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USA: Al Jazeera Blackout?

Jillian York · 21:25 · Middle East & North Africa , Americas

lingua → mk · fr · zht · zhs · it

When Al Jazeera announced its plans to release English-language channel in 2005, the announcement was met with both support and protest in the United States. And so, although the US government doesn't prevent access to the channel, many cable companies are reluctant to carry it; after all, Donald Rumsfeld had accused the channel of “inciting terrorism”. On the other side of things, the U.S. cable market experiences a strong competition for bandwidth, and simply cannot carry every channel.

Subsequently, the channel has remained largely unavailable in the United States. In order to access the channel from most places within the country, Americans must pay upwards of $45 per month in addition to their usual subscription fee (on the DishTV network) - prohibitively expensive for many.

Recently, however, Burlington Telecom, owned by the small city of Burlington, Vermont (population 39,000), decided to carry Al Jazeera English, sparking debate amongst its residents and leading some groups to protest for its removal. Bloggers in the city and around the world jumped on the story. KABOBfest's Will (Palestine/US) explains the debate and concludes:

As we approach the end of the Bush presidency, it should be apparent to everyone that the the old thinking of “us good, them bad” is failing and having destructive repercussions. It is time Americans engage the world and expose themselves to voices beyond our borders. Al-Jazeera, English represents just that. Burlington, VT is exceptionally progressive, but these questions should be raised in every community around the country — most of which do not have televised access to Al-Jazeera, English.

Hanaan, also from KABOBfest, introduces a video (from Al Jazeera English itself) on the story, saying:

Despite its reputation for open-mindedness, there are more than a few idiots in Burlington, with the Israel Center of Vermont and the Defenders Council of Vermont leading the way:

From Burlington itself, two letter-writers are quoted in the Burlington Free Press‘ blog section. The first, Scott Baker, argues that to drop Al Jazeera from Burlington Telecom would amount to censorship:

Part of the very problem in relations between the U.S. and the Middle East is that their citizens don’t know enough about each other. Our relationship is defined by government policies, not open communication and understanding of different perspectives. Yes, Al Jazeera discusses Al Qaeda, because it’s a very real issue on its home turf. Yet, if you read and listen extensively, most Arabs and Muslims are just as angry at Al Qaeda as most Americans are.

In the same post Steve Flemer argues against Burlington Telecom's choice to host Al Jazeera English:

…It would seem to me that this fledgling city-owned outfit, already struggling with customer subscriptions far below expectations, would want to provide a varied cable menu without having to feel like they needed to make potentially self-harming political statements.

A comment on the website of Seven Days, a popular local newspaper, sums up the sentiments best, saying:

Forget conservatives versus liberals - the real debate over Al Jazeera in Burlington and elsewhere is increasingly turning into a debate between those who have watched the channel and those who have not. Those who have watched Al Jazeera on air will benefit from its strong global perspective on international news and affairs. On the flipside, most of the sections of society insisting Al Jazeera be dropped have never even watched it. Even when sets aside the fact that one group should not be allowed to impose itself on the other, the question of whose views are more credible is easy to answer.

This article also appears on Voices without Votes.

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Western Sahara: A new Sahrawi satellite TV station

Yazan Badran · 20:46, July 5th, 2008 · Middle East & North Africa

lingua → ar · mk · pt · it · zht · zhs · es

This will be our first attempt to cover the Sahrawi blogsphere. I, alongside Jillian York and Renata Avila will try to shed light on what the Sahrawi bloggers are saying each week, in Arabic, English and Spanish. The topic of Western Sahara is one of a very complex background, and emotions tend to run high whenever it is under discussion. We will try to cover the Sahrawi side with as much objectivity as it is humanly possible.

This week's pick comes from the Western Sahara blog, writing about the new Sahrawi satellite TV station, R.A.S.D. TV (Democratic Sahrawi Arab Republic Television):

لا أخفيكم سرا كم انتظرت شخصيا كما الكثيرين بالمناطق المحتلة خروج هذا المولود الجديد الى النور بعد طول انتظار، نعم أخيرا لنا تلفزاتنا الفضائية

I have to tell you how much I've personally waited, like many others in the occupied areas, for this newborn baby to see light. And after a long wait, yes, we now have our own satellite television station.

The blogger says that the most important mission for the station should be to advance the Sahrawi case among other Arab countries:

لعل أهم دور لها آن تعرف بالقضية الوطنية لأخوتنا العرب في ظل صمت الجامعة العربية والذي نتمنى أن تتمكن القناة من كسر جدار الصمت هذا وان تجعل منها منتدى للنقاش البناء وللتفاعل مع الأشقاء العرب ، وهو اكبر تحدي للتلفزة نظرا لامتناع المسؤوليين عن الأقمار الصناعية العربية عن إعطاء تردد لها.

The most important role [for the station] is to shed light on our national cause to our Arab brothers. As the Arab League has remained silent over the issue, we hope the station will be able to break this silence barrier and to be a forum for constructive and interactive discussion with our Arab brothers, which will be the biggest challenge facing the channel, considering that the officials at the Arab TV Satellites have refused to host the channel on their frequencies.

He adds:

وأخيرا نتمنى أن تميط القناة اللثام عن واقع المناطق المحتلة من خلال بث أشرطة متلفزة تظهر فيها الصحراء الغربية من الداخل وان تؤرخ هذه الحقبة والمنعطف الهام في مسيرة قضيتنا الوطنية العادلة،

And finally, we hope the channel will also uncover the realities in the occupied areas by airing footage showing the Sahara from the inside, and to document this era and this important juncture in the history of our just national cause.

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Colombia: Hostage Rescue Raises Concerns

Juliana Rincón Parra · 15:11 · Americas , Western Europe

lingua → es · it · zht · zhs · jp · pt

After the rescue dubbed as “perfect” by liberated former Presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who was rescued by the Colombian army on Wednesday July 2nd along with 14 other hostages being held captive by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) for up to 10 years in some cases. The Colombian community has been voicing concerns about the repercussions the rescue might have, and what interests might have been behind it.

Blogger Victor Solano reports on a news article in French found in Radio Suisse Romande [fr]and one in Spanish on Spain's elpais.com [es] saying that the US army gave 20 million dollars to the FARC for the liberation of the 15 hostages .

In micro blogging website Twitter, Jerome Sutter [es] suggests that this economic exchange might be the cause of the few official reactions Sarkozy has had.

Also from Twitter, Gerente [es] quotes a famous radio anchor, Julito, from a popular radio show in W radio station, who reported that polemic Colombian writer Fernando Vallejo had said that “the liberation of the hostages was manipulative, roguish and horrible.”… turns out to be that what Vallejo really said [es] was that Ingrid Betancourt herself is those things,and the way that the media is concentrating only on her and not on all the other hundreds of hostages is scandalous.

Marsares from equinoXio [es] online magazine writes that the operation has been so perfect, people are now doubting it. He doesn't share this perception so then he proceeds to establish counterpoint arguments for their criticisms. However, he does make an allowance, admitting that the fact that the “Trojan horse” [en] strategy was used, by pretending to be a humanitarian mission and could make it harder for other hostages to receive any kind of humanitarian aid in the future.

Journalist and blogger Anastasia Moloney writes that some families fear that guerrillas will strike back at remaining hostages, killing them or hurting their families, and that now that Ingrid is freed along with the three North American citizens, that international pressure to free the remaining hostages will disappear.

Thumbnail photo by Redking

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Venezuela: Bloggers Pay Tribute to Eugenio Montejo

Laura Vidal · 05:09 · Americas

lingua → it · zht · zhs · es

Photo by Rußen and used under a Creative Commons license.

Venezuelans say goodbye to another of their poets in times when they need them the most. On June 6th, enthusiasts of literature and arts in Venezuela received the sad news of the death of one of the most important and influential writers in the last years: Eugenio Montejo.

Montejo's poetry is well recognized for its rich texture. He was also published in numerous books in Spanish and participated in numerous editorial works devoted to Venezuelan literature. He won the national prize of literature and the international prize Octavio Paz. He has been seen as the most important poet of the last years. Numerous groups, pages, blogs and even Facebook groups [es] have been dedicated to him and his poetry. The day after his death the discussion board was filled with comments about the importance of his poetry and how he will be eternally remembered.

Bloggers share opinions and feelings while they remember and thank all the beautiful words which so many of them identified themselves with.

Another interesting fact is that through González Iñárritu’s film, 21 Grams, Montejo gained more attention when Sean Penn's character quoted a line from one of his poems…

“The earth turned to bring us closer. It turned on itself and in us, until it finally brought us together in this dream.”

Jorge, in his blog Letralia [es] wrote:

Anoche se fue Eugenio Montejo, dejándonos con esto encendido, no sin antes
despedirse de su siglo vertical y lleno de teorías. En 2002 había revelado las bases de su credo: La poesía es la última religión que nos queda. Si hay un juicio final, será ante ella.

Last night, Eugenio Montejo [es] left us, leaving us with all this still on, not without saying goodbye to his vertical theory filled with theories. In 2002 he had revealed the basis of his creed [es]: poetry is the last religion we have. If there is to be a final judgment, it will be before it.

From Peru, Moleskine Literario [es] writes:

Al parecer, los poetas nunca mueren solos. Unas semanas después de la muerte de nuestro Alejandro Romualdo Valle, el duelo le toca ahora a Venezuela. A los 70 años murió Eugenio Montejo, considerado el mayor poeta de ese país.

It seems that poets never die alone. A few weeks after the death of our Alejandro Romualdo Valle, it is now time for Venezuela to mourn. Eugenio Montejo died at 70. He was considered the greatest poet of that country.

Juliana Boersner of Papel en Blanco [es], says:

¿Cómo escribir desde la tristeza? ¿Cómo teclear a través de las lágrimas de impotencia por ver apagarse tan raudamente una de las mejores voces de la poesía del mundo hispano, aún con tanto por ofrecernos?

How do you describe the sadness? How is it possible to type through tears of helplessness when one of the best voices in Hispanic poetry goes away so suddenly with still so much to offer?

Rostro de Viento's [es] José Urriola says:

Al poeta Eugenio Montejo lo habré visto si acaso tres veces en la vida. La primera fue de niño en los pasillos del Edificio de Estudios Generales de la Universidad Simón Bolívar. En esa oportunidad yo iba de la mano de mi padre que se detuvo a saludar a un hombre de lentes de pasta, mostacho negro y saco beige a cuadros. Papá me dijo: “Hijo, conozca a uno de los grandes poetas de este país, Eugenio Montejo”. A lo que el bigotón respondió con un acento que me pareció andino: “Amigo, no le crea a su padre. Yo no soy poeta, soy bombero”.

Anoche murió Eugenio Montejo. Se murió uno de los nuestros, uno de los grandes, uno de los buenos. Se murió alguien que a ningún venezolano debería serle indiferente.

I saw poet Eugenio Montejo three times in my life or so. First time I was a kid standing at the halls of Simón Bolivar University. In that opportunity I was holding my father’s hand who stopped to greet a man with thick glasses, black mustache and a beige coat with squares. My dad told me “son, meet one of the greatest poets of this country, Eugenio Montejo”. To that, the man with the mustache answered with an accent that sounded from the Andes: “my friend, don’t believe what your father says. I’m not a poet, I’m a fireman”.

Eugenio Montejo died last night. One of our own died, one of the greats, one of the good ones.Someone to whom no Venezuelan should be indifferent has died.

Argonauticas [es] adds:

Eugenio Montejo escribió algunos de los poemas más hermosos que se han escrito en lengua castellana. Después de realizar ese portento, el suceso de su muerte el pasado viernes es, acaso, apenas un episodio en la vastedad del tiempo.

Eugenio Montejo wrote some of the most beautiful poems ever written in the Spanish language. After achieving this, his death last Friday is, if anything, just a brief chapter in the immensity of time.Eugenio Montejo wrote some of the most beautiful poems ever written in the Spanish language.

Argonauticas also gives a very interesting link to The Trees: Selected Poems 1967-2004

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Russia: Farewell to “Khrushchevki”

Veronica Khokhlova · 00:47, July 5th, 2008 · Eastern & Central Europe

lingua → fr · mg · es

Earlier this week, LJ user drugoi, one of the most popular and prolific Russian bloggers, posted 17 photos from a Moscow neighborhood of Khrushchev-era apartment blocks, commonly known as khrushchevki, pyatietazhki, or khrushchoby. The neighborhood is about to disappear, to make room for more up-to-date residential high-rises.

Here's some of the text that accompanies drugoi's photo report (RUS), which has generated 331 comments:

Khrushchevki of the early 1960s are being demolished in south-western Moscow. Five-story buildings, with no balconies, with tiny kitchens, [box-like toilet-and-bathroom spaces], thin walls separating the apartments, allowing residents to hear everything that's going on in their neighbors' places - their time is up. Whole blocks of pyatietazhki [five-story buildings] have been deserted by their former owners and are left face to face with powerful machinery that's methodically taking down one house after another. When excavators and bulldozers [are done with their job], nothing but a flat, empty site remains where people still lived quite recently. My contemporaries were born and grew up in these pyatietazhki, they had their children there, and these children have had the time to produce grandchildren for [their parents]. Several generations have spent their lives in khrushchoba-houses [khrushchoba derives from trushchoba, a slum, and can be loosely translated as “Khrushchev slums”]. With their help, Muscovites were rescued from factory barracks and the horrible Soviet kommunalki [communal apartments], they provided young families with their first housing and gave old people peace and hot water in their own, albeit small, bathroom. All in all, thank you, pyatietazhki.

[…]

Resettling residents of such pyatietazhki is quite an ordeal. In the years they've spent here, they've managed to assemble numerous relatives around them, close and not so, everything is intertwined in a monstrous kind of way, every family has its own history of relationships, while the number of apartments provided by the city authorities for free isn't endless. Commissions dealing with the cases of the “resettlers” constantly run into problems: some don't like the new housing, others try to get themselves bigger apartments, try to move away from their children, grandparents, ex-wives and ex-husbands with whom they share the same living space.

[…]

Andrei is the last resident of this pyatietazhka. He's been in a legal battle with the local authorities for a year now. According to him, the situation is crazy: for the past five years, he's been sharing a small two-room apartment with his ex-wife, her new husband and their five dogs. He was asking to be resettled into two rooms, at least, in communal apartments, in different locations. But the resettlement commission is offering the former spouses one two-room apartment in a new building. City court has reinforced the commission's decision. Gas has already been turned off in the [old] building, but there's still water and electricity. No one knows what to do next.

Andrei says that nearly everyone in their building had problems with resettlement. On the one hand, it's understandable that people would like to solve the most difficult of all issues - housing - in one blow, but on the other hand, the state is basically giving them living space worth hundreds of thousands dollars for free, so the battles that are raging are indeed deadly.

[…]

[photo of a woman standing by the half-demolished building, talking to another one inside the building]

- Sveta, have you by any chance seen my old sneakers somewhere around here?

[…]

They aren't resettling people from pyatietazhki to [remote areas] anymore, but are giving them apartments right here, two blocks away from their old houses.

[…]

[last photo, of a newly-built high-rise]

In this building, people from khrushchevki are starting their new lives.

Here are some of the responses to drugoi's photo report; a few are from bloggers living in other former Soviet states - Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania:

danatjan:

Old Soviet wallpaper is the most poignant thing about the pictures of the houses being demolished.

***

el_finik:

Strange that khrushchevki in Minsk [Belarus] looked totally different - with balconies, etc. - and no one is tearing them down :)

cheremis:

A different series. In Moscow, there are pyatietazhki that aren't up for demolition - normally, they are made of bricks and have balconies. The ones in the photos were intended to be used for 40 years, and [Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov] is, in a way, fulfilling the plans of the Soviet government ))

***

zlena:

It's even sad somehow… I was also born and grew up in a similar khrushchevka. It's my home. Though my khrushchevka is in Kyiv, and it's probably gonna be there for a long time still.

***

4lynch:

Some photos are as if they were taken in Chernobyl… Beautiful!

***

katerinishe:

Would be great to leave one building intact and create a museum of interior and everyday life in it. To be able, later, to recognize things that surrounded you as a child or stuff that your grandmother had.

***

nito_os:

I grew up in a khrushchevka, too, and I live in it still. But here in Lithuania they aren't demolishing them, quite the opposite: they are repairing them and build an extra story on top, to pay less for repairs. Khrushchevki will survive us all!