Archive for
March 2nd, 2007
Stories
Bilingual Education in Guatemala
[Editor's note: The following post was originally written by blogger and journalist Juan Manuel Castillo and posted at La Nana. It was translated to English by Guatemalan contributor Renata Ávila.]
Tz´ikin Jaay in Spanish means Santiaguito, or “Little Santiago.” It is the name of a school in Santiago Atitlán in Guatemala's state of Sololá. It has been educating children for about a decade, preserving their identity, culture and greatness of the Tzutuhiles, the regional ethnic group.
Pek noq e´la utz chipaam qak´aslemal chik rara´taq xtoq k´iiya kiy laj taq achnaq nqawil.
“It is important to study because through it we can help the whole community in the future and educate the children of tomorrow” is the opinion of 15-year-old bilingual education student Verónica del Carmen Damián.
Taiwan: Commemoration of the 60th anniversary of 2-28 Massacre in Taiwan
On February 27, 1947, after Chinese army came to Taiwan, under Chiang Kai-Shek’s KuoMinTang (KMT) regime, a tragic incident happened, people were killed by the government officials. The next day, on 2/28, in Taipei, when a group of unarmed demostrators gathered and asked for justice, they were killed or wounded under the command of the governor. Afterwards, hundreds and thousands of innocent civilians were killed or wounded by the army force. Among them, many were important local elites who had been working relentlessly on resolving the conflict between the government and angry civilians. This incident was the start of tyranny that oppressed Taiwanese for more than 40 years. (For details about the following massacre in ChiaYi, check out judie35's blog (zh).)
Bahrain: A female preacher who gave something extra
This week Mahmood Al Yousif, who is facing legal action regarding comments he made on his blog, refers to the supposed freedom of expression in Bahrain:
No sooner than our king vowing to protect the freedoms of expression in Bahrain, than we get yet another journalist dragged in for questioning by the public prosecutor!
The honour this time goes to Ja’afer Al-Jamri of Al-Wasat (newspaper) with a complaint brought against him by a government ex-employee for libel even though it has been proven that the complainant was in the wrong! … Why does the public prosecution bother with these cases? Wouldn’t it have been better for them to throw the complaint out and save themselves some time? …This continuous hauling of opinion writers and journalists to the public prosecutor is the first line of “warning” these people to toe the line, especially when it is tied with criticism against the government, one of its employees or any other person society deems as “influential”.
This method is quite effective actually and I can tell you this from first hand experience. Not that I have stopped criticising (constructively still, mind you) but this method has been successful in varying degrees in silencing opinion writers who do not wish to spend some time being questioned, nor have their jobs and livelihood put in jeopardy. …It looks like the government still regards criticism as “disrespect” - probably in a tribal mentality - rather than a freely provided consultancy to better its ways!
Africa is Ready for Business
My name is Benin Mwangi. I blog about entrepreneurship in Africa and I follow closely many other blogs covering African business in the blogosphere. This is my first Global Voices post and what I hope to do now and in the future is to help shed some light on Africa's business climate by covering Africa's business blogs. So please enjoy!
One of the business bloggers that I follow is Harry Karanja. He is a business blogger from Kenya whose posts I have really grown to enjoy over the past few weeks. His blog Startups in Kenya focuses on the topic of entrepreneurship in Kenya, East Africa. Now, Kenya has quite a number of strong business blogs and several of them specifically address entrepreneurship. However, what I find so unique about Mr. Karanja's blog is that the majority of his posts all seem to be inspired by his own personal experiences as an entrepreneur in Kenya.
For example, take his post titled “Internet In the Village.” This post actually seems to be part of a larger installment series. In this post, he writes about his triumphs and defeats while helping Kenya's rural areas become “wired” via his internet start-up company. But don't take my word for it, you've really got to read this one for yourself!
…When launching the cyber cafe, I took it as my task to ensure that I was setting up a viable business and not a white elephant. The main fixed recurrent costs for a cyber were going to be rent and wages, while variable recurrent costs would be internet, electricity, and stationery. It was imperative that the cyber comfortably break even from the first month.
Serbia: Reactions to the ICJ Verdict
[Note: A roundup of the English-language blog posts on the ICJ verdict ran on Global Voices this past Wednesday, here.]
Serbia is proclaimed not guilty for the crimes that happened during the Bosnian war - and this is echoed in the country’s news and talk show programs this week. Lately, one could feel a clear “denying guilt” tendencies displayed by everyone who took part in the conflict. That is exactly what has been happening during the last decade, since the end of Bosnian civil war. But debating who is guilty doesn’t solve the issue. It widens the gap between people. People who identify themselves as Muslims, Serbs, and Croats have all evidently committed terrible crimes during the nineties.
After the International Court of Justice (ICJ) verdict, Serbia's Liberal Democratic Party offered a declaration to be voted by Serbian parliament, which contains an official apology for the Srebrenica massacre (recognized as an act of genocide by the ICJ). The party is supported by numerous non-governmental organizations that seem to promote Serbian guilt. They triggered strengthening of an opposing wave of nationalist movement represented by the Serbian Radical Party, allegedly formed by the domestic secret service during the last decade. Both SRS and Kostunica’s DSS agree to condemn all the atrocities which occurred during the civil war, but would not accept the blame for the Srebrenica massacre. President Boris Tadic will probably try to find a balanced solution.
All political structures would like to take some kind of formal action, but any real determination to solve the problem in its essensc doesn’t exist. What we need is a conversation between the common people who took part in the dispute.
Links for Fri, 2007-03
Says Senegalese blogger Alex Seck, (Fr): “The situation in [Guinea] has started normalizing since the nomination of Lansana Kouyaté as Prime Minister on Feb. 26. Kouyaté who was one of five people proposed by unionists and civil society arrived in Conakry [on the 27th] from Abidjan where he was [an official] of L'Organisation de la Francophonie. His nomination was saluted by outcries of joy and Guineans showed up in droves to welcome him. “
Blog Politique du Sénégal has had (Fr) a hard time understanding Wade's victory in last week's presidential election but concedes: “Wade is not completely undeserving. The infrastucture he has built, the many secondary schools were necessary. His regime has built more infrastructure in 7 years than his predecessors in 20.”
Safrang says that Hamid Karzai is facing the biggest choice of his term as Afghanistan's president in deciding whether or not to sign into law amnesty bill that recently passed through legislature.
Leila reports on the increasing number of Central Asian immigrants in the Czech Republic, focusing on the story of one family from Kazakhstan who have found it better to live outside of Kazakhstan illegally than to try to find work at home.
Another case of a Latin American journalist getting a bit too much inspiration from the blogosphere without attribution. Unlike Global Voices contributing author Juan Arellano, the Peruvian daily La República published an article about the online discussions surrounding a hypothetical war between Peru and Chile. Desde el Tercer Piso writes “next time with recognition, muchachos.” Gran Combo Club adds [ES] “I think that Peruvian journalists have to learn to respect the blogosphere a little more.” Silvio goes on to bring up cases in which bloggers have corrected news reports in the United States and wonders if Peruvian bloggers will one day also have such influence. Roberto of El Morsa echoes the denouncement [ES] in “Journalist from La Republica plagiarizes a blog.”
Blogrel discusses Transparency Armenia's decision to quit the government's Anti-Corruption Strategy Monitoring Commission, saying that they no longer wish to help the government pretend it is fighting corruption.
Social Science in the Caucasus posts a partial “Big Mac Index” for the Caucasus with an explanation of what the numbers mean.
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