Fall 1996 - Issue Number 37
I don't like elevators. Maybe it's the proximity -- or the confinement but I think it's the displaced feeling I have when I step in a box, push a button and step out into completely new environs. I must be from the old school where a slow ride up the escalator allowed me to make the transition from then to now, from here to there. Planes are the same. You cram your ass into a seat on a silver cigar and hurtle through time and space to emerge into a new world.
This displacement was never more apparent to me than after a spending a quick week in Amsterdam on the way to a media conference deep in Southern Africa. The people of the Netherlands have been steadily building culture and reclaiming space for a thousand years, developing one of the World's most progressive and civilized approaches to politics and social welfare. Efficient, timely and clean electric rail moves 15 million folks around this country half the size of Michigan. The Dutch quietly have remained in the top three trading partners with the U.S. for decades. As you zip through the country on trains you notice hard clean lines between city and country as if the tall buildings of industry were nibbled flat by the sheep and cows one canal over. Incredible and obviously planned and enforced. The standard of living is one of the highest in the world as are the taxes.
I crawled into a DC 10 'elevator' in Amsterdam heading for a media conference and 11 hours later the door opened on Lilongwe, Malawi. A small recently 'democratized' country bordered by Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania. A 5-hour bone crushing jeep ride across Malawi heading for Lake Malawi's shores could not have been a greater contrast from the flat checkerboard layout of the Netherlands. Small thatched-roofed villages squatted proudly, speckled across the mountainous terrain. The October spring heat was dry and pleasant. Dozen's of Malawians, mostly women, walked barefoot next to the road balancing incredible loads on their heads. Brick making kilns spewed out the future and occasional government wells, industrial metal with painted on code numbers, were busy with walk up folks bearing containers. Aside from glimpses of U of M and Mickey Mouse T-shirts, this scene has been unchanged for the thousand years the Dutch have been filling swamps--no electricity, no gas, few cars, no indoor plumbing, no phones, no television signals horizontal to the earth.
I hate to admit my first thought was, "Oh, what poor folks, what poverty." Later in the week before the conference started I had a rare chance, after an hour long hike, to visit a near-by village. After a day of questions and answers from both sides, I realized how indoctrinated I really am. These folks are healthy and happy now that the government is less oppressive. They are well-fed with the lake nearby and grains and goats are plentiful. They haven't been exposed to the lifelong incessant barrage of messages telling them what they are "missing" and questioning their intrinsic value as a human being based on cathartic consumption of cars, clothes and cigarettes. I really began to feel sorry for the U.S. of A. Granted, nostalgia for days gone by can quickly evaporate when the cold hard facts of infant mortality and AIDS statistics of Malawi rear their ugly heads. But what imperialist development scheme will be perpetrated on Malawi and other developing countries for that matter?
The conference in Africa brought together folks from a dozen Southern African countries attempting to produce, promote and distribute independent media to build community and social structure. The seminar organizer was the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) a well respected group traditionally made up of journalists trying to stay out of jail or the grave. Even in the so-called, "democratized" state of most member countries, MISA still tracks journalists' incarcerations and attempts by the government to squelch the press. Over 100 instances were reported and verified by MISA in 1995 and they are ahead of that pace already this year. (For information on copies of the 82 page, "So This is Democracy - State of the Media in Southern Africa 1995" contact MISA, Private Bag 13386, Windhoek, Namibia, Africa or postmaster@ingrid.misa.org.na)
One example of censorship was the Zambian government banning edition 401 of The Post newspaper February 5, 1995.
When edition 401 of The Post newspaper in Zambia was banned by presidential decree on February 5, people with access to the Internet could at first continue reading the paper. While Zambians fearful of arrest hid printed copies of the banned paper, the electronic version of edition 401 remained `on-line'. Two days after the ban came into effect, people around the world with access to the global network of computers known as the Internet were still able to read edition 401.
But then the police threatened to raid Zamnet, the Internet Service Provider on whose computers The Post and other Zambian organizations have their Internet 'sites', unless edition 401 of The Post was removed from the Internet. Zamnet - a private company based at the University of Zambia in Lusaka - had little choice but to comply with the ban and remove edition 401, and to this day visitors to The Post's Internet site (www.zamnet.zm) are unable to read this edition of the paper. Ironically the antiquated piece of legislation used to ban edition 401 - Section 53 of the Penal Code - applied to all forms of the paper, including its ultra-modern, cyberspace edition. Having removed the edition 401 from the Internet, Zamnet then came under pressure from the authorities to stop publishing The Post on the Internet altogether. But Zamnet stood its ground, and encouraged the government instead to make its own media available on the Internet. This the government eventually did, and now news, from the State-run news agency, ZANA, as well as the government-owned newspaper, the Daily Mail, can be read alongside The Post. The case of The Post illustrates the power of the Internet to overcome censorship (author's note: not to mention replicating edition 401 on remote servers), but also highlights the vulnerability of the Internet in Africa
-- Excerpted with permission from Free Press published by MISA, authored by David Lush (For subscription information contact postmaster@ingrid.misa.org.na)
Many folks in Malawi didn't censor their anti-American sentiment. The pervasive rain of U.S. media flooding most other countries is causing growing resentment. Local producers and organizers are constantly thwarted by the "cheap" American programming that is unloaded, like Nestle baby formula, on developing countries. Not to mention the U.S. entrepreneurs scouring the globe for available bandwidth and frequencies in which to dump even more audio/video. Herbert Schiller refers to it as the Global Commercialization of Culture. There is a whole new "ugly American" emerging in media worldwide. As a "big white media man" from the west, I guess I can't blame folks for their first impression.
The Media Institute of Southern Africa steered their 1996 Community Voices Conference toward electronic media based on base-line research into regional broadcasting in the sub-region, the horn, central and east Africa. Co-sponsors of the conference for the first time included World Association of Community Radio ( AMARC), Southern African Communications for Development (SACOD), and VideazimuT--World Association of Community Video and TV.
About 150 folks showed up to participate in the following sessions:
Each day was capped off with reports from Southern African Countries and my favorite, a Press Briefing. The Press Briefings had a very formal air to them with a chairperson for each session. I realized immediately is that what was said here could easily be cause for retribution and possible incarceration for the participants. It was an eye opener from my perspective and made me realize the extent to which we take freedom of speech for granted and that these African leaders are true heroes.
Deploying electronic community media in Southern Africa will not be easy. As you read above there is the problem of government control, the lack of electricity in many places, the multiple languages and dialects, the poverty and illiteracy of many potential producers/consumers and the lack of subsides for start-up. Send lawyers, guns and money (and T-1 Data Lines). What the hell, I predict it will succeed famously. The spirit and smarts and devotion of the folks present in Malawi are wonderful indicators for the future. Many of these folks hail from long backgrounds of community organizing and the thought of using new media tools excited them. I also realized right away that I was there to learn more than share. Many of the organizers were already online and had great plans to use e-mail as the backbone of their organizing efforts. This is tough country, these are tough people. Community media will cook in Southern Africa. Power to the People.
Dirk Koning, Executive Director"...Because Information is the Currency of Democracy..."
Return to the Index of Synapse 37, Fall 1996