[New-imc] [Fwd: [Fwd: New IMC Northern England]]

[Chris]

Hi

On Tue, 23 Jun 2009 01:05:46 +0100, mark wrote:
> > 
> >  * http://sheffield.indymedia.org.uk/
> >  * http://manchester.indymedia.org.uk/ 
> >  * http://liverpool.indymedia.org.uk/
> 
> Of note, none of these sites (or imc-uk as a whole) seem
> to be under the editorial or technical control of a
> functioning collective, as far as I can tell. Whilst
> imc-northern is not seeking to detract from these sites
> in any way, we think that as a real collectively-run
> media centre, we shouldn't be held back by their
> existence.

It is true that these 3 cities don't have active
collectives in the way they did when they were set up at
the height of the protests against the Iraq war, 6 years
ago, however this doesn't mean that Indymedia activists
and users of the site in these 3 cities should be excluded
from the new site that covers their area.

Last month IMC Leeds/Bradford were saying, "we will be
considering changing the name of our collective in the
future to better represent the area that we will provide
coverage for. Possibilities that have been discussed
include: IMC Yorkshire, IMC North-East and IMC Northern."
[1]. The region the proposed new IMC is to cover, The
North of England, was only formally made clear 3 weeks ago
[2], and when it was pointed out on UK IMC lists that
there was to be a large overlap with existing sites it was
said that:

  "Imc uk has a very different structure to what we are
  creating here, and our success or failure in creating an
  alternative will be down to the engagement of the users
  of our new site and not the need to compromise on
  something as unimportant as a name with an altogether
  different network." [3]

It's still unclear to me what relationship IMC Northern
wants to have with the UK IMC Network -- they made it
clear that they "see the benefits of making a break from
imc-uk" and want to "go through the 'new imc' process to
establish our identity as a truly autonomous, regional
imc" and that they "expect the rest of the network to
respect our autonomy" [4].

> > There has however been almost no attempt from the
> > Northern IMC activists at having any dialogue with or
> > involvement from existing Indymedia activists from
> > these cities,
> 
> That is untrue. Perhaps chrisc's assumption that if he
> didn't know about it, it hadn't happened says something
> about the (informal) hierachical way in which imc-uk is
> currently organised?

There has been no email sent from IMC Northern to the
email lists for Sheffield, Manchester or Liverpool [5],
these lists probably have hundreds of people on them, they
have been going since 2002 and 2003. There have been no
newswire or feature articles on these cities sites about
the proposed new IMC Northern so most Indymedia site users
in these cities are probably unaware that a new
overarching Indymedia site is being set up. There have
been no IMC Northern meetings held in these cities and the
internal web presence and on-line decision making of IMC
Northern [6] is closed -- people who haven't attended any
IMC Northern meetings are not allowed to join in so
activists from these cities who haven't been able to
travel across the region to meetings (or haven't even been
aware of the meetings) have been excluded from things like
contributing to the proposed Mission Statment etc.

> Not only have we spoken to many current indymedia
> activists from these cities (for example, at this event
> http://hacktivista.net/hacktionlab/index.php/HacktionLab_2009/01
> where Jimdog and I got lots of encouragement for what we
> were doing from other UK IMCistas), but also with former
> IMCistas who live in these cities, who've said that they
> would be very interested in getting involved with
> indymedia again were it not for the dysfunctionality of
> imc-uk. We are trying to meet their needs by setting up
> a new imc that will be open to them.

The process that IMC Northern has announced for activists
in these cities to get involved has not been open:

  "a position was decided that all such requests should
  come from the imc's themselves...  This was relayed to
  representatives of several regional imc's informally
  with the note that a formal request to
  participate/merge/interact with in another way with imc
  northern should be proposed at their meetings which
  would be discussed by the collective as soon as is
  possible and a decision reached through consensus." [7]

I'm not aware of this informal "note" having been passed
onto anyone in Sheffield for example, this is not an open,
transparent or inclusive process [8].

That there has been no outreach to the existing lists or
sites for Sheffield. Manchester or Liverpool has been
intentional, it is not an oversight:

  "the onus should be on other imc's to contact us as we
  are not seeking to replace any existing city based imc's
  but to compliment them" [9]

> I've changed some of the wording in the outreach
> material 

It is to be welcomed that much of the negativity towards
IMC UK you previously included [10] in your outreach
material has been removed -- the new text is a great
improvement.

> The last uk network meeting was hosted by us. None of
> the people suggesting another meeting came to that one
> (except chrisc, for part of it). So yes, it would be
> nice to have a network meeting, but that's no reason to
> delay setting up imc-northern. It is actually needed
> right now.

I agree that waiting for a UK-wide network meeting
shouldn't be something that should hold up the IMC
Northern process, however that lack of meetings in and
involvement from activists in 3 large cities that are to
be a part of this new collective is something that needs
to be seriously addressed before the New IMC process can
be completed IMHO.

The fact that matters such as these are being discussed on
the New IMC list, after they haven't been resolved on the
UK lists, indicates to me that it's clear that more work
is needed in terms of outreach and involvement etc before
the North of England Indymedia is ready for the New IMC
process.

Chris


[1] http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-network/2009-May/0509-rq.html

[2] http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-network/2009-June/0603-pl.html

[3] http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-network/2009-June/0618-hg.html

[4] http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-network/2009-June/0603-pl.html

[5] http://lists.indymedia.org/imc-sheffield
    http://lists.indymedia.org/imc-manchester
    http://lists.indymedia.org/imc-liverpool

[6] https://we.riseup.net/imc-northern

[7] http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-process/2009-June/0618-2f.html

[8] http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-process/2009-June/0617-3v.html

[9] http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-network/2009-June/0618-hg.html

[10] http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-northern/2009-June/0617-ya.html