[Imc-communication] The Fate of Uploading (Kenya)

[Jay]

Hi imc-communication,

The following came through the imc-africa list a 
couple days ago.  It's about the difficulty of 
posting independent media online in Kenya.  I 
thought people on the imc-communication list may 
find it interesting as a snapshot reminder of the 
logistical challenges so many independent media 
makers face each day, even after overcoming all 
other struggles related to being an independent journalist.

Jay

At 2/16/2008, you wrote:
>Dear Comrades,
>Find below an article about the context within 
>which we (and probably many of you in Africa) 
>are working. There is a daily challenge of 
>reflecting the offline activity online. But I 
>think that we cannot run away from the fact that 
>this is a digital age and so we must keep 
>striving to be digitally capable. Yet this must 
>not be at the expense of the offline activity 
>that will continue to define our work. This 
>article that I have written is not a fiction account but a true account.
>
>THE FATE OF UPLOADING IN KENYA
>“Great!” she thumped her fist into the humid air 
>of Mombasa, Kenya’s second largest city. The 
>previous day, she had managed to do a great 
>interview with one of the local Sheikh’s who had 
>some interesting theories on the unrest in 
>Kenya. She had expected him to be militant but 
>he had been 
 ‘pragmatically fatalistic!’ her 
>slender fist thumped the air again as the guy 
>who was selling roast maize nearby shook his 
>head sadly. The unrest in Kenya must have taken 
>its toll on the young lady, he concluded.
>‘Pragmatically fatalistic,’ she mumbled again. 
>The Sheikh had said that what is written cannot 
>be erased. If Kenya was meant to go through 
>civil strife, then not even Kofi Annan or Nelson 
>Mandela could change that. But if Kenya was not 
>meant to go through civil strife, then everyone 
>had a duty to ensure that peace prevailed. And 
>once peace prevailed, justice had to be sought.
>Those that killed had to be brought to justice. 
>Those that funded those that killed had to be 
>brought to justice. Those that killed because 
>others had killed had to be brought to justice. 
>Those whose actions or lack of action created a 
>conducive environment for killing had to be 
>brought to justice. Those that watched as others 
>were killed had to be brought to justice. And 
>those that merely shrugged their shoulders from 
>the comfort of their living rooms as they 
>changed to another channel had to find a way of 
>redeeming themselves. The Sheikh had said all 
>this with rhythmic eloquence and she had 
>captured it all in her friend’s uncle’s ageing audio recorder.
>Her colleagues in Nairobi were now expecting 
>this audio so that they could upload it to the 
>Kenya Indymedia website so that the Sheikh’s 
>word of wisdom could be heard by the world. She 
>had tried to upload this audio herself but the 
>computers in the two internet cafes that she 
>went to had problems with their sound cards. The 
>third cyber was okay though internet was quite 
>slow and they had to close after twenty minutes. 
>Only ten percent of her audio had uploaded. 
>Tomorrow is another day, the attendant told her 
>and she had smiled in agreement.
>When tomorrow came, her parents in the nearby 
>town of Kilifi called her and told her that she 
>needed to go and take care of her grandmother 
>for the weekend. They would be traveling to 
>Lamu, another coastal town to visit their son, 
>her immediate follower and ensure that he was 
>safe and sound. So she decided to send the audio tape to Nairobi by bus.
>The tape arrived in Nairobi two days later and 
>was picked by an activist who was on his way to 
>an interview in Kibera, the biggest slum in 
>Kenya and one of the worst affected places by 
>Kenya’s post election violence. In Kibera, more 
>than 20 people had been killed by both police and militia gangs.
>While in the matatu (public mini bus), he 
>listened intently to the interview that had just 
>come in from Mombasa. He sighed at the Sheikh’s 
>eloquence and smiled at his wisdom. He was 
>already looking forward to uploading this 
>particular audio to the website. He was 
>determined that after the Kibera interview, he 
>would upload this audio together with eight 
>other audios that had come in the previous day. 
>There were also several audios from and stories 
>from another coastal town known as Voi. They too 
>needed to be uploaded. We need to find a better 
>way of going about this uploading, he decided as 
>he switched of his recorder and shouted to the 
>driver to stop the matatu at the next stage.
>The previous week, he had met with a few other 
>activists and they had shared some duties 
>amongst themselves. They even shared recorded 
>audio tapes. ‘Once you are through with chopping 
>the audio into smaller pieces, go ahead and 
>upload it. Also find time and type the 
>handwritten stories and proceed to upload them’ 
>He had told them. As of that morning, nothing had been uploaded yet.
>They had all run into several problems. Most 
>internet café computers did not have audio 
>editing software and did not allow installation 
>of such software. They had said that this would 
>encourage ‘everyone to install all manner of 
>software.’ One of the activists had then tried 
>to upload the entire 22 minutes of the audio 
>interview but it took so long that he almost smashed the computer screen.
>After the interview in Kibera, he boarded 
>another matatu and smiled broadly at two things 
>– the enlightening interview that he had just 
>had and the pilau (aromatic coastal rice) that 
>they had offered him. Then right there in the 
>midst of his smile, it dawned on him that had 
>just made a grave error. He had forgotten to 
>remove the tape from Mombasa from the recorder 
>and had erased the entire interview of the Sheikh.
>Damn! He clenched his right fist and wiped his 
>brow with his left palm. Damn! But maybe it was 
>written that the tape would be erased, he 
>consoled himself. Besides, there were all those 
>other tapes that had not been erased and all 
>those other sheikhs and tomato vendors and shoe 
>shiners and grandmothers and farmers and 
>students that had not been interviewed. These 
>people must be enabled to speak out and their 
>voice must be captured for the world to hear. He 
>was sure that this must have been written. 
>Though technology was often against their work 
>in grassroots media, at least fate was on their 
>side. And nobody could erase that.
>
>
>
>
>Never miss a thing. 
><http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=51438/*http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs>Make 
>Yahoo your homepage.
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