text:
Egypt: Blogging Farouk Hosni’s Defeat · Global Voices
Marwa Rakha

Egypt's Culture Minister Farouk Hosni has kept bloggers busy over the previous few days. His failed bid to secure a seat at the helm of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) has polarised the blogosphere, with some even cooking up conspiracy theories to justify his defeat.
Hosni  made it to the fifth and final round of voting for the post of Director General but lost to Bulgarian Irina Bokova by four votes. His nomination has created a plethora of controversy and his defeat has been twittered and has gathered much momentum on the blogging scene.
In his speech[AR],  Hosni promised to concentrate on issues of education, combating poverty, supporting women and youth, supporting inter-cultural dialogue, supporting freedom of expression, improving the environment and fighting global warming.
Until the last minute Bikya Masr bloggers believed that Hosni is winning:
The fifth round of balloting is to be held in Paris and sources inside UNESCO say that Hosni has the upper hand due to his role as culture minister for two decades in Egypt … With one day of voting remaining, it appears Hosni is ready to come out victorious after a yearlong campaign against the man. Critics are sure to be unpleased.
But the voting took a different turn as Zeinobia broke the news:
Yes boys and girls Farouk Hosni has lost the UNESCO elections in front of Bulgarian Irina Bokova who has become the first woman to head the international organization :)
Farouk got 27 votes and Irina got 30 in the final fifth vote.
And she wondered if:
Farouk Hosni will be a man of his word and resign as he promised to do or he will resign and Mubarak will not accept it as usual or he won’t resign and stays in his position !!
She is also having conflicting thoughts about the defeat and writes:
Man I am so happy but I am sad on that money spent on his campaign and the humiliation and compromises Egypt had to pay all those months to win the minds and hearts of the United States and Israel.
Group blog Bikya Masr blamed the defeat on the Jews and Hosni's book burning statement taken out of context:
Hosni had been a favorite for the job, with UNESCO officials telling Bikya Masr on Monday night that they thought the culture minister’s credentials in culture would be enough to push him over the top, but Bokova fought back and ultimately took the victory.
The Egyptian had been bogged in a battle with the Jewish Diaspora and commentators who felt he was unfit to run UNESCO. Striking off much of the criticism were comments made by Hosni in May of last year, when he said in front of Egypt’s Parliament that he “would burn Israeli books himself if found in Egyptian libraries.”
Dr. Mostafa El Naggar analyzed the reasons behind the defeat saying:
Tarek Ez AlDen shared the frustrations of Egyptian intellectuals:
Voice of Egypt quoted Le Monde saying that the reason of his defeat is:
Mido posted a very sarcastic video in celebration of his defeat that is a compilation of folkloric, underground rap, and modern songs that function as background music to a PowerPoint presentation of Farouk Hosni's picture, paintings, and press statements:
Lebanese Dr Asaad Abu Khalil is also celebrating Hosni's loss and addressed him saying:
I am still celebrating the defeat of Husni in his bid to become the director of UNESCO. I make this prediction: the man will now unleash anti-Jewish statements and blame all his problems on a Jewish conspiracy. This reminds me: there was a Lebanese professor–who shall remain unnamed, and he is not Ajami–who was expecting to receive tenure at Princeton in the late 1980s. After he bought a house, he was not awarded tenure. I saw him shortly after and he blamed the Zionist lobby for the decision. The Zionist lobby? When you never ever opened your mouth in defense of Palestinians? You never wrote a word in support of Palestinians, and the Zionist lobby is after you?
The Middle East Analysis blog  is  at the other end of Dr Abu Khalil's spectrum, yet they said:
If it wasn't for the international Jew conspiracy, Egypt's book-burning culture minister would have become head of UNESCO, culture czar of the UN. That's what Farouk Hosni contends. Other than Jews, everyone things culture czar's should advocate book burning it seems. Farouk Hosny says “European countries and the world's Jews” wanted him to lose. Obviously, he was the ideal candidate, right?
Shame on those wicked Jewz.
Now that Minister Hosni is back in Egypt, Zeinobia is telling him Do Not Blame the Jews, Blame Yourself:
Farouk Hosni is back and he is whining like a lady on the conspiracies made by the Jews of the world against him as Egyptian, Arab,Muslim !!
It was clear by the end of the competition that there was a conspiracy against me
There are a group of the world's Jews who had a major influence in the elections who were a serious threat to Egypt taking this position !!
Strangely from two weeks ago he was trying to show the world that he is the best friend the Jews have ever got , it is ironic , is not it !!??
Now Farouk Hosni is turned in to a national hero who lost because of the west and the Jewish lobby , I could not believe myself to find a number of the so-called nationalist writers and intellectuals standing behind him against this plot even the Muslim brotherhood !!??
Rosa Al Youssef daily is reporting that there is a prejudice and bias against Muslims from the UNESCO despite the  fact Farouk Hosni can’t be considered the true ambassador of Muslims or their civilization or their arts !! Was not he the one who supported El-Qemenay  from less than two months !!??
Again I am insisting on my opinion , he did not and does not deserve this position because it will be like a reward for his crimes against the long culture and history of this country for 22 years.
Zeinobia also challenged him to resign and Nawara Negm blogged that he will not:
Hossam El Hamalawy said:
Mabrouk (Congratulations), we are stuck with the geezer once again, for at least another decade.
Meanwhile, the crusade to “expose the Jewish/American conspiracy against Egypt and Farouk Hosni” continues virtually in all publications, state-owned and independent alike.

author: Marwa Rakha


text:
Harvard Forum – Faith and focus · Global Voices
Ethan Zuckerman

Canada's International Development Research Center and Harvard's Berkman Center are convening a conversation today and tomorrow at Harvard on the future of information and communication technology and development (ICT4D). Global Voices will be participating in the event as a media partner, and I and Jen Brea will be twittering and live-blogging the event. You can find out far more about who's around the table and what we're planning on talking about on the Global Voices special coverage page, which includes links to the background papers prepared by participants.
We're here in part so that you can have a voice in the discussions. Please feel free to post questions on Twitter, using the #idrc09 tag, or as comments on Global Voices posts – we'll try hard to work those questions into the coversation here at Harvard. You may also want to use Berkman's “question tool“, which will be used to put questions to the panelists at a public event this evening.
Rohinton Medhora of IDRC notes that we've spent much of this conference considering what's changed in the world of ICT in the past six years. We've not talked much about how development and poverty have changed. The first Harvard forum, six years ago, looked at how ICT might apply “here, there and everywhere.” The critical example from that discussion was Mohammed Yunus's story about women learning to use mobile phones and to build businesses. This forum's story might be Amyarta Sen's story about using a phone and resulting photos to change public opinion in Pakistan.
He offers a model – data – information – knowledge – wisdom – to help understand how ICT might affect education. “I suspect that ICT is only a small element in the gap from knowledge to wisdom.” Education is the great leveler in society, and we don't yet understand how ICTs play out in the education field.
ICTs are moving from natural monopolies to public goods, merit good, and club goods. We're seeing confusion on the regulatory side. In many cases, regulators don't know what to make of technological developments – should LAN houses be considered as gambling houses? We've got a wide range of regulatory structures, and they're very different in terms of mobile phones versus broadcast media, despite the increasing overlaps in these technologies.
Rohinton wonders about Mike Best's idea of a set of “grand challenges” for ICT4D. We often talk about the unpredictable nature of the development of information technologies. “It's not that these things are ‘unpredictable’ – it's that our confidence interval is wider and wider.” This may mean it's hard to figure out what those big questions are, but doesn't change the importance of raising and answering them.
Yochai Benkler is worried that we're oversimplifying the relationships between markets and states (or other authorities). Ronaldo Lemos's stories about working with the International Development Bank to allow
musicians in Brazil to distribute music and build their own labels so they can make a living shows the complexity of these relationships. The formal market for digital music in Brazil is dysfunctional – tracks cost $1.50, an absurd price in a medium-income country – and so the next steps are to create markets that actually work and find reasonable prices.
“Opposing market versus state, market versus regulation, market versus social organization is too stark… We need to get beyond these dichotomies, towards an integrated market that allows people to innovate and make a living off of it.” Open platforms at the physical layer are part of this. But we need to realize that people are using these platforms to try to avoid the bureaucrats, both the state leaders and the corporate ones. There are ongoing tensions between freedom and control and that control can be markets and profits, political power, or patriarchies.
Yochai worries that there's “pressure on those of us coming from left intellectual traditions to accept the idea that it's okay for musicians to make money, that it's okay for Onno Purbo to charge for community wireless workshops.” We need to expand our dialog beyond a discussion of pure market incentives versus state interventions. He recommends moving beyond talking about “incentives” to “motivations”. Motivations allows us to consider factors like solidarity, not just market forces. Introducing these factors helps us explain why people will support musicians, paying an average of
$1.25 a song, $8 an album for tracks they're invited to download for free – voluntarily – as they have to support Jane Sibbery for years.
We need to understand that unserious applications – like LAN Houses – can lead to very serious implications. World of Warcraft may turn out to be an excellent environment to train leaders, or to help teenagers find adult authority figures they can rely on. (Joi Ito tells a story about an 18 year old kid who came to him, as WoW guild leare, for advice on whether he should join the military. Joi was the only adult who's had his back for years, which made him the logical person to ask for this advice.) Because government influences and can undermine what we can do for development, we need to accept that open systems don't always behave in ways we anticipate, and be open to the idea that we need to take seriously things we're tempted to ignore.
Michael Spence acknowledges that we might not want to base our theories of economic development on Milton Friedman, but suggests that the great economist did get one important thing right – he made the point that you can't solve problems without paying attention to incentives. “We fail his test all the time” in the field of development economics. And because we don't think about incentives, we end up with Nash equilibriums that favor the powerful and leave the weak at a disadvantage, whether they're in the public or private sector.
He asks us to think about focus, faith and measurement. “The problem of measuring the impact of ict4d is too hard to solve.” He urges us not to let it trip us up too badly. To explain the difficulty of studying effectiveness, he references the 1949 Communist takeover in China. “China in the 1950s did the best job any country has done educating children, at least through elementary school.” In a few years, literacy rates for men and women approached 90%. But China didn't see significant economic benefits, because  happened, because other aspects of the state and the economy were mismanaged and broken. When other aspects of economic management changed, the “potential asset” of a literate population rapidly turned into a real asset, one that's helping the country grow at a profound rate.
“You can have progress in areas that affect people's education, or access to information, but it might not have a visible effect,” because it's blocked by other factors. Spence asks us to consider information technology in developing nations. Nations like the US made heavy IT investments for over thirty years and we saw few, if any, measurable gains. Recently, we've seen a steady 3% productivity increase, which we believe comes from taking the “potential asset” of IT and unlocking it via the Internet.
“Development economists try to measure impact of education via regression analysis. The results they turn up are mixed or negligible. But no one sensible would make policy decisions based on those results.”
With that, Spence asks us to have faith. “Assume that education and IT in various aspects are going to turn out to be terribly important.” And then get on with it and don't worry much about measurement.
Education, in particular, is an area in which we need to have a great deal of faith. “Assuming some preconditions, development is the process of acquiring knowledge, not just by individuals but within systems.” He warns us off the term “knowledge economy” – it's not that we've gone from shovelling coal to shovelling bits – we're engaged in the process of making our citizens and systems more knowledgeable. To the extent that IT systems are knowledge systems, we need to keep our focus on education, on health, and on e-government, to the extent that government controls access to essential services.
He ends with a warning about stability. “A huge, important application of modern IT is the global supply chain and financial system. The financial trading superstructure is impossible without IT.” We need to think about the stability of these systems because the instability we just experienced wasn't accurately predicted by anything. Our problem may be models – we interpret systems via models, and if those models are insufficiently accurate, we can see stability where we might need to anticipate instability.
We end with parting shots from dialog participants, who felt that points weren't emphasized enough. I made the case that ICT was critical not just for education and entrepreneurship, but for creating an inclusive public sphere, and asked the room to take seriously the phenomenon of particiatory media, not just through blogs and viral videos, but through mobile phone calls made to community radio stations. Ineke Buskens warns us that, in a profoundly sexist world, attempts to treat ICT as gender-neutral will end up perpetuating power imbalances. Bill Melody warns us that the developed world is likely to ignore infrastructure, now that infrastructure works well, and that development projects can't abandon infrastructure efforts. Clotilde Fonseca urges us to continue building pilot and demonstration projects so we can experiment with creative ideas that could be scaled and replicated. David Malone warns that we need to protect human rights from governments, which are inherently authoritarian and prone to exercise control.
In other words, to sum up… there's a lot to sum up. As Mike Best observed last night, this field appears to be plagued by the problem that we need to consider dozens of factors simultaneously. If there's a conclusion from today's discussions, it's that we all need a good bit of reminding of the key factors that need consideration to make sure we've got a sufficiently broad view of these issues.
More live-blogging by Ethan Zuckerman
- Day 1-
1) Update from the Harvard Forum on ICT4D
2) Markets, Mobiles and the ability to make culture
3) The complex world of ICT and gender
4) Are we satisfied with what we've got?
5) ICT4D and, and, and
- Day 2 -
1) What do we need to know?
2) Faith and focus

source: news-globalvoices

license: Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

author: Ethan Zuckerman


text:
Harvard Forum: ICT4D and, and, and · Global Voices
Ethan Zuckerman

Canada's International Development Research Center and Harvard's Berkman Center are convening a conversation today and tomorrow at Harvard on the future of information and communication technology and development (ICT4D). Global Voices will be participating in the event as a media partner, and I and Jen Brea will be twittering and live-blogging the event. You can find out far more about who's around the table and what we're planning on talking about on the Global Voices special coverage page, which includes links to the background papers prepared by participants.
We're here in part so that you can have a voice in the discussions. Please feel free to post questions on Twitter, using the #idrc09 tag, or as comments on Global Voices posts – we'll try hard to work those questions into the coversation here at Harvard. You may also want to use Berkman's “question tool“, which will be used to put questions to the panelists at a public event this evening.
Professor Mike Best of Georgia Tech is our host at beautiful Ames Courtoom on the Harvard Law School campus for a conversation on ICT, development and freedom. The panel is absurdly illustrious: Amartya Sen, Michael Spence, Yochai Benkler and Clotilde Fonseca. Mike Best points us to Publius, where the essays framing our conversation today and tomorrow live – you can also find them on Global Voices.
Colin Maclay from Berkman notes how much of the conversation about ICT and development intersects with work we do at the Center, and nods towards our co-hosts IDRC, who he describes as doing the best work in the field of ICT4D. IDRC's president, David Malone, reminds us that his organization was founded by another Nobelist, and has a unique mission in development – conducting original research on what does and doesn't work in combatting poverty around the world.
Professor Best's introduction is interrupted by a (staged) phonecall from his mother. It leads him to declare, “This is an instrument of tyranny! Why do we celebrate the mobile phone as an instrument for human development in the Global South?” And he wonders if this is all we need to solve problems of communication in he developing world.
Dr. Sen notes that the mobile phone makes Mike's mother freer to call him. And he notes that the mobile phone may be considered in the same class as better nutrition – something we consider as an expansion of freedom, even if we can concieve of cases in which these devices have negative consequences. Improved nutrition can lead to increased domestic violence. But you'd never use this as an argument against better nutrition. A woman with a phone is free to call and report domestic violence, as a woman with good nutrition is free to work harder and share the benefits with her family. In other words, answering the question, “Do mobile networks enhance capabilities for the poor, his answer is: “Yes, yes, and but…”
Dr. Spence points out that when this group last convened, six years ago, mobile phone penetration was quite low. We speculated that mobile phone networks might outpace land-line penetration, and this has, in fact, come to pass. Mobile phones have avoided some of the effects of the “dead hand of the regulator”. Phones are a tool to fight oppression, he notes, as well as a tool that can allow you to save, invest and build a business. The cellphone allows delivery of key services – safe savings, the provisioning of credit. And it delivers information (or information lite) efficiently, and allows us to solve coordination problems.
Is that the whole answer? No. There's a whole set of answers about knowledge translation and learning which aren't well answered by the mobile phone. In our sessions today, Dr. Spence tells us, we agreed that the mobile phone is probably not the key ingredient in delivering education and knowledge transfer.
Mike asks Dr. Clotilde Fonseca to address mobile phones and learning environments in Costa Rica. She offers that the mobile is not yet a powerful device for learning, drawing a distinction between voice and data. Most of the mobiles and cellphones in the developing world don't carry data well.
Communication is complicated, she tells us. Parents give children phones, hoping for better communication… but kids view this as an invasion of their privacy, and often enjoy the phone for other uses – calculator, IM device, watch. Right now, these tools are most useful for communication, and not for learning.
Professor Benkler fields a question about the mobile phone and centralization – does the mobile phone centralize communications and knowledge, or does it open access to information? He points out that everything is relative. The mobile phone is enormously decentralizing as a tool for sharing information, he reminds us, noting the story of fishermen using the phone to seek the optimum price for their fish. He references mobile phone cameras and their power to capture protests in Iran, and the potentials of mobile banking through systems like M-PESA, these systems are radically decentralizing in relation to baseline structures of power.
But when you compare this architecture to the architecture to the internet, it's found sorely wanting. There are certain things you can and can't do with mobile phones. Brazilian software developers can compete as equals in the free software market, but not on a mobile phone – you need a much more complex machine and a more thorough set of skills. He references a story I told about Ushahidi and the ability of the phone company to slow the process with the issuance of a shortcode – the shortcode ends up being the bottleneck to certain types of innovation. Relative to the industrial economy of the 20th century – it's decentralized. Relative to our new world of the internet – it's weak, and we need to move more to this generative networks where new uses can be introduced without permission.
Mike celebrates the nuance of these answers, noting that there's generally been mobile phone euphoria in the ICT4D community. He turns to our online audience for questions about mobile phones – one of our questioners wants to know what levers for pressure we have over mobile phone networks to improve our current capacities and abilities?
Dr. Spence notes that there's nothing better than competition to create price pressure and increased quality of service. The worry we have is that regulators may now arrive and screw up what we've accomplished with this new network. Dr. Sen notes that there are situations where the market sends misleading signals – it's worth distinguishing between activities that are profit-friendly and those that aren't. Profits come in many different ways – lack of competition is one way to generate them, and that's how some mobile networks generate profits. In the US conversation about healthcare, we're experiencing fear about competition from a public competitor – apparently, that's enough to terrify people, which seems a bit absurd from a human development perspective.
Sen tells a story told earlier today, about the impact of mobile phones in changing Pakistani opinion on the Swat valley – see my earlier post. The point is that a mobile phone photo of a woman being flogged by the Taliban managed to change political opinion about a deal with Taliban authorities. The ability to take photos – and pretend you were calling your mother while you took them – turns the phone into a very powerful device. Regulation is important, he offers, but doesn't help us with these unexpected, unpredictable uses of these technologies.
Yochai points to the FCC Chairman's announcement of a net neutrality policy, pointing out that one of the most surprising aspects was an extention of the net neutrality principle to wireless access, specifically along the non-discrimination of applications. If we don't have perfect competition – a duopoly or similarly closed market – our next best bet is to ensure that these networks are open and behave much more like the internet. This is a step in the right direction – towards standards, habits and practices – which suggests you might create a more generative network in the US and the developing world. He point to networks in France and the adoption of wireless networks attached to a fixed wireless network to create a large, nomadic wireless network (ala Fon). If you push back a little on the idea that the solution all needs to be mobile, it's possible to build better, more open, more functional networks.
Mike tosses the classic “either/or” question to Dr. Fonseca – does it make sense to give a computer or a mobile phone to a person who doesn't have food security? This is a false dichotomy, she tells us. Development is not linear. We need to consider the capacities a person needs to be part of a new economy. Improving livelihood and access to better food, to the capacity to learn and to solve problems may all be connected. Mobiles are just devices that link to more powerful devices – if we just seem in isolation, we misunderstand the whole picture. They can be devices for capturing information and data, for communicating and connecting with objects. We need to think of these devices as ones that help solve problems in our community.
Sen echoes the skepticism about “this or that”. He feels like this sort of thinking plagues policy circles. “When I first came to India, someone asked me, ‘What three things would you do to better India?’ I answered, ‘Why only three things? Why accept those limits?'… Food first, freedom later is the wrong way to think about it.” Complexity can be a difficulty, and sometimes we need to simplify, but simplifying into “which first, which later” isn't helpful – thinking about what the priorities should be is a more helpful way of simplifying.
Dr. Spence wonders about a dysfunctional propensity in debates over the developing world to look for silver bullets. The either/or question is a form of silver bullet – it's not something we ask in Silicon Valley, for instance.
Spence wonders whether the ability of people in developing nations, like India and China, have an advantage in discussing these ideas because they tend to be more practical and less ideological – they tend not to have the religious attachment to markets we have in this country. In China, if the financial leaders think there's a housing bubble, they go to the banks and increase capital markets for loans – we never do that in the US, because we believe the market takes care of it. It horrifies the purists – but we need to combine wise, analytical thinking with practical wisdom.
Yochai quotes Sen, saying, “I've heard democracies don't have famines.” He notes that government matters – it's possible to design ICT systems that help squeeze our corruption, as they seem to be in India as eGovernment systems come online. He references Ronaldo Lemos's story about LAN houses, 90,000 mostly illegal cybercafes, housing musicians who distribute using Orkut – a market that's entirely outside of existing market mechanisms, payloa systems for music. In a decentralized system, you get massive new opportunities for entrepreneurship, which leads to economic growth.
An online question focuses on the balance between preserving traditional knowledge and embracing remix culture. Questions from the audience concentrate on electric power, and reflect fascination with solar power charging battery systems? Another question wonders how governments can move from encouraging IT consumption to entrepreneurship. Mike asks Ineke Buskins to ask about gender – she asks what we can do in policy interventions to get rid of the mistake of dysfunctional “gender-blind” policies.
Dr. Spence warns us that decentralized energy systems don't relieve us from the responsibility to spend 5-7% of our economies on building infrastructure. They're transitional technologies. “If you want to enable rural people, you need to build roads so they can get in and out,” and participate in the market economy. You can work on these interim solutions, but don't let them blind you to the need to spend – significantly – on infrastructure that enables growth. Outside of the 13 fastest growing countries, infrastructure investment gets crowded out and stalls development.
Spence argues that gender-neutral isn't a good policy “in a world that's not gender neutral now. He notes how hard India's working on these projects – in India, he says, most people think that affirmative action to deal with systematic discrimination from the caste system, is a fair thing to do. Safety to and from school, appropriate lavoratory facilities are asymmetric interventions, but they make the process of education fairer for girls, making it possible for them to enter productive adulthood.
Yochai fields the question from the net on remix culture and cultural preservation. The ICT4D debate has been about distributing basic material capabilities to environments where they can be combined with human capabilities, increasing the potential for knowledge production and human development. The other resource beyond intelligence and creativity is culture – “we make new knowledge out of old knowlege, new culture out of new culture.”
We've had a parallel debate on open access to cultural materials. It's been part of the generalization of the trade system, the creation of the WTO and the incorporation of intellectual property into the world trade system. That's created a strong relationship between IP exporters (US, Europe, Japan) and IP importers (everyone else) where the exporters ask for their IP to be protected in exchange for opening their non-IP markets. The problem isn't that you don't have material tools, or creativity – the problem is that you can't use knowledge or culture because it belongs to someone else.
In a case of intellectual jiu-jitsu, we can protect indigenous knowledge with the same tools we use to protect Hollywood movies. This may not be intellectually coherent – we might argue that patents aren't useful for most inventions while trade protections are a way of protecting indigenous knowledge. Yochai worries this is a bad argument, a hard one to sell, and that we might be better off simply seeking complete open access to knowledge.
Sen notes that there's not only no gender-neutral situations – gender dynamics are buried, and harder to identify than class-based dynamics because there are no class lines within nuclear families. He references an old study in India – if you ask men “are you ill?”, 45% confess to being ill. 0% of women offer that answer. There was a theory, briefly, that perhaps women were healthier than men based on a statistical illusion, which had to do with an overreporting of dead male relations over female ones. Now, we're seeing in current studies in Calcutta similar health reports from men and women, suggesting that women are increasingly willing to grumble, which Sen takes as a good sign.
Fonseca references the OLPC and its experiments with powering computers via alternative energy sources. Alternative sources are important, but so is building extremely efficient computers and phones. On issues of technology literacy, she believes we need to look for technology fluency, the ability to understand the principles digital technologies interact within, and the existence of a cohort of young people who can move ahead, creating new applications, not staying connected to ones that will be obsolete in the short run. Finally on the gender discussion – she suggests we need to move beyond a purely policy-focused discussion, to a discussion about how men and women relate to technology. A Seymour Papert and Sherri Turkle paper identified diverse ways of interacting with programming and suggests we need to recognize different approaches, and not force a single mainstream approach.
And that's where we end. Mike Best suggests there's no way to summarize these discussions… but offers the observation that our field is filled with “ands”. Regulation matters, and technology matters, and capacity matters and government and infrastructure, and investment and women matter. “We need to embrace and and avoid or.”
More live-blogging by Ethan Zuckerman
- Day 1-
1) Update from the Harvard Forum on ICT4D
2) Markets, Mobiles and the ability to make culture
3) The complex world of ICT and gender
4) Are we satisfied with what we've got?
5) ICT4D and, and, and
- Day 2 -
1) What do we need to know?
2) Faith and focus


text:
Harvard Forum – What do we need to know? · Global Voices
Ethan Zuckerman

Canada's International Development Research Center and Harvard's Berkman Center are convening a conversation today and tomorrow at Harvard on the future of information and communication technology and development (ICT4D). Global Voices will be participating in the event as a media partner, and I and Jen Brea will be twittering and live-blogging the event. You can find out far more about who's around the table and what we're planning on talking about on the Global Voices special coverage page, which includes links to the background papers prepared by participants.
We're here in part so that you can have a voice in the discussions. Please feel free to post questions on Twitter, using the #idrc09 tag, or as comments on Global Voices posts – we'll try hard to work those questions into the coversation here at Harvard. You may also want to use Berkman's “question tool“, which will be used to put questions to the panelists at a public event this evening.
Yesterday's conversations at the Harvard Forum on ICT4D orbited two general themes:
- the need to include conversations about inclusion of women, the poor, the marginalized into dialogs about ICT4D
– a debate about whether we embrace the success of the mobile phone as a tool for development or ask for more capabilities than we're able to gain on mobile networks.
Today's conversation starts with discussions of “knowledge gaps”, open questions we need to answer through research so we can understand what's succeeding and failing in our field.
Clotilde Fonseca of the Omar Dengo Foundation suggests that we focus on creating effective indicators of impact. Educational projects often have difficulty expressing their impacts in language understood by development banks. Success stories are dismissed as anecdotal and not scaleable. Evaluating impacts just in terms of results on standardized tests, the standard evaluation framework, aren't considering “ecologies of learning.”
Beyond evaluation criteria, we need to work on the development of standards, especially standards for teacher development. Scaling up projects from pilot phases to replicable states involves massive teacher development – this, in turn, requires us to ask questions about whether teachers are learning the skills and tools needed to scale and expand these projects.
Fonseca worries that we aren't sufficiently studying “learning communities”, the power of collaboration, networking and sociability for education. These techniques are increasingly recognized as key to learning, but we're not putting sufficient research into the value of networking and communities to education.
We need to broaden our views of what technology can mean for development. We tend to have limited and restricted views of what technologies are and can do. “There's lots of magical thinking,” and a tendency to use a simplistic model – technology and development is the product of infrastructure plus content. She worries that while we understand what infrastructure is, we might not fully understand what content is and needs to be. The interventions suggested post-WSIS tend to be very technocentric and may overfocus on infrastructure over questions of content.
To allow a new generation to learn 21st century skills, we need to face cognitive issues, and learn how the mind actually functions. We need education to create learning skills. It's been risky for governments like Costa Rica to address these issues, but it will be critical to solve these problems to fully embrace potentials for a digital future.
Laurent Elder of IDRC offers three concrete questions about knowledge gaps.
- We're trying to create not just a knowledge society, but an inclusive, equitable knowledge society. Does openness help us achieve these goals? We worry that we've seen with the rise of the mobile phone doesn't necessarily eliminate inequality – we're seeing the GINI coefficient increase in countries with high mobile phone penetration. If we're trying to increase inclusion, do open principles, open content licensing and open innovation help? We don't know yet.
- IDRC sponsored a great deal of research and interventions around telecentres. There's a debate about whether these telecentres were successful. Now IDRC is trying to determine whether building interventions (build our own telecentres) or incentives (support the construction of telecenters or other projects) is more succesful.
- How do “knowledge turns” – the cycle from hypothesis, testing, results to new hypothesis – affect different fields. In the semiconductor industry, knowledge turns take about 18 months, making this a very fast field. The health industry has a knowledge turn of about 8-10 years. Can we embrace these faster-moving cycles? How do we spur innovation at this pace, and what are the consequences of moving this quickly?
Mike Best takes on the emerging cleavages within the ICT4D field. He notes that we're in danger of building unhelpful disciplinary walls, and that this wallbuilding contributes to the “common tendencies for this field to jog in place.”
A recent Doha conference on ICT4D raised the idea that we may want to split the ICT4D field into at least two camps. The computer scientists worry that their fields don't see ICT4D as real computer science. In the hopes of raising the profile of this work, they're planning an ACM special interest group, and considering a CS-only conference in conjunction with the next ICT4D conference in London. This, Mike argues, is a really bad idea.
Computer scientists tend to build ICT4D projects with this method: I decided to build this thing. I worked on it, I adjusted it. I took it to Ghana. I asked ten people – nine of them liked my thing. Computer scientists tend to dismiss work that doesn't fit this paradigm, and especially work that doesn't include fundamental technical innovation. Social scientists wonder whether fundamental techological innovations are really required for ICT4D work. “For either group to think they don't need to sit at the same conferences together is worrisome.”
We're making major mistakes, Mike worries. We tend to view the access to knowledge field as if “knowledge is a reified thing over there amd our job is to offer access to it. Schools, in this cartoon, is where children as empty vessels have information poured into them.” This may be a straw man, but it's too common a point of view, and it's a dangerous one.
We're failing to be a progressive field – we fail to stand on the shoulders that have come before us. And since this field is only a decade old, we've failed to stand upon each other's shoulders. Most projects end in failure – absolute failure, sustainability failure or partial failure. That's not the problem – problem is our failure to learn from our failures.
Mike offers four suggestions to help save our field:
- We need to return to our interdisciplinary roots and read each other's literature. It's a problem that we're all rewarded for writing, not for reading, our collective literature.
- Avoid technofetishism
- Find patient money that can support our work over time – Most projects Mike has worked on are 18 months or under.
- We need to find shared problems and methods especially in the realm of evaluation and assessment. Much as David Hilbert put through key problems in mathematics, we might want to identify the “Hilbert problems” in our field.
Onno Purbo makes it clear that he's an activist, not a researcher. He's both, actually, and he's been one of the key figures in building open, community wireless networks in Indonesia. These networks are designed to save the expense of buying technology from the outside world. “You can use kitchen tools to create a network,” he tells us. “These networks are easily replicable in communities, but its a surprise that it's possible to do these things. People don't believe it's possible until they see it on TV.”
Purbo sees a profound need to make information on community networking accessible to Indonesian communities. We need to translate from English into local languages. He's able to measure success by looking at Google Trends and comparing searches for networking information using English and Indonesian terms – the interest in the Indonesian terms is increasing over time, suggestion more people comfortable in Indonesian are seeking this information.
One area where Indonesians are producing and sharing knowledge is around the idea of the “healthy internet”. Parents and schools are interested in providing access to the internet, but filtering out pornography  – they share tips and techniques through blogs that discuss “healthy internet”. He tells us that there are now 2 million blogs in Indonesia on this topic, and a weekly blog award for the best writings on the topic.
Purbo's wife focuses her work on ICT for women. She helps run a training program that spends three days teaching women how to operate office applications in Linux. The problem isn't the course – it's getting women to be able to take three days off from their work to take the training. Hivos has funded a salary for women participants, but this isn't a sustainable model.
Purbo's latest project involves using the internet within Indonesian schools. Only 4,000 or 240,000 have internet access, so the tools of choice are blogging platforms run from LiveCD or LiveDVD linux distributions, allowing for community publishing within a school, rather than on the live internet. (He offers us a distribution, but warns that it uses the Indonesian translation of WordPress.)
Finally, Purbo lets us know why he's videoing our proceedings. “People in Indonesia are more inclined to learn from video than from text.” He asks that groups like IDRC consider offering incentives for video creation rather than for creating more texts.
Alison Gillwald reacts to Laurent's provocations suggesting that open standards are neccesary, but not sufficient, to create innovation. On the idea of incentives versus interventions, she suggests that there are worthy activities – community media in minority languages, for instance – that can't ever be profitable but are still worth doing. Addressing Mike's questions about research, she notes that it's very hard to find African scholars writing about ICT4D – “the African academic ethos is highly uncritical.” We need to fund local policy interventions that have community involvement, and this might help create local scholarship to analyze the success of these interventions.
Rohan Samarajiva worries that the policy progress we've made is modest, and short term. “The real achievement would be long-term, enlightened policy,” not oriented towards quick wins.
David Malone wonders what we're missing in our discussions. He notes that we've focused heavily on mobiles, but hardly considered satellite television, which has also been a dramatic force for transformation in much of the world, especially the Arab world. He notes that Egypt's media environment has transformed almost entirely – no one watches state-controlled media anymore – they watch Al Jazeera. But this hasn't translated into activism on the ground, perhaps because activism on the ground doesn't pay.
Anita Gurumurthy is concerned about Laurent's question regarding interventions versus incentives, seeing an incentive strategy as overfocused on market mechanisms. She wonders if telecentres have failed because they were too early to provide services and content really useful to poor users. She points out that technologies are transforming public sphere, letting people come into the public sphere in new ways, and suggests that these capabilities go beyond the simple analysis of market supports.
More live-blogging by Ethan Zuckerman
- Day 1-
1) Update from the Harvard Forum on ICT4D
2) Markets, Mobiles and the ability to make culture
3) The complex world of ICT and gender
4) Are we satisfied with what we've got?
5) ICT4D and, and, and
- Day 2 -
1) What do we need to know?
2) Faith and focus


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Honduras: Citizen Videos from a Country Under Curfew · Global Voices
Eduardo Avila

Three months after Honduran President Mel Zelaya was ousted in a coup that some Hondurans claim was justified and others insist was illegal, he returned to Honduras on September 21 seeking refuge in the Brazilian Embassy in the capital city, Tegucigalpa. Zelaya's return has led to an escalation of the political tension and division in the streets of Honduras, leaving citizens frightened, and lacking food as a compulsory nationwide curfew was imposed by Roberto Micheletti's interim government
In cities across the country, Zelaya supporters ignored the curfews and staged protests, in spite of the warnings of the interim government and police. As a result, police and Zelaya supporters clashed and there have been reports of casualties, as well as approximately 100 arrests [es]. The curfew was temporarily halted between the hours of 10 am and 4 pm on September 23 and allowed Hondurans to replenish supplies. Aaron Ortiz of Pensieve writes:
Most people were at work when Zelaya announced his return and were unable to prepare for a days-long curfew.
Expect incredibly long lines, “venta loca” (mad sales) at the markets and bare counters at supermarkets everywhere, as millions of Hondurans rush to stockpile on food, candles, diesel, and other goods
Since the time Zelaya returned to the country, Hondurans have been using citizen media to show some of the scenes from around the country.  Many are taking videos and uploading them to YouTube.  One user, Daniel recorded a video in the area near the Brazilian Embassy showing crowds of police assembled around the building. This was taken on September 23, and he says “yesterday, it was chaos here.”
YouTube user Mirtria1 uploaded videos taken on his mobile phone from his vantage point in San Pedro Sula, near the city's Cathedral.
Habla Honduras [es] is a collaborative citizen journalism site that accepts contributions via the web, email and mobile phones. Its YouTube channel posts a video of a man being taken away in the Morazan neighborhood of Tegucigalpa on September 22.

author: Eduardo Avila


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India: The Paradox Of Poverty · Global Voices
Rezwan

Smart Alec comments on the paradox of poverty: “India is indeed a rich country with a lot of poor people in it. And it’s these poor people who make rich India rich, give it its wealth of poverty. India cannot afford to give up its lucrative poverty; it must perpetuate it.”

author: Rezwan


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Iran: “Bloggers persecuted” · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Reporters Without Borders informed us that Ali Pirhasanlou (Alpar), one of the first journalists to start blogging in Iran was arrested last week. This organization adds that Iranian authorities continue to persecute the bloggers.

author: Fred Petrossian


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Iran: Shiva Nazar Ahari, Iranian blogger freed · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

According to several Iranian news sites Shiva Nazar Ahari, a female blogger and human rights activist was freed after being imprisoned for about 100 days in Tehran.


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Japan: Against animal testing · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Martin J Frid from Kurashi blogs about the upcoming peace walk for animals on September 27, 2009 in Osaka.

author: Oiwan Lam


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Japan: The decline of the LDP · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Observing Japan has an article explaining the decline of the LDP. The blogger points out that from the early 1990s until 2007 the LDP shifted not just from center to right, but from pragmatism to idealism and from the realm of practical politics.


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Mexico: Protests Against Nomination of Arturo Chávez for Attorney General · Global Voices
Gina Cardenas

Human rights activists in Ciudad Juárez are opposing the recent nomination of Arturo Chávez Chávez as the Attorney General of Mexico. He was nominated by the Mexican President Felipe Calderón. Protesters claim that Chávez’s track record regarding human rights work leaves much to be desired and point to the time when he was the Attorney General of the State of Chihuahua in the early 1990s. This was a time when Ciudad Juárez erupted in a violent wave of femicides—mass murder of women. Most of the protesters and activists are the mothers, family members, and friends of the deceased or missing women. They claim that public officials from Chihuahua have been involved in covering up the crimes and have not done much to solve them.
As chief prosecutor for the state of Chihuahua, Chávez has been denounced by Mexican and international human rights organizations, as described by The Rag Blog, which writes about Fear and Loathing in Mexico: A Pandemic of Paranoia. These organizations include the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (CIDH), members of the European Parliament, and others from the international human rights community.
Concern about the deaths of the women from Juárez has attracted international attention, and feminist activists like Eve Ensler, creator of the Vagina Monologues and actress Sally Field have led marches through the industrial city.
The blog Resistencia Hasta el Fin [es] makes reference to sexist and misogynist comments made by Chávez [es] about the murdered women, such as “If they raped and killed them (the women) it wasn't because they were going to Mass” and “They are at fault for being attacked, for the provocative way that they dress.” It is comments like these that make activists say that Chávez is unqualified for the job for which he is nominated.
The death toll continues to climb and many crimes remain unsolved, leaving the community with little recourse but to take matters into their own hands by forming grassroots non-profit groups to shed light on the issue of the border city femicides. Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa A.C. [es] (May Our Daughters Return Home, Civil Association) is at the forefront of the current protests which have taken the streets in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, bordering the city of El Paso in Texas. They also held protests in Chihuahua's state capital and nation’s capital, Mexico City. Protesters who traveled to Mexico City on September 14, 2009 were unsuccessful in their attempts to speak directly with members of the Senate regarding Chavez’s negligent human rights track record.
Carolina of the blog Zapateando [es] writes about the Mexico City protest and how family members of the murdered women have mobilized against Chávez.
“¡No pasará!” gritaron alrededor de 50 manifestantes frente a la sede del Senado de la República, para exigir que los legisladores voten en contra del nombramiento de Arturo Chávez Chávez como procurador general del país.
Chávez met with the Senate on September 21, 2009. Blogger and twitterer Jesús Robles (@roblesmaloof) is a self-described human rights activist and witnessed the Senate hearings. He took pictures and videos of some of the testimony against Chávez from some of the witnesses who were present.
Mothers of some of the murdered women from Ciudad Juárez testifying in the Senate. Photo by Jesús Robles and used with permission.
He also took this video of protests outside the Senate:
However, the PAN political party has already nodded in his favor regarding the nomination. Ganchoblog writes that Chávez is likely to pass since three Senators who would be vital to derailing his nomination as Attorney General will not stand in his way.

author: Gina Cardenas


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Morocco: Teaching Tamazight · Global Voices
Jillian C. York

Jamal Elabiad, author of the blog A Moroccan Voice in English, discusses the limits of teaching the Tamazight language in Morocco.

author: Jillian C. York


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Serbia: Gay Pride Parade Postponed · Global Voices
Sinisa Boljanovic

Gay Pride Parade 2009, which was scheduled to be held in the center of Belgrade on September 20, has been postponed by organizers.
A few days ago, press service of president of Republic of Serbia published the president’s statement on his official site. This statement was issued because of numerous and serious threats to LGBT population by football fans of Partizan and Red Star teams, as well as by members of some neo-Nazi groups. Below is an excerpt:
[…] The government will do everything to protect citizens, regardless of their ethnic, religious, sexual or political orientation, because no group […] should take justice into their own hands and endanger the lives of those who think differently or are different.
In Serbia, “the Constitution, laws and public order and peace, respect, and any attacks on the army, police, journalists, officials and other citizens will not be tolerated, and all legal measures will be taken against the perpetrator.”
Only one day later, police chief Milorad Veljovic issued a statement in which he explained that it had been appraised, on the basis of security assessment by the ministry of internal affairs and other security services of the Republic of Serbia, that gathering in Belgrade’s downtown is extremely risky and could menace public order and peace in Belgrade.
The Organizing Board of Pride Parade did not agree to change location of the gathering. On that occasion, the board published the statement and described its decision. Here is an excerpt:
[…] Although in the police decision it was recommended that the event is moved to another spot such as Usce [the mouth of Danube and Sava] or the space in front of palace “Srbija”, it is absolutely clear the parade has been banned. Despite the high-ranking officials’ support statements that all social groups, including LGBT community, can liberally express their own attitudes in public places, these are only words, while nothing is actually being done.
The officials of the Republic of Serbia have formally admitted in this decision that the state is not able to adequately prevent and punish threats by clerical-fascistic organizations. Also, the state is not able to provide the rights for citizens that belong to them according to the Constitution. […]
[…] The state has failed a fundamental examination. It should be expecting a repeat examination. Very soon. The Republic of Serbia has surrendered but we haven’t.
On Saturday, September 19, ultra-nationalistic organization “1389″ (the group's name refers to the Battle of Kosovo, which took place in 1389) issued a statement and “E-novine” web site published it. Among other things, they wrote:
We consider that it is a big victory of normal Serbia and citizens against threats and forces. […]
[…] As it was announced, Activists of the Serbian Popular Movement 1389 and movement “Nazi“ will gather on the plateau in front of the Philosophical faculty tomorrow at 8 am and take part in the event called “Absolutely unviolent popular all-Serbian Party of sexual not deviant persons.”
We are calling citizens to massively come in Belgrade’s streets tomorrow in order to make sure that non-believers and satanists will not walk the streets of our city.
This statement and the police decision provoked a lot of reactions, not only by LGBT population, but also by the Serbian public. Bloggers also reacted to both of them.
Jasmina Tesanovic wrote:
As far as I can see at B92 news, members of clerical-fascistic group “1389” have walked along the Knez Mihajlo street, gathered on the plateau and visited Sveti Sava church. Also, last evening the victory of Serbia’s basketball team was celebrated over Belgrade’s streets with hysterical shouting “Serbia, Serbia” and raised three fingers.
And we, forbidden and invisible and whatever, but not Serbia, are sitting under the deck of a boat which is sinking.
Today at 11, it could be October 6, but not 1389. However, the time is neither linear nor progressive. I am just asking myself how Belgrade was in 1389. Probably not as violent and stupid. The time is for Belgrade steampunk revolution!
Srecko Sekeljic wrote:
[…] Serbia’s Executive, personified by its Prime Minister, and the security services, personified by the police chief, put an acknowledgment on paper that they have no control over the streets of their country's capital. For that time, minister of internal affairs and vice-president of the government, Ivica Dacic, have run away from country until things calm down. […]
[…] This acknowledgment was followed by the shocking allegations about the beating of foreign residents in the center of Belgrade. […]
Krugolina Borup expressed her attitude with harshness and irony:
What kind  of  government are you if you were not able to protect 500 people. Don’t tell me that you couldn’t paint in pink 500 bullet-proof vests, helmets and gas masks and distribute to us madmen, only in the country who was courageous to resist tyrants.
What kind of  government are you if you didn’t have in your mind to stand in the front row, all of you 25 or so, because this stopped to be an issue about Pride Parade a long, long time ago and turned into the parade of the fight against violence. […]
At the end of her post, she turned to Zoran Djindjic, former Prime Minister and president of the Democratic Party, who was killed in 2003 by the mafia which was supported by some politicians who were disguised as Djindjic’s political partners, according to respectable number of famous persons, ordinary citizens and political parties, because he wanted to settle accounts with them and lead the country to the European Union as soon as possible:
Oh my Djindjic… these successors of yours… they've betrayed both you and me. As you said: “If someone thinks that he will stop putting into effect the laws if I am killed, then he deceives himself because I am not the system. The system will keep on functioning and nobody will be amnestied for their crimes even if one or two officials would be killed.”
Oh, my Djindjic… they killed and defeated you, my dear. These sissies, not only they don’t represent a system – they've never heard about it. They are afraid to be killed, as you were killed, if they stand in the front row of the Pride column. Sissies, sissies, sissies!
Krugolina finished her post with bitter and sarcastic verses of a famous Serbian author Djordje Balasevic, who supported democratic revolution in Serbia from October 2000:
Go Europe, don’t waste time on us.
Don’t ask too much, you will get too bad a reputation.
Go planet, we had a great time together.
We are fine, just like we deserve.
Krugolina Borup wrote this in her other post related to the cancellation of the Gay Pride Parade:
News: Serbian Popular Movement 1389 sent a mass e-mail to all Belgrade’s media editorial offices that it will pay for photographs of participants of the Pride Parade. They have intention to publish them, so that the parents could recognize sexually deviant persons and protect their children from their impact.
In this post, Krugolina posted her own picture in response to “1389” and wrote that from now on, she was a lesbian, too.
Nebojsa Spaic wrote:
The country is:
1. weak and helpless
2. totalitarian and repressive
3. stupid and unable
4. frightened
5. nationalistic and conservative
6. all of the above
President Tadic doesn't think so. He said this about the cancellation of the parade, among other things:
This has been a misunderstanding in the public and the wrong interpretation. Serbia, as a country, will never recede before the perpetrators and those who threaten […]. The state has offered the safest possible conditions for holding pride parades and Serbia will, like any other European country, insist on the protection of human rights of all its citizens, many times I said, regardless of their national, political, religious or sexual orientation. […]

author: Sinisa Boljanovic


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Singapore: Beauty Queen’s qualifications questioned  · Global Voices
Marina Noordin

Ris Low, a 19 year old student, was crowned Miss Singapore World 2009 on Friday 31 July 2009.
Not too long after, she was interviewed and when a recording of her interview surfaced on the internet, a large number of responses arose about her sub par command of English. There were mixed reactions from many various sources, be it from video portals, blogs, mass media and even the man on the street.
There were some which were negative :
Sometimesjean thinks that as an ambassador, she should be more than just beautiful :
Since Miss Singapore World is a title representing Singapore, i would have thought that besides looking good, the title holder should be someone who speaks confidently, intelligently and has a certain level of class, in fact, we would expect at least an above average if not high level of class. After all, this concerns our nation honor and we should be more critical.
Tanat disagrees with the choice of winner :
I personally feel that Ris Low should not have won Miss Singapore World 2009 title. So what if she had recovered from a high fever days before! I felt she won it mostly due to the sheer manipulation of the judges who thought that her question on “money can buy power” was a sensible one.
However, there are a significant number of netizens who applaud Miss Low for having the courage to enter the competition.
Singkengloon believes that no one is perfect :
The truth is most of us are culpable of such slips in our speech. None of us can admit that our English is perfect. And I got to agree with a former Miss Singapore contestant that Ris Low is still young, with a lot of room to improve.
Indeed, when our beauty queens need our support the most, all we have got to offer is mere mockery. How are our girls going to find the morale to shine for Singapore?
Sam thinks that the barrage of criticism is a reflection of insecurity :
We are apparently ashamed of other breeds of Singaporeans. We want to dust the broken English-speaking folks under the carpet. We want a quarter Chinese, quarter Malay, quarter Indian, quarter Eurasian girl to represent us, not some alleged “Ah Lian”. Why? Because we are uncomfortable with what we see are the “imperfections” of our society – apparent “Ah Lian” subculture/aesthetics, poor English and all that.
Regardless, whether it is to applaud or to berate, the latest winner of Miss Singapore World has certainly been the talk of the town, incidentally giving the event more awareness and coverage compared to the previous contestants from years before.

author: Marina Noordin


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South Korea: Foreign English teachers and AIDS · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Matt from Gusts of popular feelings writes a post on the anti foreigners sentiment and how such sentiment has turned English teachers into an AIDS threat.


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South Korea: Woman and Korean Soju  · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

The Grand Narratives has an very interesting post about evolving images of women in Korean soju advertising.


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Uganda: When health care system in Bundibugyo works · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

A moving story of how life was saved at Nyahuka Health Center in Bundibugyo, Uganda.

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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Bangladesh: Durga Puja at Dhakeswari Temple  · Global Voices
Rezwan

Ideas R Bulletproof posts some pictures of Durga Puja (Moha Shaptami) celebrations at Dhakeswari Temple in Dhaka, Bangladesh.


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Bermuda: national identity · Global Voices
Nicholas Laughlin

“Who are we?” asks Tales from the Triangle's Tip. News of an upcoming visit to Bermuda by Queen Elizabeth II raises questions about national identity in the British Overseas Territory. “After 400 years, we are still defined by a queen, a crown.”

author: Nicholas Laughlin


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Bermuda: too wobbly for business? · Global Voices
Nicholas Laughlin

Vexed Bermoothes investigates why a major insurance company is moving its headquarters from Bermuda to Ireland. “So what’s bothering the international executives?… Work permit issues. Wobbly political environment. Uncertain future tax status.”


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China: Re-programming CCTV · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

In the coming year, CCTV will cut one third of its program in order to be more competitive. One of the program to be cut is “Tell it like it is”, a talk show that encourages audience to participate. Joel Martinsen from DANWEI translated a blogger, Hecaitou's post, explaining why the program has to go.


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China: Xinjiang restaurant blown up · Global Voices
John Kennedy

Beijing-based Twitter user Maggie Rauch had her camera ready when her local Xinjiang food restaurant exploded on Friday morning. “Could feel the explosion from my apartment,” she writes on her Twitpic of the blast. “Some of the guys who work there standing outside.” One week remains until the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

author: John Kennedy


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Cuba: underground punk · Global Voices
Nicholas Laughlin

Octavo Cerco posts video and photos from a concert by a Cuban underground punk band. “It looks like this year Porno Para Ricardo has broken its record of concerts given, that happens when the authorities assume you do not exist publicly.”


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India: What To Expect On The Moon · Global Voices
Rezwan

Reacting on the news that India’s mission to the moon has found water on it, A Minority Of One comments on what to expect next: “Other things that will eventually be found on the moon, in due time – one Nair tea stall, one neatly folded lungi, one old copy of Malayala Manorama, and one Indian restaurant owned by a Bangladeshi.”


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Jamaica: utilities hardship · Global Voices
Nicholas Laughlin

Stunner's Afflictions notes the coincidence that the same day Jamaica's power company raised its rates, the Bank of Jamaica introduced the new JA$5,000 bill, the country's highest denomination banknote. “Now we can cover more bills with less notes. That's the only good way of looking at it.”


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Kuwait: The Trouble with Non-Smokers · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Mark blogs at TwoFortyEightAm about the dilemma facing non-smokers in Kuwait.

author: Amira Al Hussaini


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Middle East: The Cupcake Revolution · Global Voices
Jillian C. York

Photo of knafeh cupcake by Frankom, cupcake by Glaze (Kuwait)
“Yes, We Speak Cupcake” ran a headline in the New York Times this week.  The accompanying article noted the growing popularity of cupcake shops across the Middle East, crediting Sugar Daddy's, a popular Amman cupcake shop, with bringing the miniature cakes to stardom in the region (the shop now has franchises in Dubai and Beirut as well) and starting the cupcake revolution.
The New York Times isn't the only outlet talking cupcakes lately.  Bloggers in the Middle East and beyond have noticed the prevalence of the dessert as well.  Frankom, a Kuwaiti blogger, writes of being asked to sample local cupcakes based on traditional desserts, listing a few [ar]:
Kunafa on a bed of pistacio cupcake
Baqlawa on a bed of walnut cupcake
Rahash with rahash filling cupcake
Halwa with halwa filling cupcake
Zalabya with saffron cupcake
Jordanian And Far Away, remarking on Frankom‘s post, expresses trepidation at the thought of a knafeh cupcake, saying:
Now that is creativity. I’m not sure I’ll order them if they were in Jordan, the idea of knafeh on a cupcake is a little offensive to my Nabelsi genes, but I can’t help but appreciate the idea.
Cupcake-themed blog Cupcakes Take the Cake offers a photo post on the various cupcake bakeries in Kuwait.
Ramadan-themed cupcakes in Dubai; photo by Cupcakes Take the Cake, cupcake by Sugar Daddy's
Moving to the United Arab Emirates, where cupcake shops have found a market. Cupcakes Take the Cake has written about a number of such shops.  Regarding Sugar Daddy's in Dubai, the blogger shares an e-mail sent by the bakery's chef, describing one of the shop's special Ramadan cupcakes:
Blind Date: Tradition states that the Prophet Mohammad ate dates at the end of his fast, and the fruit is ever-present during the holiday. We have come up with a spice-filled date sponge that we frost with a swirl of cinnamon-flavored icing that has just a touch of coffee.
Yet another Dubai resident, Mahryska, writes about her favorite cupcake shop, Kitsch:
went there the other day and got myself coffee and a cupcake that looked darn good. and yes, it was good!
3 hearts for kitsch cupcakes for opening their store! ♥ ♥  ♥
The House of Cupcakes created this 500-cupcake masterpiece for the 37th National Day of the UAE celebration
Another Dubai shop, The House of Cakes, has its own blog where it shared an incredible photograph of 500 cupcakes in the shape of the Emirates’ flag (see photo at left).
The final stop in our whirlwind tour of cupcakeries in the Middle East is Bahrain, where cupcake shops are using new media to get the word out.  Cupcakes Bahrain blogs on the Blogger platform to share photos of their cupcakes and information about their store, while  Clever Cupcakes has a presence on Twitter and Facebook, to share information about their product such as this:
We only serve clever cupcakes! A Cupcake that you can't forget..
Impress your guests and loved ones by ordering your clever cupcakes.
Syrian flag cupcakes by Canadian bakery cococakes
We'll conclude with these final words from Lebanese blogger Jad Aoun, who notes the New York Times‘ coverage of Arab and Israeli cupcake shops alike, and quips:
Maybe its time we all make peace over a round of strawberry cupcakes. We wouldn’t want to be serving hommous or falafel now would we?
Syrian cupcakes (and photo) by cococakes


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Palestine: Real Palestinians?  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Palestinian Mohammed Obaidat [Ar] asks his countrymen if they are real Palestinians.


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Trinidad and Tobago: against anti-gay violence · Global Voices
Nicholas Laughlin

gspottt reacts to news that a member of Trinidad's GLBT community has been killed.”The murder comes … in the middle of an ongoing spate of internet dating-initiated violence and blackmail of community members…. It’s beyond time to take stronger community action to prevent and address such violence.”


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Trinidad and Tobago: film partners · Global Voices
Nicholas Laughlin

The Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival blog offers notes from a panel discussion of “the future of co-productions in the Caribbean”, with contributions from filmmakers and other creative professionals.


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USA: Clashes with Police at Pittsburgh G-20 Summit · Global Voices
Gina Cardenas

Anti-capitalists, anti-war groups, anarchists, environmental rights groups, and concerned citizens congregated in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Thursday, September 24, to protest the negative effects of global corporate capitalism during the G-20 Summit of world leaders.
Arrested in Pittsburgh. Creative Commons photo by Flickr user america.gov
The G-20 is comprised of 19 leaders of the world's wealthiest countries and representatives the European Union. President Obama is hosting the meeting this year, and the topic of discussion is the global economic crisis. Critics say the meeting is undemocratic and secretive. A common refrain is a demand to put “people before profits”.
One group that calls itself the The Peoples Caravan Across Pennsylvania traveled and blogged their way across the state of Pennsylvania before the Summit inviting supporters to join them for the marches in Pittsburgh. They prepared this audio report of the people they met along the way, describing their own economic hardships.
Police crackdown
Protesters were met by tough riot police who utilized tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and sound deterrents. Around 19 protesters were arrested on Thursday. Additional demonstrations are planned for Friday September 25, according to information posted on the Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project’s website.
The Pittsburgh Indymedia G-Infinity project is chronicling the events through ongoing citizen media input, including a radio stream, twitter feeds, mobile phone and video reports. They are also tracking clashes with police on a Google map that shows activity all over the city.
The following YouTube video by Soul Pitt TV, a channel run by an African-American community website in Pittsburgh, shows a celebratory spirit among the different people who showed up to the protest on the 24th which was dubbed The People's Uprising:
Soul Pitt TV describes the video:
Raw video of G20 protesters as they leave Arsenal Park in Lawrenceville at 40th and Penn and make their way down to downtown Pittsburgh to protest the G20 summit. Unfortunately these protesters didn't make it past 34th street as tear gas was thrown and the crowd forced back to the park
YouTube user thetwos has posted a number of videos, including the one below, which Marc Parent (@mparent77772) and many others on Twitter  described as a “military sound weapon”. A NYTimes article said this is the first time a sound cannon has been used for crowd control in the USA.
In defense of civil rights
The American Civil Rights Union is collecting complaints about law enforcement surrounding the G-20 on their website.
They ACLU also have a telephone hotline offering legal support to protesters on the grounds that their civil rights to peaceful assembly may have been violated. Police are claiming that many of the protests are “unlawful assemblies” while organizers of the main demonstrations say they have followed the official protocol for obtaining permits. The ACLU of Pennsylvania even sued the city government to force them to issue permits for several groups.


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Video Contest: Citizen Embassadors for the 64th UN Day · Global Voices
Juliana Rincón Parra

Image by Basykes
What would you say to world leaders if given the chance? Let them know in a video lasting less than three minutes what you believe needs to be done to make the world a safer and better place for a chance to win a visit to the United Nations Headquarters for the 64th UN Day.
Actor George Clooney is a UN Messenger of Peace, and in the following video uploaded by United Nations Television he explains how you can participate and be one of the 5 winners who get a chance to participate in this VIP event in New York City.
The guidelines are quite simple:
1. Create your own video, no more than 3 minute duration.
2. Upload the video to your YouTube account.
3. Add it as a REPLY VIDEO to the video you are watching right now.
4. Deadline for submissions: 10 October 2009
Selection process:
1. The best 5 video entries will be selected by a committee based on compelling content, originality and creativity.
2. The finalists will be designated Citizen Ambassadors, and will be invited to United Nations Headquarters in New York on the occasion of the 64th UN Day.
3. They will take a special guided tour of UN Headquarters, have their photo taken with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and receive VIP seating at the UN Day Concert, to be held on Friday 23 October 2009.
So far, less than a handful of video responses have been posted, two from the United States (1 and 2  ), one from Canada and one from the United Arab Emirates. The deadline is October 10, so grab your camera and make your original, creative and compelling point!
(Image  by basykes used to illustrate post according to Creative Commons Attribution License)

author: Juliana Rincón Parra


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World: Tweeting Gaddafi’s Address to the United Nations  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

In his first address to the United Nations General Assembly, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi more than made up for lost time. His speech trailed on for six times the allotted slot, as world leaders laughed and yawned.
Speaking at the United Nations headquarters in New York, the self-proclaimed King of Kings, who has ruled Libya for almost 40 years, spoke for around 100 minutes. Topics he covered ranged from criticising the UN structure to providing his take on the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan to discussing swine flu to hoping that US President Barack Obama would remain president forever… to calling for an investigation into the assassination of JFK.
Gaddafi, whose travels abroad attract a lot of media coverage because of his eccentric mannerism and his insistence to live in a tent, made a wave on Twitter. In New York, he pitched his tent on property which belongs to real estate tycoon Donald Trump – a plan which was aborted after neighbours complained. Reactions to this address ranged from calling the Libyan strongman a ‘fruitcake’ to sympathising with his stance on a number of international issues.
Many Twitter users gave Gaddafi high points for entertainment.
ThomasRon notes:
New Yorker Kalimark is amused with the media attention:
Laura Quinny found the speech entertaining:
Bobonbusiness is confused about the way Gaddafi spells his name and wonders:
And Matt Cundill adds:
Meanwhile Zuzf wants more:
And Chickyog is hoping for  Libyan oil:
Meanwhile, @bigajm notes how we have all become conditioned by mainstream media. He quips:
Photo credit: Wikipedia


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Afghanistan: Is Withdrawal a Surrender? · Global Voices
Adil Nurmakov

Joshua Foust reflects on the fact that the withdrawal of the U.S. military from vast tracts of indefensible bases in Afghanistan is being put into motion.

author: Adil Nurmakov


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Afghanistan: Threat to Germany · Global Voices
Adil Nurmakov

Nick Fielding writes about several videos in German language, threatening an al-Qaeda attack on the country unless it withdraws its 4,000 soldiers from Afghanistan.


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Cuba: Concert for Peace · Global Voices
Firuzeh Shokooh Valle

The mere mention of the word “Cuba” awakens the most passionate debates, especially among Latin Americans and people from the Caribbean. The Colombian singer Juanes proposed a truce, a moment for solidarity, for peace, for transcending political, geographical, and emotional frontiers. And what better way of achieving this than with music? This was the vision that motivated Juanes to organize the concert “Paz sin Fronteras” celebrated on Sunday September 20, 2009, at iconic Revolution Square in Havana, Cuba. Fifteen artists from Cuba, Colombia, Ecuador, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Spain, and Italy performed (for the full list of artists see the concert's official site). According to the organizers, 1,150,000 people filled Revolution Square to listen to music during six hours under the hot Caribbean sun. The immense crowd resembled a sea of foam: everyone was dressed in white, the artists and the spectators alike. Footage of artists arriving at the concert was posted at YouTube.
But the event was also surrounded by controversy. Cuban exiles in Miami fiercely opposed it, and Juanes — who lives in Miami, like many other Latin American artists — even recieved death threats. Once in Havana, some artists also complained that they were under government surveillance. We see once again that anything related to Cuba leaves no one indifferent. Even United States President Barack Obama had something to say about the concert when asked in an interview with Univisión: “I certainly don't think it hurts U.S.-Cuban relations… I wouldn't overstate the degree that it helps.” Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez commented that it was “wonderful” that so many international artists could participate in the event. Even though the artists mainly talked about peace, love, and solidarity between Cubans, there were a few political comments during the concert, like when Juanes shouted “Cuba libre” (Free Cuba!), and when the legendary Cuban group Los Van Van — who were the last ones to take the stage — said “In spite of it all, the concert for peace took place!”
The Cuban blogosphere was very vocal. Posts from Cuban bloggers, living in Cuba and in other countries, show the diversity of opinions on Cuba's political situation.
In Generación Y, the Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez wrote about the concert that same Sunday:
Tomorrow will dawn as every Monday. The convertible peso will continue its ascent, Adolfo and his colleagues will have another day behind bars in the Canaleta prison, my son will hear at school that socialism is the only option for the country and at the airports we will continue to ask permission to leave the Island. The Juanes concert will not have significantly changed our lives, but nor did I go to the Plaza with this illusion. It would be unfair to demand of the young Colombian singer that he propel those changes that we ourselves have not managed to make, despite wanting them so much.
I was at the esplanade to check out how different the same space can be when it accommodates crowds organized from above, versus when it shelters a group of people dancing, singing and interacting without the involvement of politics. It was a rare experience to be there, without shouting slogans and without having to applaud mechanically when the tone of the speech marked that it was the time to cheer. Clearly some elements resembled those who march each May first, especially the proportion of plainclothes police in the audience.
If we see the performance of this September 20th as the dress rehearsal for a concert we’ll have one day, then we must congratulate those who participated. Even if there isn’t another, and the Plaza again takes on its solemnity and grayness, at least this Sunday afternoon we live something different. In a place where the division between us has been systematically sown, Juanes — to the setting of the sun — has shouted, “For one Cuban family!”
Marc Mas Ferrer offered his opinion on the concert in his blog Uncommon Sense:
I will not castigate Juanes, nor curse him, nor call for crowds to burn his records. That's a bunch of wasted energy, on which the Castro brothers will feed.
Instead, I will take the opportunity he has presented those of us committed to a free Cuba, the attention he has generated for himself and for Cuba, to educate, to advocate on behalf of those Cubans who recognize that the only “border” blocking peace on the island is that placed by a murdering regime against the Cuban people.
As Juanes and the other singers perform, I will be remembering the political prisoners and other Cubans who have dedicated their lives to bringing a true peace to Cuba — a peace with respect for human rights, a peace with justice, a peace with freedom.
That will be much more than Juanes is likely to do for them.
Reinaldo Escobar commented in Desde aquí [Es]:
La plaza estaba llena, no sólo de personas, sino de modos de pensar, de tendencias y credos. Nadie puede dividir en dos bandos a toda una nación. A ver, usted que me está leyendo, ¿en cuál saco quiere que lo echen?, ¿donde van los que hicieron explotar un avión en pleno vuelo en el que viajaba nuestro equipo de esgrima, o en el que están los que hundieron el remolcador 13 de marzo, cargado de inocentes? ¿En el saco de los que ahorcaron al alfabetizador Manuel Ascunce o en el de los que ordenaron derribar dos avionetas desarmadas? La gente que vi en la plaza el pasado domingo no cabía en ninguno. Los jóvenes que acompañaban las canciones tenían sus ojos puestos en el futuro, no digo que fuera un coro de ángeles, pero no seré yo quien los satanice como “cómplices de la dictadura”. Que los cubanos seamos una sola familia es un hermoso y necesario propósito, gústele a quien le guste y pésele a quien le pese.
The Square was full, not only with people, but with different ways of thinking and beliefs. No one can divide a nation in two factions. Let’s see, you who are reading this, what bag do you want to be thrown in? On what side are the ones who exploded the plane our fencing team was traveling in? On what side are the ones who on March 13 sunk the tugboat that was full of innocent people? On what side are the ones who hanged the alphabetizer Manuel Ascunce or the ones who ordered to bring down two unarmed planes? The people I saw at the Square did not fit into any of these categories. The young people who were singing had their eyes on the future. I am not saying it was a choir of angels, but I will not demonize them as “accomplices of the dictatorship.” To believe that we Cubans are all part of one family is beautiful and necessary, in spite of whom it may bother.
The entire concert may be watched here. For photos visit Roberto Suárez's blog Cuba en fotos [ES].

author: Firuzeh Shokooh Valle


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Floods in West Africa Displace Hundreds of Thousands · Global Voices
Abdoulaye Bah

The ReliefWeb, quoting the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), reports that recent floods in West Africa have displaced or made homeless 600 000 persons, destroyed schools, roads, hospitals in Burkina Faso,Senegal, Niger,Guinea, and Ghana. Guinea alone account for 40.000 people in need of help.

author: Abdoulaye Bah


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Global Voices Mentors Update: Warming up to Climate Change · Global Voices
Sadiq Alam

Global Change, the education program of MS ActionAid Denmak has an ambitious goal teaching social and political change on a global level through education of young people in communication, new media and innovative organising. They are being helped by a team of 31 Global Voices Blogger Mentors that have each been paired with one Danish or African student in order to help them become more familiar with both the technical and human aspects of blogging.
Challenges of mentoring virtually
Since the initial chain of introductory emails between Mentor and Mentees around two weeks ago, numerous positive interactions have taken place and new friendships are forming. Some Mentors have been giving technical advice on Gmail, Twitter, RSS feed, Skype, Facebook, instant messaging, embedding videos, sharing links, Flickr and creative commons, and Mentors have also been commenting on the Mentees’ new blogs.
However, in a recent online IRC chat meeting between Mentors to review progress, some were concerned that many Mentees are still only treading carefully into the online world, and have such a tight program, learning new technology, while at the same time learning and planning a campaign for the Copenhagen climate change summit that they have not all been as excited about daily online communication via email and chat as the Mentors.
Resources for new bloggers
Mentors have decided to approach this positively by looking for more ways to inspire Mentees to find meaning in blogging and appreciate how sharing information and building online communities  can contribute to transformation, epecially for a burning issue like Climate Change. With only 3-4 weeks left of the mentorship, Mentors have discussed starting blog memes, and providing topic suggestions for those new bloggers who are still unsure what to write about.
Mentors have been on the go, gathering resources for better mentoring for their Mentees on a wiki page. and in an email group mailing list. Noteworthy resources include: The Common Craft “in plain English” video series, including “Blogs in Plain English” and “Twitter in Plain English“; various articles on climate justice; a list of environmental journalists on Twitter; Sylwia Presley's newly started blog about how to blog; and Diego's suggestion of this inspiring guide.
Catching up with Mentee Blogs
Mentees have written many interesting and resourceful posts with their take on climate change and its challenges. Following are some of the highlights from the 31 mentees.
Annlou has questioned about superficial green revolution. Casper wrote about the obvious limitations of the individual approach – and the problems of the communal alternative. Josephine wrote a thought piece which was triggered by the idea of climate friendly food.
Mentee Arvid and Mentor Renata Avila jointly posted their experience and shared insights gathered while Renata visited Dominican Republic. Rie has blogged on what is happening with the climate issue on the NGO and grassroots level where she featured a number of non-governmental organizations such as Greenpeace and Peoples Climate Action.
Signe reflected on the buzz about climate change and personal responsibility. Simonwr wrote about why changes must come from ordinary people rather than from government leaders.
Mentees also organized this happening in central Copenhagen as part of the Avaaz Global Wake-Up Call on Climate Change.

author: Sadiq Alam


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Iran: Artists and Green Movement · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Artists from different corners of the world have created posters to support Iranian opposition movement (Green Movement) and Iranian people struggle for democracy.


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Iran: Green rage against Ahmadinejad in New York · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Protesters against the Iranian government and the violation of human rights in Iran kept their promises and demonstrated against Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York City during his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, September 23. Protesters came from four corners of the world including Toronto, Tokyo and Tehran. The Iranian opposition movement (the ‘green movement’) was well represented.
There are numerous videos on YouTube showing the demonstrators in New York. Here are a few:
We got the power
Calling Ahmadinejad a liar
We are all Neda and one Voice
Free Political Prisoners


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Japan: Homeless World Cup · Global Voices
Scilla Alecci

Ikeda-san, at Greenz, uploaded some old and recent pictures and videos [ja] of Nobushi Japan, the football team that represented Japan at the Homeless World Cup, the championship held in Milan at the beginning of September.

author: Scilla Alecci


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Kazakhstan: Interview with the author of a comic book about Kazakhstan · Global Voices
Adil Nurmakov

Jenia Saikina interviews Nicolas Journoud, the French artist living in Kazakhstan, who prepares to release a comic book about this Central Asian country.


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Kazakhstan: Playing the Borat card · Global Voices
Adil Nurmakov

Vicky reports that that the government of Kazkahstan is now thawing and reversing its position on Borat, a comic character, as tourism rose by 13% last year.


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Kyrgyzstan: Celebrations of Eid al Fitr · Global Voices
Adil Nurmakov

Aravanski tells his readers how Muslim holiday Eid al Fitr was celebrated in Kyrgyzstan (with photos).


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Massive Protests in Guinea  · Global Voices
Abdoulaye Bah

A MISNA (Missionary International Service News Agency) report published on Sept. 25, states that massive street protests took place in Labé, Guinea second largest city, against Captain Dadis Moussa Camara, the military head of the state.


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Peru: Preservation Efforts in the Chan Chan Archaeological Site · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Chan Chan is the Pre-Columbian city of mud-brick built by the Chimú culture in the 9th Century and located in the La Libertad region, 5 km west of the city of Trujillo in Northern Peru. The Chan Chan complex covers an area of approximately 20 km² and was constructed by the Chimor, the kingdom of the Chimú and lasted until its conquest by the Inca Empire in the year 1470. At its height, estimates place the population at 30,000.
Even though it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986, it is currently in poor condition and under continuous threats of invasion by looters and the damaging effects of nature. However, there are several efforts from governmental and civil society groups trying to preserve the archeological site, as well as the history of this culture.
Photo of Chan Chan by Martinoy and used a Creative Commons license.
The blog Trabajamos por Chan Chan [es] (We Work for Chan Chan) published news about another facet of this preservation work currently being done in Trujillo, near the sands of Huanchaco, and which won an award from the government. This project called “Citizens of Chan Chan” is directed at schoolchildren so that they identify with and participate in the preservation of their historical past:
Frente a la circunstancia de que los monumentos históricos y el patrimonio general se encuentra olvidado y descuidado, es necesario que exista un nuevo tipo de ciudadano que conozca, ame y engrandezca su legado histórico; por esta razón, es que creamos el Programa “Ciudadanos de Chan Chan”, en donde primero se les enseña a conocer y amar el pasado; para luego involucrar a los escolares en los trabajos de conservación; así engrandecen su propia identidad”, señaló Cristóbal Campana, director de los trabajos de conservación del Complejo Arqueológico Chimú y creador de esta experiencia educativa.
Faced with the circumstance that historical monuments and general heritage are being forgotten and neglected, it is necessary that a new kind of citizen exists who knows, loves, and extols their historical legacy; for this reason, we created the Program “Citizens of Chan Chan”, in which they (schoolchilren) are first taught to know and love the past; to later involve schoolchildren in the work of conservation; thereby elevating their own identity”, noted Cristóbal Campana, director of conservation work of the Chimú Archeological Complex and creator of this educational experience.
Some of these preservation works have resulted in new findings, such as the ones described by the blog Trabajamos por Chan Chan [es] regarding the discovery of “small wooden statuettes and bone remains (that) form part of the ritualistic world of the Chimú.”
These efforts of preservation are needed because of the effects caused by climate change, erosion caused by heavy rains during natural phenomena like El Niño. However, it is also human that have caused adverse effects on the archaeological site as described by the blog …en Perú:
Repeated illegal land invasions by locals one of the principle problems for the ancient site … The INC, charged with protected the so-called “intangible” archaeological area, states that some 263 people claim to be land owners there. Each of these people has been ordered to move, but until now, none have. Instead they fence off and work the land, demanding that the government issue them with titles.
However, it is the work from a local group of housewives that have attracted a lot of attention.  As reported by the Peruvian newspaper El Comercio [es], a group of women from the neighborhood of Villa del Mar have been working in the city of Chan Chan since 2006. “They perform the same work men, carrying adobe mud-bricks, climbing ladders up to eight meters high, moving wheelbarrows from one side to another, from top to bottom. All with the aim of restoring all that time and humans have damaged.”
These women have also appeared in blogs, such as the Trujillo blog Especiales en Intermedia [es], whose author Róger Montealegre writes about these conservationists from “a world of mud”:
En el monumento de barro, capital de la civilización Chimú, hoy Patrimonio Mundial de la Humanidad, existen alrededor de sesenta mujeres, antes dedicadas a los quehaceres del hogar, ahora convertidas en potenciales conservadoras, especialistas en monumentos de tierra. Trabajando a la par con sus compañeros. ¿Sexo débil? Ni que hablar. Basta contemplar sólo unos minutos su trabajo “en la tierra, en el cielo o en el agua” para darnos cuenta de su fortaleza; su empeño es el mismo en cualquier espacio, no pierden su feminidad, por el contrario incrementan su maternidad. Un periodista le pregunta a una mujer que trabaja en la conservación de Chan Chan qué siente por el monumento, ella responde: “Lo quiero como a mi marido porque me da de comer. Y como a mi hijo, porque lo ayudo a crecer”.
There are also other efforts from governmental agencies, such as the Implementation Unit 110 from the Chan Chan Archeological Complex [es], which is working on different projects in Trujillo. Their website provides more information about this work.  The field of academics is also contributing to this preservation work, as shown by the site Universia Perú [es], which published news about a photographic exhibit co-hosted in 2008 by the Department of Communication Science from the Northern Private University (UPN for its initials in Spanish) and Implementation Unit 100.  The exhibition was titled, “Me Llamo Trujillo, Me Apellido Chan Chan.” (My First Name is Trujillo, My Surname is Chan Chan.)

author: Juan Arellano