[New-imc] imc in lithuania

[boud]

hi martynas,

> Betreff: [www-features] imc in lithuania
> Datum: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:58:37 +0300
> Von: NAKKKNSVIA Pop Grupe   popgrupe at gmail.com
> An: www-features lists.indymedia.org
> 
> good day,
> 
> my name is Martynas, and i'm writing you to ask some questions about imc ww.
> the point is, that we, Lithuanian activists, are willing to open lithuanian
> indymedia, so we have some questions to you:
>

i'm a volunteer in IMC Torun, which is one of the IMCs closest to you
geographically, apart from IMC Belarus and the Russian-language
IMC. i'm also a volunteer in the new-imc working group, which tries to
help new groups get organised and become recognised as part of the
network.

Sorry for the delay in replying, but as i said, i'm just a volunteer
like everyone else - we're not a corporation!

You can see the archives of the new-imc mailing list here:
   http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/new-imc

Probably the most important thing is to self-organise :). Of course,
you can better self-organise if you can also learn from and network
with others.

i suggest that first you get some idea of the various imc collectives
in our region:
   https://docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/ImcCEEurope

And then get the people already in your collective to start from this
page:

https://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/NewImcHowTo

Read it carefully (but don't believe everything you read, there
can be mistakes and some information can be outdated or inaccurate -
again, we are not a corporation which claims to be Perfect and protects its
corporate image). Follow the links which seem to be useful. Maybe
also check out the ones which seem to be less useful, just in case.


> 1. how can we, and what should we do to become one of the worldwide imc's;

The general answer is above - first look through the
https://docs.indymedia.org   documentation pages and the
http://lists.indymedia.org   mailing list archives to get a general
feeling for how indymedia functions, and then continue self-organising.

The more specific answer is written in "ten steps" on
   https://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/NewImcHowTo

As you'll see, most of it is about how to self-organise as a collective
of people. You have the advantage that there are many imcs in your region,
each of which has different experiences which you can learn from.

> 2. what other info could we use while starting imc (legal issues and other
> stuff);

There's a huge amount of stuff you'll find on different sections of
https://docs.indymedia.org but you'll have to browse around - it's a
big and chaotic website, many pages are not kept updated, but a lot of
the info is still very useful. That's the nature of open publishing +
open editing.

Regarding legal issues, part of the idea is the civil disobedience
strategy - by having a wide variety of different individuals and
social groups working together for the goal of creating independent
media, the government knows that it risks upsetting too many voters
and looking authoritarian if it makes a legal or illegal attack on the
collective; it also risks an issue getting more attention, which is
the opposite of what it wants; other things like non-hierarchy make it
hard for authorities (and neonazis) to decide who to attack. However,
that's the theory - it doesn't always work in practice and the whole
legal question is a big subject. There are also tech aspects of 
internet security to think of.

Probably the best would be for some people in the collective to meet
your neighbouring imcs - see
   https://docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/ImcCEEurope
for contact info.  There's also http://cia.bzzz.net in Poland - which is a 
de facto indymedia collective, where activists self-publish lots of good
activist stuff on all sorts of different local and less local human
rights and animal rights issues, though it's not Indymedia(TM).

Each of the different existing or no-longer-existing imcs in our
region has very different characteristics and experiences. You could
probably learn a lot by doing a tour of your regional collectives!
BTW, don't be frightened of visiting Belarus. If you make reasonable
precautions and use some common sense for visiting a
relatively-authoritarian state, you'll meet some cool and courageous
activists, independent both of the government and of the US-sponsored
colour revolution activists, and you'll get back in one piece.  :)

It would also be good if you get to know the people in the regional
collectives and how their groups function (or could maybe function
better).


Another thought - when you read through the suggested ten points for
getting organised, you'll notice that connecting with more local,
diverse individuals and groups is important. i think that some of the
people at http://www.hardcore.lt/ may be interested. Many years ago
some Lithuanian activists (maybe connected with hardcore.lt?) published
a "good news" zine, but i don't know much more about it. i suggest
you contact them anyway.


Sorry for the long email, but organising a media collective independent
of the governmental and corporate authorities is a lot of work! Read a bit
and feel free to ask more questions to the whole new-imc group
   http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/new-imc
or else start a mailing list
   (see https://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/NewImcHowTo )
and i'd be happy to join your imc-lithuania mailing list and discuss
stuff there. That way it would be public - which encourages more and
more people to join.


pozdr
boud (imc torun and new-imc volunteer)