Global Voices Summit 08 ( en francais)

La conference de Global Voices Online vient de commencer.
La salle est pleine et Sami Ben Gharbia montre une video de la corruption de la police au Maroc et la torture en Egypte.
Pour visionner la conference en direct, c'est par ici:
http://summit08.globalvoicesonline.org/stream/

et le live blog est ici:


http://summit08.globalvoicesonline.org/category/updates/

Il y a aussi un live chat sur IRC:

http://www.mibbit.com/

"Connect to IRC: Freenode.net" et canal: "#globalvoices".

Je vais essayer de resumer ici les presentations mais tout va tres vite alors...


Liberte d'expression:
Ory Okolloh parle des violences au Kenya pendant et apres les elections.
Elle explique que beaucoup de Kenyans estimait pendant la crise que pouvoir acheter des minutes pour son cellulaire pour appeller sa famille et illustrer les violences etait plus important que recevoir des dons.
http://mamamikes.com
http://ushuahidi.org

Anti-censorship, contre la censure

FACT-Freedom Against Censorship in Thailand
MENA-: Moyen-Orient et Afrique du Nord

Differents Niveaux de Censure:
Pour avoir une license pour un cybercafe a Omar, le cybercafe doit avoir une architecture bien precise ( floor plans provided :) )

Censure en Chine:

John Kennedy montre tous les liens des blogs chinois qui ont reussi a eviter la censure et ceux qui sont maintenant en prison (ex: Ju Hia).

Lors du tremblement de terre, plusieurs blogueurs etaient frustres par la Croix-Rouge en Chine, Zhai Minglei, par exemple, a decide de prendre les choses en main et a coopere avec Jet Li pour faire une collecte de fonds et creer une association.

Rezwan sur le media citoyen Bangladesh.

Taseem Khalil: Journaliste emprisonne pour avoir publie sut son blog un article que son journal avait refuse.
La plupart du temps, les medias traditionels pratiquent l'auto-censure par peur d'une sanction economique venant du gouvernement ( Quid des journalistes a Madagascar ?)

Andrew Heavens sur l'Ethiopie

Ethiopian Blogosphere was an incredible place until... (ooops, passe a l'anglais, marche arriere):
SMS bloque en 2005 ( le debut de la fin). Les elections de 2005: 1er jour: Emeutes a Addis. > Blogs en feu > puis plus rien..le vide total....blogspot banne.
Juillet 2006, Ralentissement considerable des blogs....> Mepris complet par le gouvernement Ethiopien ne repondant meme pas au accusation de censure.
Le parrain des blogs en Ethiopie est triste que les blogueurs ehtiopiens aient abondonnes aussi vite leur devoir civique.

Voici la session geek: dans 5 min, je vais etre largue ou plutot 30 sec.

Protecting free speech and privacy:
TOR

Roger, createur de TOR: (torproject.org) "Je me bats pas contre la Chine, je me bats contre les multinationales americaines."

Isaac Mao: Digital Nomads

C'est difficile pour un blogger de changer d'attitude dans un pays different. En Chine, je sais que je ne dois pas essayer d'acceder certains blogs.
Mais meme une fois a l'exterieur, j'ai toujours peur de le faire.
Les 3 murs qui bloquent la liberte d'expression:
free speech, free thinking, free software.

Donner la parole à ceux qu’on n’entend pas: EthanZ on Rising Voices and Chris on the lingua project

"We were seeing people who were privileged in their own communities, so we asked, could participatory media works with a very different audience ? / Nous avons observé que les participants (au média citoyen) étaient le plus souvent des privilégiés dans leurs communautés, nous avons alors posé la question: Le media citoyen peut-il fonctionner en faisant participer des communautés differentes ?"

Ethan Zuckerman explique le projet Global/Rising Voices.

Voir les élèves de Majunga, Tana et Toamasina être présentés ainsi au MIT, c’est bête, mais ça me fait tout chose.

Dans le même registre, Chris Salzberg explique le projet Global Voices dans un article publiée dans une revue sur la traduction.
Il souligne l’importance de la traduction du projet dans les langues vernaculaires et mentionne aussi Global Voices amin’ny teny Malagasy:

“The Malagasy team, in particular, is strongly motivated by preservation of language, the majority of blogs in Madagascar being written in French despite the fact that the country is majority Malagasy-speaking.”

Chris ne pouvait pas savoir que la même semaine se déroulera le cyberfety: “ aza ampijaliana ny tenin tsika”, pour la défense de la langue malgache sur le net.
Merci mille fois à Ethan Z, David et Chris pour non seulement donner la parole à ceux qu’on n’entend pas souvent mais aussi pour les mettre ainsi sur le devant de la scène.

Listening Beyond Borders

( from anthology of Music around the world)

As some of you may know, I am very fortunate to be a part of the Global Voices Summit in Budapest (for the "when the world listens" and Web 2.0 Goes Worldwide sessions).
It will be an opportunity to shine a bright light on the tremendous effort by citizen media participants in developing countries in time of need.
We will revisit some sad events (post-elections violence in Kenya, Cyclone Ivan and other issues), the importance of citizen media in that context and how to reach out to the rest of the world.
The last part is intriguing to me because we often outer phrases such as "Global Village", "think globally" or "The World is Flat" etc. but it is still a formidable challenge to faithfully render the hardships faced by many folks in times of crises and make the rest of the world relate to them, or better yet, internalize the injustice.

Many have discussed the concepts of Xenophilia and explained why some cultures may have more of an appeal (or "sticky factor" as M. Gladwell calls it ) than others.
I am way too new to all of this to bring valuable contribution to the table. However, as I was doing a bit of research for my slides for the session, I stumble upon this: the trend on when and how many people are searching for "Madagascar" on Google search engine:

Looking at the graphs, you will notice that there is an increase for a "Madagascar" search worldwide in mid-February right around the cyclone Ivan landfall.
A Google search is an assertive action that indicates a desire to know more than the sound bite heard on tv. This is strong evidence to me that solidarity across borders is not just a word.
The search for "Kerala" ( my roommate's home state) and "Madagascar" are almost equivalent worldwide (with Kerala slightly on top most of the time) except for February during the cyclone. As explained by Hash in his post on "pothole theory...", it is expected that we, as human beings, care more about events that are related and/or closer to us. I tend to agree that most of us are more or less guilty as charged.

Yet, looking at the Google trend search from Colombia, I see people who wanted to understand what happened and who kept looking for more even after the cyclone was gone. The trends seem to be similar for the US and Canada. The trends are a bit different (a brief, sharp increase) for the UK and France because they are more familiar with Madagascar (Large Malagasy diaspora or former visitors ) for historical reasons and they specifically searched for information pertaining to the cyclone.

The Bottom line is, more people actively looked for more information about Madagascar during the cyclone and that is a good thing, as corny as that may sound.

I understand that Google trends alone are not going to be enough data to draw any meaningful conclusions and I also apologize for the heavily "Madagascar-centered" tone of this post. More tools and more countries need to be assessed before drawing any conclusions.

However, the point I am trying to make (from my untrained point of view) is that we may think that most people are desensitized by information overload (or indifferent to far remote regions) but we may begin to see a change here:
compassion that is not geographically or culturally dependent. And if I were to push the envelope, we may see that what may have started as an interest for a region out of compassion may very well continue as an interest for that region out of pure fondness.

On father's day: Tim Russert and Big Russ

In Memory of Tim Russert,
and Happy father's day to all the fathers out there.

Bienvenu à Madagascar Mr. Mégret, vous allez apprécier le "cross-breeding" local

Bruno Mégret s'installerait à Madagascar (via Madagascan et Gozy):

"...Bruno Mégret a également prévu de quitter la France : il va déménager et démarrer une nouvelle carrière à Madagascar, loin de la politique. Une filiale de Bouygues a prévu de le recruter pour le marché local. Il aurait expliqué à huis clos aux cadres de son mouvement (le MNR), en mai dernier, qu’en raison d’un ennui quasi chronique dans son travail de fonctionnaire et ingénieur des ponts et chaussées au traitement de quelque 6 000 euros mensuels, il avait décidé d’opter pour le privé qui lui aurait proposé un salaire de 12 000 euros et des missions beaucoup plus attractives."

Histoire d'apprécier l'ironie de la situation, rappelons nous de ceci:

"According to Bruno Mégret: cosmopolitanism is " the desire to get rid of differences and indentities and to glorify mixing, cross-breeding, the metling pot and cultural and ethnic deracination...this increasingly vigourous cosmopolitanism is trying to deprive our fellow citizens of their ethnic and cultural differences "

( as quoted in the "populist challenge")

Allez , on invite aussi Le Pen , Berlusconi et David Duke à Nosy-be pour une nouba d'enfer.

Madagascar, where welcoming ethno-separatists happens. I could not be prouder.

Seriously, W.T.F. ?

Yes She Can and Boy She Did.

"Every moment wasted looking back keeps us from moving forward. Life is too short, time is too precious and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been.
We must make sure that women and men alike understand the struggles of their grandmothers and mothers and that women enjoy equal opportunities, equal pay and equal respect.
Let us resolve and work toward achieving some very simple propositions: there are no acceptable limits and there are no acceptable prejudices in the 21st century in our country.”

Boston Three party: Go C's !

This is our time.

"But what you don't deserve is another election that's governed by fear, and innuendo, and division. What you won't hear from this campaign or this party is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon - that sees our opponents not as competitors to challenge, but enemies to demonize. Because we may call ourselves Democrats and Republicans, but we are Americans first."

Put a little science in your life, yes you can.

Brian Green in the NYT:

"Science is the greatest of all adventure stories, one that’s been unfolding for thousands of years as we have sought to understand ourselves and our surroundings. Science needs to be taught to the young and communicated to the mature in a manner that captures this drama. We must embark on a cultural shift that places science in its rightful place alongside music, art and literature as an indispensable part of what makes life worth living.

It’s the birthright of every child, it’s a necessity for every adult, to look out on the world, as the soldier in Iraq did, and see that the wonder of the cosmos transcends everything that divides us."

And dare I say.... " Si se puede !"

Come on, I am sure you see it too, yes you can.

All jokes aside, the appeal of this wonderful article written by Dr Greene (the most sent article in NYT today ) on the need for more science in our education is the same appeal that draws people from all corners of the world to B. Obama.

When it comes to research, the need to solve the technicalities to obtain meaningful data sometimes makes us lose perspective on the beauty of the research process itself: solving the unknown.

Similarly, the main difference in this election is that winning the election at all costs is not an option for Obama. He will thrive because instead of nitpicking why he may be a better candidate than McCain or Clinton, he is reaching out to everyone's expertise (including former adversaries) to formulate the best possible policies.

He will thrive because he understands that the elections are not about spinning and hidden agendas; they are, in the words of Green, about being "able to think through and grasp explanations not because they are declared dogma but rather because they reveal patterns confirmed by experiment and observation."

On the eve of the end of the primary elections, I am anxious to hear his next speech and hopefully reach out to Clinton' supporters who might have grown to dislike him to this point.

In somewhat-related news, there is a Malagasy journalist on the campaign trail in Montana with the Clintons. And our president is mingling with the good folks of Kentucky (photo).

(Ok, that had nothing to do with this post but I just wanted to share the slightly odd pieces of info. Love the timber shirt, president ! )


(via Madagascar news)