[Imc-africa] nairobi reflections academic style

[sphinx]

Hi fabian! That is a great piece of work there. I'm unable to do a kind 
academic
style critic of the the article at the moment, but i think I should mention a
few things that came to mind as I read through.

In both the 2004 indymedia/alternative media Conference in Dakar and the
Convergence indymedia Center at the 2007 WSF in Nairobi Kenya, while conscious
that people in Africa will have a harder time raising funds for transportation
we did try to raise funds for all who wanted to make the trip even 
those in the
global north who did not or could not afford the cost but wanted to make the
trip. In the same way we offer travail scholarship and support to activists in
the global north to go to events like the US Social forum or in Germany to go
to the European Social forum in Florence, Paris or London or events in Berlin
for people in Stuttgart and vice versa. True that in both cases we ended up
being able to raise funds mostly just to cover the transportation cost for the
Africans but that does not disqualify the fact we tried to raise funds for the
transportation of people in the global north who wanted to make the trip.

Wile internet has been very instrumental in the growth of indymedia, the fact
remains that indymedia groups insist and are encouraged to be grassroots based
organizations and some of the most grassroots integrated and successful
indymedia groups are in South America (brazil, Chiapas) where there is a
serious lack of internet access as well.

Definitely the aid discussion referenced in part of this paper comes 
from a very
mainstream angle which makes it a bit confusing for me. The radical 
perspective
of the aid discuss is surely something I cannot dare to torch here right now.
Check the work of  Denis Bruttos, Francois Xavier Verchave and Patrick Bond.
Seeing aid from that perspective makes it kind of difficult to relate to the
inference made on this work.

In that note, the growth of indymedia in Africa at least from the frame of the
indymedia Africa Working group discussion that I have been party to, has been
driven by the overall desire to introduce indymedia to media makers everywhere
than in the frame of promoting  new media and ICTs in Africa.
The fact remains that all the problems listed in this article in the 
context of
a Africa global North project are the same problems indymedias in the global
north experienced and are experiencing.

Indymedia Prague which will eventually lead to the birth of indymedia Germany
and other indymedias across western Europe was set-up and run with funds and
resources from people from different countries-US and UK with hardly 
any people
from Prague involved. And it took more than 3years for a new group to try
serious efforts to start an indymedia in Prague which is unfortunately has not
been that successful either. And of course most of those who showed up in
Prague  decided what was right for the event and where Teachers at the event.
And that has been the experience, in all events/indymedia centers be it in
Paris or London at the European Social forum or at the Anti-G8 protest we have
people who have skills teaching those who do not have those skills and most
often than not those with those skills come in from different towns or
sometimes countries.

Ok that is enough rambling on my part. As I said it is a great article 
and definitely a great piece to send us working our brains about what 
we are doing
and what we wish to archive.

Sphinx



Quoting fabian <fab at in-no.org>:

> Hi everybody.
> after some time of reflection and thinking I have co-written an
> academic style paper about our convergence in Nairobi in January,
> evaluating some of its aspects and discussing issues of new media and
> radical democracy from the perpective of grassroots globalization.
> I have used in it material that we shared, like the interviews I
> conducted with some of you, stuff you wrote on our mailinglist and
> also from your blogs.
> I have tryed to be true to what you have said and what you wanted to
> say, but I defintely wanted to give you a chance to comment to make
> sure that I have got it right, before this goes out.
> Also, and similarily important, I would like to ask you on your
> opinion on this piece and to what degree it reflects your experience
> and reflections around the convergence.
> Again this is for the purpose of making the whole thing more accurate.
> I have written the paper together with Sian Sullivan.
> She was not involved Nairobi and therefore contributed an immensely
> important outsider perspective that greatly increased the value of
> our reflections for people who were not with us in Keren and over the
> last four years.
>
> You can download the document from here
> http://www.in-no.org/pdfs/review2.doc
>
> Please give us an idea of what you think about it, best within the
> next two weeks.
> I hope to hear from you all soon.
>
>
> Cheers
> Fabian
>
>
>
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