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Ecuador Workshop Connects Digital Activists for the Good of the Kichwa Language On the Internet · Global Voices
Eduardo Avila

Group photo from the Kichwa language digital activism workshop. Photo by E. Avila
Members of Kichwa communities across Ecuador gathered in the city of Otavalo on August 17-19 to take part in a three-day workshop to discuss the state of their language, build new digital skills, and share experiences promoting their native language on the internet.
Best known for its weekly colorful open-air market that attracts both local residents from across the Imbabura Province and tourists alike, Otavalo is located 90 km from the Ecuadorian capital of Quito. The city is also well-known for its embrace of local Kichwa culture and language, where the typical dress can be seen throughout the city center, and where Otavaleño households and workplaces still converse in the language on a daily basis. Kichwa language can be spotted in some public buildings where bilingual signs further reinforce the message about its influence in everyday life.
Otavalo is also home to several pioneering digital initiatives that seek to promote the Kichwa language through digital media and the internet in hopes of attracting a new generation of speakers ensuring that the language continues to endure. One such project, Kichwashun, which manages several social media accounts and the Kichwa instruction site Kichwa.net, was one of the primary organizers of the workshop along with the Municipality of Otavalo in partnership with Global Voices through its Rising Voices’ Language Activism initiative.
Workshop participants. Photo by E. Avila
What made this particular workshop unique was all of the presentations, discussions, and instruction over the three days were held in the Kichwa language, breaking down the perception that this native language is incompatible with technology. While it is true that the language lacks words for certain tech-related terminology, organizers proposed the use of phrase “Zirma atiriy” for “digital activism.”
This workshop in Otavalo was the first of its kind in this series that focused on digital activism for a single language in contrast to other gatherings co-organized by Global Voices in Peru, Colombia, Mexico, and Bolivia, which were open to indigenous language digital activism to all languages from those countries.
Following an online and in-person call for participants, 30 individuals were selected based on their demonstrated commitment to the revitalization of the Kichwa language and existing internet knowledge. Organizers ensured a gender balance and geographic diversity with representation from various Kichwa communities such as Karanki, Puruhá, Salasaka, Quisapincha.
Primary facilitators were experienced digital activists Imbaya Cachiguango and Sacha Rosero Lema, both of whom have been working on Kichwashun and a number of other online and offline projects in support of the Kichwa people.
Panoramic view of Kichwa ceremony prior to the start of the workshop. Photo by E. Avila.
As is customary prior to the inauguration of any important group activity, the organizing team invited a local “yachak” (shaman) to perform a Kichwa ceremony called “wakcha kary”. After forming a ring of flowers on the ground, the ritual leader presided over the ceremony of gratitude to the Mother Earth involving nature’s four principle elements: fire, air, soil, and water. For those taking part in this ceremony, it was an opportunity to ask for wish for good spirits throughout the upcoming event.
To reach a wider audience, the morning of the first day of the workshop was open to the general public to come and listen to the basic idea of what Kichwa language digital activism is all about. Speakers helped set the context for why the internet can play a fundamental role in the overall strategy for language revitalization. Several participants of the workshop presented their own digital projects, including:
Following the public form, two and a half days of intensive and hands-on workshops took place in the computer lab located at a local school. Led by Imbaya and Sacha, participants provided an overview of many different digital tools, everything from creating memes in Kichwa to going outside to interview fellow participants to create an audio podcast. Facilitators also demonstrated how one could create a simple video for upload to YouTube, as well as a basic introduction to Wikipedia in Kichwa. Participants also created a Telegram group so that the participants can remain in touch and ask for assistance, share their own work, and coordinate for future activities.
Imbaya Cachiguango leading a workshop on digital video. Photo by E. Avila.
One of the more popular workshop was learning how to create memes in Kichwa and sharing them on the popular group Kichwa memes.
Interest from local media helped spread the word about the workshop taking place, resulting in more people inquiring how to take part. Organizers now hope to make the event an annual occurrence, and replicate similar activities in other Kichwa communities such as Cotacachi, Saraguro, Azuay, Riobamba, as well as work with local bilingual schools. Participants also proposed holding contests and other online activities as a fun way to maintain interest.
Logo of the Kichwa Memes Facebook group.
Other reflections included the need to link the language digital activism with other traditional forms of cultural expression such as handicrafts and agricultural knowledge. Even though youth is the sector of population most comfortable with the internet, there is also a need to reach parents encouraging them to send the message the maintaining one’s language active in other ways.
Cachiguango said, “real life in the Kichwa world is not only on social media, it is only a tool that helps us use Kichwa. As long as its speakers continue to speak, Kichwa will not disappear.”

author: Eduardo Avila


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In Venezuela, Indigenous Communities’ Struggles With Mining Are Far From Over · Global Voices
Minerva Vitti

Cayetano Pérez, general chief [leader] of the Ye'kuana and Sanumá people clearly expresses his opinion regarding the indigenous people who practice mining. “I have not given them permission to mine. Some of us have become corrupted [working in the mines]. Mining is not our job. […We] are acting wickedly, mistreating our brothers. Photo: Minerva Vitti, used with permission.
The following is a condensed version of a report by Minerva Vitti, original published by the Gumilla Center.
It is Saturday night in El Playón. The Ye'kuana and Sanumá people are gathered inside the Öttö, a circular communal house, waiting for the representatives from the Venezuelan government. These people come from 24 of the 49 tribal communities located along the Caura River, a tributary of the Orinoco River in southern Venezuela, and they have been summoned for the 20th Assembly of the indigenous association Kuyujani Organization. They have already been talking for almost four days, discussing the problems that are currently affecting them within their ancestral home.
The issue that concerns them the most is the creation of a National Strategic Development Zone along the Orinoco River and the threat it represents to them and their land. This new national zone comprises an area of 111,843.70 square kilometers, which is the equivalent of 12% of Venezuela's national land. The Venezuelan government maintains that the Arco Minero project that would take place here could be the answer to the country's out-of-control economic crisis (due to the fall in prices for petroleum).
To authorities, that justifies any potential problems it will create for the locals — the needs of the many should outweigh the needs of a few. But this would not be the indigenous communities’ first experience with mining. In fact, it is their past experiences that make them wary.
As you travel down the Caura River — which is the third most important river in Venezuela due to its vast richness and the second main tributary of the Orinoco River — you'll see the Criollos, Ye'kuana, Sanumá, Piapoco, Kurripaco, Pemon, and Jivi (or Guahibo) tribes that live along the waterway in villages like Payaraima, Puerto Cabello, Las Trincheras, La Poncha, La Ceiba, La Fortuna, Boca de Ninchare, and Surapire.
You'll also notice small mining excavations along with different people – both indigenous and non-indigenous – removing bits of earth and water with their trays in order to see if they can find any grams of gold. Mining activity has left its mark. “All of the water from the Caura is contaminated,” says Saúl López, an indigenous speaker and member of the Kuyujani Organization, referring to a study that the organization helped the La Salle Foundation and the Universidad de Oriente perform between 2011 and 2012 in which high levels of mercury were found in Ye'kuana women.
There's even more concern because of illegal mining, which began here in 2002 but worsened in 2006. At the time, it was thought that the river would need more than 200 years to fully recover.
At first, the Kuyujani Organization asked for governmental aid, thinking that the government could help them tackle the issue. It created two projects: mining reconversion, to reconvert miners to other trades, and the Caura Plan, implemented in 2010 in order to stop the environmental devastation generated by illegal mining in the Caura River's basin. The Caura Plan was initially conceived to work holistically in three ways: socially, politically, and militarily.
With this plan came three military checkpoints, but those ended up metamorphosing into a business for the military; one that didn't help the indigenous peoples, but instead caused them more problems. The indigenous communities now had to pay a “vacuna,” or sums of money, in order to guarantee that they wouldn't be attacked. At the checkpoints, people were intimidated, and the military took whatever they wanted from those trying to enter the local communities. “No payment, no pass,” they said.
Some members of the communities responded by detaining an army commander in charge of the checkpoints and demanding that the government's representatives do something about the constant abuses coming from mining as well as the governmental oversight. As a result, one of the checkpoints was removed, but two others remain, and they still charge people to let them bring food to the mining areas.
The communities also had to deal with the “labor unions” that entered the area with the miners. The situation is complex, as these “labor unions” are actually criminal bands that control the local mining activity. Their union names have no relation at all to the original organizations that laborers created to defend their interests. The locals are afraid of reporting these unions to those outside of the communities due to the possibility of union retaliation: “They have already done that to the Criollos,” says one Ye'kuana man.
And now, the Arco Minero project advances towards these lands. During a meeting with government officials, among whom were representatives from the Department for Indigenous Peoples, the necessity of carrying out the mining project was explained to the indigenous communities. Numerous rights were overlooked, whereas the locals’ duties were emphasized. The exploration groups are already en route, some of them working in alliance with businesses from the People's Republic of China, such as Citic Group.
The decree which seeks to implement the Arco Minero project, published in April 2016, hangs over the indigenous communities. One of its articles in particular is worrisome, as it directly states that the interests of the project will prevail over the interests of the indigenous communities:
Ningún interés particular, gremial, sindical de asociaciones o grupos, o sus normativas, prevalecerá sobre el interés general en el cumplimiento del objetivo contenido del presente decreto. Los sujetos que ejecuten o promuevan actuaciones materiales [que obstaculicen] las operaciones totales o parciales de las actividades productivas de la zona de desarrollo estratégica creada en este decreto serán sancionados conforme al ordenamiento jurídico aplicable.
No private, labor-union, association or group union interests, or rules, will prevail over the general interest in the fulfillment of the objective content of the present decree. Individuals who execute or promote material interventions [activities that obstruct] regarding partial or complete operations of productive activities of the strategic development zone created in this decree will be penalized in accordance with the applicable legal code of laws.
And it continues:
Los organismos de seguridad del [Estado] llevarán a cabo las acciones inmediatas necesarias para salvaguardar el normal desenvolvimiento de las actividades previstas en los Planes dela Zona de Desarrollo Estratégico Nacional Arco Minero del Orinoco, así como la ejecución de lo dispuesto en este artículo.
The security organisms of the [state] will carry out the immediate, necessary actions in order to safeguard the normal development of the planned activities in the Plans for the National Strategic Development Zone for the Arco Minero of the Orinoco River, according to the implementation as provided in this article.
In response,  Asdrúbal Sarmiento, a member of the indigenous security team of the Las Pavas community, finds the Arco Minero project a means for reinforcing the mining activity that already exists in the territory:
Con este decreto se legaliza la minería ilegal en El Caura. Ahora sí nos van a matar. ¿Por qué no resolver primero el problema de la minería ilegal para hacer otro proyecto? ¿Qué es lo que va a pasar con eso?
With this decree, illegal mining in the Caura becomes legalized. Now they are definitely going to kill us. Why not first resolve the illegal mining problem before making another project? What is going to happen with that?
In the meeting, the government's representatives emphasized the resources that could be of use to the country; however, they did not mention that the Venezuelan government cannot promote mining projects without first going through the preliminary consultation processes, which must be free and informed, with the indigenous communities.
Neither did they name the 150 national and international business that exploit the resources in indigenous territories, nor mention that two weeks before the April decree Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro announced the creation of the Anonymous Military Company of Mining, Oil, and Gas Industries (also known as CAMIMPEG in Spanish) and assigned it to the Ministry of Defense, vesting the department with a wide spectrum of powers for pursuing “without any limitation” any activity directly or indirectly related to mining, oil, or gas activities.
In any case, the Armed Forces will not represent the “general interest” in the zone, but rather will have a direct economic interest for ensuring the mining activities do not encounter any obstacles.
Daniel Torres, chief of El Playón, links this conflict to the historical humiliation of the indigenous people and to the colonial thinking that still exists in Venezuela. According to Torres, the only response to these actions is for the members of the community to study and to know their own culture:
Nuestro territorio es el sitio estratégico donde hay minerales, el gobierno lo sabe y por eso nos está mirando. Nosotros estamos en nuestro territorio ancestral, propio, la historia nuestra dice así. ¿Cómo convivimos culturalmente con occidente? […] ¿Cómo relacionarnos sin que la otra cultura nos dañe? Si nos dividimos se debilita la lucha y el que viene de afuera, con su pensamiento colonial, nos hará daño.
Our territory is the strategic site where there are minerals, the government knows this and because of this is watching us. We are in our ancestral territory, our own, our history tells us this is so. How can we culturally coexist with the West? […] How can we be in contact without the other culture harming us? If we divide ourselves, we weaken our fight and those coming from the outside, with a colonial thinking, will cause us harm.
On that subject, Cayetano Pérez, general chief (or leader) of the Ye'kuana and Sanumá people, warned that these trends have also influenced members of the indigenous communities. According to Pérez, one must stop any indigenous groups who have machinery and participate in the mining activities:
Nos estamos acostumbrando demasiado, también hay que parar a los comerciantes yekuana. Nosotros tenemos estatutos sociales que están enfocados en la preservación y conservación del ambiente. Si practicamos minería nos estamos violando nosotros mismos.
We are growing too accustomed [to this], and also have to stop the Ye'kuana traders. We have social statutes that are focused on environmental preservation and conservation. If we practice mining, we are desecrating ourselves.
Despite all of the pressure coming from both indigenous and non-indigenous organizations, Venezuela's Vice President Jorge Arreaza announced on August 3 that a total of 181 indigenous communities have signed onto the projects that will be encouraged through the National Strategic Development Zone for the Arco Minero of the Orinoco River.
On August 5, President Nicolás Maduro signed contracts with transnational companies valued at $4.5 million. “The Arco Minero is now a reality,” he declared.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Minerva Vitti


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Netizen Report: As Protests Rage in Ethiopia, Zone9 Bloggers Return to Court · Global Voices
Netizen Report Team

Zone9 bloggers left to right: Abel Wabela, Zelalem Kiberet, Mahlet Fantahun, Atnaf Berahane, Befeqadu Hailu, Natnael Feleke. Image via Martin Ennals Awards.
As protests rage over land rights and ethnic discrimination, bloggers and independent journalists in Ethiopia appear to be losing ground in their struggle to exercise free expression. Alongside other recent arrests, four members of the Zone9 bloggers collective, who spent 18 months in prison on terrorism-related charges from 2014-2015, returned to court on October 21 following an appeal by the public prosecutor. Their case was adjourned yet again, with a new court date scheduled for November 15.
The Addis Ababa-based blogging collective, six of whom are Global Voices contributors, had worked to foster political debate and discussion in the face of a near-monopoly that the state holds over media outlets.
Charged under Ethiopia’s Anti-Terrorism Proclamation with “inciting public disorder via social media” and “receiving support from a foreign government,” the bloggers appeared in court 38 times from July 2014 to October 2015, only to be adjourned each time at the behest of the prosecution, which sought more time to investigate their case. Some members were released without explanation shortly before Barack Obama’s July 2015 visit to the country. The rest were “acquitted” in October of that year, though they were never invited to testify before a jury. And now, a year later, the four members of the group—Abel Wabela, Atnaf Berahane, Natnael Feleke and Befeqadu Hailu—are returning to court once again.
With the country in an official “state of emergency,” social media sites are intermittently blocked or banned from use and mobile Internet connections are periodically cut, the need for independent media reporting from inside the country feels ever-more vital — and increasingly under threat.
WhatsApp, Viber, and other messaging apps were blocked in Montenegro on October 16, the day of parliamentary elections. The country’s Agency for Electronic Communications and Postal Services said the ban was intended to keep users from receiving “unwanted information,” an official designation for spam that could also apply to mass messages sent on behalf of specific candidates or political parties.
Cuban blogger and journalist Elaine Diaz, also a Global Voices author, was detained by Cuban State Security along with several of her colleagues while reporting on the effects of Hurricane Matthew in the eastern region of the island. The journalists were detained for two days. Following their release, the group reported that addition to subjecting them to interrogation, officials temporarily confiscated their computers, mobile devices, voice recorders, and other reporting equipment. The women in the group were put through full body searches.
In other news from Cuba, Dyn Research network monitoring group (the new home of Renesys) observed that a new transit provider, UTS of Curaçao, appears to be operating on Cuba’s ALBA-1 submarine fiber optic cable. This would be the first new provider to operate on the cable since it went live in 2013. Although the implications of the change are yet to be seen, it could improve connection speeds in Cuba, allowing users to reach web content hosted in the network of UTS, which is closer to the country than the networks currently serving the island.
A US court dismissed rioting charges filed against radio journalist Amy Goodman this week. These and other charges were leveled against Goodman after she captured and published (via news outlet Democracy Now!) online video footage of a September 3 protest against the construction of a massive oil pipeline in the state of North Dakota. The video, which quickly went viral, showed private security contractors using pepper spray and letting dogs loose on protesters. The oil pipeline in dispute would cut through Native American burial grounds and could cause untold environmental damage to the Missouri River, a major water source in the region. The Obama administration opted to stop the pipeline project several days later.
Thai mobile telecommunications operators asked customers to report “inappropriate content about the royal institution” in the wake of the death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Reuters reports that three local operators are now instructing users on how to report posts on Facebook and YouTube, in compliance with a request from the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission. Thailand has strict laws against insulting the monarchy, which it has used in the past to shut down media and to send bloggers and social media users to jail.
More than a dozen Russian journalists and activists received a strange warning from Google last week, notifying them that “government-backed attackers” may be “trying to steal” their passwords. The company says these attacks happen to “less than 0.1 percent of all Gmail users.” Hackers attacked three domains belonging to Transparency International, as well as the email addresses of staff at regional and international offices.
Shanghai’s Public Security Bureau shut down approximately 1,000 livestreaming accounts and required the owners of 450,000 others to submit proof of identity information to the Bureau.
This comes after China’s Ministry of Public Security announced in July plans to tighten restrictions on the live video technology in an effort to minimize livestream pornography, gambling, and political content, and to monitor companies that have failed to implement requisite safety measures, according to Hong Kong Free Press.
The Cyberspace Administration of China also drafted a new set of Regulations on the Protection of Minors Online and has put them up for public comment before October 31, 2016. The regulations would mandate the presale installation of unspecified software on personal computing devices, intended to keep minors from accessing “illegal and inappropriate information” as defined by Chinese law. They also authorize programs intended to combat “Internet addiction,” a measure that has caused consternation on social media among people concerned about overly punitive “treatment” approaches to the problem.
Ellery Roberts Biddle, Oiwan Lam, Weiping Li, and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

author: Netizen Report Team


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Russian Search Engine Will Only List Top News Stories from State-Registered Media · Global Voices
Isaac Webb

Source: Frederico Cintra, Flickr. CC 2.0.
Yandex, Russia’s largest search engine and a major news aggregator, will stop featuring articles from media companies that have not registered with the Russian government by January 1, 2017, on its “top news” lists, RBC reported on Thursday.
As has been widely covered in Russian media, at the beginning of October, Yandex sent a letter to the media companies it partners with outlining changes to its information sharing policy. The letter warned that if media companies do not submit proof of their registration with Roskomnadzor (the agency that regulates Russian media) by the New Year, their material will not be published among the “top five” news stories on Yandex’s homepage, Yandex.News, or on region- and topic-specific sites. Unregistered companies’ content will continue to appear in Yandex searches, however.
Yandex is being forced to change the terms of its information sharing policy and agreements with its 7,000 partner media companies as the result of a June 2016 law that introduced new regulations on aggregators whose daily traffic exceeds 1 million viewers. The law mandates, inter alia, that news aggregators determine the veracity of important information published on other sites before they republish it. Yandex initially pushed back against the law, saying that it would be physically impossible to check the thousands of sources it publishes.
The final version of the law allows aggregators to bypass this regulation if material comes from a media company that has registered with Roskomnadzor.
Yandex.News has a significant audience, leaving news organizations that do not want to register with Roskomnadzor in a difficult position: according to TNS Russia, 25 million people between the ages of 12 and 64 visited the website in September—not counting those who used the website from mobile devices. As of Thursday, 81,220 media organizations had registered with Roskomnadzor, according to the agency’s website. Still, RBC quoted Vadim Ampelonsky, а Roskomnadzor press secretary, as saying that the agency had not yet received a “surge of filings for registration.”
Forbes.ru published an article this summer noting that media giants Channel 1, Vesti.ru, NewsRU.com, and a host of others websites had not registered with Roskomnadzor. A large number of major media players remain unregistered, including TJournal, one of Russia’s most popular aggregators. Some outlets, including batenka.ru, don’t plan to register at all, believing that because they aren’t news organizations—and most of their traffic comes from social media—their bottom line won’t suffer significantly from the change.
Still, media companies aren't happy about the new regulation. As Dmitry Navosha, the director of the portal sports.ru, told RBC:
Никому не нужный закон…Власти хотят обеспечить доминирование в сети государственных и прогосударственных ресурсов, чтобы никакая Meduza, или Deutsche Welle, русскоязычное BBC не могли попасть в «топ» «Яндекса» и влиять на картину дня, которая доступна жителям России.
No one needs this law…The authorities want to support the domination of state- and pro-state resources on networks so that Meduza, Deutsche Welle, and Russian language BBC can't be at the top of Yandex and affect the picture of the day that Russians receive.

author: Isaac Webb


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Sri Lanka Pays the Price for Past Government’s Extravagance · Global Voices
GroundViews

SriLankan Airlines – Airbus A330-243, 4R-ALG touches the runway at London Heathrow. Image from Flickr by Michael Garnett. CC BY-NC 2.0
This post originally appeared on Groundviews, an award-winning citizen journalism website in Sri Lanka. An edited version is published below as part of a content-sharing agreement.
Sri Lanka recently announced that it will pay as much as USD 170 million (Rs. 25 billion) to the aircraft-leasing company AerCap Holdings, in order to cancel the purchase of four Airbus A350 aircraft, which the country's Rajapaksa government had previously purchased in 2013.
As part of what officials are calling a restructuring plan, Sri Lanka simultaneously decided to discontinue the budget airline Mihin Lanka.
SriLankan Airlines has languished in debt for years. The last time the company earned a profit was reportedly in 2009, one year after Emirates sold its stake in the national carrier. Most recently, it reported a net loss of Rs. 16.33 billion rupees (USD 112 million) for the year.
Groundviews has created an infographic to show what the government could have funded with the money spent on canceling the purchase of the four aircraft.
The figures are drawn from the Finance Ministry's 2015 annual report.
Infographic by Groundviews. 1 LKR = 0.00683338 USD
Rs. 25 billion is a significant sum of money, and the announcement was met with a similar level of anger on social media:
#lka #FlyingFolly @flysrilankan cancels four A350 aircraft, incurs USD98m (LKR 14b) penalty. We pay 4 MR profligacy!https://t.co/BMK6Nolsqg
— Nalaka Gunawardene (@NalakaG) October 4, 2016
As the infographic shows, the money used to cancel the order for the Airbuses could have been used to pay for pensions, Samurdhi payments (social welfare), medicine, or school supplies. SriLankan Airlines has struggled with debt for years (auditors flagged its viability as far back as 2009), and yet the government continued to purchase aircraft, compounding the losses incurred.
Now, Sri Lanka will have to pay the price — to the tune of millions of dollars.

author: GroundViews


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A Day in the Life of Immigration Limbo in the US · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

The US-Mexico border. Photo by Flickr user Brooke Binkowski. CC BY 2.0
This story by Heidi Shin originally appeared on PRI.org on October 18, 2016. It is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
Estela works the night shift at a fish processing factory in Boston. She sorts freshly caught white fish, picking out the occasional parasite or worm. Once she's back home, at 8 a.m., her two older boys, ages 12 and 15, have already made their way to school. Typically, Estela then naps before picking up her toddler from day care.
But today is different. It's a Tuesday, when an immigration officer is supposed to check up on her. The officer comes most Tuesdays, but not all. There is no set time for his visit, just that it will be some time before 4 p.m.
She doesn’t dare sleep, though. If she doesn’t hear the doorbell, there are consequences.
Last September, Estela came to the US from El Salvador by way of a smuggler. She fled in the middle of the night with two of her three kids when armed gang members pounded on her door, threatening to recruit her teenage son. She knew what happened to other young men who had attempted to escape the gangs: the brutal injuries, hospitalizations and death threats. It was a close call, but they got away from the gang members.
Once Estela and her children arrived in Texas, they turned themselves over to US Border Patrol agents and were held at a detention center. Based on their asylum claim, the family was released from detention. Before leaving, however, officials affixed a bracelet to Estela's ankle to track her whereabouts as her asylum case progressed. These bracelets have become a common tool for tracking asylum seekers.
Estela, who asked not to use her full name as her asylum case is pending, wore the ankle bracelet for her first four months in the US, while she slept, worked and showered. It’s black and bulky and must be recharged several times a day. It takes two hours to charge, and for those two hours, she stayed tethered to the wall outlet.
It has been several months since the device was removed, and she fears the ankle bracelet could return if she misses today’s immigration officer visit.
In the early afternoon, while Estela waits for the knock on the door, the phone rings, and her baby cries, having missed naps. First, the baby’s father calls from a detention center in Texas. Yes, she’ll send commissary money, she says. And yes, she has found an attorney, and they have a court date.
In reality, asylum cases are hard to win, especially for people from Central American who are trying to escape violence in their home countries. Many people who have been through detention centers do not have adaquate legal representation. Their cases involve multiple rounds of questioning, and the details and chronology of an applicant's testimony must match exactly in the retelling from one official to the next — not easily accomplished through translators and memories scarred by trauma.
By 3 p.m., Estela has put a fresh pot of Salvadoran soup on the stove. Her kids have filed home from school. Her teenage son retreats to the bedroom, while the younger one, now 12 years old, sits at the kitchen table fiddling with his phone. He was at his grandmother’s house the night Estela fled El Salvador with her two other children. She sent for him three months later.
He would rather go to the neighborhood school with his older brother, but that school ran out of spots for beginning English Language Learners. So at 6 a.m. each morning, he catches a bus that takes him to a middle school a few towns away. He has two friends at school, who are also boys who migrated from El Salvador. Estela says that her son almost never talks about the journey he made on his own across the border just a few months ago.
At 3:55 p.m., the doorbell rings. Estela whisks her toddler onto her hip and hurries to see who is there. But it’s just a deliveryman. She doesn’t say anything — to me or to the man at the door. She simply closes the door and heads straight to her bedroom. If the immigration officer has not arrived by 4 p.m., then he isn't coming today. Estela lays down, cradling her youngest child. They’ll sleep for two hours before she has to head back to the factory to work.

author: PRI/PRX's The World


text:
A short history of Halloween in Japan · Global Voices
Sarah Lee Stones

Japanese people don costumes for Halloween. Image from Flickr user GetHiroshima.com. (CC BY-NC 2.0).
It's October and Japan is gearing up for Halloween; ghouls, ghosts and broadly grinning jack o’ lanterns wink from shop windows, and seemingly everything is now available in pumpkin flavor. But Halloween is still a very recent phenomenon in Japan. Not so long ago, hardly anyone in the country even knew that such a thing as Halloween existed. What brought on the holiday's sudden surge in popularity?
椎野生子 21歳 @namaQchoroQ
大学生
ハロウィンで仮装するとしたら:ゾンビ
理由:usjのフラッシュモブに紛れ込むため
今月のテーマは『ハロウィンで仮装するとしたら』
一ヶ月で最もRT数が多かった女性にはトップ画と美容商品券
参加希望の方はDMをpic.twitter.com/jXo8mlmnok
— 東京 Select Snap (@TOKYO_Select_) October 21, 2016
Namako Shino (21) @namaQchoroQ
University student
Q: What would you like to dress up as for Halloween? A: ‘A zombie.’
Why? ‘So that I can join the zombie flash mob at Universal Studios Japan (USJ).’
This month's theme is ‘What would you like to dress up as for Halloween?’
[Photo contest entry instructions]
[…]
Japan is known for taking Western holidays such as Christmas and Valentine's Day and making them its own.
While the Japanese versions of these holidays are not quite the same as their original counterparts, they do have one thing in common: they are a great opportunity for companies to make bucketloads of money.
【期間限定】ハロウィーン・ホラー・ナイト終了までいよいよ1ヶ月を切りました。今年は、逃げるだけでは生還不能。15周年限定の史上最悪“やり過ぎ”ゾンビを見逃すな！！11月6日まで！ https://t.co/hlH0NWfXZW #USJ pic.twitter.com/otX7CEWxVB
— ユニバーサル・スタジオ・ジャパン公式 (@USJ_Official) October 13, 2016
It's less than a month until the end of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Japan… There is no escape… Don't pass up the opportunity to experience USJ's 15th anniversary zombie extravaganza! Until November 6!
It comes as no surprise, then, that it was theme parks that first introduced Halloween to Japan.
Halloweeners show off their impressive costumes and zombie makeup. Image from Flickr user Hideya HAMANO.(CC BY-NC 2.0).
Tokyo Disneyland began “Disney Happy Halloween” in 1997. The event was a hit, and has increased in scale every year since. Now, the celebrations kick off as early as September.
Universal Studios Japan (USJ) in Osaka, which opened its doors in 2001, jumped on the Halloween bandwagon the very next year. Today, Universal Studios offers a variety of horror-themed events during the spooky season, and invites guests to come in costume.
The USJ theme park has plenty of walk-throughs, a new take on the traditional haunted house (also popular in Japan) and other Halloween attractions for guests who enjoy a good fright.
Perhaps the most popular Halloween attraction at Universal Studios is its “zombie flash mob.”
Hoardes of the undead terrify guests, brandishing chainsaws and feasting on unfortunate victims between meticulously coordinated dance performances.
グラマシーでのゾンビモブホントかっこ良くていつも見入ってしまいます。。
何度か聞こえるゾンビの奇声に、他のゾンビが笑ってしまってるようにに見えるのは気のせいでしょうかww#USJ#ユニバpic.twitter.com/aRj9CSuDoj
— 丸見え！USJツイ！ (@et_bttf) October 17, 2016
Zombie mob at USJ's Gramercy Park. It was so cool, I couldn't look away…
I thought I could hear the zombies laughing at the strange sounds one of the zombies was making, but maybe it was just my imagination. LOL
One of the reasons that Halloween has taken off in Japan is probably the country's well-known affinity for cosplay.
Many Japanese people will gladly take any excuse to wear a costume, and bars, nightclubs, and theme parks have taken advantage of this, promoting Halloween as a time for dress up and debauchery.
Around October 31, hordes of witches, vampires, zombies, schoolgirls, and zombie schoolgirls can be found in Shibuya (in Tokyo), Amerikamura (in Osaka), and other busy areas of Japan's major cities.
Young people sport Gothic style costumes for Halloween. Photo from Flickr user Hideya HAMANO. (CC BY-NC 2.0).
Halloween is largely a costume festival in Japan, where trick-or-treating has failed to catch on. Due to the Japanese people's reluctance to inconvenience others, it is unlikely that trick-or-treating for children will see an increase in popularity.
Perhaps the closest thing the country has seen to trick-or-treating is an annual Halloween party hosted by Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan's largest mafia (or yakuza) organization, where mobsters hand out bags of candy to children (though it seems like they don't wear costumes themselves).
While some are not too happy with children accepting sweets from mobsters, generosity has always been part of the yakuza's strategy.
The mafia even tweets to let parents know to bring their children for treats:
神戸・山口組本家、ただいま絶賛ハロウィン中！お菓子をもらえるのは小学生までです。午後7時まで！まだまだあるよ！Trick or Treat！！俺は断固山口組を支持する。 pic.twitter.com/bJNI9CJDRb
— 鈴木智彦 TOMOHIKO SUZUKI (@yonakiishi) October 31, 2014
Halloween celebrations are in full swing at the Yamaguchi-gumi headquarters in Kobe! Candy for children up to elementary school age. Until 7:00 tonight! We still have plenty left to give away! Trick or Treat!! I'm a resolute supporter of the Yamaguchi-gumi.
Although the Yamaguchi-gumi's party was cancelled last year due to internal strife and fears that children could be harmed in the event of an “incident” (no word on whether the group plans to restart the party this year), there are plenty of other ways for kids to enjoy Halloween in Japan. There are Halloween parties at schools and kindergartens, and colorful costume parades.
It's not just adults who enjoy dressing up.
逆にこれぐらいシンプルな方が怖い。w
#ハロウィン#子供コスプレ pic.twitter.com/jHRV3KklaD
— Samantha (@diamond_tiara21) October 21, 2016
It's the simplest costumes that are the scariest. LOL
#Halloween #kidscosplay
It's not all fun and games, however. Some people have been calling for an end to Halloween in Japan, partly due to the trail of destruction left in the streets following wild Halloween parties.
This Twitter user offers a creative solution to the garbage problem:
ハロウィンはねえ、コスプレはしてもいいけど道にゴミ捨てないでほしい
道にゴミ捨てる人はゴミのコスプレして、リアル追及して朝までゴミ捨て場でうずくまってたらいいと思う
— りんごのこ ぽむ (@pomme514) October 11, 2016
Dressing up for Halloween is all well and good, but don't go throwing trash in the streets.
I think that the people who throw trash in the streets should try dressing up as trash, and in the pursuit of realism, should go hang out at the dump until morning.
The backlash against Halloween dates back to before its explosion in popularity, when the holiday was celebrated almost exclusively by expats.
The infamous Yamanote Line Halloween parties started sometime during the 1990s when, on October 31, a group of foreigners took over the train—or at least a car or two—as it looped around Tokyo.
The police have worked to shut down the rowdy parties, and in 2009, a group of nationalist protesters showed up bearing signs urging “stupid foreigners” to leave. Their assertion that “we Japanese don't need Halloween” perfectly sums up the anti-Halloween sentiment held by some people in Japan.
The Yamanote Line parties have unfortunately led to some animosity between expats and the anti-Halloween crowd.
Tentativa pífia dos japoneses de impedir os gaijins de fazerem a festa de halloween na linha Yamanote de trem. pic.twitter.com/3cAz6QbiWE
— Boa foi o corretor (@dra_bia) November 1, 2014
Ludicrous attempt by the Japanese at preventing ‘gaijins’ (foreigners) from having Halloween parties on the Yamanote train line.
But with a market size of over a 122 billion yen (or one billion US dollars) in 2015, foreigners are no longer the only ones celebrating Halloween in Japan, and it seems likely that the holiday is here to stay.
People go all out with creative Halloween costumes. Image from Flickr user Hideya HAMANO. (CC BY-NC 2.0).
Maybe that isn't such a bad thing. With their creative costumes, Japanese people do Halloween well. As long as their fun doesn't come at the expense of others, there's no reason why why Japan's Halloweeners shouldn't keep doing what they do best.

author: Sarah Lee Stones


text:
Kyrgyzstan Is to Kok-Boru What Brazil Is to Football · Global Voices
Elita Bakirova

Photo is by Erlan Bakirov.
Kyrgyzstan's national Kok-Boru team. Shared by the Kyrgyz Kok-Boru federation on Facebook.
Kazakhstan did not send a team to the 2014 edition of the games, in which Kyrgyzstan's A-team and B-team, after comfortably eliminating teams from countries such as China, the Russian republic of Altai and Tajikistan, ended up facing each other in the tournament final. (The A-team were the victors).
In 2016, however, it wasn't expected to be so easy.
But in the end the Kazakhs offered the Kyrgyz team very little competition at all: Kyrgyzstan demolished its oil-rich neighbour 15-3 to claim victory in a tournament that also saw them hammer a team of amateurs from the United States.
Kok-Boru was one of the more well-known of the more than 20 sports linked to the nomadic heritage of Turkic peoples across Eurasia to be featured at the games, in which over 40 countries took part. Now that Kyrgyzstan has twice hosted the biennial tournament, Turkey will step in to host the 2018 version.
Kok-Boru is popular among once-nomadic Turkic peoples, particularly the Kyrgyz and ethnically Turkic groups that live in Afghanistan, where the game is called Buzkashi.
It is often said that Kyrgyz children learn to ride a horse before they can walk and in the country's mountain villages a boy's first game of Kok-Boru is tantamount to a rite of passage.
Photo by Erlan Bakirov.
The game requires high levels of physical stamina as well as a strong instinct for self-preservation, since injuries incurred in the sport can be serious and even fatal. The most experienced players practice for a very long time to be able to perform elaborate stunts on horseback while simultaneously vying to capture the game's goat-carcass “trophy”. A boy who cannot ride a horse and compete in games such as Kok-Boru and Er Enish (horseback wrestling) can scarcely call himself a zhigit, which in the Kyrgyz language translates roughly as “skillful and brave man”.
Boy on horse in. Photo by Erlan Bakirov.
Not any goat will suffice for a Kok-Boru contest. Typically a special goat scout visits a livestock market to select a goat weighing 35-40 kilograms. A heavier goat carcass is a better prize for the players, who compete at professional level in two teams of twelve riders but practice in smaller and larger numbers.
While the World Nomad Games take place in summer, the Kok-Boru season is usually considered to run from November through February. For high-level games in the colder months game leaders make a 10-centimetre incision in the goat's underbelly, extract the animal's organs and bury the carcass in the snow for two hours, so that it stays intact. They then sew up the cut with rope.
Kyrgyz citizens hold Kok-Boru tournaments for different reasons, such as to celebrate national holidays, a child’s birth or a marriage. Sometimes the games have wealthy backers and successful players can win cars or tens of thousands of dollars.
For Chinghiz, pictured below, Kok-Boru is a major source of economic income. He wins around three cars per year and earns $2,500 – 3,000 in a season, depending on whether the teams he plays for prove successful.
Photo is by Erlan Bakirov.
After a hard-fought game comes the feast. That's right, Kok-Boru players frequently—but not always—eat the same goat over which they compete. As one player that spoke to Global Voices for this article explained: “During the game, the ulakchi (players) pull the goat and the horses trample the carcass. This tenderizes the meat. [When it is cooked] it melts in the mouth.”

author: Elita Bakirova


text:
Who Has the Right to Tell a Country’s Story? · Global Voices
Periodismo de Barrio

Screenshot of Periodismo de Barrio website.
In this editorial, the members of the independent publication Periodismo de Barrio, partners of Global Voices, recount how they were detained and interrogated by Cuban State Security officials from October 11 to October 12 when they were covering the zones affected by Hurricane Mathew. The editorial was originally published in Periodismo de Barrio, and has been reproduced in its totality in Global Voices (originally in Spanish) under our partnership agreement.
“We were detained for doing journalism in Baracoa, in Maisí, in Imías: three of the main municipalities affected by the storm.”
October 11, 2016. Six members of the team from Periodismo de Barrio and two collaborators were detained in the city of Baracoa, located in the province of Guantánamo. We were not detained for smiling. We were not detained for taking a photo of the state cafeteria located on La Gobernadora viewpoint and publishing it on our personal Facebook account. We were not detained for using the online service PayPal in our public fundraising campaign that allowed us to cover the recovery process of communities affected by Hurricane Matthew. We were detained for doing journalism in Baracoa, in Maisí, in Imías: three of the main municipalities affected by the storm.
Specifically, we were detained for interviewing – or trying to interview – the local government in Imías, the powerline workers who were trying to restore electrical service, the victims, the families who evacuated vulnerable individuals, the school teachers, cooks, and school directors who lost roofs as well as books, the medical clinics that were damaged, the men and women who saved other men and women as well as their animals and plants. Those of us who went to Maisí were interrogated by State Security officials at the headquarters of the Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba while trying to obtain authorization to work in the area. Those of us who came to Jamal were detained in the home where we were staying.
According to Article 67 of Cuba’s Constitution, a state of emergency is declared “in case of or before the imminence of natural disasters or catastrophes or other circumstances that by their disaster, proportion, or essence might affect the internal order, the country’s security, or the State’s stability.” While this state of emergency is in force, the rights and responsibilities of the citizens recognized by the Constitution can be administered differently.
Law 75 of National Defense regulates the way in which a state of emergency is declared, as well as other exceptional situations. “A state of emergency, in accordance with Articles 67 and 93 paragraph 1, is declared by the President of the State Council by means of a resolution which expresses the reasons for starting it, the delimitation of the area where it is established, and the effective period.” Up to the date of our detainment, there was no official public communication by the President of the State Council announcing a state of emergency, apart from the announcement made October 4th by the General Staff of the Civil Defense alerting six Cuban provinces before the arrival of Hurricane Matthew. This does not have the legal status required to declare a state of emergency as provided in the Constitution.
In accordance with Law 75, “in any of the exceptional situations it is guaranteed that the fundamental rights of the Constitution shall not be excluded or suspended.” In addition, “an individual’s freedom and inviolability are guaranteed to whomever resides in the national territory.”
Neither Law 75 nor the Constitution of the Republic nor the Code of Ethics of the Union of Cuban Journalists — to which two of our colleagues belong — regulate the exercise of journalism during situations of natural disasters. If we recognize that during emergency situations it is guaranteed that “the fundamental rights of the Constitution shall not be excluded or suspended,” which includes freedom of speech and press, Periodismo de Barrio did not violate any law.
We did not come to Baracoa with the goal of acting outside of the law. None of our members knew we would need to “be accredited” before heading to Guantánamo Province.
Nevertheless, if we had tried to do so, we would not have had a representative to approach. Unlike state and foreign media, Periodismo de Barrio does not have a public official in Cuba from whom we can ask authorization to perform journalistic work in a given region. Because of this, that night, in the municipal headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior, we asked for the required authorization to do the stories we had already planned. The answer, which came the next day after we had remained in the house for about fifteen hours as ordered, was a refusal. All of us journalists were then driven to the Ministry of the Interior’s Operations Unit in Guantánamo, escorted by the 205th patrol of the State Security Department.
There we were interrogated a second time and our technical equipment was confiscated. We had to hand over passwords and cameras, digital recorders, laptops, flash drives, electronic book readers, and cell phones, all of which were looked over for at least four hours. They informed us that the images and recordings from our work in the province would be erased and our electronic equipment returned. The three women that formed part of Periodismo de Barrio’s team were physically examined by an official looking for other technical tools that could have been hidden in our bodies, a treatment given to suspects in pre-criminal cases. They didn’t do the same to our male counterparts. Our technical equipment was then returned and none of the files related to our work were erased.
We answered all of their questions about Periodismo de Barrio, our means of funding, the work we wished to do in the province, our previous journalism experience, the academic training we have, and the origins and final destination of the individual donations of clothes, food, and personal hygiene products that we brought to the province. Throughout the day (October 11th) and until we were released on October 12th, at around 8:00 pm, not a single charge or accusation of any crime was brought against the members of Periodismo de Barrio.
In a context where the law only recognizes the existence of state and foreign media accredited by the Center of International Press, Periodismo de Barrio sits right on the edge between these two groups. We are the result of the evolution of technological platforms for communicating information of public interest, university education, and professional needs that cannot find a place in the existing media  media. And we are not the only ones.
We also recognize that there are stories that require greater research and informational rigor. Their existence, for both readers and for the hundreds of professionals gathered around them, should start an inclusive public debate about the ownership structure of the press. This debate could open up space for a media law in which  at least cooperative ownership would be considered alongside state ownership, among other forms of social and public models regarding these types of media.
It is not possible to tell the truth about Cuba from only one viewpoint, or from unanimous viewpoints that are the equivalent of one.
We understand that the public character of the Cuban press is guaranteed not solely by governmental ownership of the media. Not when there are so many differing views. For the truth about Cuba to be the true Cuba – that is, the convergence of everyone’s truths – there must be a collective construction in which diverse voices participate with equal rights and responsibilities.
The Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, in Article 53, recognizes the “freedom of speech and press in agreement with those ends of a socialist society” for its citizens. And in the following sentence it specifies that “mass media are state or social property and in no case can they be objects of private property, which ensures their use for the exclusive service of the working class and in the interest of society.” Nevertheless, because of the way in which this logic has been implemented we have not achieved the plain exercise of freedom of press and speech, nor have we ensured the exclusive use of media in service of the people, nor have we exorcised the demon that inspired the ban on private media: monopoly. What we have achieved, paradoxically, is a new monopolization of information, of journalistic discourses, and of the truth.
Television channels, radio broadcasts, printed publications, and publishing houses all change owners but they do not become decentralized or “socialized”.  To socialize means to regulate power so that, precisely, it is not centralized or concentrated in a social area, because it dispossess others of power. Making “socialism the Cuban way,” appropriate for our circumstances, does not constitute a license to violate inseparable principles of socialism. One does not found a socialist society by reproducing structures of domination.
Mónica, Elaine and Julio, members of Periodismo de Barrio. Photo by Elaine Diaz, used with permission.
This is not the first time that we have gone to work in areas affected by natural disasters. Less than three days after the waterspout that damaged Playa del Caimito, we visited the area without asking anyone for permission. In the interviews, both citizens and authorities cooperated with us. Six months after the storm of April 29, 2015, we investigated the main damaged areas. Three years after Sandy, we returned to the eastern city of Santiago.
Periodismo de Barrio publishes articles and investigative reports that try to delve deeper into the reality that we live in. Cuban state media and institutions like the Civil Defense organization and the Meteorological Institute, have always carried out extensive coverage before, during and after any extreme weather event. However, the news cycle moves fast, and often times the victims no longer make headlines a couple of weeks or months after the natural disaster occurs. Other realities occupy our newspapers’ agendas. But even if these other realities didn’t occupy our newspapers, this doesn’t mean that the people’s need for information runs out when the disaster recovery processes is prolonged. Not even Periodismo de Barrio could exhaust that need.
It is the media’s duty to scrutinize the Revolution and make sure that it doesn’t, in effect, leave anyone abandoned. This phrase is often used just after a hurricane hits, and is later forgotten by some public servants charged with turning it into food and shelter, which was what happened with the mattresses for the victims in the municipality ‘Diez de Octubre’ in April 2015. This supervision should not be seen as a threat, but rather as our right to hold our public representatives to account.
Every minute we spent in Baracoa, Imías and Maisí, every affected household we visited, became a meeting point for neighbors. They told each other, “the journalists have come.”
We know that today, Baracoa, Imías and Maisí are disaster zones, and we know the immediate dangers associated with this: outbreaks of illness, water and food shortages, and electricity outages, among others. Every minute we spent in Baracoa, Imías and Maisí, every affected household we visited, became a meeting point for neighbors. They told each other, “the journalists have come,” and what started as an interview of an evacuated pregnant woman turned into a meeting of 15 or 20 people telling their stories. We didn’t trick anyone. We told everyone that we were members of Periodismo de Barrio and we explained the social objective of the outlet. Even so, when we left, they gave us their blessings. And when they told us “God bless you,” they were blessing our pens and our ears as the platform from which they could share their realities.
Members of the People’s Councils and delegates spent days without sleeping to register the damage done by the hurricane. Families with homes in tact leant their houses to those without. There are still places that are left without any way to contact the outside world.
We came to Baracoa with questions: How are they distributing aid? How are they assisting the victims with construction material, food, clothing etc? What measures were taken to protect Haitian refugees? What conditions are the coastal communities in and what are the measures being taken to relocate them? What are the main damages to farms and housing? How are they organizing the evacuation centers? What role did amatuer radio enthusiasts play in maintaining communication in disconnected areas? etc.
We are talking about hundreds of towns, some of them remote, others without means of communication or made inaccessible. Thousands of people who need to be heard. During our detention by the Communist Party Municipal Committee of Maisí, a civil servant showed us an article published in the newspaper Venceremos to prove their point of view: There was media coverage in the area.
Nearly 600 news agencies and foreign media outlets were approved to cover United States president Barack Obama’s visit to Havana. In an article published this past October 14, the newspaper Granma could mention less than 10 foreign agencies working in Guantánamo in addition to the local provincial outlets. In the more than 45 interviews done during the 12 hours we were able to work, none of the disaster victims were visited by any other news outlet. We were the first ones to get to them. We were the only ones. State newspapers (especially those in Guantánamo) and other foreign outlets had spoken with other areas, but Baracoa, Maisí and Imías are the homes of people who need to share their stories.
Those who are questioning the methods used to finance Periodismo de Barrio are conveniently forgetting that journalism costs money.
This doesn’t mean that it’s free. The helicopter used to fly over areas cut off by the hurricane wasn’t free, neither are the hours of internet provided to the houses and offices of state journalists, the computers, the cars, the gas used in the cars, the cameras, the electricity and the generators that ensure radio stations stay on air after power outs. The offices, chairs, tables, landline and mobile phones are all not free.
Without this subsidy, it would be impossible to exist. This financial support is provided by the people and, as a public entity, it thus comes with its corresponding obligations. State media has a duty to respond to the multiple needs of the people. Transparency and accountability about the use of these resources is a duty that, now and always, should be exercised regularly.
Some turn to advertising, payment for content and for services, agreements and collaborations between other outlets or NGO’s and crowdfunding. Crowdfunding is a method that has been used for many years by internet users to finance individual and collective projects. By these means, readers have the freedom to decide if they want to collaborate or not. It is also a method which shows how much has been donated and by whom. The dream of any media outlet is to be financed exclusively by their readers. In our case, we use the online service PayPal which is inaccessible in Cuba due to the US embargo. We think that this is an unjust and arbitrary policy aimed at financially asphyxiating the Cuban people and for this reason, we will continue to look for ways to prevent the embargo from affecting our media outlet. We trusted our readers and it worked. In less than 48 hours we had raised enough money to go to Guantánamo.
Periodismo de Barrio’s PayPal strategy is simple: we use an account from a collaborator and friend who lives in a different country, and then they send the money to Cuba through legal agencies that deal with remittances.
We have received numerous criticisms and suggestions about the money we raised for the coverage. We will not turn a deaf ear to them.
We think the role of press in the recovery effort is to seek out alliances with other media outlets, to identify organized projects, like the Red Cross and local NGOs that need help and can provide it in affected areas. Our readers have pointed out that covering natural disasters transcends the practice of journalism itself. For this reason, in the future, we are weighing the possibility of making executive summaries detailing the needs and ways to access and distribute aid that are relevant to both local governments and NGOs, and in this way, contribute to those working in the disaster zones. Reporting, in these cases, is not our only duty.
By doing this, the State Security organizations are not only limiting the freedom of expression and the freedom of press guaranteed by the Constitution, but they are also limiting each and every individual who chooses to speak to media outlets.
Because we believe that this right belongs to all of the Cuban people, because these stories must be told, we will return to Baracoa, Imías and Maisí once the state of emergency is called off.

author: Periodismo de Barrio


text:
In the Eyes of Hong Kong’s Housing Market, We Are All Just Sardines · Global Voices
Disillusionist

In Hong Kong, we are all sardines. Illustration by Disillusionist (CC BY-ND 4.0)
Hong Kong is notorious for its crowded living conditions and the high cost of residential housing. Generations of housing policies have promised improvements in living standards, but are yet to deliver. The last several decades have seen the city’s apartments becoming smaller and more expensive.
Cage homes, rooms diced up or subdivided with boards, and the like, used to be the last resort of the city’s poorest. But nowadays even dice-sized apartments can be packaged for the luxury market, as people have become desensitized to the absurdity and have resigned themselves to even more cramped living spaces at unaffordable prices.
Regardless of the type of housing we occupy, in Hong Kong we are all just sardines.

author: Disillusionist


text:
Just How Welcome Are ‘Foreigners’ on Japanese Trains? · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Nankai conductor apologizes for the presence of “foreigners” on a commuter train. The main caption reads, “This was the first time this has happened and was not intended to be discriminatory.” Image widely shared on social media.
Earlier in October, a private railway company in western Japan came under fire after one its employees apologized for the presence of “foreigners” on a train. The incident was widely reported in Japanese media, providing insights about how non-Japanese residents and visitors are perceived.
According to the Japanese news agency Kyodo, a conductor on a Nankai Electric Railway train traveling from downtown Osaka to Kansai International airport apologized in Japanese over the train's intercom about the number of “foreigners” on the train.
Later, a Japanese passenger reportedly complained about the incident to Nankai. The company then made a public apology and reprimanded the train conductor.
The incident was widely discussed on social media and in the mainstream media. While some were upset with the announcement itself, others were taken aback with how the media reported on the incident.
Nankai train conductor chided after apologizing for presence of non-Japanese passengers https://t.co/BJRdDoVxAa
— The Japan Times (@japantimes) October 11, 2016
One Twitter user was on the train when the incident took place, and may be the one responsible for attracting the public's attention.
南海電鉄空港行き急行なう、なんだが「日本人の乗客の皆様にお詫び申し上げます」って車内アナウンス。なんだろう？と思ったら
「本日は多数の外人の（外国人じゃなくガイジンって言った）お客様にお乗りいただいており、大変ご迷惑をおかけしております」
って本当に意味がわからなくて激怒してる。
— ちえぞう (@tchiezinha) October 10, 2016
I'm on the Nankai express train bound for Kansai International Airport, and I just heard announcement (over the intercom) say, “We would like to offer an apology to all of our Japanese passengers.”
“What could it be?” I wondered to myself.
“Since there are large numbers of “gaijin” (he didn't use a more polite word for “foreigners,” but said “gaijin”) we would like to sincerely apologize to everyone for the inconvenience.”
I felt really angry since I couldn't figure out what the announcement was intended to communicate.
In Japan, using the term gaijin (外人) to refer to non-Japanese people or “foreigners” is considered extremely rude, and even discriminatory. Gaijin literally means “outsider,” and the term gaikokujin (外国人) is generally used instead. Apologizing for the presence of non-Japanese people on a train is extremely unusual and perplexing.
The Twitter user @tchiezinha immediately complained to Nankai Railway:
南海電鉄へ質問メール送った。もちろん回答必要にして。降りたら抗議する。 https://t.co/PEF5ZIiGAy
— ちえぞう (@tchiezinha) October 10, 2016
I've just emailed Nankai with a question (about the announcement). I've also stated that I expect them to reply. When I get off the train I'm going to lodge a complaint.
She then learned that the conductor made the announcement “after he heard a Japanese rider say in a loud voice, ‘There are too many foreigners and they are annoying.'”
抗議の電話をしてくれた友人より報告がありました。外国人観光客の荷物を「邪魔だ！」と蹴った人を見かけ、なんとかしなきゃと思ってのアナウンスだったと本人も認めたそう。本人のみならず会社全体にも二度とこのようなことはしてはいけないと指導します、とのこと。素早い対応に感謝します。 https://t.co/ekrzBHstYq
— ちえぞう (@tchiezinha) October 10, 2016
A friend, who phoned in a complaint on my behalf has given me an update. The conductor explained that he made the announcement after observing a Japanese passenger gripe that suitcases and luggage brought on the carriage by (presumably) foreign tourists were “in the way.”
Nankai said that both the employee and the company itself would see to it that such an announcement would never happen again.
I'm really thankful there was such a prompt response.
The incident didn't stop with the apology by Nankai Railway. The Japanese media's handling of this story also provoked discussions online.
When reporting on the incident, Morning Show, a daily cable program, used rather unflattering images of “foreigners” in its graphic. In those images (see the featured image above), the mountains of luggage that sparked the incident were nowhere to be seen. Instead, a lone Japanese woman is surrounded on the train by several evil-looking foreigners.
The Morning Show commentators, one of whom is Hatori Shin'ichi, a “shock jock” personality who has made controversial comments about ethnic Koreans in the past, also seemed to reinforce negative stereotypes about “foreigners on trains.”
Twitter user C.R.A.C. noted:
#モーニングショー 玉川さんの発言も羽鳥さんの発言も「外国人はうるさい」がなぜか事実認定済の前提になっており、それこそがまず問題だと思うのですがこの絵はさらにダメ。こないだの「受け手が差別と感じたら差別」も併せもう少し頑張ってほしい。pic.twitter.com/FMMX6CPqhT
— C.R.A.C. (@cracjp) October 11, 2016
#Morning Show Even if you don't think the two presenters on the show were making all sorts of assumptions and conjecture by remarking that “foreigners are noisy on trains,” the real issue here is that the graphic [used in the TV spot] is just plain wrong.
You'd think that Hatori would be a little more mindful of his comments after the recent “If you feel that you are experiencing discrimination, you are indeed experiencing discrimination (“受け手が差別と感じたら差別”) controversy he was involved in [regarding his remarks about ethnic Koreans in Japan].
C.R.A.C. continued:
この絵がダメな理由は、(1) 「外国人がニヤニヤと偉そうにしている中で小さく萎縮している日本人」を事実として描いているように見える。(2) さらに「意図はない」を大きく表記することで、告発そのものが不当であるかのような印象を与える。https://t.co/3Sc5iSIqW2
— C.R.A.C. (@cracjp) October 11, 2016
The reason why the graphic used on the Morning Show program is so bad is because:
1) It appears as though a lone, timid Japanese person is being surrounded by a gang of arrogant, smirking non-Japanese.
2) By stressing in the graphic that there was “no discrimination intended,” it gives the impression that there was nothing really wrong with the announcement in the first place.
Part of the problem may be that Japanese trains and public transport are not meant to transport suitcases and luggage (in Japan, when traveling, luggage is customarily shipped ahead, and is not brought on commuter trains).
One Japanese resident of Yokohama noted:
京成線沿いに住んでるんで、スーツケースで車内がいっぱいとかよくあるけどなー。みんなすげー気をつかってるでしょ。物理的に絶対無理なのによけようとしたり(笑) うるさい？楽しそうでいいじゃん。それを邪魔だとか日本人に迷惑だとか思うヤツはねー、ゆっくり風呂にでも浸かったほうがいいよ。 pic.twitter.com/aRN0GOl9Y8
— FUCKER (谷ぐち順) (@folkshockfucker) October 11, 2016
I live along the Keisei Line [that travels between downtown Tokyo and Narita International Airport], and there are times when the train carriage is full of suitcases. Even though it makes no sense in terms of logistics (LOL), why call (foreign tourists) “noisy” (as Hatori did)? Maybe these tourists are just enjoying themselves in Japan. People who think these tourists are in the way and are inconveniencing Japanese tourists should all go and take a relaxing bath at a hot spring.
Back in Osaka, Nankai operates express rail service from downtown Osaka to Kansai International Airport. While Nankai offers special express service for the 50-kilometer trip, some travelers may choose to save a little money by taking a cheaper and slightly slower commuter service.
Depending on the time of day, the commuter trains can become quite crowded, and there is no room to stow bulky suitcase and other luggage. This can be perceived as an inconvenience for regular commuters.
Commenting online, some non-Japanese residents of Japan seemed to understand that the incident may not necessarily reflect the attitude Nankai Railway holds towards its non-Japanese passengers.
One Japan Times commenter noted:
[…] I suspect the train driver was only trying to appease the one guy who complained and it probably never occurred to him that it would be offensive. […]
Many long-term foreign residents in Japan have talked about the “microaggression” of having no one sit next to them on the train.
Japanese people would rather stand up on the train than sit next to an American
— mml (@mikaylal_) October 20, 2016
Japanese people never want to sit next to me and my friends on the train but hey more space for me
— hiya (@hentaimagaziine) September 15, 2016
One non-Japanese resident of Japan appears to have cracked the code of how to persuade Japanese people to sit next to them on the train:
Japanese people sat next to me on the train! The gaijin fear radius is gone! The cure? Read a Japanese magazine! pic.twitter.com/P9nyjBEeog
— Sean Bradley (ショーン) (@bradcat) June 12, 2016
In any event, Japanese people are going to have to adjust to more non-Japanese passengers on the train. According to the Japan National Tourist Organization, the estimated number of international travelers to Japan in August reached to 2.05 million (a +12.8-percent increase from August 2015), exceeding 2 million for the second successive month.

author: Nevin Thompson


text:
Russian City Cuts Fuel to WWII Eternal Flame So Locals Won’t Cook on It · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Taganrog’s eternal flame isn’t burning today, and a local gas company official says it’s because he can’t guarantee that locals won’t roast sausages over the fire.
Image: Pixabay
Taganrog is a Russian port city located on the north shore of the Taganrog Bay, about 1,100 kilometers south of Moscow. Cities across the former Soviet Union have eternal flames honoring those who died defeating the Nazis.
Earlier this week, Gazprom came under fire, when locals in Taganrog started sharing photos of the city’s deactivated eternal flame, adding the caption, “Gazprom isn’t just shutting off boilers, but memorial sites, too.”
Responding on Facebook, Vladimir Revenko, the general director of Gazprom’s local subsidiary, explained that there are five such monuments operating in Taganrog, but only one of them is actually an eternal flame. He says the monuments are activated at the company’s decision and at the request of local state officials, on holidays, for instance. “It’s because we don’t want people roasting hot dogs on a flame like that,” Revenko wrote. “There’s no security, and there’s no constant supervision. Without this, unfortunately, it can’t be done.”
Revenko later deleted the comment and reposted it without the remark about the sausages, but the original text was online long enough to draw public criticism that Gazprom fails to respect both the symbolism of the eternal flame and the people of Taganrog.
While this incident may have been a black eye for Gazprom, Russia has indeed seen a recent wave of disrespect at its eternal flames across the country. In July earlier this year, a man was photographed roasting a shish kabob on an eternal flame in St. Petersburg. When a witness called the police to report the scene, there was no response.
“Eternal glory to the harvester-builders fallen in battle for the Motherland.” Image: Oleg Rudikov / Facebook
In May, several locals in Kemerovo were spotted cooking sausages over the city’s eternal flame. A year earlier, a group of teens were caught roasting potatoes on the eternal flame in Tula. In April 2014, a drunk tourist from Siberia was arrested for urinating on the eternal flame in Belgorod, and later sentenced to three years in prison.
There are a handful of other similar cases in recent years, where people either cooked over or relieved themselves upon the eternal flames in various Russian cities.
Not in Taganrog, though, where Gazprom is cracking down on ever-burning flames, and thus reducing the number of commemorative fires that tempt barbequers and urinators.

author: Kevin Rothrock


text:
Saudi Mobile Data Quality Provokes National Protest Against Bad Service · Global Voices
سمكس

Riyadh, the Saudi capital. Photo from Flickr user Abdallah.
An original version of this article, written by Mahmoud Ghazayel, was first published on the website of Social Media Exchange Association (SMEX).
On the evening of September 30, social media users in Saudi Arabia unleashed a campaign against the nation's wireless network operators, protesting bad service and the continued blocking of technologies, particularly VoIP communications, that are supposed to be available for free.
The campaign continues to gain support, and Internet users are calling for boycotts against the worst offenders in Saudi Arabia's telecommunications market. The first boycott was scheduled to last three hours, beginning on October 1 at 6 p.m. local time. Participants agreed to stop using their mobile networks (switching to Wi-Fi for any online activity), ceasing all text-messaging and declining to add any credit to their phones’ data packages. Protesters repeated this boycott for the rest of the week.
#راح_نفلسكم
موعد الحمله 30 ذو الحجة – 1 اكتوبر
من 6 الى 9 مساء .. 3 ساعات
لمدة اسبوع .. pic.twitter.com/ShS57F2pA4
— Rsmeia (@Rsmiea) September 20, 2016
#We_will_cause_your_ bankruptcy
The campaign's date is 30th Dhu'l-Hijjah/1st October
From 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. .. 3 hours
A week long. [Dhu'l-Hijjah is the twelfth and final month in the Islamic calendar followed in Saudi Arabia]
Demonstrators argue that this three-hour boycott “should not be underestimated if it is repeated daily because the losses will be estimated at millions [of Saudi Riyals].”
Those participating in the online protest say they want to pressure Saudi Arabia's mobile network operators into offering services “worthy of a people bound for the 2030 Vision,” which is the economic road map initiated by the Kingdom's Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammad bin Salman.
When all its provisions are implemented, 2030 Vision is expected to contribute to liberating the Saudi economy from reliance on petroleum, thus increasing the government's non-petroleum income to 530 billion Riyal (141.3 billion dollars) in 2020, from 163.5 billion Riyal in 2015.
On Twitter, the campaign mainly used two hashtags: #We_will_cause_your_ bankruptcy and #flight_mode_stc.
#راح_نفلسكم
الصممممله وانتم قدها 😂💃🏼 pic.twitter.com/ulXYi9Kvdu
— ♚ (@F3li__) September 20, 2016
#We_will_cause_your_ bankruptcy
No retreat! You can do it.
Owned by government agencies and public investors, the Saudi Telecom Company (STC) is the country's leading mobile network operator. Two other major companies in this market are Mobily and Zain.
There are some signs that the Saudi government might be taking steps to improve telecommunications services in the country. On September 26, before the boycotts began, industry regulators notified Saudi mobile-data users that the sale of prepaid Internet “top-up” cards is being canceled, citing a plan to “rationalize the use of the network in a regulated form, thus alleviating strain on the networks to offer a better service, after operational indicators recorded usage rates surpassing international averages.”
The state's concern for mobile data is no surprise in Saudi Arabia, where Twitter adoption has reached a staggering 41 percent of all Internet users—surpassing both the United States and China, according to a Business Insider report released in 2013.
Support for the campaign against Saudi telecoms has been fierce on Twitter, as well, as the short video below shows:
#وضع_الطيران_stc كرمال مطنوخ pic.twitter.com/MVpVCR3IuE
— محمد (@mms__80) October 1, 2016
Others want to go even further, vowing to force STC and other operators into bankruptcy:
#وضع_الطيران_stc :
احنا اللي طلعنا stc واحنا بنزلها .،
الله يقويكم ..
المهم التنفيذ من الجميع ✋🏻🌚 pic.twitter.com/cFSdKutMLd
— جواهر الشهري ☁ (@jewels292) October 1, 2016
#flight_mode_stc
It is us who took STC to the sky and we will also cause its fall
May god strengthen you!
Most importantly, compliance from all
متحمس جداً لـ مقاطعة stc 😷
اليوم من الساعة
٦:٠٠م إلى ٩:٠٠م
قفل جوالك او ع وضع الطيران❌
،
ناوي استغل الوقت
واتعرف على أهلي 😁#وضع_الطيران_stc pic.twitter.com/2N3TGpfwD9
— mt3b (@tOOt_alshammari) October 1, 2016
I am very enthusiastic to boycott STC.
Today from 6 pm to 9 pm, switch off your mobile or put it on flight mode
I would exploit that time, to know my relatives better :)
#flight_mode_
اللي يقول وش الفائدة اذا وقفت ٣ ساعات وبعدها رجعت اتصلت والا شحنت تقدر تقرأ الشرح بالصورة وتعرف وش الفائدة #راح_نفلسكم1 #وضع_الطيران_stc pic.twitter.com/TZYAAH3uJB
— ❗بالإنجليزي❗ (@swah22) October 1, 2016
For anyone who says what is the benefit if I switched off [my mobile] for 3 hours then reconnect or top up credit, you can read the explanation on the image and you'll get to know the utility #We_will_cause_you_ bankruptcy1 #flight_mode_stc [in the photo, campaigners claim that if 1 million participants joined the boycott campaign, STC would lose 302 Saudi Riyals per three hours]
#وضع_الطيران_stc
#راح_نفلسكم1
-
ياشباب بالله سوو هذي الشروط عشان نأدبهم صح ونخليهم يسيبوا النصب والاحتيال عالمواطن👇👇والله مانسكت على حقنا pic.twitter.com/snUSwGer1n
— محممٓد الزهرانيّⓂ (@Mq600) October 1, 2016
#flight_mode_stc
#We_will_cause_you_ bankruptcy1
Guys, please implement these conditions so that we give them a great lesson and make them renounce their practices of deceiting and cheating on the citizen 👇👇 I swear by God, we'll never abandon our right.
#وضع_الطيران_stc
حاليا وضع شركة STC هههههههههههههههههههههههههههههههههههههه
pic.twitter.com/ZQxaXBHEgX
— Khaled Blues (@2000Mmvvpp) October 1, 2016
#flight_mode_stc
Currently, STC company mode hahahahha [the speaker in the video says: “because of Twitter, we are not fine anymore”]
Saudi officials ban (wholly or partially) several online services that allow communication over the Internet, such as Viber, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and Skype. Last month, the state banned a call feature in the app “Line,” angering Saudi Twitter users, who in turn launched a campaign demanding access to such online technologies.

author: سمكس


text:
A Trinidad & Tobago Carnival Band Is Accused of Trivialising the Trauma of Slavery · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“La Belle Dame”, one of the costumes in the 2017 Carnival band “Cazabon — The Art of Living”. Photo by Gary Jordan Photography, used with permission.
In Trinidad and Tobago, it's the time of year that masquerade designers unveil their creations for Carnival — the annual two-day street festival that attracts revellers from all over the world.
The roll-out has gone smoothly thus far, with leaders and designers of carnival bands (as the often thousands-strong troupes of masqueraders who parade in the streets are called) posting images of their 2017 offerings online, and Carnival enthusiasts debating their choices of bands and costumes.
Except in the case of one band: after its October 21 launch, Brian Mac Farlane's 2017 presentation, “Cazabon — The Art of Living”, provoked a social media firestorm over what some felt was the glamourisation and belittling of both the country and the region's collective history.
The online discussion was initially about the first impression of the costumes — all-white, seemingly a blend of masquerade and couture — with some Facebook users admiring the designs, and others suggesting that Mac Farlane was imitating veteran mas’ (short for masquerade) designer Peter Minshall, and edgy newcomers K2K Alliance and Partners, who have seamlessly integrated high fashion into their Carnival portrayals.
The band's concept refers to Michel-Jean Cazabon, a mixed-race, 19th-century Trinidadian painter who is widely held up as the country's first internationally recognised artist. His work depicts life in Trinidad during the mid-1800s — mostly the family life and social pursuits of the planter class, as well as stunning watercolour landscapes that are important historical markers for what the island looked like during that era.
But upon closer examination, people began to realise why they were having such a strong reaction to Mac Farlane's costumes. In a public post, Facebook user Carla Steffanie explained:
I figured out why I'm not crazy about the Mac Farlane Carnival costumes. He's glamorizing a part of our colonial history where racism and socioeconomic disparity were rampant. And carnival now, with its overpriced parties and parades, continues that tradition. The costumes are pretty, but they don't say much. They don't tell a story, or at least one that is superficial. They're there for show. I suppose that's what carnival is all about any way. But basically, with this collection, what I'm seeing is one of the country's supposedly premier carnival artists is culturally appropriating our own culture. We've come full circle.
Or I could be reading too much into it. Jump up and wave, my people.
Two images in particular sparked outrage — the poses of the models were exacerbated by the fact that the costumes were named “La Belle Dame and Garçon de la Maison” (French for “The Beautiful Lady and the House Boy”). University lecturer and political commentator Rhoda Bharath quoted her Facebook friend Dave Cave, who called Mac Farlane's portrayal “the trivialisation of trauma”.
Bharath was incensed. She questioned the Cazabon reference, noting that “the era that Cazabon came into his own is post 1834″, which was the year of emancipation — albeit with conditions — for all slaves in British colonies, including Trinidad and Tobago:
So my questions are thusly:
1. Why the slave narrative in the designs?
2. Why the valorisation of the slave narrative and the nostalgia for an era that abuse, oppressed and disenfranchised African people?
3. Does MakakFarlane [a spoof on the designer's name, Mac Farlane] and his creative collaborators even acknowledge that African descended people contributed heavily to the Mas and the valorisation of enslavement and the colonial era is a backward move?
4. People sat down in a room and thought the concept and the costumes in this the year of our Lord 2016 is a good idea?
5. Did Colfire and Tobago Plantations sponsor this band?
6. Is stirring up a historical controversy the only way Brian can sell costumes now?
7. Is Cazabon: A Way of Living a furniture line at Courts or American Stores?
#MakakFarlane
#MissMeWithTheBullshit
The three official hashtags attached to the band — #KnowYourPlace, #KnowYourPeople, #KnowYourPath — didn't help matters. Although the narrative surrounding some of the hashtags — at least from the perspective of the designers — had to do with “celebration [of] our potential”, “reverence in our spaces” and re-establishing our connections, most social media users did not take well to being told that they should know their place.
As Facebook user Jacqueline Morris explained, it was all about context. She added:
One image, one title, one hashtag. Together, that means something. And it means something bad to a lot of people. We all see these things through our lens of experience. There is NO context of a Carnival presentation that can make these people, descendants of slaves, feel good about that combination shown in that photo.
We not confused. We vex no ass.
Facebook user Angel Stewart countered:
I'm puzzled as to why people are choosing to interpret this as someone telling them to know their rank in society and not to rise above their station, as compared to Know your Trinidad and Tobago, and the heritage and history of your buildings and culture. But to each their own. I guess at the end of the day, that is what art is for.
Taking a similar stance, historian Angelo Bissessarsingh mused:
My personal thoughts on the Mac Mas controversy is that we are a people who simply have never come to grips with our history and have only made the barest attempts at posturing ourselves in creating a veneer of pseudo-comprehension. I see in this production, not a white man denigrating non-whites, but a tribute to the fashion and cultural history as depicted by Cazabon. […]
The costumes which seem to spark the greatest controversy show a muscular black man who is apparently the personal slave of a white woman in a flounce of skirts. Interracial relationships abounded in out 19th century society and were not just a facet of slavery.
He chided:
Here is a golden opportunity to diversify the artistic horizons of mas but instead we griping about white vs black. It shows how truly we are the children of slaves and fit so well into the model of the plantation society […] Get over the chip and enjoy the show people.
But some people simply could not bring themselves to stomach the spectacle. Musician and actor Nickolai Salcedo wondered if the band would have thought it in good taste to portray the holocaust — and if not, why then was slavery fair game?
Adding another dimension to the controversy was a status update by spoken word artist and activist Muhammad Muwakil, in which he tagged several high-profile organisations, some of which use public funds, and suggested that they “were throwing money” behind the concept for the band.
However, Global Voices spoke with Rudylynn Roberts, president of Citizens for Conservation, who confirmed that neither CFC nor The National Trust of Trinidad and Tobago contributed any money to the band. Roberts said:
What we did is support the celebration of our architectural heritage and the artisans who built these buildings. The art of the handmade fretwork, the tooling of the stones that we quarried ourselves, the dedication of the people who toted the river sand for the lime mortar mixes. These are OUR buildings because we built them. OUR craftsmanship, our design influences from ancestral lands. We welcomed the focus on this positive aspect of our built heritage through a different medium. CFC's lobby is preservation of tangible heritage, which includes architecture…and we are always at
pains to point out the contributions of the artists, artisans and labourers, without whom these buildings would not exist.
A costume entitled “Citizens For Conservation” in the “Cazabon” Carnival band. The costume's collar references the handmade fretwork of the time. Photo by Gary Jordan Photography, used with permission.
Naturally, it wasn't long before the memes started. Rhoda Bharath posted an image of shackles, captioning it #Makakfarlane 2017 Monday wear, and a new slant on the house boy image began to make the social media rounds:
Meme of the Mac Farlane costumes that is being widely shared on Facebook.
Satirical website The Late O'Clock News posted this photo:
“Breaking News: Leaked Sketches of Mac Farlane's Carnival King Revealed”.
Mac Farlane, meanwhile, explained the concept of his band as choosing to “strip away frivolity and embrace our valiant, poetic history”. Calling it “a creative call to act” he said that “as a nation we must fight back against neglect, by celebrating our beautifully diverse culture and awakening the spirit of promise across the islands”.
Perhaps in response to the outcry, Mac Farlane has announced that he will be hosting a Facebook Live chat entitled “Heritage Talks: A Panel Discussion”, today at noon — not quite the public discussion that activists had hoped to have with the designer, but it might be a start. The session is expected to attract a large online audience.
And while there were some who wondered whether there would be such hue and cry had the band been presented by a person of colour (Mac Farlane is a white Trinidadian), Muhammad Muwakil made the point that “this cannot be another thing we simply concede to.”
Or, in the words of Mark Lyndersay, who played on the popular phrase “you can't play mas’ and ‘fraid powder”:
If yuh fraid lynching, then doh play slavery.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco