[Imc-communication] taking a critical look at where we are.

[aic]

hello again,

i have been trying to limit my contribution to discussion but when i see 
the same point brought up over and over again i would like to state the 
obvious.

i understand that belgium.indymedia collective isn't made up strictly of 
people from brussels, but nonetheless the name belgium includes all of 
belgium, and by default liege (liege.indymedia..), antwerpen 
(antwerpen.indymedia..), ovl (ovl.indymedia..), wvl (wvl.indymedia..)NOT 
JUST the belgium-indymedia collective.

there are plenty of people around the world who do not know that places 
such as liege or antwerpen exist, do not know to what geographical area 
ost or west vlaanderen refer to, or that they are part of belgium, but 
who know that belgium exists. by default having belgium.indymedia.org 
reflect only one collective does indeed give a very limitted view of the 
situation in belgium and of the indymedia collectives of belgium. i am 
not sure why that is so hard to understand.

i would also like to add that my fear that this situation will be 
indefinitely prolongued is constantly being reinforced based on the 
communication coming from the belgium-indymedia collective.

aic / tulpje
from indymedia-romania, not in the name of indymedia-romania

Claudio wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-05-19 at 01:24, pina at riseup.net wrote:
> 
> 
>> So what? why did you guys have to have the preference to use the 
>> belgium.indymedia.org url???? Cause you guys saw it first? the
>> others collectives are also planning to use for a sindication
>> project who is going to be national, as i understand... This has
>> just reach the point that is becoming extremally anoying... I agree
>> if what bht said... I´m starting to thiking that maybe no one 
>> should use this url... pina indymedia sao-paulo (brasil)
> 
> 
> Hi Pina,
> 
> Let me explain my point of view:
> 
> A nation-wide collective (in this mini country of 10 million people)
> has been using the url since 2000. Some people, however, like to give
> the impression that our collective is a Brussels collective, this is
> not true. We are a national *and* bilingual (French and Dutch)
> project made by people from all belgium.
> 
> I am from Antwerp (the 2nd biggest city) and not planning to move to
> Brussels in the forseeable future. The same for imc-activists from
> other provinces. With internet and the *very* small distances within
> Belgium*, this is not problem at all.
> 
> The syndication project is a new project. I welcome it and I
> aknowledge his right to exist.
> 
> What I fail to see is why an existing url should be used for the
> project. be.indymedia.org (be is the internation country code for our
> country) is free and they are free to use it, or whatever name they
> use (besync like their test site, be-local, belgique (french), belgie
> (dutch), etc ...).
> 
> We are not claiming anything, but being an imc since a while. Working
> hard. Check our site and you'll see we are pretty active. I don't
> find it fair to give up what we have built for a new project.
> 
> Discussion of what indymedia could and should be happened within the
> belgium collective in the past. The people that wanted to turn our
> imc into a syndication project and close the national imc didn't get
> a mayority and left. So be it.
> 
> But it is wrong to force a collective to a direction when the
> mayority within that collective decided to follow a different
> strategy than the syndication idea. In this context, a syndication
> project is not a neutral idea, but a strategic decision.
> 
> I personally have no problems that other nation-wide collectives
> would cover the same area. It happens within the collective already
> (sf & indybay, qc & manilla, by example), and it will happen again.
> Like said before, we are open for mediation and solving the url thing
> may be a possible outcome.
> 
> Here you'll find the mediation idea's we as a collective agreed on: 
> http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-process/2005-May/0518-d6.html
> 
> 
> My 2 cents and thanks for your efforts in finding a solution,
> 
> Claudio
> 
> * I find the size of Belgium a very relevant matter in this
> discussion. A rough idea of the size of Belgium: it is 30,528 square
> km, roughly 8 times smaller than your state Sao Paulo. Belgium is an
> industrilised country, road and trains everywhere. This are the
> distances with the train (faster with a car) from Brussels to the
> biggest cities: Brussels-Antwerp: 35 minutes, Brussels-Ghent: 35
> minutes, Brussels-Liege: 1 hour 5 minutes. Hours can be checked at
> http://www.nmbs.be (the train company). I remember the Brazilian
> busdrives I took recently: Brazilia-Bello Horizonte, Rio-Salvador ...
> 20 and 26 hours if i remember correctly. My bum still hurts :)
> 
> _______________________________________________ IMC-communication
> mailing list IMC-communication at lists.indymedia.org 
> http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-communication
> 
> 
> 



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