The last details are being put together for the Global Voices annual summit being held in Delhi on Saturday 16 December. But the physical location shouldn't make a difference - please join us online from wherever you are! You can join via Internet Relay Chat (IRC). The IRC address is irc.freenode.net/#globalvoices and there are instructions about how to join an IRC chat-room here. Alternatively you can just click on our browser-based web chat link. All the day's events will be available to listen to live via streaming audio, and the link to that will be posted nearer the time.
We are building up a number of linked resource pages about the summit on the Global Voices wiki which will be available from this central page. It will include feeds of material written about the summit as long as it has been tagged with the summit tag: gvdelhi2006. Please, if you blog / write / take pictures / record audio or video or otherwise generate content about the summit don't forget to tag it so your views will be more easily found and more widely distributed.
So what exactly are we going to discuss? The major themes this year are activism and outreach: we want to look at the best ways of bringing more voices into the global conversation and explore new and better ways to amplify them. The packed programme is laid out below. (Please note that all times are local Delhi times (UTC +5 hours 30 mins). There's a useful form where you can enter the time in Delhi, click the button and it gives you the corresponding time in a large number of other locations around the world.)
Emirati blogger Osama is in North America..a place he never imagined he would ever travel to as long as George W Bush is the president of the US.
However, a business trip now lands him in Toronto, Canada, where he is learning how to enjoy a cosmopolitan society and cope with the cold winter.
Ten weeks have passed since the mid-air collision that produced Brazil’s worst air disaster, but the issue is still bouncing around many levels. As the investigations progressed, the blame game amplified by the media has triggered many reactions. The most widely felt effects have come from a movement among air traffic controllers, who began following regulations to the letter, significantly slowing operations and causing delays in airports across Brazil. The movement is seen as a response to the attempts to identifying possible human failures on the part of the controllers who were on duty during that tragic September 29th afternoon. The politics of the resulting chaos is being widely discussed and Brazilians, as usual, have labeled the crisis with a buzz word — this time it's the ‘aerial blackout' (apagão aéreo).
Are the flight controllers right? Sure. Weren't they accused even of failure in the Gol's plane accident? Unjustly and foully they were so charged, without any doubt, because despite their work overload, they, day in and day out, still strive for putting some order in the skies. If someone should be blamed for this horror taking place in our airports this someone is the federal government, which since the Fernando Henrique's era keeps cutting the budget set aside to meet the air traffic growth. In the last three years, 3 billion reais (US$ 1.4 billion) ended up being reallocated, that is, they were never appropriated.
Brazil, Don't Blame the Air Controllers, But the Man Where the Buck Stops - Brazzil
According to the mainstream media and bloggers thousands of Iranian students demonstrated on the 6th of December in different Iranian universities around the country. The main slogan was “University is Alive”. University students and academics have gone through a very difficult time since last year. During this period some student activists were banned from studying, student associations were closed down and many academics were either fired or forced into retirement. Some call this new governmental policy a second cultural revolution. Bloggers covered this event in detail and sent photos of the demonstrations around the world.
University is Alive
Arash says about 16 Azar ( 6th of Dec) is an important day in Iranian history. The blogger says
Today is Student’s Day in Iran, for paying respect to the three students killed by the Shah more than thirty years ago. In the last decade this day has always been the day when the students show their passion for reform and their anger against the Islamic Republic. Adding Ahmadinejad, and his populist strategies, to this boiling pot it was predictable that the students would have much more to shout against this year.
China used to be one of the mightiest empires and oldest civilizations in the world in human history, but its modern history, starting from the middle of 19th century, was full of disgrace, disorder and chaos as perceived by Chinese people, who has aspired to revive its historical glory in decades of efforts. Only with economical boom during recent years, which was built upon a huge yet cheap labor market, did China manage to become an influential force in international playing ground. However does it mean that it is the Renaissance of Chinese Culture, consequently as a result of economical growth? Given the prevailing attitude of overheating nationalism and outspoken patriotism among Chinese people, is the resurgence of powerful Middle Kingdom a down-to-earth course we should take, or only a daydreaming public illusion?
Obviously the answer would be blowing in the wind since the changing of China is so rapidly that even the most genuine effort to foresee its future seems to be like fortune telling. Each interest group gave their version of prediction, only making the matter more confusing. Indeed no one dare to say what China is going to be exactly in next 20 or 30 years. All that we can be sure is that, this generation of Chinese, grown up in market-oriented value without threat from hunger and war, truly wished their country to be more powerful, peaceful and influential.
Recently a documentary series was aired by China Central Television, the official TV network in China, named “The Rise of Giant Power“(”大国崛起”), which has been a key subject for discussion on the Internet and traditional media alike. The 12-episode documentary started its narration from the 15th century when the Age of Discovery brought prosperity to Spain and ended with the rising of latest modern empire: United States. With up-to-date techniques like interviews, reconstruction of historical scene and computer-generated special effect, it tried to teach China and its people, a rising nation-state, on how to learn from the experiences of has-been giants on the world. (See excerpt video here)
For those liberal-minded people, who stick to the principle that the government should take the benefits of its citizens as top priority, the true and wholehearted wishes for Great China should not be manipulated by the government as an excuse to ignore basic and fundamental rights of its people. Lianyue, one of the most popular bloggers in China, wrote a post titled “It Should be the Rising of Giant Citizen Instead“:
无论大国小国,国民的幸福感受是第一位的,把国民压到最小,把国家放到最大,这种斯巴达式帝国,早就证明了是泥足巨人,行之不远。大国与小国并不重要,重要是要有大国民:他们的幸福是放在第一位的;他们不幸福了,就有资格抱怨、不满、用选举把做不好的人换下来。也正是因为这点,最大多数人的最大多数幸福,才是一个政府及一个国家的最终追求。不幸福的人多了,你连存在的合法性都会受到质疑。
Now that newly elected President Joseph Kabila has been sworn in, Sanaga Perigrinations says he has 3 main challenges (fr): “Pacify the country … Rebuild and develop the country … Learn Lingala! It is sad that this swahili-speaking president by birth does not know the main language in the west of the country and in Kinshasa the capital.”
AEN Direct (via Tomorrow.sg) analyzes the standing passenger's support in a public bus in Singapore and says it fails in meeting the needs of passenger. The blogger conceptualises a more optimum design and urges the bus company to implement it.
Blog Politique du Senegal writes (Fr): “A newspaper announces that a court clerk was accused … of usury, fraud and issuance of fake checks… Verdict: 2 months. To think that stealing goats can get you 2 years!”
David Stanely at the South Pacific Travel Blog is critical of Australia, New Zealand and the United States for issuing a misleading travel advisory on Fiji before the coup. The author writes that Fiji is still safe for tourists. “Tourism is Fiji’s biggest industry, accounting for over a quarter of the gross domestic product. Even before Laisenia Qarase lost control of the country, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and many other so-called “friends” of Fiji imposed sanctions on this industry by issuing highly misleading travel advisories warning against visiting the country. To date, all reports say that Fiji is perfectly calm and safe for tourists.”
The recent ruling party UMNO's convention in Malaysia made a lot of noise about Malay rights in a multi-cultural Malaysia. Some Malay leaders feel that the rights of the Malay community are under attack in Malaysia. The Malaysian writes that UMNO seems to have forgotten about the rights of the original inhabitants of Malaysia.
All you need to know about Ukrainian vodka - over at Ukraine List.
Ukrainiana writes about Kyiv's new mayor: “If true, that would make Chernovetsky and Yanukovych two of a kind. The “Better Living Today” they promised turned out to be a “Big Lying Tease.” Both did a great job of teasing pensioners for personal gain: Yanukovych — with an impermanent pension increment; Chernovetsky — with humanitarian aid packages. Regardless of who you voted for, if Mayor Chernovetsky goes on unchallenged, it’s payback time for all of us.”