[imc-baghdad] Re: [Imc-cyprus] imc-baghdad mailing list

[Petros Evdokas]

In this letter:
o - short personal introduction,
o - about the email list,
o - about the letter from Boud,
o - politics
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Hi,

o- Short personal intro:

My name is Petros, and I’m one of the volunteers of the
Cyprus Indymedia group. 

{Our news: We’re currently working to upgrade our site
to one that’s comparable to other imc sites with the
"usual indymedia" appearance and quality. We seem to be
in the final stages of refining the Dadaimc open-
publishing software for being our main tool, with much
help from Christopher, Scott, and Spud (the creator of
dadaimc).
Cyprus is going through an onslaught of
social/political changes and upheavals - the most
important and drastic in 30 years  - and we’re just
immersed in too much to deal with, to process, and to
report on, all at the same time. A short relevant
reading:
"The day no one ever expected!" , at
http://cyprus.indymedia.org/ }
 
I’m also a friend/ helper- member of the "new-imc"
working group, for about two years now.

Anything that anyone would ever want to know about me 
(and more), is at the profile page linked below,
including personal and political dimensions of my life
- all the links from there, lead to aspects of my work,
in the form of articles, letters, photos, etc.:
http://PetrosEvdokas.cjb.net


o - About this email list

I was enrolled in this email group at the invitation of
Christopher (and of a few other colleagues - thank you
all for this initiative), from its inception. There was
just too much mail for me to deal with, on this theme.
The truth is, adding up all the letters from the very
first few thoughts we had exchanged about imc-baghdad
on the "new-imc" working- group list,  to now, there’s
been altogether *a lot* of mail. If it continues at
this rate, I know that I will not be able to keep up
with it. Anyway, I’ve read them all in sequence, from
the first letter on this list, up to about Tuesday’s
mail (6 May). I will continue to study everything, but
please accept my apologies in advance, if I repeat here
something that’s already been said, or if it’s been
agreed to not discuss something  for now and by chance
I bring up out of turn.

Even though I was only halfway through the mail, I
skipped forward today to read the letter from Boud,
because he has a history of making sense on a lot of
the difficult subjects we tackle here (and I say this
even as I know Boud and I often have a somewhat
different approach, or even disagreements). Anyway, I
*really* appreciated Boud’s letter and his effort to
involve more people from our Middle Eastern region in
this dialogue. So
..


o - about the letter from Boud

Here is some feedback about some of the issues raised
by Boud.
* Boud, quoting Christopher, suggested that we use this
phrase to clarify the list’s purpose, flavour,  and
character: "it seems that this list at this point is
not really about organizing an Iraqi IMC but rather in
supporting a group of Iraqis and Independent reporters
on the ground in Iraq." Let’s embrace that definition,
now!

The suggestion is politically very sound (more on that
below), and it will help prevent unesessary risk of
death or capture for our people in the region, or of
conflicts between Indymedia contacts/allies and any
independant resistance groups which may have never
heard of us (and rightfully so). We need to *build* the
credibility of Indymedia, we can not assume that it
exists.

* Boud wrote: 
"An IMC is primarily a *collective* of people who live
locally and  are part of local grassroots activism, not
just a web site. It's also being part of a global
network, not a US-centred or even Euro-centred network
- hopefully." These are wise words, and I guess we’ll
have to keep repeating them over and over until we
figure out ways to *actualize* them in our Indymedia
policies. Our policies right now, are still going in
the opposite direction. Most important, is the  phrase
that imc is "not not a web site". Imc is an
organization, built on political and social principles.
All the talk about finances, equipment, websites, etc,
is *irrelevant* and almost misguiding us unless we
create the political context within which they would
make sense. Finances, equipment, and websites,  are
only tools to help us actualise our politics.  

o- Boud raised the example of IMC Palestine, and the
possibility that we (the participants on this list)
might  help create conditions wherein there can be more
mutual assistance among our groups of the Middle East
and of the Eastern Meditarranean region. That would be
great! The entire region, not only Palestine, but also
Lebanon, Istanbul, Israel, Cyprus, saw tremendous
actions of solidarity with our neighbours in Iraq
during the war - all these are locations where our
existing imc groups participated "with emphasis" let’s
say, in the anti-war actions of the recent months.
Solidarity here, in the region, exists within objective
reality, not just on the symbolic level, but it needs
some special steps and special care for it to become 
more cultivated among Indymedia colleagues in our
region, in order for it to congeal into something more
tangible. Our obstacles are the divisions created among
us by Imperialism. This email list might help in that
goal, and I would support that goal, if that was Boud’s
intention. Perhaps we could expand our scope by
including as an additional directive, something like
"this list at this point is not really about just
organizing one more IMC but rather about supporting a
group of independent and radical reporters and
activists on the ground in the Middle East and the
Eastern Mediterranean region".

Regarding the particular problems faced by
imc-Palestine, please forgive me - our colleagues here
who know of me, have gotten tired of hearing me say the
same thing over and over, but it must be said - the
problems faced by imc-Palestine, were generated by the
same exact process that we have on this email-list
(essentially a policy of ignoring politics and ignoring
the need to build up primary political bonds with local
activists who have a presence in their own community
and a credibility within it, and also have an ability
and a desire to co-operate with others in the creation
of a *collective* entity, a group-sense). We keep
ignoring these factors, and we end up with imc
disasters. It would have been easier to deal with the
problems faced by imc-Palestine if they were created by
the genocidal policies of the zionist state - but when
they are generated by our own policies, what  is the
solution?

I know that our colleagues from the US and Europe have
the best intentions. But the realities of Indymedia’s
presence in the efforts for radical and alternative
community- building, and toward  the building of
networks and communities of resistance within the US
and Europe, keep pointing to the same lesson: the
oppressed and exploited communities of populations who
are ethnically and culturally treated as second- class
citizens by the Empire (the colonies trapped *within*
the heartlands of the Empire, in the ghettos, inner
cities, and the under-developed countryside), are
treated in the same way by imc - they are exluded, or
ignored. That is the reason there is no Bronx-imc,
Queens-imc, no EastLA-imc, no PuertoRico-imc. This
failure, inability, or unwillingness, to follow the
lead of local radicals and freedom fighters who are
active within the oppressed communities, has become
institutionalised in the US and Europe Indymedia
groups. It keeps going unchallenged, and now it’s being
exported to the "outer colonies", Iraq, Palestine,
Beirut, Afghanistan (remember the same fiasco involving
an effort for an imc in Afghanistan, immediately before
and after the invasion there? Familiar story?). The
lesson is the same, over and over, and we need to learn
to apply it. Seen in this light, I really welcome
Bouds’ approach.
 

o - Politics
These Indymedia lists and the projects they are meant
to serve, can not be separated from politics. Indymedia
exists for political reasons, it serves political
goals, and all the decisions regarding all of its
functions are political.

So far I have seen *very little* discussion of the
politics which will supposedly be guiding us in this
co-operation. What will they be? If we expect to be
building credibility for Indymedia to make some good
allies in Iraq, we need to put our politics up front,
meaning we need to articulate them in clear ways,
especially regarding Iraq. And we need to find ways to
be guided by them; this will also provide opportunities
for people in Iraq and elsewhere, to judge whether what
we articulate suits them, and whether we act on our
words or not. The general mish-mash of "progressive"
ideas coming from the US and Europe is not enough to
build bridges and alliances with an occupied population
living under the gun - let’s not forget that Indymedia
is "coming in" to Iraq now at the worst possible time:
riding on the tails of an Imperialist frenzy of
butchering. We need to state certain things (even if
they are simple, and even if most leftists and
progressives get bored to bother with articulating them
because they assume that their poisitions are "obvious
to everyone" when they are not obvious at all.)
We might begin by saying that as supporters of the
effort for a future Baghdad-imc we are united by these
positions:
* immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq,
and a respect for the Iraqi people’s right to
self-determination, 
* support for all efforts to resist against the
occupation troops *and* against the remnants of the
previous regime, with a respect to the right of
community self-defense,
* support for all indigenous Iraqi efforts to
re-organize a democratic society from the grass-roots
community level ("from the base") all the way up,
outside of the influence or interference of foreign
governments and corporations.

There might be more. Or we may not even agree to these
few principles among us. Whatever the case may be, in
order to build valid and functional alliances, we need
to discuss politics, and to spell things out, in order
to make sense to ourselves and to the people in Iraq
with whom we are aiming to unite in our efforts for a
future Baghdad-imc. 


Your thoughts?
Thanks,
Petros
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ps. I'll be sending just a link to this letter, not the
whole thing so as not to clutter mailboxes, to the
following groups (plus some individual contacts):
imc-cyprus at lists.indymedia.org,
imc-eastern-mediterranean at lists.indymedia.org,
imc-beirut at lists.indymedia.org,
imc-palestine at lists.indymedia.org,
new-imc at lists.indymedia.org 

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