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A Critic On The IMC Of Athens Indymedia

pipitsa | 16.08.2007 13:30 | Gender | Globalisation | Indymedia | World

About the censorship in athens indymedia and not only......

How can we control the media if the leading Collective control us?

This question is motivated by the authoritarian practice and mentality that characterize the leading Collective of athens indymedia.
Indymedia is in general hierarchically structured just like an organization. There are few volunteers who control the national medium and the others, the participants,volunteers too, who write news, comments,articles, share music etc.
It is to say that i am not opposed to leading Collective. But under the condition that their members respect the basic principles which determine the whole community (real or virtual) and must be valid for both: leading Collective and members, in the case of indymedia: moderators and participants.
Indymedia works on the simple democratic principles of free information and expression and has a wide spectrum of goals from free information to the anticapitalistic activities.
All the participants but first of all the imCollective should be able to avoid or to manage effectively postings which promoting in any form discrimination and in the same time to ensure the terms for a really critical dialog based on comments and analysis of the published news or articles.
If on the contrary the Collective of indymedia leads the medium promoting either a) its ideology and the interests of the group or organization to which the members belong or/and b) in any form discrimination: defamation of persons, sexism, xenophobia, racism etc. or/and c) professional interests (especially in the case that a member or members of the imc is/are journalist/s in an official medium) than we have to confront not only a problematic but a truly crucial situation.
The leading Collective of athens indymedia has transformed gradually a site full of life into a dead corpus. The members use their position to censor without an explanation posts not according to their political ideas or to their moods. Furthermore they use their positions to promote posts which are discriminating for people without any political or economical power , for example the daily attacks against a trotskist musician, for radical left groups, for the Communist Party of Greece as well as for groups which belong to the punk scene.
I think that democracy requires either respect of principles and limitations or absolutely free publication of all opinions and ideas without censorship. But in no case that what the members of imc Athens practise,
, the use of the medium for their own benefits.
I have been hundred of times censored by the imc athens. And i want to show by two examples the political as well as the sexist thinking of its members.

Censorship as weapon to promote the line and interests of their own political group
The case Ioannis Dimitrakis

Since one year we confront a problem in the anarchistic scene related to Dimitrakis Ioannis and the connection of the anarchists with the common criminals.
Dimitrakis has been arrested as bank robber in 2006. According to the police and the official press he was together with 3 other persons. But only he was arrested. In a public letter and in two press interviews Dimitrakis has admitted his involvement in the robbery and has justified it on the base of his anarchistic convictions: he became a bank robber because he was against the wage slavery.
See for example two publications from dozen articles
 http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=532423

(the public letter from Dimitrakis)

or
 http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=730738
(from an official newspaper an article about him titled: “Speech about a disobedient person who became a robber”)

During the trial of Dimitrakis, one month ago, appeared witnesses who defended him in the following way: they said that 43.000 euros found in post office box in his name are collected as a “solidary fund” for political prisoners so they could pay for their legal defence. They added that Dimitrakis has been entrusted to keep the money because of his “high moral”. The court sentenced him to 25 years in prison.
There are two factors that must be known if one wants to understand this case. Firstly that numerous of persons are political prisoners in Greece and secondly that the justice,police and press try constantly to cultivate the idea that activists are identical with common criminals, who act total selfish.
Also there are in the greek jails over 20 political prisoners. 13 of them have been accused of being members of the guerilla organization 17 November. Among them there is the multiinjured Savas Xiros, a man who was medical tortured in the hospital “Evangelismos” in Athens and whose health situation is very critical. 1 prisoner has been accused of being member of the organization ELA (Revolutionary Popular Struggle). 3 persons are arrested during the march of the European Social Forum in Athens (2006). 1 person has arrested accused of attacking the president of the General Confederation of Workers. And other persons who i have forgotten. A great number of demonstrators is arrested during the demonstrations against the privatisation of education. Among them a worker and Timo B. from Germany. Only few of them are known by name. The majority is unknown. We speak of them like this: 60 demonstrators have been arrested on 8/3/07 or 40 demonstrators have been arrested on 6/5/07. And the solidarity movement is divided in thousand pieces without coherence and power.
On the other hand as i mentioned justice,police and press attempt systematically to bring close social fighters and selfish acting criminals.
The leading Collective of athens indymedia stand from the beginning in solidarity with Dimitrakis. A member or members of the Collective belong(s) to the group of persons who defended him before and during his trial. No objections to it. The solidarity was in accordance with their personal and political viewpoints. But an objection should be raised in regard to their practice in indymedia. They have censored silent as usual every opposite opinion and eliminated every effort to become this case object for a real dialogue among the members of the indymedia community. Such an authoritarian attitude could not help even the person with whom the imCollecive stand in solidarity, that is Dimitrakis himself. Because it is a well known fact in Greece that many activists had been forced to sign “confessions” structured by the police. The same happens in regard to people who commit common criminal acts so that the state with its mechanisms,police,justice and mainstreammedia creates a situation of chaos and contradictions in order to repress and to defame every resistance movement


Censorship as weapon to promote sexism
Dworkin´s theory can be understood with relation to her physiognomy and private life.
Žižek's theory requires an immanent understanding.

Before two weeks a person with the female nickname @mazon@ published in athens indymedia an
article titled “The sexistic character of the heterosexuality, sadomasochism and not only...”
 http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=744306#744307

The article appeared in the forum of indymedia, the only remaining section (in fact hidden), where discussion and analysis of news and different themes are still possible after the radical transformation of the newswire in 6 categories of publications and in two arts of comments in each category of publication. @mazon@´s article provoked an active discussion. With the purpose to support her point of view @mazon@ referred to Dworkin´s theory, total unknown to me. A lot of sexistic comments, signed with males and females pseudonyms, were published on occasion of this theory as thoughts,feelings or simple hard reactions to it. But nobody demanded from the imc of athens indymedia to censor posts as sexistic. And i think such posts are something natural because the majority of us is determined by patriarchal thinking. Then one of the participants considered as necessary for the understanding to download two photographs of Dworkin And another one added the following post: “Is this fellow Dworkin? That´s explained the whole thing”, that means “that´s explained her radical feministic theory about heterosexuality”. A few posts under the mentioned wrote another participant: “Not only now but also in her youth she (Dworkin) was grand Guignol”. @mazon@ and one or two others pointed out in their responses the sexistic elements in these posts and in other comments. They tried to get along with arguments and they did not demand any kind of censorship by the imCollective. At last appeared a post, which was the culmination of all preceding comments. In author´s opinion too much learning makes a woman mad and what happened to @mazona@, God forbid,- it should happen to another woman.
So i decided to download one of Slavoj Zizek´s wedding photographs with the purpose to apply the same external interpretation his theory as we did in the case of Dworkin, to make the sexism general, that is male and female, and i asked in my post the discourse community: “Do you like better the woman next to Zizek? She looks beautiful in jeans as well as in high fashion clothing. Become a theorist or earn a lot of money and you will get a woman like this. And how do you like Zizek? He keeps himself in form although he is over 60 years old. But i don´t like his huge belly and the frowning face of a mother boy that he has. In this age i prefer Mick Jagger. He is the owner of a real tower, is sexual and remains always a freak.”

 http://www.higher-yearning.org/uploaded_images/zizek_wed-781848.jpg

My post and Zizek´s photo had been immediately censored by the imCollective of athens indymedia,but at the same time remained Dworkin´s photos and the sexistic posts against her and @mazon@ untouched. Again and again i published the same post with the same photo asking the leading Collective of athens indymedia why the censoship in the case of Zizek and not in the case of Dworkin. The Collective were obliged either to respect fully the principles of indymedia and so to censor both of them or to let both published An honest third position does not exist .Nobody from the imc responsed to me. If this should be ascribed to their authoritarian character (...otherwise “alternative” or even “anarchist” people) or if they are forced by a “higher necessity” to act authoritarian, i don´t know. It belongs to the nature of indymedia´s structure, that the leading Collective itself and its environment, relations etc. remain not evident for the participants.

Indymedia is not non – hierarchically structured as it is maintained in the mission statement. That is a bad myth. There are the leading Collective and the common participants with their own interests and their more or less narrow/open thinking and acting but the participants have not a power position within the medium. And there are national particularities. If the leading Collectiv proceeds totaly arbitrarily, if it is a mal gobierno, as Zapatistas say, then the participants abandon it. Or the medium is condemned to play the role of an alternative shop window of resistance.

P.S. 1. I have already published this text in athens indymedia during a discussion in the forum of the medium concerning the radical transformation of the nweswire.My nickname was @. I suggested to the members of imc to bring the described problems up for a discussion in athens indymedia. Both of them, post and text, were immediately censored.

P.S.2. Sorry for the grammatic,syntactic and other mistakes in my text. English is not my native language and it is not a language that i wished to learn.




pipitsa

Comments

Display the following 3 comments

  1. Dont feed the troll — imc athens
  2. The Lack of Common Sense — unanimous
  3. The truth finally is coming up — Censored
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