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

Mon Apr 5 14:14:43 PDT 2004

  hey blue.
  thanx for that msg.
  well, just to make things clearer... Jacquie soohen and Andew stern were the only "Indymedian" we met for the whole 8 months post war.... and then Imad showed up .. and that was it.

  i certainly dont underestimate powers and abilities of those wonderful people... cuz they gave us a lovely picture of how great people they are... but only a bit about how independent Indymedia is !..

  i mean ... its probably difficult to explain what is Indymedia by individuals ... in that way each person will describe it from his own prespective... and that will leave us confused... just like the confusion that happened when Imad 1st came to Iraq [it's a long story... u remember it Imad, im sure !].

  this is why i was hoping that we "IMC-Baghdad" can get the chance to meet you guyz in one of the coming meetings .... we couldnt make it in India for financial reasons ... I hope that we will be able to in the next Summer camp.

  take care.

  Majid A. Jarrar
  for attachments: email the_majitrix at hotmail.com
  Mob: +1 914 360 27 10
  Sat. Phone (Thuraya): +88 216 6777 1320
  http://www.almuajaha.com
  http://afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: blue.pi 
  To: new-imc at lists.indymedia.org 
  Cc: the_majitrix at yahoo.com 
  Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2004 8:37 PM
  Subject: imc-baghdad /imc- iraq

  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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