[GTALUG] [offtopic] Global telenetworking

Fri Jun 26 18:28:29 UTC 2015

I get plenty of private mail so I don't know what happened to Brent's.

I really don't want to get too far afield, and I appreciate all the tips
and pointers from those who did answer my question helpfully. I won't have
the bandwidth to offer many more answers. But there is one comment to be
made.

Brent's "help" hasn't hasn't been helpful at all, and I am replying
publicly because there are lessons within. I asked for assistance with A
and get in return volunteer advice on B; that seems to happen often in
Linux forums. But in this case, the advice was grounded in assumptions (ie,
about crime and vandalism) that are baseless and borderline racist.

Refugee settlements are not ethnic ghettos. They mix colours, tribes and
religions, generally in peace. What their residents share, for the most
part, is having been through absolute hell; for some of them the choice was
"live in a community or die alone". They have every reason to be bitter,
angry or resigned, but those I met were none of that.

That's not to say all is well. There was a hanging one morning during the
time I was at the settlement; the victim was identified as a spy for a
government that people were running away from, and not a resident of the
settlement. I saw the body after it was cut down; I was told this was not a
common occurrence.

Nothing that I or any other do-gooder helper can do is going to eliminate
THAT kind of conflict through rich-world "community building" exercises.
Based on what I saw, people running away from atrocity can sometimes teach
us more about community and cohesion and sharing than we could ever teach
them. (I heard the word "Ubuntu" used in context that had nothing to do
with Linux.)

So... if you didn't have advice for what I asked, that's cool, it was a
fairly specialized request. But please, think twice before using the
request to indulge in gratuitous "why don't we just...." commentary. It's
an unhelpful distraction that betrays bias more than it offers help.

On 26 June 2015 at 15:53, Brent Kimberley <Brent.Kimberley at durham.ca> wrote:

>
> Sorry. This was intended to be a private email to Evan.  ‎ (In hindsight,
> it appears that Evan's email mapped back to the list.)
>
> Cheers
> Brent
>
>   Original Message
> From: Mike
> Sent: Friday, June 26, 2015 09:29
> To: talk at gtalug.org
> Reply To: GTALUG Talk
> Subject: Re: [GTALUG] [offtopic] Global telenetworking
>
>
> On 26/06/2015 8:37 AM, Brent Kimberley wrote:
> ...
> > If timed properly (following housing, food, water, sewage, medical,
> > internal governance, mail) such initiatives might reduce internal crime,
> > vandalism, ‎conflict, etc and provide the entire camp with opportunities
> > and hope.
>
> Lumping these problems with food, water and basic essentials risk making
> the problem unmanageably complex.  I expect given Evan's background,
> he's focusing on the areas where he can make the most impact.
>
> There are people who are talented contractors who would normally be
> knowledge workers outside the camp, who's skills aren't being used and
> risk irrelevance while they're stuck there.
>
> Evan, does that sum up your target audience for this?
>
> If I were looking for info on this, I would seriously consider doing
> some lightning talks in the European FOSS and hacker conference
> circuits.  Lots of European hackers play with the digital nomad
> lifestyle and might be able to help.  It's hard to know how it would be
> received.  I would expect that you're likely to get a lot of good names
> and good volunteers, some who may have lived through the experience.
> The Chaos Camp is on this year near Berlin.  Let me know if you head out
> there, I might be in the neighbourhood :-)
>
> Another spot to ask might be Telcom Sans Frontieres, they may have
> people who have insight into local talent during crisis.  I expect you
> probably already bent their ears though.  I have a friend who may have
> contacts there.
>
> Other than the above $.02, I'm clueless on the subject.
>
>
> Mike
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-- 
Evan Leibovitch
Geneva, CH

Em: evan at telly dot org
Sk: evanleibovitch
Tw: el56
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