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High Voter Turnout Reframes Trinidad Election Story · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

The release of official voter turnout figures for the recently concluded Local Government Elections in Trinidad is painting a very different picture of the political landscape in the country. Low voter presence at the polls, as early reports claimed, suggested disillusionment with the electoral process and voter apathy. But the reality has turned out to be very different – the total opposite, in fact – the largest voter turnout ever in a Local Government election.
Only a handful of netizens on Facebook seemed to have taken note of the story the new figures tell. Rhoda Bharath reposted a status update from Colm Imbert, a member of the opposition People's National Movement, which won the elections:
Patricia Worrell, on hearing the news of the actual figures, commented:
Okay…not the lowest, the highest!
A minor discrepancy, surely?
Cheups!
Bharath weighed in:
448,000. If I look smug, it's because I'm feeling happy.
The efforts of many paid off.
Still think the electorate was apathetic?
This newspaper report confirmed the highest ever turnout and the CCN TV6 Facebook page (part of the same media conglomerate) also posted the official figures:
Official EBC Local Government Election Results
TOTAL ELECTORATE: 1036731
TOTAL VOTES CAST: 451179
VOTER TURNOUT: 43.52%
Bharath linked to the full Elections and Boundaries report here, then turned her attention to the media sources from which the original reports of low voter turnout came:
Dear Sampson Nanton, the CNC3 panel with Hamid Ghany and Maukesh Basdeo was the first place I heard the alleged stats of 26/7% voter turn out.
Can you indicate what was your station's source for the info?
Dale Enoch on I95.5 is currently blaming the EBC for the shoddy journalism exhibited by his news station.
Apparently is not their fault they didn't check their sources.
That last status update seemingly attracted some criticism, for she retorted:
So criticising a media house for spreading misinformation means you have a grouse against them… The same way criticising this govt automatically makes you a PNM.
Finally, she noted:
Guardian Editor is saying the stats quoted in the Guardian were given by an EBC source.
So does this mean the EBC was releasing unofficial stats before the voting was even done?
Highly irregular.
C News Live's Facebook page gave posted a table of the allocation of aldermen for the various districts, which emphasizes by how wide a margin the PNM actually won the election, securing just about 64% of seats.
The United National Congress, the party which the Prime Minister heads, won 25% and the Congress of the People, part of the governing People's Partnership coalition, just over 1%. Jack Warner's newly formed Independent Liberal Party, at nearly 9%, managed to win a higher percentage than the COP. But the real winner of these elections seems to have been the electorate, which exercised its right to vote and to enforce change – at least on a local and community level.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Journalists Fear Japan’s Proposed Secret Information Protection Act · Global Voices
Keiko Tanaka

The cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe approved a bill [ja] on October 25, 2013 to impose tougher penalties on civil servants, lawmakers and others who leak national secrets and harm national security. The so-called Secret Information Protection Act has been unpopular among Japanese press, human rights advocates, and citizens who fear that the government would conceal radiation information.
Information security law expert Lawrence Repeta examines potential risks of this bill such as right to access information in comparison with the American cases of Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning.
Before the bill was approved, the government accepted comment from the public, and among 90,480 comments submitted in a two-week span in early September, 69,579 were against the bill. The bill awaits the approval of parliament.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Keiko Tanaka


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Singapore Rejects Proposal to Define Poverty Line · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Singapore may be the richest country in the world but the number of poor households living in the prosperous city-state has been rising in recent years. To highlight the extent of poverty in Singapore, the Catholic group Caritas has launched an initiative called ‘Singaporeans Against Poverty’:
Image from ‘Singaporeans Against Poverty’ Facebook page
‘Singaporeans Against Poverty’ is a campaign that aims to raise awareness about poverty in Singapore. It springs from our concern for those in Singapore caught in the cycle of poverty despite our economic success.
The group has uploaded several articles, photos, and videos which reveal the growing gap between the rich and poor in Singapore. Below are two YouTube videos which remind Singaporeans to be more aware and sensitive about the rising poverty in the community:
Bertha Henson summarized the message of the campaign:
Just what sort of message is it? It is to alert people here that there are poor in our midst, who do not complain about the price of cars and homes because they’re wondering about their next meal.
Curiously, a former diplomat has proudly declared in 2001 that poverty has already been eradicated in Singapore. Kishore Mahbubani wrote:
There are no homeless, destitute or starving people in Singapore.  Poverty has been eradicated, not through an entitlements program (there are virtually none) but through a unique partnership between the government, corporate citizens, self-help groups and voluntary initiatives.
But an article by Roy P exposed that homelessness is still a problem in Singapore:
…it’s still hard to imagine how there are people who are homeless and sleeping on the streets even after we’ve attained first-world status, and for all the progress we’ve made over the years. As I mentioned, the irony of prosperity and economic success is that it only widens the divide between the rich and the poor, and the poor become poorer.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Social and Family Development has rejected proposals to define poverty or set a poverty line:
A poverty line does not fully reflect the severity and complexity of the issues faced by poor families, which could include ill health, lack of housing or weak family relationships. If we use a single poverty line to assess the family, we also risk a ‘cliff effect’, where those below the poverty line receive all forms of assistance, while other genuinely needy citizens outside the poverty line are excluded.
But Kirsten Han argued why setting the poverty line is important:
The existence of a poverty line does not mean that all focus should be directed towards those who fall below it. An official poverty line shows that the poverty is an issue acknowledged by the government to exist as part of the structure of society. Once we see that poverty exists as a structural problem, more steps can be taken to address the distribution of resources and opportunities.
Refusing to define poverty doesn't mean that no one is poor; it just means that we don't get the full picture of what work needs to be done.
Blogging for Myself accused the government of advancing a wrong set of values and priorities:
It is not true helping the poor has no returns. It is about being and staying human and giving ourselves a future. Its value cannot be quantified…
This government has its values in the wrong place. They are all invested in economics and engineering but impoverished in anthropology and I haven't even begin to talk about spirituality and investing in our souls.
Nomad insisted that measuring the GDP is incomplete without defining poverty in the country:
Poverty line is a hand in hand assessment along with GDP to gauge how well a govt is running the country, you shouldnt have one without the other.
How does establishing a poverty line statistics deprive other genuine citizens outside the line? Hello? Social services are run by man, not robots. Human can be flexible. You mean you cant help genuine cases because they are above a yardstick estimate and you need to stick to the line?
Belmont Lay bemoaned the ‘poverty of Singapore’s poverty data’:
It may come as a shock to some people when you tell them that there is poverty in Singapore. But you know, and I know, poverty is universal and Singapore is definitely not immune to this problem.
But what’s truly shocking is the poverty of Singapore’s poverty data.
Singapore is a country that is known for defining everything.
But when the time comes to draw the line at who is poor, or rather, poor enough, we falter.

author: Mong Palatino


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VIDEO: “No Woman, No Drive” Stuns Saudi Arabia · Global Voices
Rayna St.

Today, October 26, was the day Saudi activists chose to protest against the driving ban on women in the Kingdom. As social networks were buzzing under increasing number of reports of women driving across the country, a brilliant a capella remake of Bob Marley's “No Woman, No Cry” spread at the speed of light, in a sound support of brave women challenging conservative sexist legislation and pseudo-scientific justification of them being prohibited to enjoy freedom of movement:

author: Rayna St.


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VIDEO: The Human Cost of Development in India · Global Voices
Rezwan

In the latest blow to the people of Jagatsinghapur's fight to keep their homes and livelihoods in the face of development, the South Korean and local Indian governments behind a massive steel plant slated to be built there rejected a UN panel recommendation to halt the land-grabbing project.
The residents of Jagatsinghapur, a town and a municipality area in Jagatsinghpur district in the Indian state of Odisha, have been resisting the POSCO project, a plan to construct a steel plant worth 12 billion US dollars, for eight years. In June 2005, the state government of Odisha and the Korean conglomerate POSCO signed a memorandum of understanding for the project, which would initially need 4,004 acres of land, of which 2,900 acres is forest land and the rest is private land.
But rights over that forest land to be used for the project is claimed by the locals, who have made their living there for decades.
A signboard outside the village of Bailatutha. The bus stand behind it now serves as a make shift police camping spot, keeping an eye on the movements of people in, out and around the proposed area. Image by Ayush Ranka. Copyright Demotix (22/7/2011)
If the project is implemented, over 22,000 people could be forcibly evicted thanks to the acquisition of land, destroying a thriving economy dependent on betel leaf cultivation, cashew plantations, and fisheries.
On 7 October 2013, both the Republic of Korea and the Odisha government stated that work would begin on the proposed plant in 2014, despite the UN Human Rights panel's recommendation that moving ahead with the project would mean the displacement of thousands of people and the disruption of many more livelihoods.
Commenting on the situation, Terra Lawson-Remer, an assistant professor at The New School and Fellow at Council on Foreign Relations, noted on Kracktivism blog that:
the tension between aggregate economic growth and the property rights of vulnerable groups is a longstanding development challenge. Often, growth-enhancing land acquisitions financed by foreign investors forcibly displace the original resource users and ignore their property rights claims, intensifying property insecurity and resource scarcity — even while bringing macroeconomic growth.
An old woman inside the transit camp of POSCO-India. They have suffered
for the last four years in overcrowded, unhygienic living conditions with only Rs.20 (50 cents) per person per day to live on. Image by AYush Ranka. Copyright Demotix (22/6/2011)
Delays have bogged the proposed facility since its inception. A large portion of land have been already acquired by the state, but construction has been delayed by regulatory hurdles and public protests against plans to clear more than 1,600 hectares of mostly forest land.
The project has attracted controversy not only for its impact on the local people and the environment, but also for how police have dealt with protesters against the plant.
There have been numerous protests, and a recent one in March 2013 claimed the lives of four anti-POSCO activists, reported Subhash Gatade at Kafila blog, when bombs thrown at the group exploded. Police allegedly dragged their feet in responding to the violence.
The protesters demands included:
1. Ongoing forcible land acquisition for POSCO plant be immediately stopped.
2. Police force be withdrawn immediately from proposed POSCO plant area.
3. Suspend the District Collector and Superintendent of Police of Jagatsinghpur District immediately.
4. False criminalisation of the protesters be stopped immediately.
With the steel plant project forging ahead, Video Volunteers, an international media and human rights NGO, has released a documentary film highlighting powerful testimonies from the residents stating how their livelihoods will be adversely affected:
The documentary was shot by Video Volunteers’ community correspondents during a fact-finding mission carried out by a number of human rights organizations in November 2012. The mission also resulted in a report (pdf) titled “The Price of Steel”.
From the film's YouTube page:
The film evidence comes at a critical juncture as the affected areas and protest are recovering from the aftermath of cyclone Phailin. The people of the affected area have shared concerns that the destruction of 170,000 trees by POSCO and the Odisha Government made them extremely vulnerable to effects of the cyclone. In previous years the forest cover had mitigated the worst effects of cyclones. [..]
“People in the project-affected area have reportedly been subjected to violence, harassment and intimidation, as well as arbitrary detentions and false charges, as a result of their activities to assemble peacefully and collectively defend their human rights”, said the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of peaceful assembly and association, Maina Kiai.
More UN special rapporteurs have given their opinion, calling for the project to be stopped:
The construction of a massive steel plant and port in Odisha, India, by South Korean steel giant Posco must not proceed as planned without ensuring adequate safeguards and guaranteeing that the rights of the thousands of people are respected.
The transit camp of POSCO, India that has been set-up for the few villagers who are so-called “Pro-POSCO”. Image by Ayush Ranka . Copyright Demotix (22/7/2011)
Chai Kadai blog reported that some of the videos were filmed by Debendra Swain, an IndiaUnheard community correspondent who is also an anti-POSCO activist:
He was arrested on 3rd February 2013 by the police on false charges, taken to Kujang prison where he stayed for 26 days and released on bail on 01 March 2013.
For its part, POSCO India has strongly denied having any role in the abuse of human rights:
Posco has always urged the government of Odisha to first safeguard the human rights and livelihood of innocent villagers and rejects/deplores any unlawful violence against them.
More information can be found on the Stop POSCO campaign and Video Volunteers website.

author: Rezwan


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Council of Europe Condemns Deterioration of Human Rights in Spain  · Global Voices
Lourdes Sada

Council of Europe (CoE) commissioner Nils Muiznieks visited Spain in July in order to gather information on the state of human rights in the country. On October 9th, the CoE published the report written following this visit, in which the commissioner condemns the serious deterioration of human rights as a result of austerity measures. The report also denounces the recent actions of the riot police:
Queue outside a soup kitchen. Photo from the blog «Verdad y justicia, por Dios» [Truth and Justice, for God's sake]
Los niños se ven afectados en forma desproporcionada por los recortes en los presupuestos para ayudas sociales, sanidad y educación, y por la reducción de las prestaciones familiares, que han provocado que algunos niños sufran pobreza y problemas nutricionales.
(…)
El comisario también se muestra preocupado por el hecho de que la crisis económica haya tenido un impacto negativo en los programas y políticas dirigidos a promover la inclusión de personas con discapacidad.
(…)
El comisario también se muestra preocupado por los informes sobre el uso desproporcionado de la fuerza  –incluyendo el uso de balas de goma– por las fuerzas de seguridad durante las manifestaciones contra la austeridad (…) La frecuente falta de identificación de los agentes, sobre todo en las manifestaciones, ha impedido la imputación y castigo de los autores de abusos. (…) El Comisario urge al gobierno español a acabar con esa arraigada práctica, basada en una ley de 1870, de conceder indultos a miembros de las fuerzas de seguridad condenados por severas violaciones de los derechos humanos, incluida la tortura.
Children are disproportionately affected by cuts in the budgets for social assistance, health and education, and by the reduction in family benefits, which have caused some children to suffer poverty and nutritional problems.
(…)
The commissioner also states his concern regarding the fact that the economic crisis has had a negative impact on programmes and policies aimed at promoting the inclusion of disabled persons.
(…)
The commissioner also states his concern over reports of the disproportionate use of force  – including the use of rubber bullets- by the security forces during anti-austerity protests (…) The frequent failure by agents to wear identification, above all at protests, has impeded the accusation and punishment of those who commit abuse. (…) The commissioner urges the Spanish government to put an end to the long-established practice, based on a law from 1870, to pardon members of the security forces who are convicted of serious human rights violations, including torture.
The Council of Europe is an organisation which includes 47 European countries and whose mission is to protect citizens’ rights. The CoE does not depend upon the European Union, despite the fact that all EU states are members of the Council of Europe (although they are not its only members). Its best-known institution is the European Court of Human Rights whose headquarters is located in Strasbourg.
The report highlights the decline in universal healthcare which inhabitants of the country enjoyed until 2012. According to eldiario.es [es]:
… el departamento que dirige Ana Mato ha eliminado a los inmigrantes en situación irregular del acceso a la sanidad pública. (…) «Los recortes masivos en personal médico, en la financiación de los centros de salud públicos y otros servicios de atención primaria, el cierre de los servicios de urgencias y el copago de las medicinas».
The ministry led by Ana Mato has excluded immigrants with irregular status from accessing public healthcare. (…) “Huge cuts in medical personnel, in funding for public health centres and other primary health services, the closure of accident and emergency departments and copayment for medicines”.
Público [es] compiles comments on education made in the report:
Muiznieks advierte de que “los importantes recortes de los últimos tres años en materia educativa están poniendo en peligro la igualdad de oportunidades y hacen que los niños que están pasando dificultades tengan más difícil el acceso a una educación de calidad”. Por último, critica la eliminación de Educación para la Ciudadanía y reclama la reintroducción de materias sobre derechos humanos
Muiznieks warns that “significant cuts in education during the last three years are endangering equality of opportunity and mean that children who are in difficulty have less access to a quality education.” Finally, he criticises the withdrawal of Education for Citizenship [in schools] and calls for the reintroduction of subjects dealing with human rights.
The report also highlights the problem of forced evictions, as euroxpress [es] explains:
El comisario ha pedido al gobierno que antes de un desahucio que afecte a menores, «se cercioren de que hay un alojamiento alternativo, adecuado y asequible, y que éste se proporcione en casos de desahucios de familias con hijos, independientemente de su edad».
The commissioner has asked the government that prior to an eviction affecting minors, “it should be checked that there is alternative, adequate and affordable accommodation, and that this should be provided in the case of families with children, regardless of their age.”
With reference to the brutality of riot police units at protests in recent years, Público [es] explains:
Riot police detain a young woman injured at a protest. Photo from the blog «El aullido» [The Howl]
La situación que se vive en las calles, así como en comisarías, prisiones y Centros de Internamiento para Extranjeros (CIEs), que ha recogido el Comisionado ha sorprendido a los enviados europeos. “La investigación indica un excesivo uso de la fuerza por parte de las agentes de seguridad en las manifestaciones contra la austeridad de 2011 y 2012, que sacaron a la luz violaciones de los derechos humanos que se cometían desde hace años”
The situation on the streets, as well as in police stations, prisons and Detention Centres for Foreigners (CIEs), which the commission has observed surprised the European envoys. “The investigation indicates an excessive use of force by security agents at anti-austerity protests in 2011 and 2012, which brought to light human rights violations which had been taking place for years”
This report has been widely discussed on social networks and other media. Jartito [es] criticises the ruling party in El País [es]:
Ya sabe el PP muy, pero que muy bien, a quienes perjudica y a quienes beneficia todo lo que está haciendo y en el caso de la represión policial, la necesita para poder perpetrar sus políticas contra el pueblo.
The PP already knows, and very well too, who their actions harm and who they benefit, and in the case of police repression, the party needs it to be able to perpetrate its policies against the people.
Esparbe [es] provides a reminder of other international organisations which have also recently condemned the Spanish government's actions in Huffington Post [es]:
¡Zas!, en toda la jeta, el Comisario de Derechos Humanos del Consejo de Europa, la ONU, la UNESCO, sociedades internacionales de todo tipo poniendo en evidencia las actuaciones de un gobierno fascistoide, y que, tienen tan gran jeta y lo suficientemente dura para aguantar eso y mucho mas sin despeinarse, y el domingo a misa mayor.
In your face! The Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN, UNESCO, international organisations of all kinds bringing the actions of a fascistic government into the spotlight, and they have such a cheek that they withstand all that and more without even ruffling their feathers, and off they go to high mass on Sundays.
On the same site, Pilar1234 displays a more pessimistic outlook:
Buen informe. Lástima que Mariano sólo lo vaya a usar para limpiarse el c*** con él.
Great report. Shame that Mariano's only going to use it to wipe his a*** with.
Evolution of the rate of poverty in Spain (2004-2011). Image from eldiario.es, under licence CC-BY-SA.
Luisa Sánchez [es] writes the following on the blog Impresiones de una periodista en paro [Impressions of an unemployed journalist] [es]:
(…) el actual Ejecutivo no parece estar preocupado por los dramas que está causando, preocupado tan solo en garantizar la prosperidad de la oligarquía del dinero que ha aumentado en un 13% en el último ejercicio, según un informe del banco Credit Suisse, que calcula que son 402.000 españoles los tienen un patrimonio valorado en más de 740.000 euros. Contrasta esa cifra con el ingente número de familias que no cuentan con ningún tipo de prestación, o si tienen el privilegio de recibirlas han sido reducidas a la ridícula cantidad de 291 euros, como señala, escandalizado, el Comisario Europeo de Derechos Humanos.
(…) the current Executive doesn't appear to be concerned by the dramas which it is causing, worrying only about guaranteeing the prosperity of the oligarchy of money which increased by 13% in the last financial year, according to a report by the bank Credit Suisse, which calculates that 402,000 Spaniards have assets worth more than 740,000 euros. Contrast this figure with the huge number of families who do not receive any kind of assistance, or if they are lucky enough to do so, they have been reduced to the ridiculous amount of 291 euros, as the European Commissioner for Human Rights points out, scandalised.
This scolding of Mariano Rajoy's government comes on top of others it has received in recent weeks from the United Nations, which published a report criticising the way in which the Spanish government is hindering the investigation of the crimes of the Franco era , and from the OSCE, which has included Spain in its blacklist of countries lacking freedom [es] after the Spanish authorities refused to allow its envoys to monitor the anti-monarchy demonstration held on September 28th.

author: Lourdes Sada


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Hungarian Student Bloggers Win Lawsuit Against University · Global Voices
Atlatszo.hu

Bloggers of Átlátszó Oktatás (Transparent Education) sued the largest Hungarian university ELTE's Law Faculty in winter 2012, in order to obtain documents on how state scholarships and bonus payments were distributed by the members of the faculty's student union. Because the university is entirely state-funded, the students demanded through a freedom of information request that the student union make its spending transparent.
The student union didn't reply to the request and the university rejected it. In response to this and with the help of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, the student bloggers filed a lawsuit. In October 2013, a court of first instance in Hungary ruled in favor of the student bloggers.
There have never been before any freedom of information case against any student union in Hungary. [They] spend a considerable amount of public money every year, for example the student unions of the faculties of ELTE dispose of around 680 000 euro in a year, and this amount is millions of euros countrywide.


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The Codefather · Global Voices
Georgia Popplewell

Barbadian Alan Emtage, inventor of the world's first Internet search engine. Photo by Michael Rhodes. Used with permission.
“I wrote a piece of code that gave birth to a multi-billion dollar industry. I didn’t make any money off of it, but I wouldn’t change anything.”
Uttered by a man with a Barbadian lilt, those were the opening lines of the Huffington Post video released last April that introduced many in the Caribbean to Alan Emtage, the 48 year-old computer scientist who did indeed write the piece of code that gave birth to a multi-billion dollar industry called Internet search.
Whenever we use a search engine such as Google, we’re referencing the work of Emtage, who, in spite of only recently being discovered by his home region, is a bona fide tech pioneer. His invention, in 1990, of Archie, the world’s first search engine, figures in any respectable account of the history of the Internet.
Born in Barbados in 1964, Emtage was raised in an extended family that instilled in him a strong curiosity and “capacity for discovering stuff”. Especially influential were his mother’s aunts. Aunt Constance Inniss, a science teacher and headmistress of St. Gabriel’s School, encouraged him to listen to the BBC’s science programs and took him fishing on the sea wall near the family home at Carlisle Bay, where they’d discuss what they saw and caught. Emtage remembers her once waking him at 3am to see a comet.
At Harrison College, one of Barbados’ elite secondary schools, Emtage found himself in another positive learning environment. He followed the science track, pursuing Maths, Physics and Chemistry at ‘A’ Levels, and was attracted to computers fairly early on, acquiring a Sinclair ZX81 with a whopping 1K of memory during a visit to the UK in 1981. But computers weren’t an automatic first choice as a profession. At McGill University in Montreal, where Emtage went in 1983 after winning a Barbados Scholarship, several career options presented themselves. He considered majoring in Meteorology, and after coming near the top of the class in an introductory course in Geology he was personally wooed by that department’s chairman.
Emtage admits he chose computer science by a process of elimination. Uninspired by the prospect of “spending my time up in the Tundra poking around for diamonds”, or languishing in “a radar station in St. James” as a meteorologist in the Barbados, he also felt that computer science was a career with legs. “In 1983 we were at the bottom of a fairly bad recession and computers were one of the things that looked promising, at least from an employment point of view,” he says.
After completing his undergraduate degree in 1987, Emtage entered McGill’s Master’s program. As a postgraduate student and sysadmin (systems administrator) in the university’s IT department, he enjoyed a privileged position, with access to the latest in computer technology and a unique vantage point on the nascent phenomenon called the Internet, not to mention membership in a community of expert programmers. The mid-1980s to early 1990s were an exciting time to be a computer science major at a North American university, particularly a prestigious one like McGill. The university had the first Internet connection in eastern Canada and the second in the country. Microcomputer prices were dropping and companies like Sun Microsystems and Steve Jobs’ NeXT Computer were targeting the higher education market; NeXT made what was then its largest ever sale when McGill purchased 50 of their machines.
Still, computers back then were a far cry from what they are today. Computing tasks were carried out by a central mainframe computer, a massive machine usually housed in a general-purpose computing facility. You submitted your task to the mainframe, where it sat in a queue awaiting its turn to be processed. Computer scientists like Emtage spent hours waiting for printers to crank out their jobs on massive sheets of dot-matrix paper.
This was the context in which Emtage wrote the code that would become Archie, the world’s first search engine. His job as sysadmin involved finding software for students and faculty, which meant manually searching computer archives on public servers, a tedious process if there ever was one. Emtage wrote Archie to automate the process and make his own life easier: “Rather than spending my time logging on to FTP sites and trying to figure out what was on them, I wrote some computer scripts that would do the same thing, and much faster too.”
That, in a nutshell, is what’s happening behind the scenes each time we do a Google search, but when Emtage developed Archie in 1989 it must have seemed like magic. Word about the tool spread rapidly thanks to Emtage’s colleague Peter Deutsch, head of McGill’s IT department, who suggested they make the tool public and allow external users to log in for themselves. Archie went viral across Canada, then the world. “There was a lot of pent-up demand,” Emtage says. “Everybody was like ‘Oh my God—of course! Why didn’t we think of this?’”
Others had in fact come up with similar ideas, as is often the case with scientific discoveries. “I had several people, very soon after the fact, tell me that they were doing similar things for themselves but that they had never taken the path to making it public,” says Emtage. “I just happened to get there first and, as there was no commercial competition at the time, there was no incentive for them to replicate it.”
In 1990, Emtage and Peter Deutsch formed Bunyip, a company designed to market a more robust commercial version of Archie—also the first Internet startup in history, in that it was the first company designed expressly to sell an Internet-related service.
As Deutsch had a family, it fell to Emtage to do the work of promoting Bunyip and Archie. “I had an amazing experience travelling around the world to conferences and meetings, meeting all of the people who created the Internet,” he says. As a founding member of the Internet Society and member of the Internet Engineering Task Force, Emtage worked alongside figures such as Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf and Jon Postel.
But the revolution ended up passing Bunyip by. Montreal had a few tech companies, but lacked Silicon Valley’s nurturing ecosystem and community. Emtage and his partners held differing views regarding outside investment in the company (he was in favour). In 1996, a burned-out Emtage left on a three-month backpacking trip around the South Pacific; on returning to Montreal in late 1996, he resigned. A stint working for a Bunyip client lasted a year, after which he joined Mediapolis, the New York web design firm that has been his home for the last 15 years.
Alan Emtage skydiving in Brazil. “Computers are my profession. But they are not my hobby.” Photo courtesy Alan Emtage.
About the alleged missed opportunity to have cashed in with Archie and achieved near-bottomless wealth and fame, Emtage is both modest and philosophical. “Sure, I’d love to have been a billionaire,” he says. “But you don’t get to twist one knob of the time machine and make one thing change: twisting that knob changes everything else. It is not necessarily clear to me that I could have become a billionaire. If I had patented those technologies, perhaps. It is also possible that I would not have been visionary enough to word the patents broadly enough. The first past the post do not necessarily become the most successful. Google was by far not the first search engine, or even the first web search engine. They just did search so much better than their predecessors that they were able to create a multi-billion dollar industry out of it.”
It’s also possible that the quality-of-life trade-offs involved in becoming a billionaire would not have suited Emtage’s temperament. Contrary to the geek stereotype, computers aren’t his life, or even his hobby, as he’s quoted as saying on the “Greatest McGillians” web site. After the dotcom crash of 2000-2001 and the events of 9/11, Emtage and his three partners at Mediapolis took the decidedly un-billionaire-like decision to scale the company down from 17 employees to just the four of them.
The arrangement has given Emtage the freedom to pursue his passions—travel and photography—and spend time at his cottage in idyllic Provincetown, Massachusetts. Also to take a keen interest in certain aspects of technology and US politics. “Off the top of my head I can think of myself as being a minority in four or five different ways,” he says. “And the Internet is my baby, in sense that it’s only five years younger than me. So I have a great interest in intellectual property law, which I think it fundamentally broken, and civil liberties.”
But being part of a four-man outfit also means that there’s “nobody to bump it up to,” Emtage says. “It’s weird for some people that as far along as I am in my career, or in age, I’m still coding and I’m still talking with clients. But I don’t want any of the other stuff. I don’t want to deal with the corporate bullshit and office politics. These are three people that I know very well and I’ve worked with for many years. I know plenty of people who are miserable in their lives—I just try not to be one of them.”
Georgia Popplewell (@georgiap) (is a writer and media producer from Trinidad and Tobago, and Managing Director of Global Voices. A version of this article originally appeared in Caribbean Beat Magazine.

author: Georgia Popplewell


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Iranian Student Leader Majid Tavakoli Is Out on Bail · Global Voices
Farid

Majid Tavakoli hugging his mother after being released from jail has circulated on Iranian social media.
Majid Tavakoli, a prominent Iranian student leader was released on bail on Monday for the first time in four years. Family members say Majid may go back to jail in few days.
Tavakoli's arrest on December 2009, after criticizing the Iranian government while at Amir Kabir university, created a strong online protest campaign to counterattack the regime's attempt to humiliate him by claiming he had fled from authorities dressed as a woman after delivering a Student Day speech.
Hundreds of Iranian men dressed as women in their Facebook profiles to support Tavakoli and express their solidarity with women.
Social pressure for release?
Blogger Kermeki talks about what kind of pressure may have had an impact on Tavakoli's temporary release. Advancing Human Rights executive director David Keyes, publicly asked the Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, when Majid Tavakoli would be freed and he replied that he had never heard of him. Kermeki believe that this, along with social media campaigns, played a role in his release. Zarif has a presence on Facebook (which is banned in Iran) and internet users have also been raising awareness about Tavakoli there.
Celebrating Resistance
A video shared on YouTube, shows students at Amir Kabri University immediately celebrating his release at a rally with songs and banners:
Blogger Harf Rishe says [fa]:
Majid Tavakoli means that the Green Movement is alive.
Majid Tavakoli means that four years passed, for one person in the presidential palace [meaning former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]
(…)
Majid Tavakoli means that the Green Movement is not a political party that needs Khamenei‘s permission to exist.
The blogger adds that if we truly believe in it, we can be the heart of Green Movement too. Leaders of the Green Movement are still under house arrest following massive protests after the controversial 2009 presidential election.

author: Farid


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Legendary Indian Playback Singer Manna Dey Dies · Global Voices
Rezwan

Legendary Indian singer Manna Dey, whose original name was Prabodh Chandra Dey, died of a heart attack in Bangalore on October 24, 2013. He was 94. Dey recorded more than 4,000 songs during his career spanning from 1942 to 2013, and was famous for his playback work, recording songs for hundreds of movies for actors to lip sync to.
He sang mainly in Hindi and Bengali, and ventured into several other Indian languages. The singer was popular in both India and Bangladesh.
Netizens revisited his memory after his demise.
Venkataramanan Ramasethu, an academician and blogger, remembered him:
A legendary icon and a musical genius on his own right who ruled the bollywood musical arena close to 40 years, at times I felt he was an unsung hero.
Akash Upadhyay posted 10 lesser-known facts about the legendary singer.
Radio jockey, author and blogger Reema Moudgil noted:
So many songs. So many versions of one, exceptional voice.
India Today (@IndiaToday) portrayed Manna Dey's career in numbers:
RIP, Manna Dey! A musical career in numbers pic.twitter.com/bJfqv8I0Hb
— India Today (@IndiaToday) October 24, 2013
Writer and blogger Madhulika Liddle in a tribute post for Manna Dey wrote:
That is what I love and admire about Manna Dey: his versatility, his immense range of songs, his ability to imbue his songs with so much emotion—whether that emotion was a deep love for one’s motherland, or pathos, or a rollicking don’t-give-a-damn. This was the man after one of whose songs a restaurant chain (Bhojohorimanna) was named.
An era has gone. Manna Dey, the last of the great male playback singers of the golden years, has passed on. His voice will live on, though, and that will be some consolation. Some.
Manna Dey received the Padma Bhushan, India's third-highest civilian honour, in 2005. Image by D Chakrabarty. Copyright Demotix (24/10/2013)
Journalist Abhinay Dey recounted a legendary song of Manna Dey that was popular among Bengalis which narrates the story of seven friends who met regularly at the legendary Coffee House at College Street Kolkata. The Coffee House has a historical significance for being the rendezvous of numerous scholars, editors, artists and writers based in Kolkata:
The song penned by Gauriprasanna Majumdar recounts the Coffee House days of seven friends, who sat over endless cups and cheap charminar cigarettes burning between their lips with dreams to make it big.
But life has taken a toll on them, DSouza is now dead, Amal is dying of cancer, Rama is in an insane asylum betrayed by his lover, Sujata is married to a rich man, Nikhilesh is in Paris and Moidul has gone back to Dhaka. The seventh friend is the unnamed narrator pining for the old carefree days of Coffee House.
There is not a time when I don’t get a lump in my throat listening to this song. The pain in his voice makes you die with DSouza, the guitarist of Grand Hotel, it makes you suffer as Amal, the failed poet, it makes you stare at nothingness like the insane Rama, the love less, failed actor.
He was also popular in Bangladesh. Blogger Professor Hijibijbij at Sachalayatan wrote:
আমার কৈশোর আর তারুণ্যের উদ্দাম দিনগুলিতে অবিচ্ছেদ্য সঙ্গী ছিল মান্না দের গান। সঙ্গী এখনো। কৈশোরের সেই দিনগুলি ছিল অসাধারণ – সারাদিন গান শুনতাম। দিন যেত, আর আমি একের পর এক আবিষ্কার করতাম মান্না দের গাওয়া এক একটি গান। গান তো নয় যেন সুরের জাল দিয়ে গেঁথে তোলা শব্দের মালা, যা অবলীলায় প্রকাশ করে আমার মনের একান্ত অনুভূতিগুলো! বাসার পুরানো ক্যাসেট প্লেয়ারে আমি শুনি মান্না দের গান। একবার শুনি, বারবার শুনি, কিন্তু গান পুরানো হয়না।
Manna Dey's songs were close to me during my adolescent days. They still accompany me. I listened to his songs everyday back then. As the day progressed I discovered more of his songs. Songs like necklaces of words sewn with music, which expressed my intimate feelings. I still listen to his songs in an old cassette player. I listen to them over and over, but they do not grow old.
Bangladeshi Blogger Zuberino (@zuberino) tweeted:
The best tribute to #MannaDey is to listen to his immortal music http://t.co/vWv9zzI5lT
— zuberino (@zuberino) October 25, 2013
Indian writer and blogger Harini Calamur (@calamur) reported:
Fans pay tribute to Manna Dey on Twitter; crowdsourced playlist of his songs trending on the hashtag #MannaDey http://t.co/f3TgtvEBEc
— Harini Calamur (@calamur) October 24, 2013
Anuradha Warrier, writer and blogger, listed a number of legendary songs of Manna Dey as a tribute.
Bollywood Actor and anchor Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) remembered him:
T 1200 -Busy day .. not without remembering Manna Dey with minute silence on set..voice gone..winds of sonorous lilting words left behind !
— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) October 24, 2013


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Mapping Recent Reports Of Dengue Fever In India · Global Voices
Rezwan

Vidyut at Aam Janata blog has created a map of the Dengue outbreak in India from various reports published in print media in the last couple of months.


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Massive Saudi Police Presence on the Day for Women Driving · Global Voices
Anas Soliman

Traffic police checkpoints were set up on roads in all major cities to ensure that all drivers are male on October 26, the day chosen for defying the government ban on women driving. Since the campaign was launched, the Saudi Interior Ministry hasn't been clear on its position. For a long time, ‘society’ was to blame for banning women driving, but after multiple campaigns demanding lifting the governmental ban, this doesn't seem to be the case.
On October 25, an official from the Interior Ministry phoned women activists to warn them from participating in the campaign. al-Hayat newspaper reported [ar]:
أكد المتحدث الرسمي لوزارة الداخلية اللواء منصور التركي لـ«الحياة» أنه وفقاً لما سبق الإعلان عنه في شأن ما يثار حول قيادة المرأة السيارة واستناداً إلى نتائج المتابعة الأمنية، أجرت الجهات الأمنية المختصة اتصالات بمن ظهرت منهن بوادر تحريض أو مشاركة في شأن المبادرة – التي حددت غداً السبت موعداً لانطلاقها – لافتاً إلى أنه تم اشعارهن بأنه لا تهاون في تطبيق النظام متى ما ارتكبت المخالفات.
The Official Spokesperson of the Interior Ministry has confirmed to al-Hayat that, following the previous announcement regarding the call for women driving and as a result of security investigations, the security authorities have called those who were engaged in incitement for Saturday's initiative. He stated that they were notified that the regulations will be enforced whenever a violation occurs.
Some women have even reported police surveillance, like activist Aziza al-Yousef:
#قيادة_26اكتوبر منذ الصباح وسيارتين تمشي خلفي في كل مكان حتي الله يجزاهم خير صلوا على ميت في مسجد خالد
— عزيزة محمد اليوسف (@azizayousef) October 26, 2013
Since the early morning, two cars have been following me everywhere. They even attended a funeral at [King] Khalid Mosque.
Furthermore, harsher-than-usual punishments were imposed on those who were caught driving:
حجز السيارة اسبوع ومخالفة ٩٠٠ ريال وتعهد بعدم القيادة هو عقاب لسيدة تقود ياترى اذا قاد صبي اقصر من المقود كم عقوبته:) #قيادة_26اكتوبر
— Naseema AL ssadah (@nasema33) October 27, 2013
Confiscating the car for a week, a 900-Saudi-riyal (USD 240) fine and a written pledge [not to drive] are the punishments of ladies who drive. I wonder if a young, short boy drives what will be the punishment. :)
Despite this, activist Hala al-Dosari reported:
@Falesta 50 امرأة قادت و 18 امرأة تم توفيفها
— هالة الدوسري (@Hala_Aldosari) October 26, 2013
50 women drove and 18 women were stopped.
May al-Suwan recorded a video of her experience driving on October 26 that received over 130,000 hits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN0vnhPX2hc
The Saudi governmental newspaper al-Riyadh had on its first page the following:
«26 أكتوبر» مر بهدوء.. وحملات التحريض باءت بالفشل
October 26 passed quietly. Incitement campaigns failed.
Saudi Twitter user Mishari al-Ghamdi commented on the coverage of governmental newspapers:
الصحافة التي شوهت اليوم حملة #قيادة_26أكتوبر و نزعت الوطنية ممن قادت سيارتها.. هي التي يسميها إخواننا المتشددون صحافة ليبرالية تابعة للغرب
— Mishari AlGhamdi (@mishari11) October 27, 2013
The newspapers that attacked the campaign today are the same ones that our extremist brothers call liberal and Western-oriented.
Historian Abulaziz al-Kheder commented on the effects of the campaign by tweeting:
أكثر من تأثرت سمعته في هذه الحملة .. الموقف الرسمي #قيادة_26اكتوبر
— عبدالعزيز الخضر (@AAlkhedr) October 26, 2013
The most be affected by this campaign is…the official position.
Saudi women plan to continue to push for their right to drive.

author: Anas Soliman


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Venezuela Creates a ‘Vice Ministry of Supreme Happiness’ · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Children at Jesús María Olaso school in Caracas, Venezuela. Photo courtesy of Marino González on Flickr, under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced [es] the creation of a Vice Ministry for the Supreme Social Happiness of the Venezuelan People. The Vice Ministry's objective is to coordinate the more than 30 social missions that have been created in Venezuela since the late ex-president Hugo Chávez took power. Maduro also explained [es] that he named it “in honour of our commander Chávez and of [Simón] Bolívar.”
Venezuela's Social Missions are “massive strategies oriented to guarantee fundamental rights to the population, with emphasis on the traditionally most excluded social and economic sectors”, as explained on the website of PDVSA (Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., or Petroleum of Venezuela in English), an institution which supports many of these missions financially.
A few days ago José Luis Tapia Sandoval, on the blog Práctica Democrática (Democratic Practice) analysed [es] Venezuela's Social State and Social Missions. According to Tapia, “the missions, at least at the planning level, move along a path of complementarity, and are guided by the principle of equity, seeking to address inequalities at their very core”:
Por lo que se ha discutido e investigado hasta el momento de las misiones sociales, por sus metodologías de abordaje, por la forma del financiamiento, y por la edificación de estructuras institucionales paralelas, pareciera que no es objetivo de las misiones resolver los problemas sociales del país en forma estructural, sino avocarse a las desigualdes más acuciantes de la población durante el tiempo que así lo exija, mientras se ejerce un esfuerzo simultáneo de mejoras en la cobertura y la calidad de las prestaciones sociales desde otras instancias del Estado y desde las políticas tradicionales.
From what has been discussed and researched so far about the social missions, from their methodological approach, from the way they are financed, and from the building of parallel institutional structures, it would seem that the missions’ objectives do not include resolving the country's social problems in a structural manner, but rather to focus on the population's most pressing inequalities during the required time frame, while a simultaneous effort is carried out to improve the coverage and quality of social services from other State agencies and from traditional policies.
On Twitter the reaction to this measure was a mixture of scepticism, mockery and sarcasm:
Viceministerio para la suprema felicidad de la bla bla bla bla bla (a.k.a Burocracia parasitaria)
— Emilia Lobo (@emilialoboq) October 24, 2013
Vice Ministry for the supreme happiness of the blah blah blah blah blah (a.k.a. Parasite bureaucracy)
Crean un viceministerio para la suprema felicidad social… así de difícil es ser feliz en este país, que crean un organismo para eso
— Angie Contreras (@angie_contreras) October 24, 2013
They create a vice ministry for supreme social happiness… it's so difficult to be happy in this country, that they create an organisation for it
Un país donde la Guardia Nacional resguarda la venta de pollo, y se crea un “Viceministerio para la Suprema Felicidad Social del Pueblo”.
— Guillermo Amador (@modulor) October 24, 2013
A country where the National Guard protects the sale of chicken, and a “Vice Ministry for the Supreme Social Happiness of the People” is created.
Pare de sufrir, que ahora tenemos un Viceministerio Para La Suprema Felicidad Social… A la medida de la Izquierda Disney, pues
— Sandra Caula (@scaula) October 24, 2013
Stop suffering, because now we have a Vice Ministry for Supreme Social Happiness…Disney style left-wing politics
“Alo? Viceministerio de la suprema felicidad? Estoy muy triste porque todos los dias los precios suben y matan a mas venezolanos cada dia”.
— Marco (@MarcoCFC) October 24, 2013
“Hello? Vice Ministry of supreme happiness? I'm very sad because every day prices go up and more Venezuelans are killed each day”.
Imagino que la sede del Viceministerio de la Suprema Felicidad quedara en otro pais. #aquipensando
— enriqueta sanz (@arqsanz) October 24, 2013
I imagine that the office of the Vice Ministry for Supreme Happiness will be in another country.
On the other hand, comparisons with George Orwell's book Nineteen Eighty-Four were inevitable:
Maduro crea el Viceministerio de la Suprema Felicidad del Pueblo (nombre como sacado de un libro de Orwell). Como no se nos ocurrió antes!? — LuisFelipe SanMartín (@sanmartinLF) October 24, 2013
Maduro creates the Vice Ministry of Supreme Happiness of the People (a name that sounds straight out of an Orwell book). How did we not think of this before!?
En neolenguaje de régimen totalitario vzlno creado Minfel (ministerio de la felicidad). Próximos: Minver (de la verdad); Minamor (del amor)
— Johnny Romero G. (@jorogom) October 25, 2013
In the newspeak of Venezuela's totalitarian regime Minihap (ministry of happiness) has been created. Next: Minitrue (of truth); Miniluv (of love)
El órgano estatal que regulará la escasez y la pelazón en Venezuela se llamará “VICEMINISTERIO DE LA SUPREMA FELICIDAD” .. Orwell lo predijo
— Arimeu Qojole (@ChapulinND) October 25, 2013
The state agency that will regulate scarcity and poverty in Venezuela will be called “VICE MINISTRY OF SUPREME HAPPINESS” .. Orwell predicted it
In addition, President Maduro announced [es] the names of the people who will now be responsible for the Social Missions, and nominated former congressman Rafael Ríos as Vice Minister.

author: Juan Arellano


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An Overview of Volgograd Bombing Anglophone Blogging · Global Voices
Molly Zuckerman

Suspicious passport photos of the bomber leaked to the media, 21 October 2013, YouTube screenshot.
Misinformation disseminated online about the Volgograd bus bombing (which left at least six people dead and 33 people wounded on October 21, 2013) has raised the suspicions of Russia bloggers both Russophone and Anglophone. Global Voices has already reported on RuNet reactions here, and this post addresses the observations and historical explanations offered by Anglophone Russia bloggers.
Sean Guillory of Sean’s Russia Blog calls attention to the way that the Russian media initially portrayed the female suicide bomber, identified as 30-year-old Naida Asiyalova from the North Caucuses, paying special notice to reporters’ choice to circulate a photo of her passport that many viewers found extremely odd:
Why did Asiyalova have her passport on her if she was going to carry out a terrorist attack? And more importantly, if the passport was found at the blast site, then why was it undamaged? And what’s up with a picture of her in a hajib!? […]
Guillory posts photos of two different passports, one where Asiyalova is wearing a hijab, and another where she isn't. The latter passport is ragged and damaged, as if it had been through an explosion. Guillory continues:
So why the initial fake passport? True, the Russian media is under the same pressures media from other countries. They have to get information out fast, and the fastest juiciest news the better. However, Life News is an animal on its own. It’s known for its half-truths, police connections and general subterfuge. It’s well known that the siloviki use Life News to generate black PR to smear oppositionists. Clearly they–Life News and/or the police wanted to get “proof” of Asiyalova’s identity out there. But why? I’m sure there’s a much more surly back story to all this. But on the surface in releasing this counterfeit passport, Life News, the cops, or whoever once again undermined what the Russian police have little of: public trust. Could’ve that been the point?
Craig Pirrong of Streetwise Professor analyzes the history of tension in the Dagestani and Chechen regions, picking apart Putin’s recent remarks that terrorism in Russia can be traced back to foreigners:
The most important point: Russia pours all the fuel on the fire that’s needed, and has been doing so for hundreds of years, especially since the early-19th century […] This speech by Putin provides a perfect illustration of how he is a prisoner of the Russian past. And the Russian past and present and sadly future in the Caucasus provide a perfect illustration of Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and over again, and expecting a different result.
Mark Chapman of The Kremlin Stooge offers a longer explanation of Putin’s relations with Chechnya and the Caucasus, entertaining alternative explanations for rising ethnic tensions in Russia:
There is little employment in the Caucasus, and jobs in Moscow pay about 40% better than in the regions according to some sources. Moscow’s infrastructure is already groaning under the load it has to bear, as a global movement of populations to cities causes a demand on Moscow services the city planners never envisioned. Some Russians see their lifestyle and standard of living attenuated by the presence of droves of migrants, many of them illegals. […] Although it probably won’t sit well with the Russian public, the fact is that Russia needs to keep feeding Chechnya money as a way of keeping the republic on side and away from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other oil sheikhdoms flush with money and influence – at least in the short to medium term. Some financial corruption might be a small price to pay for Chechen stability and Kadyrov’s [head of the Chechen Republic] loyalty: how much corruption Russia is prepared to tolerate is for the Kremlin to decide.
A comment from user Alexander Mercouris ties the Chapman's analysis of ethnic tensions in Chechnya to those in Dagestan, the birthplace of the Volgograd bomber:
Difficult though the economic and security situation in Chechnya is, it actually appears to be better than in that of some of the other north Caucasian republics such as Ingushetia and Dagestan […] Many of the most recent terrorist acts such as the latest one in Volgograd appear to involve people from republics other than Chechnya (in particular from Dagestan). The great bulk of terrorist activity seems to happen within the republics themselves rather than in metropolitan and central Russia.
User yalensis even goes so far as to make the claim that the Volgograd bombing could herald future bombings, writing that “Volgograd might have been a dry-run for a planned terrorist attack in Sochi.”

author: Molly Zuckerman


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International Organizations Call for a Swift Adoption of Marco Civil in Brazil · Global Voices
Sara Moreira

‘Internet Needs an Uncompromising “Marco Civil” in Brazil!‘, state international organizations that advocate for free speech and freedoms online in an open letter released on October 28, 2013 (on the eve of the vote on Brazil's ‘bill of rights’ for Internet users). Its opening paragraph reads:
The “Marco Civil da Internet” is a remarkably progressive legislative text to protect Internet and fundamental rights online in Brazil. It has been drafted through an unprecedented collaborative effort involving citizens. But for the past 3 years, it has remained stuck in Parliament, under heavy pressure by industry – mostly telecom – lobbies.
As Global Voices reported earlier this month, Brazil's House of Representatives and Senate had to analyze the bill until the end of October, following a request for urgency in the examination by President Dilma Rousseff last September 11, 2013. Rousseff's speech at the United Nations in the end of September, with tough criticisms of US government surveillance programs and a proposal for the global development of a new digital policy, has grabbed the attention of international organizations.
Encouraging for a “swift adoption” of Marco Civil in Brazil, the open letter was initiated by La Quadrature du Net and has already been signed by global organizations such as Wikileaks, Reporters Without Borders and Article19, as well as other national organizations from Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Colombia, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Poland and Spain.
Check out the coverage of #MarcoCivil on Global Voices Online and Advocacy.

author: Sara Moreira


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On the Kingdoms of Spain · Global Voices
Daniel Bogre Udell

90,000 people attended a pro-independence concert at the Nou Camp football stadium in Barcelona. The full mosaic spelled out the words ‘Freedom 2014 Catalunya’. Image Copyright Demotix. June 29, 2013.
Last week in Madrid, Catalan politician Alfred Bosch stood before Spain's Congress and asked for a moment of silence [es] for a man some in the Chamber don't want to remember – Lluís Companys.
In 1940, four years after he tried to secure Catalonia's independence from Spain, Companys was publicly executed by Spanish dictator Franciso Franco's firing squad. He is the only incumbent president in Europe to have been executed.
Bosch's request was met with contemptuous chatter from handful of right-wing congressmen. Someone even yelled, “Viva España!” (Long Live Spain!]).
“Some of you don't take this seriously. Fine. What can I do?” Bosch lamented. After a frustrated pause, he added, “And by the way: Viva España, I agree. And Viva Cataluña, Viva la France. Through positivity, all the world's nations can get along.”
As is often the case when Catalonia's politicians speak before government institutions in Madrid, the tension in the room was raw and palpable like that of an international chamber. But on paper, the Spanish Congress is only a national chamber, of “one nation-state.”
To large segments of Spain's population, though, their Kingdom may be more accurately described as a state of many nations. The problem is the country's constitutionalists, are doing their best to deny that.
Catalonia, the next State in Europe
This year, on September 11, hundreds of thousands of Catalans joined hands to form a human chain that extended 460 kilometers across their region, from the French Pyrenean border to Valencia. Complete with matching t-shirts and slogans, this robust act of protest was astonishingly well-organised, which came as no surprise: it was in fact the echo of a mass demonstration that took place one year prior, when a million people took to the streets of Barcelona under the banner: “Catalonia: The Next State in Europe.”
The day after that first demonstration, Catalan President Artur Mas publicly endorsed the protest and called for a referendum on independence. Shortly after, he convoked early elections which produced a sweeping pro-referendum majority in Barcelona.
Overnight, Catalan politics changed. The Independentists were now in control. Unionists softened their rhetoric. Nearly two hundred towns in the Catalan countryside preemptively declared independence [ca]. Parliament passed a declaration of sovereignty.
Instead of taking this clamor seriously and engaging the Catalan public, most in the Spanish government, including Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, positioned themselves firmly as antagonists. They insisted that referendum was illegal, framing [ca] Catalan nationalists as enemies of democracy and, in some extreme cases, comparing the sovereignty movement to Nazism [es].
They have also tried to promote the idea of Catalan nationalist ambitions as parochial and irrelevant. After a meeting with Catalan business leaders in Barcelona this month, Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister claimed not to have noticed any strong markers of regional identity. In a recent English-language interview with The Wall Street Journal, Prime Minister Rajoy described the hypothetical advent of Catalan independence as contrary to the world's “natural evolution.” When addressing the Spanish public [ca] at the UN General Assembly, he went out of his way assure those in the chamber that none of his fellow world leaders had asked him about Catalonia.
Behind closed doors, however, it seems that Spanish officials are more concerned than their dismissive behavior implies: recently, Spain's UN delegation drafted a report [es] on how best to respond if Catalan leaders take their case to the international community in the wake of a successful referendum on independence. It asserted that Madrid could possibly draft security council allies into blocking Catalonia's full statehood, but would be relatively powerless to stop the region's admission as a General Assembly observer.
“Catalonia: The Next Partially-Recognized State” may not be as elegant a turn of phrase as those coined by activists, but it  nonetheless haunts politicians in Madrid.
More than money
Since the 2012 protests, the international media has taken a keen interest in Catalonia after decades of neglect. Al Jazeera, The Guardian, The New York Times, CNN and even Buzzfeed have all published articles about the recent separatist surge, but very few have seriously treated or even acknowledged the sovereignty movement's cultural roots, which extend deep into the soil of Mediterranean history (Buzzfeed, however reductively, being the exception here).
Instead, mainstream media outlets have framed the growing appeal of independence as a visceral response to the recession that continues to heavily burden Spain's economy. Raphael Minder's argument in the New York Times that references to national identity are “high-minded ideals” that soften a debate that is primarily about the distribution of Spain's national budget, is an excellent example of their reductive treatment of Catalonia's sovereignty movement. It is certainly a mistake to downplay competing notions of nationality as the cause of friction between Barcelona and Madrid.
The heat of that friction, however, derives not from disagreement over the value of nationhood itself—self-identifying Spaniards and Catalans alike experience this quite viscerally—but rather from a battle over competing notions of the ideal relationship between nation and the state in Spain.
Last year, President Mas wrote that Catalonia is a nation which only now needs the tool of statehood. His argument, which hinged on the assumption that nations are unique phenomena and therefore don't need sovereignty to be legitimate, is actually a standard of Catalan politics—of the 129 presidents who have presided over the region's parliament since 1359, only two before Mas have ever sought full independence: Pau Claris in 1641 and Lluís Companys in 1934. Each revolution occurred after overzealous officials in Madrid encroached too far upon regional liberties, as a result of Spanish nationalism's rise as a homogenizing force.
It is important to remember, amid such striking tension, that Spain's era of absolute centralism is thankfully a thing of the past. As a recent OECD analysis [es] concluded, Spain is among Europe's most politically decentralized states. Nonetheless, a battle is being waged over the spirit of the country: is it multinational or a singular, cohesive society?
The worry in Catalonia is that the political establishment in Madrid continues to insist on the latter, embodied in a recent statement [ca] by Spain's Minister of Education that the government's interest is in “hispanicizing” Catalan children, an argument indicative of a pervasive colonial mentality. The strong tendency towards this kind of rhetoric suggests that a majority of politicians (and probably, a great deal of the public, too) rejects a pluralistic definition of Spanish nationhood, and consider their country as it was defined by royal decree [es] in 1707: united according to the culture and traditions of Castile.
If this is how a majority of Spain identifies, then it is so, and this is reasonable. It is unreasonable, however, to then force those communities marginalized by this national definition to accept their marginalization. If Spain should continue to be a unitary nation-state, the Catalan people have every right to establish their own, providing a significant majority wants one, and a referendum on independence is the only way to determine this.
Those who must insist on the Spanish nation’s singularity should also be comfortable with the idea of bidding seven million Spaniards adéu.
Daniel Bogre Udell co-edits the Catalan-language edition of Global Voices Online and founded Wikitongues, a project dedicated to raising awareness about global linguistic diversity. He is currently writing a master’s thesis on the history of national identity in Catalonia.
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated Companys was executed in 1936.

author: Daniel Bogre Udell


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Construction of 1 Billion Euro Resort Begins in Montenegro · Global Voices
Danica Radisic

One of the planned marinas and residential areas in Luštica Bay; image from promotional press package by Orascom Development, public domain.
Luštica Bay, near Tivat on the Montenegrin coast, is being developed by Swiss Orascom Development into a large-scale resort bay and marina. The resort is a colossal undertaking in the small Adriatic country and will spread across a 6.8 million square meter coastal area. The total value of the project is estimated at some 1 billion euro (1.4 billion US dollars). The company has already invested more than EUR 30 million in the project. Balkans.com gives more details:
Luštica Bay envisages construction of 7 hotels, over 500 residential villas and townhouses, over 1,000 apartments, 2 marinas with mooring and docking support facilities, a Gary Player-designed signature 18-hole golf course, spas and wellness centres, conference centre and year-round amenities including shops, an international school and medical facilities.
Luštica Bay is a joint initiative between Orascom Development Holding (90%) and the Government of Montenegro (10%).

author: Danica Radisic


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Egypt: Lawsuits Greet Bassem Youssef’s Long-Awaited Al Bernameg  · Global Voices
Victor Salama

A number of lawsuits have greeted Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef's Al Bernameg [The Programme] third season which has just kicked off.
This was the most anticipated media and social event in Egypt and probably the Middle East.
Last year, around 30 million viewers across the Arab World watched the one-time heart surgeon's satirical show. It seems that in Egypt at least, this hasn't changed, as Ramez Youssef points out:
مصر كلها قاعدة نفس القعدة بظبط دلوقتي !!
All of Egypt is sitting in the exact same way right now [watching the show]!!
Viewers were kept on their toes, with an 18-minute advertising slot before the show, which ignited their anger and sarcasm:
Am returning to Egypt in 2 weeks so should arrive just in time for the second half of tonight's el Bornameg.
— أبو كار (@Sarahcarr) October 25, 2013
I think the new @DrBassemYoussef show (if it ever starts) will be the most obsessively live-tweeted program since the Breaking Bad finale
— ashraf khalil (@ashrafkhalil) October 25, 2013
Viewers were wondering if the show would still keep its sarcastic edge after the recent political events and the change in power that shook Egypt. Would Youssef bring balance to the current media, all of which is overwhelmingly pro-Army and nationalistic? From a formal point of view, the show remained the same with it's classic recipe of video clips from Egyptian TV, sarcastic commentary often fueled with sexual innuendos, and Broadway-like songs on stage. Many would speculate if Al Bernameg would have a go at Egypt's current strongman, Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Armed Forces, and Minister of Defence, General Abdelfattah Al Sisi as it used to do with former president Mohammed Mosri last season.
After the 70-minute show ended, reactions were very mixed which goes to show how divided and the political scene is. Dr Saif AbdelFattah pointed out that laughing on the wounds of Egyptians wasn't the right thing to do:
أن تجهز علي جريح ..وتسخر من معتقل .. وتسف في حق شهيد ..وتكرر أكاذيب أمنية..وتشوه رمز للحرية (رابعة) بطريقة مقززة .. هذه ليست أخلاق #الرجال
— Dr.Saif AbdelFattah (@drSaifAbdelFatt) October 25, 2013
To laugh on a wounded, to make fun of a prisoner, to scorn a martyr, to repeat the government lies, and to defame a symbol of freedom (Rabaa) in a disgusting manner… those aren't gentlemen ways
Nadia Al Magd says pretty much the same thing pointing out that the sarcasm missed the point:
@DrBassemYoussef السخرية من الضحية وليس من القتلة بعد مجازر قتل فيها آلاف ودس السم في العسل ليس مروءة ولا جدعنة وأشياء أخري يا دوك
— Nadia el-Magd ناديا (@Nadiaglory) October 26, 2013
Sarcasm towards the victims (thousands of them) and not on the perpetrators, among other things, isn't very elegant
Some notice, with much regret, that the programme's tone was harsher during Morsi days:
Bassem Youssef was always harsher with Morsi but he even gradually tested some waters then. Today isn’t the day we’ll see how far he’ll go.
— Basil الضبع (@basildabh) October 25, 2013
As Mohamed  El Dahshan pointed out:
طيب #باسم بيتريق على معجبي السيسي، مش على السيسي نفسه، و ده ذكاء منه.بس الحقيقي للأسف: هي ان "البرنامج" كان فيه حرية و جرأة أكثر أيام مرسي.
— Mohamed El Dahshan (@eldahshan) October 25, 2013
Bassem pokes fun at Sisi fans and not directly at Sisi, which is smart. But the truth be said, unfortunately, the show has lost some of its freedom and edge
Others seemed quite satisfied with this first episode and tried to put things in perspective:
I thought Basem Yousef could never directly mention Sisi. I was wrong. The ending was a direct message to Sisi himself.
— The Big Pharaoh (@TheBigPharaoh) October 25, 2013
"Bassem Yousuf didn't go far enough". Let's see if you'd have gone this far had you been in his position. No? Alright then. #Egypt
— Iyad El-Baghdadi (@iyad_elbaghdadi) October 25, 2013
The last category of commentators, which seems to be the largest by far, are the pro-Army and pro-Sisi netizens, who seemed very offended by the sexual innuendos and the lack of respect that Youssef allegedly showed towards the Egyptian army and its head. Several groups have decided to attack the presenter's attempt to “defame and insulting minister of defense Abdel Fatah El Sisi.”
This pro-Sisi Facebook page vows to stop Youssef's programme. The caption reads: “We will not allow you to cross the line with Egypt's national symbols.”
A pro-Sisi Facebook group has vowed to silence Youssef:
The poster above reads:
We will never allow this vulgar and failed clown to mock the symbols of the Egyptian nation you son of a ****
Also, the legal adviser of the Muslim Brotherhood youth branch, has also decided to file a complaint:
تقدم المستشار القانوني للمجلس الأعلي لجمعيات الشبان المسلمين العالمية ببلاغ للنائب العام المستشار هشام بركات, ضد باسم يوسفالله عليكم :)
— Ghada Shahbender (@ghadasha) October 26, 2013
The legal adviser of the Muslim Brotherhood youth branch has filed a lawsuit against Bassem Youssef
And the lawsuits came piling in:
Can't keep track of how many people/groups are taking Bassem Youssef to court for his first episode of El Bernameg. #Weird
— Mohamed Fadel Fahmy (@Repent11) October 26, 2013
Mohamed Fathy points out that copies of those complaints have reached Egyptian TV channels only 10 minutes after the show ended:
معلومة: أول بلاغ قدم ضد باسم يوسف وصلت نسخة منه لعدد من وسائل الإعلام بعد مرور 10 دقائق فقط من انتهاء الحلقة..يعني متجهز أصلاً :)
— محمد فتحي (@mfathypress) October 26, 2013
For your information, the copy of first lawsuit against Bassem Youssef arrived at a number of media outlets only 10 minutes after the end of the episode. This means that they were prepared beforehand
In order to face such an uproar, CBC, the channel that hosts Bassem Youssef's show, has decided to react and issue a public statement saying:
“CBS has followed the public reaction to yesterday's episode of Al Bernameg presented by Dr Bassem Youssef. Most of those reactions were offended by what they saw during the episode. CBS asserts its will to defend the national feelings and pride and will make sure that no offensive expressions or sketches that could disrespect the feelings of the Egyptian people or the symbols of the Egyptian state, will be aired. The channel also affirrms its dedication to complete freedom of expression and information and it's full support to the Egyptian revolution and it's goals”
Apparently this was not “just an episode in some show,” as Youssef himself twitted at the end of the episode:
ماكنتش حلقة في برنامج يا جدعان.
— Dr Bassem Youssef (@DrBassemYoussef) October 25, 2013
This wasn't an episode in a show
In another tweet he adds:
"البلد مش مستحملة سخرية في الوقت ده" قيلت امبارح و من سنة و من سنتين. الى جانب الشتائم و التخوين
— Dr Bassem Youssef (@DrBassemYoussef) October 26, 2013
The country cannot take sarcasm now. This was said last night, and a year ago and two years ago, in addition to all the insults and accusations of treachery
It's obvious that Youssef plans to continue dishing out his weekly satire to Egyptians and the Arab world. How ready is Egypt for this latest round?

author: Victor Salama


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Everyone Suffers in Manila Traffic · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Filipino journalist Iris Cecilia Gonzales writes about how people suffer from Manila's notorious street traffic:
When one is stuck in traffic in Manila's streets, there's no escape. Everyone suffers — whether you're driving a sleek Rolls Royce or a moving piece of junk; whether it's with a red plate or a diplomatic one; whether the car is registered or not at all. There is nowhere to go and nothing to do but to crawl and wait and wait longer.


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Is Cambodia a One-Party State? · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Anirudh Bhati rejects the position by some analysts that Cambodia has become a one-party state after the main opposition party boycotted the inaugural session of the National Assembly:
…it would be erroneous to assume that Cambodia has relapsed into a one-party state simply based on the premise that the current assembly is being boycotted by the opposition just as it would be inaccurate to characterize the United States as a two-party system.


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Opposition MPs Suspect Foul Play as Croatia Airlines Prepares for Privatization · Global Voices
Danica Radisic

Some members of the Croatian parliament, all of different opposition parties, have voiced their concern in past days regarding safety issues that Croatia Airlines has had in recent weeks and, in particular, the unusual media attention these incidents have received. Croatia Airlines is currently being prepared for a long-awaited privatization process, but has had two emergency landings in just one week's time in September, as well as other minor safety issues. These kinds of safety issues are fairly standard cases in commercial aviation and often go unnoticed by media and the public. Some representatives in Croatia's parliament are calling the unusual media focus on these recent Croatia Airlines cases “an orchestrated attack” by the regime on the national airline, an attempt to lower the airlines value and price for a planned buyer in the privatization process. Balkans.com reports:
Members of both the HDSSB and Labour Party also suggested foul play is at hand and criticised the government for appointing party members as part of Croatia Airlines’ management team. Later this month the first of two tender rounds for the privatisation of the Croatian national carrier is expected to take place. The first, where potential buyers will express their interest, and the second, expected in February 2014, where specific takeover offers will be made. Recently, the Croatian Minister for Sea, Transport and Infrastructure said, “The price offered by a potential partner will not be paramount, rather, the focus will be on the quality of the strategic partner which could generate more traffic for Croatian airports”.


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PHOTOS: Muralists ‘Paint Resistance’ in Toribío, Colombia · Global Voices
Lully

Students of CECIDIC. Photo shared on Flickr by Minga de los Muralistas de los Pueblos, under the Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The Center for Education, Training and Research for Integral Community Development [es] (CECIDIC) organized a “‘Minga‘ of Village Muralists” in the town of Toribío, in the Cauca department of Colombia, to “help create a different collective imagination for the community through art” and to “turn Toribío into a museum of outdoor art,” according to the event's Facebook page [es].
A minga (or minca) is a type of communal work done in favor of a community.
The majority of the population in the town of Toribío is of the indigenous Nasa, and has been one of the areas most affected by armed conflict in the country. CECIDIC is an educational and indigenous non-profit organization that works in the town of Toribío.
“Neither the cold nor the rain scared off the Iskra team”. Photo shared by Minga de Muralistas de los Pueblos on Facebook.
From October 19 to 26 the minga united over 60 artists from Colombia and other parts of Latin America, such as Venezuela, Ecuador, Chile, and Mexico.
Photos of the minga have been shared on Flickr [es], Facebook [es], and Twitter [es], often with short comments like this one:
Jafeth Gómez – Wipala Cultural Collective. Photo shared by Minga de Muralistas de los Pueblos on Facebook.
“La Minga de Muralistas es una oportunidad para que a través del arte se haga un llamado a los actores del conflicto armado para que asuman un compromiso de respeto hacia la población de Toribío”. Jafeth Gómez – Colectivo Cultural Wipala
“The Muralist Minga is an opportunity to make a call to the actors of the armed conflict through art so that they assume a commitment of respect towards the population of Toribío.” Jafeth Gómez – Wipala Cultural Collective
Mural in Toribío, Cauca. Photo shared by Minga de Muralistas de los Pueblos on Facebook.
“Our inspiration and motivation”. Photo shared by Minga de Muralistas de los Pueblos on Facebook.
Agroecological School. Photo shared on Flickr by Minga de Muralistas de los Pueblos, under the Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Additionally, with the hashtag #MuralistasdelosPueblos [es] (#VillageMuralists), the group, artists, and other users that supported the minga have been sharing photos, videos, and messages:
Así recuperamos nuestro territorio, nuestras tradiciones, nuestras costumbres, nuestra vida… #MuralistasdelosPueblos
— Minga de Muralistas (@MingaMuralistas) October 25, 2013
This way we regain our territory, our traditions, our customs, our life…
Orgulloso del apoyo y trabajo de @lacasalibre en la Minga de #MuralistasdelosPueblos
— lncognito (@lncognito) October 22, 2013
Proud of the support and work of @lacasalibre in the Village Muralists Minga
En Toribío seguimos pintando resistencia #MuralistasdelosPueblos pic.twitter.com/pmGKOvIWQX
— Minga de Muralistas (@MingaMuralistas) October 21, 2013
In Toribío we continue painting resistance.
The photos of the murals can also been seen on the group's Instagram [es] page.
Photo shared by Minga de Muralistas de los Pueblos on Instagram.
House of Youth Movement “Alvaro Ulcué”. Photo shared by Minga de Muralistas de los Pueblos on Instagram.
Contribution from “Somos Muiscas”. Photo shared by Minga de Muralistas de los Pueblos on Instagram.
On YouTube, Minga de Muralistas de los Pueblos [es] have also shared various brief videos of the murals:
On October 25, the day before the end of the minga, the group denounced [es] vandalism of the murals on Facebook and Twitter [es]:
Según señalan vecinos de Toribío, durante rondas nocturnas, militares y policías han aprovechado para dañar algunas d las obras en el pueblo
— Minga de Muralistas (@MingaMuralistas) October 25, 2013
According to neighbors in Toribío, the military and police have taken advantage of nightly rounds to damage some of the works in the village
On the last day of the minga, Mónica Hurtado shared her sentiments on Facebook [es]:
7 dias despues………..y el color se apoderó de la arquitectura, de los espacios, de los niños, de los jovenes, del pueblo, de la esperanza y del amor por sembrar semillas de Paz!!
7 days later………..and color has taken over the architecture, the spaces, the children, the youth, the village, the hope and love of planting seeds of Peace!!
More than 100 photos of the minga can be seen in a photo album [es] shared by photographer Marialina Mavizu [es] on Facebook.

author: Lully


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Serbia: Jovanka Broz, Widow of Tito, Dies Isolated and Forgotten · Global Voices
Danica Radisic

She was a revolutionary, a commended war veteran, a style icon and first lady to the leader of the only socialist country in the world that refused to be a Soviet satellite. Jovanka Broz (nee Budisavljević), widow of Marshall Josip Broz Tito, passed away in Belgrade [en] on October 20, 2013. On Saturday, October 26, Jovanka Broz was honored with a state funeral in Serbia's capital and buried in the mausoleum known as “The House of Flowers” [en] next to her husband, a full 33 years after his death.
President Josip Broz Tito and Mrs. Broz, President Richard Nixon and Mrs. Nixon overlooking arrival ceremony on the South Lawn from the South Balcony of the White House; photo form the  White House Photo Office Collection, public domain.
Jovanka Broz spent a lifetime being loved, hated, praised and criticized by many. Few and far apart are those who had no opinion of her at all. Born into a family of humble means in Lika (Croatia), she joined the revolutionary partisan forces at the age of 17 and soon became one of Tito's secretaries. Their whirlwind romance began sometime during the Second World War and they were married in 1952, when she was 28 and Tito 60.
Although 30 years her powerful husband's junior, Jovanka was decisive, opinionated and had tremendous influence over her husband at times. Those who met her through diplomatic and political circles claim that she was a highly intelligent woman of elegant poise. There were also those in Yugoslavia and, more recently Serbia, who criticized  her spending habits, along with her husband's, who was a well-known hedonist of expensive taste. The video below shows Tito and Jovanka Broz at the height of his power in 1971, during a state visit to US President Richard Nixon.
Jovanka enjoyed a jet-set lifestyle while she was first lady of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, but lived the last 30 years of her life as a recluse in Belgrade in poverty, never inheriting any part of her late husband's estate or receiving much from the state. Reports began emerging in 2005 on blogs and later in media about the conditions in which the former first lady was living in – with no heat, a leaking roof, doors that wouldn't lock, in an old house in the once high-end Belgrade neighborhood of Dedinje that was, essentially, falling apart. Since her death, the blog Bašta Balkana quoted [sr] one of these reports from 2005, when they visited Jovanka, describing the poor state of the house she was living in and a conversation with Jovanka's sister, Nada. The reporter asked:
- Živi li vaša sestra ovde potpuno sama i bez grejanja?! Kako je moguće da se nadležni godinama oglušuju da joj stvore elementarne uslove za život?!
- U ovoj ledari, moja sestra živi sama i to godinama traje – odgovara Nada. – Ponekad ostane i bez struje, nekad se prekinu telefonske veze, plafon prokišnjava. Ali nije samo ona ugrožena. Njenu sudbinu dele i njene komšije. I oni su danima bez grejanja.
- Does your sister really live here all alone and without heating?! How is it possible that the [institutions] responsible for this are ignoring to provide basic living conditions for her?!
- In this icebox, my sister lives alone and it has been like this for years – Nada responds. – Sometimes she is left without electricity too, sometimes the telephone lines go out, the ceiling leaks. But she is not the only one at risk. Her neighbors share this fate with her. They are also left without heating for days.
The government then reacted fairly quickly after these reports and some assistance and reparations were provided for Jovanka and her neighbors occasionally over the next few years. Jovanka remained as far from the the public eye as she could, although media interest had been raised. In the months prior to her death, knowing that her health was rapidly declining, the former first lady of Yugoslavia decided to publish her memoirs, as recorded by author Žarko Jokanović. The book, titled “My Life, My Truth”, was released just three weeks before she died [sr] and is being sold at newsstands at the price of 449 dinars (4 euro or 5.50 US dollars).
Blogger David Bailey, a British expat living in the Balkans, quoted what Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dačić said at Jovanka Broz's state funeral on Saturday, wondering whether the PM's words were hollow or heartfelt:
The absence of a religious funeral service was the wish of Jovanka and her family.
Serbia’s Prime Minister Ivica Dacic led the tributes at the funeral ceremony, saying: “Today marks the departure of the last icon of the former Yugoslavia.” He said it was time to admit that the treatment she received after the death of her husband was a “sin”.
On social networks these days, there is no majority opinion on who or what Jovanka Broz was. Some say she was “an icon” [photos], “a heroine”, others call her “a leech” and “a fake”, while a few simply lament the country's disregard for its own history and its neglect of Jovanka Broz in recent decades. There are very few in-betweens and no particular hashtags to follow, but people are visibly talking about her passing which, in many ways, gives closure to an era that ended 30 years ago. Whatever their opinion or political affiliation, many social media users posted “Bella Ciao”, an Italian song often sung by the partisans of Italy and Yugoslavia before and during WWII, made popular by Giovanna Dafinni in the early 60's and often tied to Jovanka Broz. Tetka, a popular Serbian portal, wrote in a post titled “Bella Ciao – The Song That Saw Jovanka Broz Off”:
A možda nam je ovim taktovima na svom poslednjem ispraćaju poslala poruku o ujedinjenju, ideji koja je sve nas na prostorima bivše zemlje razjedinila do krvavih ratova jer ova pesma u Italiji i jeste postala popularna kao pesma u kojoj je ujedinjena jedna ideja.[…]
Koliko je ova pesma popularna i danas kao himna pobune, dočaraće vam podatak da su ove godine u Turskoj, buneći se zbog planova da se na mestu poslednjih “zelenih pluća grada” u Istanbulu grad tržni centar, mladi koji su protestovali protov ove odluke premijera Erdogana pevali ovu pesmu.[…]
Jovanke Broz srpska javnost se setila tek kada je dospela u bolnicu i to onda kada više nije sama mogla da donosi odluke. Dok je mogla, odbijala je lečenje kao da je jedva čekala da ode sa ovog sveta, iz društva koje ju je stavilo u izlolaciju i zaboravilo je.
Or perhaps in her last farewell she sent us a message about uniting through these beats, an idea that divided all of us on the territory of this former country through bloody wars, because this song became popular in Italy as the song that unites one idea.[…]
A fact from this year from Turkey will demonstrate the popularity of this song as a revolutionary anthem, where young protesters, rising up against the building of a shopping center in the place of the last “green lungs of the city”, sang this song as they protested this decision by Prime Minister Erdogan.[…]
The Serbian public only remembered Jovanka Broz when she ended up in hospital and even this was when she could no longer make her own decisions. While she could, she refused treatment, as if she could hardly wait to leave this world, this society that put her in isolation and forgot her.