Ethan Zuckerman's musings on Africa, international development
and hacking the media.
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A video produced by the Center for Social Media – which I just blogged about on Global Voices – about efforts to involve blogging and citizens’ media in mainstream media has provoked some interesting comments from Colin Brayton. Brayton describes himself as “an admittedly dissident stakeholder in the GVO project”. To clarify what this means: Brayton wrote a post for Global Voices several months back and has posted many comments on our site. As he’s made clear in several comments on our site and his site, Brayton is worried about Global Voices’ relationship with mainstream media:
I beginning to see that projects like these, and Newsvine as well, are designed, or redirected to serve, as training grounds for professional intermediaries between the blogging public and the professional media.
The danger of these intermediaries, Brayton feels, is that they may not be transparent and trustworthy in their representation of the blogosphere. He’d prefer more direct support of citizen’s media, rather than support of projects like Global Voices:
I would rather see all that foundation and corporate money going to direct support of and education of citizen journalists, not to promoting a a layer of blogging industry intermediaries who package the unmediated voices of online writers to make it palatable, and cost-effective, for traditional media outlets.
These are interesting and worthwhile points to consider, but I think Brayton is missing the core mission behind Global Voices. Our intention was to help bring interesting voices from around the world to a larger audience. This meant amplifying those blog posts on our blog, and attempting to get mainstream media to take those voices seriously, incorporating them into their coverage and using those bloggers as sources for perspective and opinion. This isn’t a hidden agenda of Global Voices – it’s a very explicit one. Absolutely, we’re trying to make blogs – specifically blogs from developing and undercovered nations – understandable to mainstream media.
Whether we do that well and transparently is a subject of constant internal debate and self-examination. We’ve opened up several ways people can bring blogs to our attention, but we invariably miss some. We rely on editors who are knowledgeable about the regions they cover to pick posts to feature and others not to feature… and these editors are opinionated humans, who have their perspectives and biases, most of which you can discern by reading their personal blogs. We accept comments on posts, which allows people to argue – loudly, sometimes – that we’ve missed the point or failed to cover a subject well.
Brayton finds an aspect of our editorial structure troublesome as well:
That’s why the entire premise of Global Voices Online, with its mediagenic “regional editors†purporting to speak on behalf of a “national blogosphere†that we are cordially invited to conflate with an emerging national democratic consensus, strikes me as false.
That’s not reality. That’s a Potemkin village … a soothing, telegenic illusion.
I’m glad he finds our regional editors telegenic – I think they’re awfully attractive folks myself. Underneath the rhetoric, there’s an important point: in most countries – including the US – bloggers are not representative of the average member of the populace. Bloggers tend to be better educated, wealthier and live in areas where they have access to connectivity, which means that rural areas are under-represented.
Global Voices is not a picture of the world – it’s a picture of the world’s bloggers. (And not all the world’s bloggers – we’ve made a conscious decision not to focus on North America, Western Europe, Australia or New Zealand, as we feel there are a lot of channels for bloggers in those countries to amplify their voices without our help.) Reading Global Voices won’t tell you what the average Saudi thinks – it will tell you what some particularly interesting, opinionated and thoughtful Saudis think. We believe that it’s important to hear more voices, so we amplify the voices that we’re able to find.
But I find one aspect of Brayton’s argument misguided and offensive, when he suggests that we’re organizing a grassroots effort to call attention to our colleague’s detention as some sort of a symbolic gesture:
…this is transparently not “citizen journalism,†but a political marketing campaign. Mr. Wu is being packaged to put a human face on a large, anonymous populace of people who do not write in English, but whether or not he is representative of Chinese bloggers is established by editorial fiat and design, not by fact, research or any “democratic†process. His plight is real, but its reality has been retouched in Photoshop.
Mr. Brayton, we’re not calling attention to Hao Wu’s detention because he puts a face on the detention of Chinese dissidents. We’re doing it because he’s our friend and colleage. Hao is being detained without charge by a government that won’t tell us why he’s being held, when he could speak to a lawyer or when he will be released. Hao is our North Asia editor – he’s a paid staff member of our organization, as well as our friend. Media organizations – including citizen’s media organizations – have a responsibility to agitate for the rights of their staffers when those rights are abused. (And I’d like to think that friends should attempt to help friends when they’re detained by a repressive government, but hey, maybe that’s just me.) Sorry you feel differently, Colin, but why not try and see Hao’s situation with a little less paranoia and a bit more compassion?
It’s rare that a global event happens linking West Africa and Mongolia, two of my favorite places in the world. We got two this week:
After being captured at the Nigeria/Cameroon border, Charles Taylor was delivered to Freetown, Sierra Leone where he was guarded by Mongolian UN troops. Taylor’s extradition included a stop in Monrovia, where the AP photo shows him guarded by Jordanian troops working as part of the UN. Go Jordan! (Another one of my favorite places in the world…) Go Mongolia! Go Liberia! And Go Nigeria! It’s reassuring to see that Obasanjo’s government reacted quickly to the news of Taylor’s escape and quickly brought him back into custody.
Most bloggers are booing Taylor’s escape and cheering his capture, as Chippla points out in an excellent roundup on Global Voices. Imnakoya wonders, though, what changed Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf’s mind about the priority of bringing Taylor to justice:
t’s on record that the Liberia’s new president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, said in an interview with The New York Times before her inauguration in January that “Mr. Taylor’s fate was a relatively low priority, given the myriad problems facing Liberia and the fragility of the peace there.”
The reason for the sudden change of heart is puzzling. Some have suggested that the Ms Johnson may have been pressured by Washington to prosecute Taylor or the US will “withhold aid to Liberia if she did not act”.
It’s pretty clear that there was pressure in Congress and the Senate to bring Taylor to justice and that this pressure included ties to international aid. Rodney Sieh, writing for Africa Masterweb, quotes Senator Obama, who pushed hard for Taylor’s extradition, connecting Nigerian debt relief to Taylor’s extradition.
Jonathan Power, a noted commentator on African issues and a personal friend of Obasanjo, is quoted at length on Wanabehuman. He notes that Johnson-Sirleaf’s call for Taylor’s extradition put Obasanjo in a difficult situation. He’d given his personal guarantee of protection to Taylor in exchange for Taylor leaving Liberia and allowing the civil war to be pacified by UN peacekeepers, primarily Nigerians and Ghanaians.
While I think it’s a Very Good Thing that Taylor’s been brought to justice, it will be interesting to see whether he’s able to use the tribunal as a stage as Milosevic did. Some observers are understandably worried that Taylor could incite his supporters in Liberia to violence if given such a stage – the recent attempt to move the trial from Sierra Leone to the Hague may well be an effort to mitigate these concerns…
But it’s not just escaped dictators that have brought Mongolia and West Africa together – they were united by a total eclipse. The event happened early in the morning in Ghana – just the right time for schoolchildren to line up outside classrooms and watch the event through protective glasses provided by local Pepsi distributors… The bloggers were there as well: David Ajao watched from the beach and has a lovely shot of the eclispe’s reflection in the Atlantic. The eclipse – combined with Taylor’s arrest – reinforced Emmanuel Bensah’s belief in God, a sentiment reflected in an editorial in the Daily Mail:
People are reading all sorts of meanings in to this occurrence, and so must they; the main meaning we see in what happened yesterday is that as a nation, we have more things that unite us than separate us. It is perhaps God’s own way of using such phenomena to tell us humans that hubris is not the answer, for after all, yesterday, every Ghanaian who had the opportunity of witnessing the total eclipse put aside all religious, ethnic, political and whatsoever difference to do obeisance to the majesty of our solar system.
Both Ghanaian bloggers have great pictures, as does the BBC.
ijebuman reminds us that, in 2001, a partial eclipse in Nigeria led to religious violence and hopes that government warnings about the eclipse help keep the peace.
No word from the Mongolian bloggers, but Janet’s got a great eclipse story from the roof of a hotel in Istanbul:
Not a bad spot: looking in one direction we could see the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia; in the other direction, the Bosphorus. We were joined on the roof by a crowd of Turkish hotel guests and staff, some of whom got very excited that the shadow cast by the sun during the height of the eclipse looked remarkably like the image on the Turkish flag (right). More enthusiastic observers starting pulling out pens and pencils to add a drawn star next to the sun’s shadow, which was being projected onto a piece of paper in the center of the crowd. Soon enough, several stars had been added to the paper, and by reflecting the sun’s shadow just right, the image stopped being just an eclipse, and also became a naturally appearing Turkish flag.
Nothing like a natural phenomenon to bring us together – sorry I missed this one.
Hao Wu’s sister, Wu Na, has begun blogging about her brother’s detention. It’s clear how difficult this is for her, reading a translation of her first post – she’s a quiet, private person who’s been forced to become an advocate by the government’s detention of her brother:
My own writing has always been weak, and composition gave me even more of a headache. But now I believe that true feelings will leap onto the keyboard, as I type out the characters of my family and friends who miss Wu Hao. These feelings do not require eloquence or adornment. They just need to be faithfully recorded. I hope it can fill in for the “I love you, brother,” that is usually so hard for me to say.
Wu Na tells us that, on her most recent visit to the authorities in Beijing, she was informed that Hao Wu had committed a crime… but the authorities would not tell her what he had been charged with. He’s now been detained for five weeks without being formally charged.
A photo of Hao Wu from his sister’s photo gallery on her new blog
We’re waiting for permission from Wu Na to start letter-writing and lobbying campaigns on Hao Wu’s behalf. It’s not hard to understand how difficult and scary this situation has been for her, and we’re trying to ensure that she’s authorized everything we’re trying to do to advocate for Hao’s release.
At the same time, we’re very aware that there’s a narrow window during which advocacy within the US may have extra impact – the time leading up Hu Jintao’s visit to the US on April 20th. We very much hope that articles like Geoffrey Fowler’s piece in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal will help put pressure on President Bush to raise the issue of Hao Wu’s detention with Hu Jintao… or that attention to Hao’s detention will inspire the Chinese government to release him before the summit.
If you blog and haven’t posted about Hao’s detention yet, please consider doing so. The only tool we have at our disposal is our ability to call attention to Hao’s situation, telling the press, legislators, other bloggers. Please check out the stories we’ve posted on the Free Hao Wu site, put a badge on your page, and help us get people talking about our friend’s illegal and unjust detention.
Update: They got him. And now he’s in Sierra Leone being guarded by UN-helmeted Mongolians. And we all know, you don’t want to mess with the Mongolians…
Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf knew she was taking a risk when she called on Nigeria to hand former Liberian strongman Charles Taylor over to a war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone. Many of the parliamentarians she needs to work with in her government supported Taylor, and her call for justice was bound to be popular with international donors, but unpopular with some of her countrymen.
Turns out that may have been the wrong risk to worry about. Flight risk? Now that’s something to worry about.
Taylor had been living in a luxurious mansion in Calabar, a city in Southeastern Nigeria known as Nigeria’s top tourist attraction. Calabar has both an international airport and a seaport – Reuters Alertnet speculates that Taylor may have escaped by sea, using the immense wealth he stole from the Liberia during his rule to set up residence elsewhere. Saharareporters.com speculates that he may be making his way to Harare, where Robert Mugabe might be willing to protect him from extradition.
The Nigerian government has set up a committee to report on Taylor’s dissapearance – they are charged with presenting a report on what happened within two weeks… by which point Taylor should be good and properly hidden away and almost impossible to find. (Think “where’s Waldo?”, but with an entire planet to search…) The men assigned to guard him have been arrested, reports the BBC.
Desmond de Silva, the prosecutor for the Sierra Leone war crimes tribunal does get credit for the urgent warning he put out on Sunday: “The watching world will wish to see Taylor held in Nigerian detention to avoid the possibility of him using his wealth and associates to slip away, with grave consequences to the stability of the region.”
It’s not the first time Charles Taylor has escaped from a Liberian arrest warrant. In 1985, after falling out of favor with strongman Samuel Doe, he was detained in the US, then escaped from the Plymouth County House of Correction in Massachusetts – some argue that he sawed through the bars with the help of four petty criminals; others speculate that the Reagan administration helped free him as a sign of their dissatisfaction with the Doe regime.
Slobodon Lekic, writing for the AP, wonders why some dictators escape justice. Perhaps some dictators are just more slippery than others…
A year ago, Meles Zenawi was being celebrated as part of a generation of “new African leaders”, cracking down on corruption, expanding democracy and leading Africa into a bright future. Zenawi was named to Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa, a recognition of Ethiopia’s size and significance, as well as recognition of Zenawi’s steps towards reform.
It’s a very different situation in Ethiopia today. A disputed parliamentary election and ensuing protests resulted in the killing of dozens of protesters by government forces. A crackdown on press freedoms has landed journalists and activists in prison, charged with “genocide” for their opposition to the government. A “wanted list” of journalists has had the effect of muzzling much of the press, which has gotten less critical of the government as many of their number face serious legal charges.
Photo by Andrew Heavens of the aftermath of a bomb in Addis earlier today
And just to keep things interesting, there are the bombs. Since early January, “minor blasts” have become a regular occurance in Addis Ababa, causing injury and damage – but until today, no fatalites – in public spaces around the city. The first of today’s blasts destroyed a “blue donkey” minibus around 9:30 this morning, killing one passenger and injuring several others. As Andrew Heavens, reporting about the incident on his blog notes:
It is worrying that public transport is now being targeted. For me it is also puzzling that they don’t seem interested in high-profile targets. Their main aim seems to be intimidating “ordinary” Ethiopians on their way to work.
The bus blast was the first of four explosions in Addis today, including bombs at a cafe, a guard shack and an abbatoir. Heavens notes that no one seems to know who’s responsible for the explosions – the government accuses “Eritrean terrorists” (a reference to the ongoing border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea), while Reuters characterizes the bombs as “mysterious explosions”. Xinhua reports that the Ethiopian government stated that previous bombs were made of C4 smuggled from Eritrea and planted by the Oromo Liberation Front, a group that wants the Oromo province to become independent from Ethiopia, suggesting that these bombs may be connected.
One of Ethiopia’s most interesting – and most controversial – bloggers has just left her adopted home. Addis Ferengi (Ferenji means “foreigner”), a French citizen living in Addis Ababa, had been blogging for eight months (in French and English), attracting a great deal of attention from Ethiopian authorities. As she spent more time in Ethiopia, her posts became increasingly critical of the Zenawi government. Recently her blog posts had focused on Ethiopian dissidents Ato Ayele Angelo and Ato Berhanu Haile who were maintaining a hunger strike while in prison.
A number of comments began appearing in pro-Zenawi blogs, denouncing Addis Ferenji, revealing her identity and encouraging Ethiopians contact her about her anti-government views. On Saturday, Addis Ferenji announced that she had left Ethiopia for Europe:
Here are the facts: I was not expelled or directly threatened officially… Unofficially… well, they forwarded some “anonymous” death penalty and… talked to my husband!
…
I have been wondering for months when they would consider I had crossed the line and reached the breaking point. I obviously did when talking about Maekelawi political prisoners. They just cannot stand being provoked on their territory: jails. This ain’t no barking anymore and I feel physically in danger. I do not fear being arrested on fabricated charges, I fear for my life because they are not rational and far, far beyond the edge…
She has promised her readers to continue posting about Ethiopian politics, and to lobby European governments, helping raise awareness about repression of the press and opposition under the Zenawi government. It’s terribly sad that she’s not able to remain in Ethiopia, but it’s possible that she may be more effective as a dissident in Europe rather than staying one step ahead of the authorities in Ethiopia.
I guess they noticed.
A good friend in China – who signs his emails “my mouth is blocked in China” – tells me that the Great Firewall has started blocking freehaowu.com, freehaowu.org, freewuhao.org and freewuhao.com. They’ve not yet blocked ethanzuckerman.com/haowu or 66.199.228.30/haowu. All six names point to the same server – ethanzuckerman.com, which lives at 66.199.228.30 – this pattern of blocking suggests that the firewall is filtering on a domain name basis, not on an IP basis. (And all names are accessible via a proxy, suggesting my friend is not having problems with the domain name redirects, but with actual blocking at the router level.)
As an experiment, I just registered freeourfriend.org and redirected it to 66.199.228.30/haowu – we’ll see how long that one stays accessible. (If you can’t reach that address now, don’t assume – yet – that it’s blocked. It will take at least 24 hours for DNS to propogate… we’d expect to see the domain become reachable tomorrow or Sunday, and get blocked sometime afterwards.) I’m curious whether the firewall is going to block all simple domains that point to content on Hao Wu, or just to domain names that include his name.
My friend in China also believes that pages including the character sequence å´çš“ are being intermittently blocked. We’re testing to see if that’s true – he saw a Flickr page including å´çš“ blocked recently.
If the firewall begins blocking my site based on IP address rather than by domain name, I’m going to need to start mirroring the blog on other IPs. I’m reluctant to mirror it on our Harvard server because I’d prefer that Global Voices as a whole not be blocked in China. If you run your own Wordpress server and would be interested in mirroring the Hao Wu blog if we do end up being blocked in China, I’d love your help. Please email or IM me – I’m “ethanz” on gmail.
My Heart's In Accra by Ethan Zuckerman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
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