges, the dialogues about the group's identity, and you
may read about the movements and influences of certain
individuals and groups on this project.} 

Also, Majid, we need to talk about : 

* what form of media is appropriate for imc-bagdad now in
the face of local realities: is it radio, print, video,
internet publishing? 

* language issues. 

* developing  more allies for your group. 

* finding new members. 

There are many things to talk about!
I'm happy you chose to work with us, and I hope that we can
continue to build this together. 

Thanks again for responding, and I hope you continue to
chose to work with us,
Petros
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