Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth

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November 29, 2005

El Ghriba Synagogue

Video of El Ghriba Synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia, home to the oldest Torah in the world. The synagogue was bombed by Al Qaeda in 2002, killing nearly two dozen people and wounding more than 30 others.

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Elderly Woman, Kairouan

Elderly Woman, Kairouan
Originally uploaded by andycarvin.

A woman selling produce at the market in Kairouan, Tunisia.

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Ksar Ouled Soltane Panorama

Quicktime VR video of Ksar Ouled Soltane in southern Tunisia.

Posted by acarvin at 07:52 PM | TrackBack

November 28, 2005

Lablabi Mania!

Video of a Djerba restaurant making me a bowl of chickpea and bread stew, or lablabi, Tunisia's unoffficial national dish.

Posted by acarvin at 09:55 AM | TrackBack

Djerba Shave: Tunisian Barber Shop

Video of me getting a professional shave in Djerba, Tunisia. Camera work by Marouen Mraihi.

Posted by acarvin at 09:50 AM | TrackBack

The Road to Tataouine and My First Ksar

To my complete surprise, I had one of my best nights' sleep of the trip in my cave at the Sidi Driss Hotel. The room never got below 66 degrees, and I had plenty of blankets to keep me cozy. While I wouldn't advocate staying there longer than a night or two, it was comfortable enough to get plenty of rest.

Tom and Marouen were still asleep when I got up around 7:45am; Chris, meanwhile, had been up for a while, taking advantage of first light with his beautiful digital camera. I stumbled into the dining room in the Star Wars courtyard, eager to dig into a bottomless bowl of French bread and similar quantities of strong coffee, joining a middle-aged Australian backpacker and a young Japanese trekker. Soon enough everyone at the hotel was in the dining room, talking either Star Wars or WSIS - both subjects applied to everyone in the room as far as I could tell. Unfortunately, the guys who had been working at the hotel the previous evening had gone home, so I wasn't in a position to introduce them to my Star Wars CD. Oh well, maybe next time.

We'd be parting ways this morning: Tom was keen on visiting the oasis of Douz and parts of the Sahara; I, on the other hand, really didn't have time to visit both Douz and the Berber villages around Tataouine, so Marouen and I made the decision to go our own way that day. Tom caught the 9am bus to Douz while Marouen and I lingered at the hotel a little longer. We went outside and climbed the hill that served as the outer rim to the pit courtyards. I soon found myself in the same spot where Luke's aunt called out to him in the first movie. "Luke! Lu-uke!" I yelled, doing a rather poor imitation of her; the hotel worker coming out of the kitchen next to the courtyard looked up at me perplexed, clearly not getting the reference.

By 9:30 or so, Marouen and I had checked out of the hotel and walked over to the bus station. The bus hadn't arrived yet, so we crossed the street and had a coffee at a local café. Nearby, I heard a horrible screeching noise, like an animal in pain; a butcher walked across the courtyard with two chickens in his hands, heading into his shop. The screeching soon stopped. It's haunted me ever since; I found myself becoming a vegetarian again in an instant, not unlike the trip Susanne and I took to Greece in 2001.

With caffeine in my veins and the cries of chickens in my head, we boarded the bus a couple minutes past 10am. It was a local bus, so we made a lot of stops on the way to Gabes, picking up women going to markets and soldiers going wherever it is soldiers go in this part of Tunisia. The bus driver played traditional Tunisian Berber music on the stereo system; it reminded me of Moroccan Berber music but with simpler drum arrangements.

We touched down at the Gabes bus station just before 11:30am; across the plaza, we found a louage headed to Tataouine, about three hours' south. Tataouine holds two major claims to fame. Historically, it's been a base for people wanting to explore the ksour of southern Tunisia. Ksour (singular ksar) are fortified adobe structures built by the Berbers to store their grain. There are around 75 ksour in the region around Tataouine, some nearly 1000 years old. They're a unique style of architecture that's emblematic of southern Tunisia, as well as Tataouine's second claim to fame: Star Wars. Tataouine served as a base of operations during the filming of many of the Star Wars movies - so much so, that the city itself gave its name to Luke Skywalker's home planet, Tatooine. Several of the local ksour were used in the movies, in particular the dreadful Phantom Menace. In that film, when Obi-Wan Kanobi and friends go to Tatooine, they find the young, obnoxious Anakin Skywalker residing in the local slave quarters. Many of those scenes were film in the local ksour.

Our louage headed south past the towns of Medenine and Mareth, the latter probably best known as being the focal point of major tank battles between Rommel's panzer divisions and the US army. We were following the main road to Tripoli, Libya; the border was just a couple of hours away from here. The road was lined with kiosks selling plastic jugs of cheap Libyan gasoline, while others had freshly slaughtered sheep for sale, hanging on ceiling hooks.

Further south, we reached a police checkpoint, where we were asked to pull over. Everything seemed to be going fine until they asked to see our papers and noticed I was carrying a US passport. One of the police leaned into the window and said something in Arabic. All the men around me sighed and muttered. We were being asked to get out of the minivan.

We spent the next 10 minutes or so as police went back and forth from one office to another, carrying my passport around as if it were the most unusual thing they'd seen in weeks. (I can't be the only post-WSIS American touring Tunisia at the moment, can I?) One of the policemen then began talking to Marouen, who explained in Arabic that we were friends from the WSIS summit, that I worked for a US NGO that works in education technology, and that we were here as tourists. His sincere response must have done the job, because they eventually returned with all of our IDs and asked us to get on our way. Most of the other men in the louage stared at me a while as we departed.

"What was that all about?" I asked Marouen.

"It is nothing," Marouen said. "They wanted to know who you were, why you were here.... It's not like you have done anything wrong - they are more concerned about your safety than anything else."

"They have an odd way of expressing it," I replied.

We arrived in Tataouine early in the afternoon. It's a rather nondescript place, built as a French garrison town in the late 1800s, with little historic or cultural significance. I somewhat felt like I was visiting a small town in the rural US - just enough goods and services available to keep things running, but otherwise, not much to write home about. Marouen and I walked a couple blocks from the louage station to the Residence Hamza, which had been recommended by the Lonely Planet. Apart from the friendly service, I'm not totally sure why - the beds were terrible, the halls noisy and the bathroom too ripe for its own good. But at around $13 a night, it was nice and cheap. I might regret the lack of heating, though - clearly I hadn't packed well for this trip.

Across the street, we got some omelets for lunch and called a friend of Marouen's father, Belghasem, who ran a small grocery shop on the main street. Marouen thought that Belghasem might have some ideas for arranging transport around the ksour for tomorrow. A few minutes after calling him, Belghasem arrived at the restaurant and offered to join us that afternoon to visit Ksar Ouled Soltane, 20 minutes' south of Tataouine. He suggested we take a cannionette - a louage pickup truck - then arrange a louage to charter the next day.

We started by talking a walk through the local souk, which was quite small compared to the ones we'd seen in Kairouan and Tunis. Part of the souk was an old synagogue, back from the time of the French; most, if not all of the local Jews had moved to Djerba or immigrated to Israel. Belghasem also had us stop at one of the many pastry shops in town to try a gazelle's horn, a horn-shaped pastry filled with honey and nuts. Delicious.

We then grabbed a cannionette and drove south, sitting on the padded benches installed in the pickup's cab. As we drove to the ksar, Belghasem pointed out several ksour along the way, none of which were listed in our guidebooks. They looked like ruined forts on the sides of hills and mountains; in many ways, that's exactly what they were, since the Berbers built the ksour around former strongholds known as ka'ala, which they used to protect themselves and their foodstuffs from marauders.

We arrived in the village of Ouled Soltane, named after the local Berber tribe. Several old men wearing fezzes and bernouses sat along a bench; they all smiled and gave a warm "Salaam alekum" to us as we climbed out of the cannionette.

"W'alekum salaam," I replied, waving back.

Belghasem led us around the corner down an alleyway; suddenly we found ourselves in a remarkable adobe courtyard. To the left and right were vaulted ghorfas - grain storage areas - usually stacked two or three on top of each other. Adobe stairs suspended in mid-air led up to each ghorfa, while wood beams jutted out at the highest levels, allowing villagers to bring up goods on pulleys. This was the very image of a ksar that I had in my head; it was great to finally see some of them in person.

Marouen and I scurried up the stairs on different ghorfas, trying to get a better view of the ones across from us. Behind me there was a beautiful view of the rough, barren countryside. The ksar was located on a hillside, so you could see anyone approaching the granary from miles around.

Belghasem had gone off through a passageway into another courtyard behind a small group of Italian tourists; Marouen and I soon followed. Inside was another plaza of ghorfas, but much more spectacular. They were stacked four levels high, dozens of them, with each side of the plaza at least 100 feet long. It was quite a sight. The Italian tourists were having tea at a small café, as a thin young man sold drawings of the ksar.

I followed the perimeter of the ksar, admiring the workmanship of the ghorfas and their accompanying stairs. This particular ksar was over 500 years old; despite being abandoned, it was in remarkable condition.

Eventually, we struck up a conversation with the young man selling tea and drawings. His name was Bashir; his brother was the artist who'd done the pictures. He didn't speak any English, so Marouen translated for him. He was from the village, but wasn't allowed in the ksar when he was a child, because the ksar was reserved as a meeting space for adult members of the tribe. They gather in the ksar once a week to discuss community members and socialize. Once he was older, he was allowed to set up a small shop inside the ksar, selling snacks, trinkets and his brother's artwork.

"Do you get many Star Wars tourists?" I asked.

"Some," he replied through Marouen. "But not as many as Ksar Hadada."

"Do you remember when they came here to film Star Wars?"

"Yes, but they were very fast," he said. "They came in and out; I was studying that day and missed the excitement."

"Have you seen Star Wars?" I asked.

"He hasn't seen movies," Marouen said, translating Bashir's reply.

"The Star Wars movies?"

"No," Marouen continued. "Any movies."

--------

I bought a small drawing of the ksar from Bashir before we said goodbye. Outside the ksar, we quickly found another cannionette heading back to Tataouine. We again sat in the back; the front was taken up by a man with several dozen loaves of French bread.

We split off from Belghasem to rest at the hotel for a bit and visit the cybercafe. Later, Marouen said we should go to his shop to discuss our plans for tomorrow. He was interested in taking the day off and touring the ksour with us. He wasn't a guide or anything - he just enjoyed the company, as did we.

Marouen and I walked over to his shop on the outskirts of town, where we found him and his partner inside their kiosk, selling handfuls of roasted sunflower seeds to local children. They offered us tea and some seeds, which were still piping hot, freshly scooped from the roasting pan. I sat passively while the three of them debated in Arabic about our strategy for the next day. The general agreement was to try to hire a louage for the next day. The driver could not be our guide; he could only chauffer us around, because of local rules about all guides being licensed. That was fine; our books would serve the role of our guide, or we could hire someone on the spot as we needed it.

Leaving the shop, Marouen and I caught a late dinner at the Restaurant de la Medina. The restaurant only had a few of the items listed on the menu. Marouen suggested the chicken; I kept thinking about the chickens from that morning. I ordered a salad and some baked beans for dinner.

Posted by acarvin at 09:27 AM | TrackBack

November 26, 2005

Another Day in Djerba

My last day in Djerba: nice weather, friendly people, strong tea. still cant type on an Arabic keyboard to save my life, so hopeully I can plug in my laptop for a while when I get back to Tunis. Stay tuned for some new videos once I have enough bandwidth to upload them: the El Ghriba Synagogue in Djerba; how to make lablabi - bread and chickpea stew; getting shaved by a master barber; helping a camel mow the lawn; and spending the night in luke skywalker's house. More later.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 07:25 PM | TrackBack

November 25, 2005

Medinas, Coliseums and Too Many Taxis

Tom snored like hell last night; it drove me so crazy I ended up getting my own room down the hall. It turns out single rooms were just two dinars more than each of our share of the quad, so we probably should have done that anyway. I managed to sleep just fine after that, and woke up around 7am to rouse the others out of bed for a quick breakfast at the hotel.

Today our plan was to work our way to the Berber village of Matmata, perhaps most famous for its underground homes, used most famously as Luke Skywalker's house in the original Star Wars. Luke's home was actually a one-star hotel, so we made plans to spend the night there. In the meantime, we'd walk around Mahdia for a bit, visit the nearby Roman coliseum of el Jem, then work our way south to Matmata.

Compared to Tunis or Kairouan, Mahdia isn't much more than a village in its own right, but that's much of its charm. An ancient city with a medina located on a long, thin peninsula, it's a wonderful place to relax when the weather is nice. Unfortunately, we weren't blessed with stellar weather, but that didn't dampen our spirits too much. We walked clockwise around the peninsula, watching the waves lap against the remains of Fatimid-era fortifications that were knocked down more than 500 years ago by the Spanish. Legendary pirate Dragut, a protégé of the Barbarossa brothers, had used Mahdia as a base while his corsairs harassed Spanish shipping lanes; the Spanish responded by blowing up the local mosque and knocking down the walls.

As we rounded the end of the peninsula, we reached a large Muslim graveyard. Sheep wandered around the headstones as several cats stood watching, as if they were herding the sheep. One of the cats was very friendly and immediately trotted over to say hello to us; another one came near us but remained somewhat suspicious of our intentions. The sheep even expressed interest in us, but I have a feeling they were just looking for some handouts.

We strolled a short way through the medina but eventually decided to return to the hotel to grab our things and hail a taxi; we'd have a long day ahead of us. The taxi brought us back to the local louage station, where we joined a shared taxi for the 45-minute drive to el Jem. Jem is home to the best preserved coliseums in the world, built in the third century by the local Roman governor. A medium-size city has now grown up around the ruins, but you could still make out the old stone structure from many blocks away as we approached the louage station.

Our first goal was to figure out when the train passed through el Jem, so we could continue to Gabes before catching a short-haul louage to Matmata. At the train station, we discovered the next train wasn't for another four hours, and we'd only have about 90 minutes of things to do in el Jem, even if we walked at a snail's pace. So it seemed we'd have to talk louages all the way - at least 90 minutes to Sfax, and probably another three hours to Matmata if we could arrange direct transport. Worse case scenario, we'd have to change taxis in Sfax, Gabes and Matmata Nouvelle before reaching Matmata - a frightening thought.

Even though the coliseum is the largest building for miles around, somehow we managed to get lost trying to find it, winding through residential neighborhoods with all of our luggage in tow. I truly hoped we'd be able to find a safe place to stow our bags; otherwise our time at the coliseum would be quite short. Rounding a corner, I spotted a bit of the ruins the next block away. You could also see a distinct up-tick in the number of souvenir vendors in the street, not to mention restaurateurs calling out to tourists in half a dozen languages. One of them called out to us, inviting us in for lunch; we promised him we'd come back for lunch if he watched our bags; a deal was struck.

We left our bags with the restaurant owner (except my laptop - that's not leaving my side) while we went into the coliseum. It seemed to be as large as the one in Rome, if not larger, and better preserved. Marouen and I followed the first row of stairs upwards so we could get a high view of the inner ring. Walking underneath countless vaults, we reached the inner part of the coliseum, with a fine view of a group of tourists standing around like martyrs getting ready to be thrown to the lions. You could easily imagine the crowds here - el Jem held 30,000 people, much more than the population of the local community.

Marouen and I then climbed to the highest level, only to find Tom there; somehow he'd managed to get ahead of us. Tom jumped around from one stone beam to another, exclaiming how they'd never let him do this in Rome. With good reason. Winding through the coliseum's many passageways, we soon found ourselves at ground zero, in the center of the ring. I saw Tom spin around in awe, looking at imaginary crowds.

"Having a Russell Crowe moment?" I asked.

"Actually, yes, I was," he replied, almost instinctively gripping an imaginary short sword.

Marouen and I then found a flight of stairs to the underground passageway below the center ring. It suddenly got quite dark, with just enough light to prevent us from splitting our heads open on a wall of cracked marble. Further ahead, we could see more light, so we followed it; we were now in the main passageway running the length of the ring. Shafts of light came through the grating above us; we passed unnoticed below several Italian tourists. To our left and right, dark niches held memories of the wild beasts once kept there, or perhaps the criminals or Christians as they collected their thoughts before being sacrificed for the thrill of the crowd.

Tom entered the underground chamber just as we exited; we met him at the center point of the ring, peering down at him through the metal grating. Along the edges of the ring you could see a few fragments of marble left; at one point marble covered the entire faćade. What a sight it must have been at its peak, 1700 years ago. Leaving the coliseum, we returned to the restaurant as promised and ordered lunch. Tom and I got to have our first briq - a folded, crispy crepe with a lightly cooked egg inside. Tunisians try to eat a briq without dripping any of the egg on themselves, so it often requires a lot of slurping. Fortunately, mine was cooked well enough that this never became an issue for me. Meanwhile, we watched the restaurateur trying to lure in customers by calling out the names of various politicians from their respective countries. He managed to get a Greek couple to sit down, but otherwise most people were going next door.

After lunch we caught a louage to Sfax, getting there around 2pm. We had hoped to take a louage all the way to Matmata from there, but people told us that we'd have to talk the more roundabout route of going to Gabes and Matmata Nouvelle first. A louage driver approached us and offered to let us charter his taxi for 60 dinars, which seemed excessive. We bartered back and forth for a while, eventually getting him down to 45 dinars. It would be a bit more than going the usual way, but would probably save us at least 90 minutes along the way. The rest of the afternoon was spent driving through rainy coastal Tunisia. Marouen slept much of the time while Tom and I continued to talk politics.

By 4:30pm, the terrain became very barren and hilly - lots of sand and clay and scrub brush, with the occasional date palm in the distance. A few miles before Matmata, we passed our first camel, nibbling on some bushes beyond a Berber tent. We were definitely no longer in urban Tunisia.

A few minutes before 5pm we arrived in Matmata. We pulled up in front of the Hotel Sidi Driss, aka Luke Skywalker's house. From the outside, it looked like nothing special; just a squat building with some souvenir vendors out front. But as we entered, it instantly transformed into another galaxy, far, far away. Carved into the countryside, the hotel is entirely under ground. The reception area was basically a cave with somewhat claustrophobic ceilings and countless Star Wars stickers along the wall. To our right, an enormous Darth Vader tapestry hung on the wall, while to our left was a passageway to a courtyard.

We followed one of the hotel staff into the courtyard. It was like we were entering the center ring of a coliseum again, but in miniature. The walls of the courtyard shot up at least 20 feet upward, with arched passageways leading to more caves and corridors. For a moment, I forgot I was underground; the very top of those soaring walls were actually ground level, meaning that we were literally standing in an enormous pit. I immediately recognized the location. This may or may not have been the pit used in all the Star Wars shots of Luke's house; either way it was certainly in the same style. I didn't see any props along the walls, though, so this was probably just a run-of-the-mill troglodyte pit rather than a George Lucas set.

I was then shown to my room - a cave with seven beds crammed into it with a single bare lightbulb and no lock on the door. Charming. I guess I'd be carrying around my laptop again tonight. We dropped off most of our belongings then went upstairs to go for a walk.

In the reception area, we went passed the Darth Vader picture and found another courtyard. This one was decorated with large plastic facades covered in weird knobs and metallic objects. The palm tree in one corner of the courtyard was hidden under a long plastic tube designed to look like some space-age duct. There was no doubt about it; this courtyard was the main pit used in the first Star Wars movie. The three of us went around inspecting every corner of the courtyard. The plastic set pieces were very flimsy, clearly designed to be filmed and not touched. It was quite astonishing that so much of it was still in place; I would have figured most of it would have been boosted and sold on eBay by now.

Stepping out of the hotel, I was then surprised to see Tracey Naughton of the WSIS media caucus standing by her car with her partner Chris. I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised to bump into WSIS colleagues here, but it was still one of those "What the hell are you doing here?" moments. Tracey and Chris checked into the hotel while Tom, Marouen and I went in search of the Hotel Marhala, another Matmata pit house. The Rough Guide claimed that the hotel was used for "the Star Wars disco scene," which I assumed meant the Mos Eisely cantina with all the funny aliens in it, where we first encounter Han Solo. I was under the impression that this scene was filmed on a London sound stage rather than here in Tunisia, but in case I was wrong, I'd hate to miss out on seeing the famous cantina.

We hiked our way up and down the hills that make up the village, past a few cafes and souvenir stalls. There were very few people around; clearly this wasn't a busy time of year for tourists to be traipsing through. Many of the local men, young and old alike, were wearing what I could have sworn were Star Wars Jawa outfits - those little creatures in the brown cloaks that go around saying "ooh tee dee" a lot. The more I saw them, the more I realized they were also the same cloak worn by Obi Wan Kanobi himself. I'd always figured those outfits were just a figment of the mind of George Lucas or his costume designer. I had no idea they were traditional Berber cloaks. It would take me a while to stop thinking about Jawas each time I saw someone wearing one of them.

It was just before 6pm, and it was pitch black outside. Somehow, we managed to find our way to the Marhala Hotel. We planned to get a drink at the bar, but it wasn't open yet. We stuck around long enough to ask the hotel workers if any scenes from Star Wars were shot there. Marouen expected them to say yes no matter what, since that would be good for business. "Leh, leh, leh," they replied, shaking their heads. Nope. No Star Wars scenes filmed here. Cleared up that myth, I guess.

We walked a little further to another hotel with an open bar; Marouen drank coffee while I add some Muscat wine and Tom had a Celtia beer. The local restaurants didn't open until 7pm, so we then decided to return to the hotel and see if Tracey and Chris would like to join us. They'd already ordered dinner at our hotel; once we heard that was possible, we decided to eat in as well.

Matmata wasn't the type of town that had much of anything going on after sunset, so I suggested that we all watch Star Wars. I had the DVD with me, and the Sidi Driss seemed like the best place in the world to watch it. By the time we sat down for dinner, we'd found a group of around eight people wanting to watch the movie.

Dinner at the Sidi Driss was surprisingly good, certainly better than the run-down accommodations. They served briq as an appetizer, with copious amounts of fiery harissa sauce and French bread, then lamb couscous with bowls of extra tomato sauce. The sauce in particular made the meal memorable; sometimes the couscous here can be a little starchy, so the sauce makes it a lot more enjoyable to eat.

After dinner, we tried to plug in my laptop in the dining hall, which would have been perfect since it was actually used as Luke's dining room in the movie. Unfortunately the one power outlet in the room was high on the wall, and every time I plugged in my laptop, the plug fell out of the wall. So we searched around and found another room, just above and to the left of the dining room. It was still in the main Star Wars courtyard with all the set pieces, so that's all that mattered.

I set up my laptop on a long table, with everyone spread around the other side of the room. It wasn't easy to watch, and the sound wasn't great, but it was still better than nothing. I imagine the movie has been played here before, but who knows. Every now and then the staff came by to take a quick peak, but they never lingered. Afterwards we asked them about it; they said they'd never seen the movie. I wish we'd known that; we would have insisted on showing it to them. I then offered to play the Matmata-related scenes the next morning if they were around the hotel.

I headed for bed around 11pm. The room was surprisingly comfortable; even though it was in the 50s outside, the room was closer to 70 degrees. That's cave living for you. It even attracted some guests, including a large dung beetle that crawled along the floor. I gave it a gentle lift with a small plastic bag and tossed him out of the room so I wouldn't step on him at night, then climbed into one of my seven beds before calling it a night. I just wonder if this was the bed that Luke used. With my luck, it was probably his Aunt Veru's bed instead.

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Next Stop: Mahdia

I slept in later than normal today, getting up around 9am for a nice breakfast at the Kasbah buffet. I really didn't have much planned for today since Marouen Mraihi and Tom Dawkins were coming down around lunchtime to join me during my travels around southern Tunisia. After breakfast, I took another walk through the market, where I managed to get a few more photos of people. One woman insisted I pay here one dinar after I took her picture; so far she's the only person that's requested money here in Tunisia.

Around noon I went back to the hotel to give Marouen a call and see if he was on the bus yet. He said they were at the bus station waiting to depart Tunis, which meant I wouldn't see them for at least another two hours. Knowing that I'd have a draining week ahead of me, I decided to chill out by the hotel pool, reading my newly acquired French travel guide to Tunisia. I managed to make out a lot of it, probably because I already knew much of the Lonely Planet Tunisia guide by heart.

Marouen and Tom arrived just after 2:30pm. They asked if it would be alright to walk around the Medina before leaving Kairouan; I said I didn't mind, since at this rate we probably wouldn't reach our next destination until sunset anyway. Marouen suggested we stay in Sousse, but Tom and I recommended Mahdia, since it was smaller and more laid-back. Marouen seemed okay with that.

Tom had expressed interest in buying a carpet; he was certainly in the right place. We walked around the medina passing various carpet shops, but decided to grab a quick bite to eat at a restaurant first. We ordered omelets, which came with beans, French bread and a Tunisian salad - quite delicious.

The three of us then backtracked to one of the carpet shops, where we first asked to climb up to the terrace first. Unfortunately, the terrace wasn't that spectacular, but we were still obliged to shop around for a few minutes. Tom didn't want to spend more than 150 dinars on a carpet, which pretty much meant he'd be looking at ones that were two square meters. The owners of the shop pulled out carpets that were tagged at well over 300 dinars, but that was just a negotiating tactic. With some language assistance from Marouen and a healthy dose of haggler's skepticism, Tom eventually got the carpet at less than 150 dinars.

By the time we got to the louage station, it was around 4pm; we'd be lucky if we arrived in Mahdia by 7pm, since we had to catch a taxi first to Sousse and then change for another taxi to Mahdia. The process was simple enough; we'd go to the station, call out where we wanted to go, and would be directed to the right minibus. We'd then wait until the bus filled and then hit the road. Pretty straightforward.

Marouen slept most of the time while Tom and I talked US politics; for an Australian he knew a hell of a lot about what was going on in US policymaking. We reached the Mahdia louage station around 7pm, then caught a taxi the last few kilometres to the medina. He charged us three dinars -we definitely got ripped off, but were too tired to do much about it. We found ourselves on a chilly, quiet peninsula jutting out in the Mediterranean, standing at the edge of a medina alleyway. Ahead of us we found the Hotel Al Jazira, our home for the next night. Two song birds greeted us as we went inside; the owner gave us a quad room for ourselves.

After dropping our bags, we walked through the peaceful medina past a few cats and not much else to the Restaurant de la Medina, where we ordered their fish couscous special. The fish (mullet) was okay but the sauce on the couscous was excellent. Meanwhile, the local cat parked himself between Marouen and me, waiting to be fed. I didn't know the local protocol for feeding cats, so I resisted giving him any fish. Clearly, this wasn't the right thing to do, because the cat kept trying to claw his way into my lap. The restaurant owner seemed to get a kick out of my predicament. Just another night in Tunisia, I guess.

Posted by acarvin at 05:57 PM | TrackBack

Losing Myself & My Guidebook in Kairouan

After a quick breakfast at the Diplomat, I hailed a taxi and went straight to the southern bus station. It was 8:40am, and I was hoping to get the 9am bus to Kairouan, assuming that's when the next bus left the station. Fortunately, I arrived with just enough time to buy my ticket for nine dinars and get on the bus, which left three minutes later. There were less than 10 of us on the bus, so we had plenty of room to spread out. Interestingly, the bus was one of the WSIS delegate buses - it still had the WSIS hotel route sign on it. The driver went around the bus and asked everyone's destination. No one said they were going to Nabeul, usually the first stop on the bus, so we made a direct line to Kairouan, arriving in just over two hours rather than the usual three.

The Kairouan bus station was a swirl of dust, with nary a taxi in sight. I grabbed my bags and hiked a few meters outside of the station, hoping to hail a passing taxi. It didn't take too long; within five minutes I had a ride to my hotel. Soon we pulled up to what appeared to be a medieval sandstone fortress; indeed, it was the Hotel La Kasbah, my home for the next night. The Kasbah was the medina's former military stronghold, but it had been converted beautifully into Kairouan's classiest hotel. Normally a room during the high season could easily fetch well over $100 a night, but I managed to get a room for closer to $50.

After tossing my belongings into my room, I grabbed my daypack, camera and Lonely Planet guidebook so I could explore the city. I'd been waiting for years to do this, ever since becoming interested in genealogy. You see my name, Carvin, was originally spelled Karawan, a name associated with a family of Tunisian rabbis who lived in medieval Kairouan. Even though there are few, if any, Jews left in Kairouan today, it was once an intellectual powerhouse for Talmudic studies, rivaling the colleges of Babylon back in the 10th and 11th centuries. According to legend, a group of four rabbis left Babylon on a mission to the Mediterranean; at some point in their voyage, their ship was attacked by pirates, and the four rabbis were initially taken as hostages, sent to four different cities, including Kairouan. Eventually, they were allowed to settle in those cities, becoming the basis for what would be a thriving Jewish community. Who knows if there's any truth to the story, let alone my actual genealogical connection to Kairouan. Either way, it's still a possibility, so my visit here would give me a chance to reconnect with my supposed heritage.

Leaving the hotel, I walked across the road to the local market. It was jammed with vendors and shoppers haggling mostly over produce, particularly peppers, oranges and pomegranates. Other vendors sold dates, fennel, chickpeas, dried fruits and nuts. The vendors would call out their produce and the price associated with it, hoping to attract new customers, so the market had the sound of an agricultural stock exchange.

No one seemed to mind I was there; as far as I could tell I was the only non-Tunisian in the market. People occasionally said bonjour or marhaba to me, but otherwise they went around their business, as did I, taking photos along the way. I asked several people if they minded having their pictures taken, and fortunately no one objected. Further along the market towards the southwest gate of the medina, I passed along a series of vendors selling shoes and clothing. This area was particularly crowded, with women in hejabs and jeans alike looking for bargains.

Beyond the market, I reached the old stone gate to the medina. Numerous vendors had set up shop for tourists, selling souvenirs and postcards, while others sold mobile phone accessories and music CDs. I walked along Avenue 7th de November, the main road through this part of the medina. You could tell that this was a major destination for tourists given the number of carpet shops along the strip; Kairouan is famous throughout Tunisia for its carpets. I wasn't in the market for a rug, though, so I declined the numerous requests to come inside and have a look. I'd read that carpet vendors were extremely persistent here, but generally I didn't find that to be the case. Frankly, the souvenir vendors in the Tunis medina made a harder sell than the carpet guys along the street here. The medina had an odd familiarity to it; I'd been told that some of the scenes from Raiders of the Lost Ark had been filmed here, so I'd have to take some pics and compare them with the movie when I got home. Most of the buildings were whitewashed with light blue accents; once you headed north away from the main drag, you could really appreciate the brightness of the place.

I wandered upward through the medina, in the general direction of the Great Mosque, the holiest Islamic site in North Africa. There wasn't a direct route to the mosque, per se; instead, you had to weave through the alleyways, using your inner compass and your map as a guide. The neighborhoods were residential, with people coming and going from place to place on bicycles and motor scooters, boys kicking soccer balls against the walls. Still no signs of other tourists, amazingly; it was as if I had the entire medina to myself. Soon I reached the southern wall of the mosque. I followed it west another block or two, reaching a dense spot of souvenir vendors; this must be the main entrance. Walking through a large wooden door, I paid the 5.2 dinar entrance fee, including a camera fee. Inside, I found a group of two dozen Spanish tourists and their guide, standing in the enormous courtyard. Far to my left, the mosque's ancient minaret soared upward, while to the right, the domed prayer hall. The mosque was first constructed in the late 7th century, though most of what's scene today dates from a couple hundred years later; either way, it's one of the oldest mosques in the world and an important pilgrimage site.

I strolled along the courtyard as the sun bore down on me. It was only in the low 70s, but the light colors of the stonework made the light reflect from the ground. Even with sun glasses on I had to squint much of the time. The perimeter of the courtyard was lined with hundreds of columns, all much older than the mosque itself. They were taken from Roman and Punic sites across north Tunisia, including Carthage. Because of this, no two columns were alike.

I walked over to the prayer hall, waiting a little while for the Spanish tourists to get out of the way so I could have a look for myself. Non-Muslims aren't allowed inside, but you could stand at the doorway and appreciate the view. The interior was decorated by elaborate chandeliers and columns, the floor covered in carpets from wall to wall. A small number of men prayed inside, but otherwise the prayer hall was almost empty. From there, I crossed the full length of the courtyard, which sloped gradually to a central point, allowing rainwater to drain into a cistern.

I stood below the massive sandstone minaret, peering upward. The lowest levels of the minaret date from some of the earliest constructions of the mosque; in fact, several of the stones used in the construction featured Latin script from the Roman era. The people who built it probably must not have spoken Latin; one block had the words appearing upside down. I sat along the edge of the courtyard, basking in the sun and reading my guidebook. I shot some video as well, hoping to make a brief video blog about my visit to the mosque. After a while it got too hot sitting there, so I departed the mosque and started to retrace my path through the medina, intent on having a late lunch somewhere near Ave de 7th Novembre. Along the way I stopped at a snack shop to grab a bottle of water - man was I parched - and continued through the covered souk, where I was invited to climb to the terrace of a carpet shop to enjoy their view of the medina. From the roof, I could see minarets in every direction, the blue sky and puffy white clouds perfectly complimenting the blue and white colors of the medina.

Leaving the shop, I continued through the souk, where I was briefly stopped by a man who spoke in French for a couple of minutes about the beauty of Islam. I couldn't understand most of what he said, so I smiled a lot and nodded my head politely.

A few minutes later, I was back along the main avenue. I knew my Lonely Planet guide had several local restaurant suggestions, so I pulled out my daypack to take a look. The outer pocket was open; the book was missing. I paused for a moment , somewhat confused; I rummaged through the other pockets but couldn't find it. Had I been pickpocketed, perhaps while being lectured by the man in the souk? That didn't seem likely, because nothing else was missing.

Retracing my steps northward through the souk, I stopped at both the carpet shop and the snack shop; no sign of the book. I continued all the way to the mosque, which was closing its doors to tourists for the rest of the day. I went inside and met an old man who said the mosque was closed, so I struggled to explain in French that my book was missing. The fact that I was flummoxed by my book disappearing made it harder to get my words right.

"J'etait ici a une heure," I struggled. "Avec une libre touriste Tunisienne. Mais maintenant Je ne trouver pas cette livre. Peutetre j'oublie ici?"

The man replied to me slowly, but I couldn't make out much of what he was saying. It sounded like he was telling me to go to the tourism office to buy a book.

"Non, non, monsieur," I replied. "Je ne besoin pas couper un livre."

He continued to explain to me what he was trying to say, leading me out of the mosque while walking my bike. I started to get the sense that he had actually found my book and sent it to the tourism office. He told me the office closed at 3pm, and gave me directions to walk there. I just hoped I understood what the hell he was saying.

I walked for about 30 minutes towards the office; why I didn't hail a taxi is beyond me. I then reached a large building that appeared to be the right place; inside I found two women who spoke a little English.

"Is this the tourism office?"

"No, this is a ticket office," one of them replied. "The tourism office is closed today."

"Closed?" I said. "That doesn't make sense."

"Why not?"

"I lost my guide book today when I was at the mosque. A man at the mosque said he had found my book and brought it to the tourism office, and gave me directions that led me here."

"This is not the tourism office, but it is close by," she continued. "But still, the office is locked today, so it is not possible he could have brought your book."

It seemed quite clear that my Lonely Planet guide had become a casualty of my trip to Tunisia, at the worst possible time since I hadn't really gone anywhere yet. There wasn't much I could really do except give the women my contact information in case the book turned up; they wrote down my hotel and room number but the look on their face said quite clearly they thought the whole exercise was pointless.

So here I was on the first day of a week-long excursion in Tunisia, without a guide book. Needing some time to think, I went to the city's one Internet café, a Publinet centre at a local hotel. A young teenage girl set me up on a PC, charging me about a dollar for an hour of Internet access. They had DSL, so the connection wasn't too bad. I also checked to see if my WSISBlogs.org website was blocked, as had been rumored at WSIS; it wasn't. I also updated my blog with some journals I'd written on my laptop as saved on my USB key; this was a lot easier than struggling to type on an Arabic keyboard, with multiple keys in all the wrong places (wrong to me, at least).

I stopped at the hotel and asked if there was a bookstore in town; the receptionist told me that I could find a couple of books near the far end of Avenue 7th de Novembre. By now, it was late in the afternoon, the sun getting low in the sky. I strolled the shops, looking to see if I could find a bookstore; eventually I reached the eastern gate of the medina, not having passed a single one. I then tried to find one in the newer part of the city, outside the medina walls. I had no problem finding an ATM and a dozen places to buy shoes, but still no bookstore.

It was just after 6pm; the sun had set and several planets flickered in the sky. Feeling somewhat dejected because of my failed book hunt, I decided to find a place to get some dinner. A few doors down passed the gate, though, I suddenly noticed a row of shops with hundreds of books in the window. They must have just opened for the evening. I went in one shop and asked about tour books; they had a couple English-language books about Tunisian history, but no English guides. However, I managed to find a French guidebook; skimming through it, I figured I could work out the details since my reading ability was a hell of a lot better than my speaking ability.

With my new book in hand, I stopped at the Restaurant de la jeunesse for dinner, where I had a fixed-price meal for eight dinars. The first course, a Tunisian tuna salad, was delicious, but the second course, a Tunisian tagine, was a bit much for me. I'd forgotten that tagines here were different than the stew-like tagines of Morocco, so I ended up with a fried square of quiche. I ate a few bites of it but otherwise filled up on bread and olives. They then brought over a small place of the local delicacy, honey-soaked pastries filled with minced dates. They looked almost exactly like Fig Newtons but were 10 times sweeter, so there was no way I could finish the five pieces on my plate.

Back at the hotel, I wrapped up my evening sitting in their café, an extraordinary place in a dark, vaulted part of the kasbah. I smoked a shisha and drank some mint tea while writing my blog; the evening call to prayer rang out in the distance as the Chemical Brothers' "Galvanize" played on the stereo system. Yet another instance of the old colliding with the new here in Tunisia.

Posted by acarvin at 05:32 PM | TrackBack

November 24, 2005

Back from the Ksour

Marouen and I just spent the last day touring the ksour of southern Tunisia. A ksar (ksour plural) is a fortified Berber grainary, usually located on the side of a hill or mountain. They're extraordinary structures, distant cousins to the adobe dwellings of the southwest US. A couple of them were used as the slave quarters in the Star Wars movie, the Phantom Menace.

I've taken a lot of pictures and shot some video, though the audio in my camera doesn't sound great for some reason. Will have to figure out what's going on. Anyway, I'll write up some more details later when I've had a chance to sit down at my own keyboard... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 02:47 PM | TrackBack

November 23, 2005

Hello from Tataouine

Right now I'm in a cyber cafe in Tataouine, southern Tunisia; I spent the last couple of days working my way here by way of Mahdia, el Jem and Matmata, where I stayed in the hotel that was used as the location of Luke Skywalker's home in Star Wars. Blogging is a bit difficult from here so I'm doing most of my writing on my laptop, which I will upload later as access improves. I've got a bit of a cold and just managed my first shower in a few days, but otherwise I'm doing well. I've taken lots of pics and video and am looking forward to converting some of it into video blogs. Stay tuned... ac

Posted by acarvin at 05:16 PM | TrackBack

November 21, 2005

Rain in Tunis, Reunions in Sidi Bou Said

I checked out of the hotel just before 9am and grabbed a taxi. The driver wanted to take me to the airport, but I explained to him I was simply changing hotels. Alex Felsenberg had offered to put me up in his room at the Hotel Diplomat so I could spend an extra day in Tunis and hang out with friends from the World Summit Awards. Originally, the plan was for Suzanne Stein and I to go to the Bardo Museum for an hour or two before she had to go to the airport, but word spread throughout the Diplomat's breakfast buffet, and soon a dozen or so people wanted to go as well.

We waited in the lobby for everyone to come downstairs but it was like herding cats; few people were ready to go. Eventually, Suzanne, Alex, Jan and I crammed into a taxi and drove west to Bardo. Everyone else would just go there whenever they were ready; if people got separated, we'd just rendezvous back at the hotel at 2pm. The four of us drove counterclockwise around the medina, the driver weaving through surprisingly heaving Saturday morning traffic. He was a real talker, and I was sitting up front. It didn't seem to matter that my French is an embarrassment; he gave me a complete quiz about my background, my thoughts about Tunisia, my plans for the next week. Hopefully his nods were more than just polite responses to utter gibberish on my part.

We arrived at the Bardo and went to the ticket booth. I asked for one ticket but the woman requested to see my WSIS badge. "If you have your badge it's free," she explained. So much for no longer having to wear them this week. Inside, I was glad to see the first room wasn't jammed with tourists. The last time I was here, at least two tour bus' worth of people were crammed into the parlor. You could barely photograph a mosaic without getting some guy in the way. It was really nice being back at the Bardo; I'd been truly impressed with the collection 18 months ago, and looked forward to exploring it again.

We worked our way to the first floor. There were a lot of people in the main courtyard, but it didn't really detract from the wonder of the mosaics. One of the largest collections of Roman mosaics in the world, the Bardo is doubly blessed by the fact that it's located inside a beautiful Ottoman-era mansion. The courtyard was two stories high, with a pair of enormous mosaics gracing the floor. The surrounding rooms had equally impressive collections, including the only known portrait of the poet Virgil. My favorite spot was the staircase, which afforded you marvelous view of long mosaics climbing three stories into the air.

Alex wandered off on this own while Jan, Suzanne and I worked our way to the second floor. From here, you could see the giant mosaics on the floor of the courtyard, getting a bird's eye view of them. Eventually, though, Suzanne had to leave us; her flight was just a few hours away, so we said our goodbyes before exploring dozens more mosaics. Upstairs, we bumped into Osama Manzar and his wife Shefali (dearest Shefali, please forgive me as I don't know how to spell your name and I'm sure I'm butchering it). They'd been cruising around the museum for a while as well, spotting Alex on a few occasions, not to mention all the other people here with WSIS badges dangling around their necks.

Eventually, we regrouped with Alex and an Iranian colleague whom I didn't know very well. We all planned to continue to the medina, but just as we prepared to leave a torrential thundershower began crashing outside. I was the only one carrying an umbrella and a jacket, so we retreated to the museum café for a coffee, hoping to wait out the rain.

By 11:30 or so, we left the museum in a light drizzle, hunting for a pair of taxis. I was part of the second group, including Osama and Shefali. We needed to head back to the hotel to pick up jackets for everyone else; we just weren't prepared for this cold, wet weather. Our driver, a gray-haired man with three days' facial stubble, bobbed his head up and down as he blasted French and Arabic rock from the radio. I was then shocked to hear an Arabic rendition of "Rock the Casbah," by the Clash. I could barely contain myself, trying to sing along with the original lyrics, the taxi driver's head still bobbing.

Back at the hotel, everyone grabbed their jackets before hailing another round of taxis. I told Alex that we should rendezvous at the Place de la Victoire, as that was an ideal spot to enter the medina. It was a good idea in theory, but not in practice. When Shefali, Osama and I arrived, there was no sign of them. We got ahold of Alex and asked where he was; he said he was at the Place "by the monument." The only monument I knew of there was the medieval stone gate, but that's where we were standing. After getting disconnected a few times, we eventually decided to meet up at 2pm back at the hotel. These logistics were just wasting too much time.

Osama and Shefali were eager to shop for souvenirs, and I was more than happy to tag along for the ride. I looked forward to seeing a master haggler in action, and Osama didn't disappoint. Shop owners were demanding as much as 45 dinars for an individual leather pillow, and Osama was determined to get four of them for around that same price. We had to go into a lot of shops before we found a shop owner willing to put up with Osama's hard ball. In the end, though, even Osama couldn't get it down to that price, but he did manage to bring home four of them for a reasonable 55 dinars. Shefali, meanwhile, found a cute little stuffed camel toy for their son, along with a small bottle of perfume for herself.

Northwest of the Great Mosque, we stopped at a fast-food kiosk to grab a quick lunch; I had a tuna baguette smothered in harissa, hummus and olives, which really hit the spot. The rain was intermittent at this point, and seemed to weaken with each passing outburst.

By now, it was fast approaching 2pm, so we walked across government plaza and hailed another taxi, just as a stronger batch of showers opened up above us. We got to the hotel a little late, but so did everyone else, so it worked out just fine. Our friend Faouzi soon arrived; he and his wife were having us over for dinner tonight. Faouzi had offered to take us around for the afternoon as well, but once again our group grew so large we needed to hire a pair of taxis on top of the five people jammed in his car. Our next stop was the Carthage Museum on Byrsa Hill. It was too wet to explore the rest of Carthage, but this would at least give first-timers a feel for the area.

The rain had stopped by the time we arrived atop Byrsa Hill, allowing to walk along the ancient plaza before going into the museum. Byrsa had once been the Carthage equivalent of the Acropolis in Athens or Capitoline Hill in Rome, with important temples occupying the summit. Today, only the marble plaza and a few stubby columns remained, while countless ruins from the Punic era lay 10 or so meters hidden underground. Faouzi gave our group a tour of the plaza, pointing out sights in the distance; I kept on kneeling to the ground to play with the many cats that called Byrsa Hill home. They were some of the friendliest cats in Tunis, a place full of cats; they'd weave between my legs and lurch upward at my badge, hoping to keep it as a souvenir. I could have sworn I even recognized one of the tabbies and a tuxedo cat; I took several pictures so I could compare them with photos from my previous visit.

We spent about 45 minutes exploring the museum itself, which has a fine collection of mosaics, Roman glass and statues. The upper floor does a good job at giving you a feel for what Carthage looked like during both the Punic and Roman eras. I pointed out the extraordinary harbor they built, which allowed as many as 200 ships to be moored and dry-docked at the same time. Around 2000 years ago, the harbor looked like a floating colosseum, a true engineering marvel of the ancient world; today it was a glorified pond.

It was fast approaching 4pm, giving us little time for our final stop, the Mediterranean village of Sidi Bou Said. The sun sets around 5:30pm local time, so we had to get our act together to have enough time before darkness. Some people went in taxis while I joined a group in Faouzi's car. The taxi crews arrived first, so Faouzi had me jump out to guide them to the main square, so they wouldn't get lost. We walked up the steep cobblestone hill leading to the heart of Sidi Bou Said, passing numerous people wearing WSIS badges. I'd already spotted Nick Moraitis from the Youth Caucus in the car; now we passed Titi Akinsanmi, Nick's successor as caucus coordinator. Various civil society people whose names escaped me browsed the many souvenir shops; Robert Guerra of CPSR/Privaterra was chatting with Canadian colleagues. It was as if the entire civil society delegation had made a field trip to the village. I guess we'd have one last reunion before we all went our separate ways.

Eventually, our entire posse reassembled in the main square, just below the café with the extraordinarily steep steps. Several people made a beeline to a beignet vendor, eager to buy some Tunisian donuts to make up for the fact they'd never gotten lunch. Faouzi then led everyone down the main road towards the cliff, as people admired the beautiful architecture and absorbed the sweet smell of bougainvillea in the air. Meanwhile, I bumped into Matt Moore of the Associated Press and one of his Tunisian colleagues, whom I'm almost positive I'd previously met virtually through an introduction by my brother, who also works for the AP.

We paused awhile at various vistas overlooking the Mediterranean; from Sidi's cliffside location we could follow the beach all the way southeast towards the mountains of the Cap Bon Peninsula. I was eager to go to the café located a little further up hill. With its whitewashed Tunisian architecture and stunning view of the sea, it was truly one of the greatest places in the world to waste away the hours of the day. I was a bit concerned that the café would be jammed with people. It was certainly busy, but was much larger than I had remembered, so there were still plenty of seats available for us, even ones sporting a nice view.

Faouzi ordered a round of mint tea for all of us while Alex and I also shared a shisha. I don't know long how we stayed there but it was probably for at least 90 minutes; time becomes irrelevant when you're relaxing in such a perfect place. Meanwhile, the café was now packed with WSIS people. Matt Moore and his colleague sat at the next level above ours, as did Divina Frau-Meigs of the Education Taskforce; I think I even saw CONGO director Renate Bloem for a moment, but when I went over to say hello I couldn't find her.

Around 6:30 we started to walk back to the main square, ready to find more taxis and return to Tunis. Osama and Shefai were absorbed in another round of shopping; I meanwhile, stumbled upon what seemed to be the entire Youth Caucus, with Jen and Mike of TakingITGlobal leading the way. It was really nice seeing everyone one last time; even though many of us had said our goodbyes the previous day, most of us were exhausted and somewhat battered by the long week of summiteering. Now, though, everyone was relaxed and happy to be done with what was for many of us five years' of work. Definitely a nice way to wrap up our WSIS experience.

At the base of the hill, we grabbed another pair of taxis and returned again to the Diplomat, where even more World Summit Awards people had gathered to caravan over to Faouzi's for dinner. Faouzi had drawn up maps to his house and assigned at least one person who spoke a modicum of French to each taxi, just to assist the driver get there. I turned out to be one of these navigators, but I really didn't have to do anything since the row of cars just stayed in formation until we reached the suburb of En Nassr.

Faouzi's house was beautiful - a lovely white structure with an open space leading two floors up to skylights. I actually felt like I was at my parent's condo in Florida, but with a different decorative motif. Faouzi had traveled a lot over the years, so his home was a fine collection of spoils from his international adventures. Faouzi's wife Sonya greeted us all, asking each of us where we were from. I have a feeling we may have overwhelmed her, but she was a wonderful host. We snacked on nuts and drank lemonade while she and her sons organized dinner. Meanwhile, friends of theirs joined us: another man named Faouzi who worked for IBM and his wife, a scientist at the Tunisian Institute Pasteur.

Dinner was simply delicious: a pair of Tunisian salads; a lamb soup with bulgar wheat ; enough lamb and vegetable couscous to feed 40 people; and a sampling of desserts, including Tunisian pastries and a French lemon tart. It was the best food I'd had so far in Tunisia, particularly the couscous, which was hand-made. You could taste the difference in the grains of the couscous, as they had more substance to them, almost a crunchy coarseness that provided a whole new character to the dish.

We sat a long time sipping tea and chatting the night away; Sonya even pulled out her 'oud lute to play a couple of songs as both Faouzis provided percussion. It was a real special moment; this large, loud group of ours had been invited into their home and treated as family. I was truly honored by the experience.

Our caravan of cars started to head back to the hotel just before midnight. I arrived in the first car and got ready for bed while Alex arrived later. I thought I was the only one who was exhausted until Alex kept falling asleep as we talked in the room. I knew I'd get a good night sleep; after six horrible nights at the Golf Royal Hotel, nothing at the Diplomat would deter me from crashing soundly. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 10:18 AM | TrackBack

November 20, 2005

In Kairouan

A quick note from the one cybercafe in Kairouan Tunisia... I arrived here this morning after spending an extra day with friends in Tunis. Kairouan is very friendly and relaxed zith a beautiful Medina; am told some of the Cairo scenes in Raiders of the Lost Ark were filmed here and I can see why.

Since typing on an Arabic keyboard is hard I will write more on my laptop later and post when I can. And for what its worth wsisblogs.org is not blocked in public cybercafes; a pleasant surprise.... andy

Posted by acarvin at 03:07 PM | TrackBack

A Nobel Prize-Winning Dinner

After an hour of misery commuting from the Palexpo, we finally arrived at the Diplomat. Other friends and colleagues had gathered there, and they were trying to coordinate enough taxis to get to the restaurant.

"Where is it?" I asked someone.

"In Gammarth."

Ugh. After the most frustrating bus ride of the week, now we had to get in a taxi, go all the way back to the Palexpo, and continue a few more kilometers to Gammarth. Why on earth couldn't this information have been relayed to us earlier? Fortunately, there were lots of old friends to comfort us. Suzanne Stein was more than happy to let me vent for a while, just to get it out of my system. (I owe you one, Suz.)

Our caravan of taxis drove north past Lake Tunis and the Palexpo, arriving at the Gammarth Abou Nawas Hotel's Moroccan restaurant. It was an elegant affair, with beautiful north African tiles in abundance, delicate candle lighting and a trio of musicians performing wonderful malouf folk music. The restaurant was mostly empty, though I recognized one of my fellow civil society delegates at one of the other tables; I waved to him but didn't go over to say hello, embarrassed by the fact that I couldn't remember his name to save my life. All I could recall was that he'd served as the moderator and dragoman of a contentious human rights caucus meeting in Hammamet last year. He was sitting with another delegate and a middle-aged couple; maybe his parents had come on holiday from France?

Anyway, the rest of us feasted on a wonderful dinner - a fine selection of mezzes, salads , tagines and couscous dishes. At one point a belly dancer came out; I tried to appear as if I was focused on my food because I've always been a belly dancer magnet, if you will - wherever I travel, if there's a public dancing performance, invariably the dancer pulls me on stage. Seriously, from Bolivia to Cuba to Dubai, I've been subjected to horrific embarrassment. There are two types of men in the world - those who relish swinging with a belly dancer, and those who fear it. I fear it. Thankfully, I was spared yet another dance, largely because enough of the other WSA men were more than happy to jump on the dance floor, even without her request. She actually seemed somewhat unprepared for the attention, and even stepped away from the men so they wouldn't get too close.

The last man to dance with her was an absolute treat - he was the gentleman with the French delegate whose name I forgot. Unlike every other man who danced with her, he knew what he was doing. Quite astonishingly, he was a superb flamenco dancer. His passionate, highly precise performance transformed the whole ethos of the belly dance. The music hadn't changed - it was still Moroccan, but the sheer act of dancing flamenco brought out the Andalusian elements in the music. Watching him perform was an absolute treat.

Once the dance was over, an Iranian colleague nervously got up and walked over to their table. He spoke to them for a moment and then came back.

"They will let me take a picture," he said excitedly.

"With the flamenco dancer? " I asked. That seemed odd.

"No, with Ms. Ebadi," he replied, grinning from ear to ear.

I turned around and looked at the table. I looked at the woman with the unnamed French delegate. The human rights caucus delegate. Suddenly I realized we had been sitting across from Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi for the last three hours. I hadn't even recognized her, despite the fact I'd seen her a couple of times over the course of the week.

The Iranian man asked if I would take their picture. I went over with him and he sat down with Ms. Ebadi, speaking in Farsi. The Frenchman said hello to me while they chatted. Boy I felt bad I couldn't remember his name. Ebadi then said hello to me in English.

"Hello, it's an honor to meet you," I replied. "Thank you for coming to speak at the summit to represent civil society. I was very moved by your remarks."

"Thank you," she said slowly in English. "You are very welcome."

I snapped several pictures of her with the Iranian man's camera and mine before returning to our group. A little while later, as we were getting ready to return to our various hotels, he asked me to email him the photo of him with Ms. Ebadi.

"Would you also like me to post it on my blog?" I asked.

"Oh yes, that would be wonderful!" he replied immediately.

"Are you sure about that?" I said, somewhat surprised. "Might not that cause you some, err, problems when you go home to Iran?"

"That is a good point," he said, just beginning to think it through. "Let me wonder about it for a while and then I shall tell you yes or no."

Meanwhile, I started talking with some of my friends about their plans for the next day. Many of them were planning to tour Tunis or Carthage, then go to dinner at the home of one of our Tunisian colleagues. I had been invited as well, but I'd planned to go to Kairouan the next day. The more they talked about it, the more I wished I could stay just one more day, since I'd barely had any quality time with them. Alex then offered to put me up in his room at the Hotel Diplomat, since he had a second bed. Why not? Kairouan will still be there on Sunday.

Before getting in my taxi, the Iranian man approached me. "You know, I have thought about it some more.... Please trim me out of the photo before you blog it."

Posted by acarvin at 02:50 PM | TrackBack

Arbitrary Treatment

By the time we reached the final afternoon of WSIS, there was hardly a delegate in the Kram Palexpo who wasn't thoroughly exhausted. Some people had been working nonstop for almost an entire week; you could feel a strong desire in the air to go home, go relax or go to sleep. (If you're expecting me to post my final thoughts about WSIS now, you'll have to wait a while. For a variety of reasons, I think it's in my best interest for me to postpone my debriefing until I get home and can distance myself, shall we say, from the summit.)

There were lots of things going on at night - no doubt every delegation, if not every clique of delegates, planned to have a final get-together before departing Tunis. For me, my evening would be spent with friends I'd made in the Geneva phase of the summit. A group of us met at the ICT4ALL expo to assemble before heading to the Hotel Diplomat in Central Tunis, where we would rendezvous with other colleagues. I left the Palexpo one last time with Cyd Torquado of Brazil, Alex Felsenberg of Germany and several other colleagues; I also bumped into Phil Noble of PoliticsOnline, so the two of us sat together. The bus ride should have been relatively uneventful, but unfortunately it wasn't.

As Phil and I were talking, a Tunisian woman in a red uniform was arguing with Cyd, who was sitting directly in front of us. She was clearly irritated, and spoke in fast Arabic despite the fact that Cyd didn't speak the language. She then switched to English.

"I told you to open your bag."

"Why? Who are you?" Cyd asked.

"Just do it," she said.

"Are you carrying things?"

"What things?"

"Open your bag."

Cyd finally opened his bag and she gave it a quick look. Apparently she had been walking through the bus randomly searching people, which was quite strange since we were leaving the summit for the last time. What was she looking for? Pavilion set pieces? Translation headphones? I can understand searching us going into the Palexpo, but departing it? This hadn't happened all week.

A moment or two later she was standing in front of Phil and me. "Open your bag," she barked. "Are you carrying things?"

"What things? I asked.

"Things," she replied. "Bad things or good things?"

Another irritated delegate said behind us.

"Who are you?" Phil added. "May I see your identification?"

"No. Open your bag."

She was wearing a badge, but it was turned around backwards. Phil reached out to flip it and she smacked his hand.

"How do we know who you are?" Alex chimed in. "If you are going to search us, identify your self."

"What authority do you have?" Another person said. It was clear she was going to ignore anything we said. By now, it was my time to be verbally assaulted.

"Are you carrying things?" she demanded.

"Again, I ask you - what things would you like to see?" I said, increasingly irritated. She replied in Arabic. This was getting ridiculous.

"These aren't the droids you're looking for," I said, running out of ideas. "Move along." Clearly not getting the reference (I don't think anyone else did either), she simply grabbed my backpack's handle and unzipped the pocket closest to the straps. Inside there was almost nothing, except a couple pamphlets. Apparently these were not the droids she was looking for. Of course, there were three other pockets in my backpack jammed with all sorts of "things," including electronic gadgets and a fine range of human rights-related reports; perhaps these "things" would have been more interesting for her? Who is to say.

The woman had moved on to Alex Felsenberg. He was now arguing in a mix of French and English. "This is ridiculous," he sniped. "The summit is over. This is - what is the word - arbitrary. Completely arbitrary."

Once she left, the group of us continued to complain among ourselves. "Is this the way they say goodbye to delegates here?" "That was pointless, utterly pointless." "What gives her the right to search us without identifying herself?" Etc, etc. Once or twice some of the Tunisian delegates around us chimed in: "That was not right... She was probably exhausted, fatigue, you know- but that is no excuse.... She did it to us as well, but I do not know what she was searching for...."

Just as we were beginning to calm down, the bus stopped. A security official boarded the bus and went down the aisle, checking everyone's WSIS badge. This was getting ridiculous. But everyone was too drained to argue at this point.

Posted by acarvin at 02:41 PM | TrackBack

November 18, 2005

False Alarm: Protest Ends Without Incident

Good news to report: the protest ended without incident. Police didn't interfere, just made their presence known... Lots of relieved people here. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 01:32 PM | TrackBack

Report: Riot Police Surround Protestors in Downtown Tunis

UPDATE: The protest ended without incident; everyone is okay. -andy, 1:35pm

Breaking news from Tunis.... Word has reached civil society members here at WSIS that a group of protesters in downtown Tunis have been surrounded by riot police within the last hour. The protesters were apparently leaving the headquarters of a group of Tunisian hunger strikers when the incident began.

I spoke with a representative from AMARC, the World Association of Community Radio, who has been in contact with people on the scene with the protestors. Please note that all of this information is coming to me second hand, so I cannot confirm the exact details of what is going on, but here is what I was told.

"[Nobel Peace Prize laureate] Shirin Ebadi had called on them yesterday, pleading with them to end their hunger strike - that they were needed in the struggle. So they were to announce a decision this morning, and there was to be a press conference this morning."

"We hadn't heard anything more until half an hour ago [approximately 12:15pm local time]," they continued. "We were told that - our colleagues that are covering it had called - and that the people were moving out of [hunger strike] headquarters onto the street and onto [Avenue] Bourghiba, and that they were surrounded by riot police. And we are trying to get more information from them - it was very noisy and it was very difficult to hear when they called here. So we have other people who are trying to find out what was going on."

I'll post an update if I can get more information. Stay tuned... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 01:04 PM | TrackBack

Coming Soon: Godzilla in 3D!

One of my favorite moments yesterday at WSIS happened while I was exploring the Japan pavilion. They were showing off a whole range of new technologies, including a 3D TV that apparently didn't require those funky disposable glasses.

I was asked to stand directly in front of the TV, about one meter away from it. They had marked off rectangle boxes on the floor so you could see where to position your feet. On the TV, a man was sitting in a chair, pretending to swing punches; a blue-green line flickered across the bottom of the screen. He was a little blurry, and certainly not 3D.

"Rock to the left and right very slowly while looking at the blue-green line," the guy manning the booth said. "When the line turns completely green, stay in that position."

I rocked back and forth for a few moments; nothing seemed to be happening. Then suddenly the line turned blue, and the man's punches started to fly right in front of my nose. I instinctively leaned backwards to avoid the punch; the man next to me laughed.

"You must be seeing the 3D now," he said.

"Oh yes, definitely, I replied. "How does the technology work?"

"It is a little difficult to explain," he said. "If it knows where your eyes are positioned, it can trick you to see 3D."

(punch, punch, swing, punch)

"What about if you want to walk around or slouch on your couch?"

"We will develop a version that can track your face so it can adjust the signal based on the position of your eyes."

(swing, punch, punch, swing)

"But what if you want to watch a football game with a group of friends?"

"Ah, that will not work just yet," he admitted. "More difficult problem to solve."

Ready to leave the pavilion, I thanked him for demonstrating the TV.

"You're welcome," he replied.

"You're welcome," the man on the TV added.

My eyes must have bulged out for a moment, startled by the 3D pugilist talking to me. Now that's a really cool trick, I thought for just a split second.

The whole time I was staring at the TV I managed to pay no attention to the man behind the screen - quite literally. Just behind the guy who was demonstrating the TV, I noticed a curtain. I had assumed it was just part of the pavilion's walls, but suddenly the curtain opened and the virtual slugger appeared in the flesh.

"Hello!" he said, throwing a couple more punches my way. I laughed and took a few swings back at him; he playfully ducked and slipped behind the curtain.

Never doubt the Japanese ability to create bleeding-edge technology. Now if they can only go back and convert all of those Godzilla movies (and perhaps the entire catalogue of Ultra Man episodes) into 3D, now that'll be an important breakthrough.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 12:26 PM | TrackBack

The Case of the Pilfered Projector?

Just as Ethan Zuckerman was about to begin the second half of his workshop on anonymous blogging, he noticed the projector that had been used in the first half of the session had vanished. Had the projector been kidnapped? Shanghaied? Pinched? Pocketed? Purloined? Or was this a nefarious attempt to crush the free flow of ideas? Audience members looked around and whispered their own conspiracy theories.

As it turns out, the answer was none of the above. The room's tech appears to have taken it away for one reason or another, but within a few moments it was back in place. So much for some vast conspiracy. Now we only have to ponder why this session was placed in one of the few official WSIS rooms without wifi. As the poet once said, inquiring minds want to know.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 12:21 PM | TrackBack

TakingITGlobal Rocks the Cantina

Last night I joined the TakingITGlobal posse for a party at the La Latina Cafe in Berges du Lac, just north of Tunis. It was quite funny eating couscous and other Tunisian food in a Mexican-themed restaurant while Ricky Martin and Tito Puente played on a flat-panel screen in the background. It was a wonderful evening, with around 100 TIGers, plus lotsa folks from Telecentre.org and the British Council. We all had three reasons to celebrate - TIG's 5th anniversary, DDN's move to TIG, and the launch of Telecentre.org. TIGer and musical virtuoso played guitar, premiering a song about the Youth Caucus the previous night. Everyone was singing along by the final verse.

I've gotta hand it to them - the Youth Caucus is one extraordinary bunch. These guys and gals have been working on WSIS since some of them were in high school. If someone was taking bets, I'd put money on having at least one person in that room being a head of state some day.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 09:56 AM | TrackBack

November 17, 2005

The $100 Laptop: An Up-Close Look

Eight-minute video documentary of the prototype of Nicholas Negroponte's $100 laptop, which premiered yesterday at the WSIS summit in Tunis. Andy talks with the chief technology officer of the initiative and gets a first-hand look at this highly anticipated device.

Posted by acarvin at 06:47 PM | TrackBack

Hoder on the Iranian Blogosphere

Podcast of pioneering Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan on the Iranian blogosphere. It's about 10 minutes long; I had to compress the hell out of it to upload it from here, so pardon the audio quality. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 06:43 PM | TrackBack

Global Voices Panel Under Way

Right now Rebecca MacKinnon of Global Voices is moderating a panel entitled "Expression Under Repression," co-hosted by Hivos. Persian blogger Hossein Derakhshan, aka Hoder, is one of the panelists, as are bloggers from China and Zimbabwe. I've recorded podcasts of their sessions and will see if I can get them uploaded later. Meanwhile, I recognized a variety of Global Voices faces in the crowd, including Ethan Zuckerman and Jeff Ooi. The room was packed, truly standing room only, and I can only imagine it will get more crowded as the afternoon progresses.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 03:29 PM | TrackBack

Dissed by Gaddafi

I found out early this morning that Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi would be speaking during the plenary at 2pm today. I'd always wanted to see him speak - thought it would be a real hoot - so I rearranged my day to make sure I could get to the plenary for his speech.

To my bitter disappointment, I showed up at the appointed hour and looked at the schedule. His name was no longer on it. Is he coming tomorrow instead? Did I miss him earlier? Not sure. But I guess heads of state have the right to reschedule when they want to speak. What a bummer. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 03:22 PM | TrackBack

Text of Kofi Annan's Remarks

President Ben Ali,

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I commend our hosts – President Ben Ali and the Government and people of Tunisia -- for all they have done to make this gathering possible. Let us remember that it was the Government of Tunisia, back in 1998, that first proposed the idea of a summit on the information society.

I also thank the International Telecommunication Union and other members of the UN family for their unremitting efforts to ensure that this process produces concrete results.

Two years ago in Geneva, the first phase of the World Summit articulated a vision of an open and inclusive information society. Our task here in Tunis is to move from diagnosistodeeds.

Last night you spelt out this task in the Tunis agenda for the information society

This Summit must be a summit of solutions. It must push forward the outcome of the World Summit held two months ago at the United Nations in New York. It must lead to information and communications technologies being used in new ways, which will bring new benefits to all social classes. Most of all, it must generate new momentum towards developing the economies and societies of poor countries, and transforming the lives of poor people.

What do we mean by an "information society"? We mean one in which human capacity isexpanded, built up, nourished and liberated, by giving people access to the tools and technologies they need, with the education and training to use them effectively. The hurdle here is more political than financial. The costs of connectivity, computers and mobile telephones can be brought down. These assets -- these bridges to a better life -- can be made universally affordable and accessible. We must summon the will to do it.

The information society also depends on networks. The Internet is the result of, and indeed functions as, a unique and grand collaboration. If its benefits are to spread around the world, we must promote the same cooperative spirit among governments, the private sector, civil society and international organizations.

And of course, the information society’sverylifebloodisfreedom. It is freedom that enables citizens everywhere to benefit from knowledge, journalists to do their essential work, and citizens to hold government accountable. Without openness, without the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers, the information revolution will stall, and the information society we hope to build will be stillborn.

The time has come to move beyond broad discussions of the digital divide. By now, we know what the problems are. We must now get down to the specifics of implementation, and set out ways to foster and expand digital opportunities.

Those opportunities are immense. Already, in Africa and other developing regions, the rapid spread of mobile telephones and wireless telecommunication has spurred entrepreneurship, and helped small businesses take root, particularly those run and owned by women. Doctors in remote areas have gained access to medical information on tropical diseases. Students have been able to tap into world-wide databases of books and research. Early warning of natural disasters has improved, and relief workers have been able to provide quicker, better coordinated relief. The same opportunities – and other, new ones – can be given to many more people in the developing world.

The UN system is ready to help member states and all stakeholders to implement whatever decisions are taken at this Summit, including on Internet governance. But let me be absolutely clear: The United Nations does not want to "take over", police or otherwise control the Internet. The United Nations consists of you, its Member States. It can want only what you agree on. And as I understand it, what we are all striving for is to protect and strengthen the Internet, and to ensure that its benefits are available to all.

The United States deserves our thanks for having developed the Internet and making it available to the world. It has exercised its oversight responsibilities fairly and honourably. I believe all of you agree that day-to-day management of the Internet must be left to technical institutions, not least to shield it from the heat of day-to-day politics. But I think you also all acknowledge the need for more international participation in discussions of Internet governance issues. The question is how to achieve this. Soletthosediscussionscontinue.

This is envisaged in the agreements you reached last night and we in the United Nations will support this process in every way we can.

Mr. President,

The experiences of recent years – in this Summit process, the ICT Task Force, the Working Group on Internet Governance, the Digital Solidarity Fund, UNFIP -- the UN Office for International Partnerships, the Global Compact corporate citizenship initiativeand other efforts -- have given us new insights into what it takes to build effective partnerships and platforms. UN agencies and departments continue to work hard to build capacity, and to use information technologies to boost our efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

These efforts are bearing fruit. But for far too many people, the gains remain out of reach. There is a tremendous yearning, not for technology perse, but for what technology can make possible. I urge you to respond to that thirst, and to take the tangible steps that will enable this Summit to be remembered as an event which advanced the causes of development, of dignity and of peace.

Thank you very much.

Posted by acarvin at 02:02 PM | TrackBack

November 16, 2005

WSIS Podcast, 12 Hours Late

Here's that podcast I recorded this morning but couldn't post because of the horrid bandwidth limitations at WSIS. Probably not worth the wait. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 08:57 PM | TrackBack

Strolling Through Tunis Medina

Video of a tourist's POV walking through the ancient medina of Tunis.

Posted by acarvin at 08:57 PM | TrackBack

Hey, Look! It's President Ben Ali!

Fast-as-lightning video of Tunisian President Ben Ali passing me in the hallway at WSIS.

Posted by acarvin at 08:43 PM | TrackBack

Kofi Annan

Brief video clip of Kofi Annan's speech at WSIS today.

Posted by acarvin at 08:39 PM | TrackBack

I Want Bandwidth

WSIS has been a great event for liveblogging, but it's a pain in the butt if you want to videoblog or podcast. I've got two videos and one podcast I want to upload, but so far, no luck - the wifi connection is currently uploading at less than 1k per second. Three hundred bits per second, to be precise. I guess I'll have to do it on my own dime at the hotel late tonight. Or I may just let some of the videos pile up and upload them when I get home. I just can't afford to sit around for hours waiting for 900k clips to upload. Maybe I'll have better luck at the next summit. Oh, wait.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 05:20 PM | TrackBack

Robert Mugabe's WSIS Speech

Notes from Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe; most notes are direct quotes.

We meet on the occasion of the second phase of WSIS in order to make another imprint on a journey that began in 1998... for a global meeting to promote greater society on what is commonly known as the information society. It's indeed fitting that the Tunis phase should take place in Africa, where the idea of that summit was born...

ICTs can be a useful tool in generating economic growth and employment creation, improving productivity and quality of life for all people.... On one level, this summit provides an opportunity for the global family of nations to address this need....

We attach special importance to the establishment of the digital solidarity fund and trust it will play a positive role in expanding access to ICTs.

I believe that WSIS has achieved one of its initial aims of fostering the full range of opportunities presented by ICTs.

Zimbabwe is concerned that the Internet is being used to undermine a country's values, including child pornography, cyber crime and cyber terrorism.

We also challenge the issue of Internet governance where one or two countries insist on being world policemen on the management and administration of the Internet. We must allow for a more transparent and multilateral approach to Internet governance. Why should our diverse world be beholden to an American company? And without clear financing mechanisms to bridge the digital divide, all of this work may be doomed... The west's resistance to the solidary fund may spell doom for all things developed in this process. Suppose they are being rejected because they are not being managed by the Breton Woods institutions on the strenghs of the west's industrial designs?

Posted by acarvin at 12:41 PM | TrackBack

Notes from Thabo Mbeki's Speech

Notes from South African President Thabo Mbeki. He talked rather fast so I didn't capture as much as I would have liked; almost all of this is paraphrased. -andy

One of the central challenges of humanity is the eradication of poverty. Having the summit in Africa helps emphasise the role ICTs can play in extricating Africans from poverty....

The creation of an inclusive, development-oriented info society is in the best interest of all humanity. We must be multi-lateral, multi-stakeholder institutions and systems to ensure equitable access to ICTs and participation in Internet governance.

We should move with the necessary speed to implement new licensing models for proprietary software as well as free and open source, as part of the overall strategy in bridging the digital divide.

ICTs are a powerful ally we all must mobilize.... We are determined to do whatever we can to implement the ideas brought forth at WSIS to create an inclusive information society.

Posted by acarvin at 12:30 PM | TrackBack

Swiss President: Let People Speak Freely

The president of the Swiss Confederation is speaking right now. He's just said he can't believe there are still UN members states that imprison citizens because of their opinons. He added that all people attending WSIS should be allowed to express their opinions freely and openly, clearly a reference to Tunisian interference in civil society's activities here. The comments were met with roaring applause from the civil society gallery. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 10:55 AM | TrackBack

Kofi Annan's WSIS Speech

Notes from Kofi Annan's opening speech at WSIS:

Two years ago in Geneva, the first phase articulated a vision - a vision of open and inclusive information society. our task here in tunis is to move from diagnosis to deeds.... It must be a summit of solutions. It must lead to the use of ICTs in new ways that will benefit all social classes.... and develop the economies of the poor.

What do we mean by the information society? One where human capacity is built up, liberated with access and the skills to use it effective. The cost of connectivity can be broad down. These bridges to a better life can be universally affordable and accessible. We must summon the will to do it. The information society also depends on networks. If its benefits are to spread around the world, we must promote the same cooperative spirit.

The Internet's very life blood is freedom - allows journalists to do their work and citizens to hold govts accountable. Without this, the information revolution will stall and be stillborn.

By now, we know what the problems are. We now must foster innovation and digital opportunity. The spread of mobile phones in africa have spread entrepreneurship, particularly by women. Doctors have access to medical information, students to research data, relief workers better coordinated relief. The same opportunities can be given to more people in the developing world.

The UN doesn't want to control the Internet... The US deserves thanks for creating the Internet and managing in honorably.... But I think you all acknowledge the need for more international involvement in governance discussions. Let these discussions continue; we in the UN will support this process in every way we can.

There is a tremendous yearning; not for technology per se, but for what technology can make possible. I urge you to take the tangible steps to make this summit a memorable event for advances the causes of dignity, development and peace. Thank you, shukran, shalom alechem.

Posted by acarvin at 10:36 AM | TrackBack

WSIS Opening Remarks: Tunisian President Ben Ali

Notes from opening remarks from Tunisian President Ben Ali this morning at the World Summit on the Information Society.

Today, by the grace of God, we open the proceedings of the Tunis phase of the World Summit on the Information Society.

We are firmly convinced at building a knowledge and communication society for a brighter future of all humanity.

This [digital] divide is growing wider... The digital divide is essential a development disparity before it is a technological gap. The need of the least developed countries is growing increasing urgent, particularly in the role of ICTs in education, higher education, science, health, culture and other fields.... These technological developments have confronted humanity with a set of challenges... We must strive to... a new approach to international cooperation. We also look forward to the adoption of practical decisions and proposals to solve the questions put forth by the information society.

These last few years have witnessed the emergence of some types of use that shake confidence... in networks. Some arouse racism, hatred... terrorism... Some others disseminate discriminations and falsehoods... and the illegal use of databases.... Without restrictions or constraints, we find it necessary to establish universal standards... of modern communication means.

The information society offers individuals large freedoms in the use of networks... for the expression of opinions.... Still, this society requires individuals to commit to responsible use.

The effects of the digital divide go beyond social aspects... such as cultural diversity, which represents humanity's true wealth. Communication among languages... now depends on their ability to be available in the virtual space. Statistics show that the current use of languages on the Internet does not reflect cultural diversity...

The first phase of WSIS has offered us the opportunity to examine relevant issues and look into the ways and means whereby we'll be able to meet challenges faced by humanity in the ICT field.... Intensive consultants have been held on pending issues.... Regional meetings have... helped enrich dialogue on Internet government and bridging the digital divide.

The Internet is one of the most important pending issues that need a consensus in order to serve the needs of all humanity.... as regards to the digital divide, there is a need today... for the establishment of a clear, prospective approach outlining an equitable knowledge society, allowing all people to have access to information and communication technologies.

Posted by acarvin at 10:16 AM | TrackBack

Internet Governance: Let's Call It a Draw

Government delegates managed to wrap up their drafting of the official documents to be agreed upon here at WSIS around 11pm last night. As to the big fight over Internet governance, it basically ended as a stalemate:

An expected fight over the governance of the internet looked to have been averted last night as a tentative deal was struck which would allow the US government to retain overall control of the medium for the foreseeable future. As delegates arrived for today's opening of the UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in the Tunisian capital, bureaucrats who had been locked in three days of pre-summit meetings reckoned they had a compromise.

The US government will retain overall control of the technology which powers the internet - its domain name system, root servers and the oversight of the California-based, not-for-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) which looks after it all - for the foreseeable future.

An Internet Governance Forum will be created to discuss and decide upon the over-reaching issues of the internet, but, crucially, will not have any oversight powers. Governments have also agreed to work within existing organisations and infrastructures to gradually transform the way the internet is run.

It is a far cry from the inter-governmental oversight body that was proposed by the European Union in September. That proposal, which shocked the US as much as it pleased Brazil, China and Iran, pushed the previously unnoticed issue of internet governance on to the world stage and turned the topic into the main focus of the WSIS.

No doubt most of the major players on both sides of the issue will probably issue press releases this morning declaring "victory." That's politics for you.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 09:20 AM | TrackBack

Statement by Media Caucus

The following statement comes from the WSIS civil society media caucus.

Statement of the Civil Society Media Caucus 14 October 2005 Civil Society’s Media Caucus at WSIS expresses its indignation over a series of incidents in which Tunisian authorities have hampered the freedom of expression of journalist and their freedom of association as well as that of others attending the Tunis phase of the World Summit on the Information Society. In addition to problems involving denial of entry to Tunisia; the following incidents have occurred in the days preceding the summit:

• Christophe Boltanski, a correspondent for the Paris daily newspaper ‘Libération’, was beaten and stabbed and had his personal effects stolen near his hotel in the embassy district. When he cried for help, guards standing outside a nearby embassy did not intervene. The attack took place a day after Libération published Boltanski's report about clashes between police and activists protesting in support of seven hunger strikers campaigning for the release of political prisoners in Tunisia

• Representatives of Tunisian and foreign media and human rights organisations were prevented by a large number of Tunisian plainclothes police from entering the Goethe Institute, the cultural centre of the German Embassy in Tunis, for a meeting to plan events parallel to the Summit.
  

• A Belgian television cameraman approaching the Institute had his camera seized by plainclothes police who forced themselves into the TV crew’s vehicle. The camera was only returned after the film cassette had been confiscated. The police stated that no pictures may be taken in Tunisia without prior official authorisation and prevented another reporter from taking photographs of the incident. A Tunisian journalist approaching the site was beaten by police.
  

• Various websites which have contained criticism of Tunisia are available to the delegates at the official WSIS venue, but remain blocked and censored in the rest of Tunisia.
  

Such incidents call into question the seriousness of the Tunisian government to allow full freedom of expression and association at the WSIS.

The incidents show that prior concerns about the observance of human rights in Tunisia have been justified, underlining the widespread nature of official abuses in the country.

They also illustrate that concerns about holding a United Nations Summit dealing with communication and freedom of expression in such a country were justified.

To correct the situation the Tunisian government and the International Communication Union as the relevant UN authority organising the summit, must:

• Guarantee equal right to access information via the internet both within and outside of the summit site.

• Guarantee that all journalists have the right to freely report in Tunisia, without fear or intimidation.

• Guarantee that the international media and summit delegates have the right to free movement and to meet with colleagues in the Tunisian media and civil society, outside of the official summit site, without threats or intimidation from the police or government authorities.

• Ensure that Tunisian journalists and civil society members meeting with the international community are not subject to retribution and that free speech, press freedom and other human rights are respected in Tunisia after Summit delegates have gone home.
  

Given the above incidents and the overall poor human rights record of
Tunisia it seems to us that the UN system has contracted a moral obligation to follow up. It should name a special rapporteur to monitor freedom of expression and other human rights in Tunisia.

Posted by acarvin at 08:39 AM | TrackBack

November 15, 2005

Can't Stand the Heat? Get Out of the Expo

One thing a lot of people have been talking about at WSIS is the uneven distribution of air conditioning at the Kram Palexpo. For example, the ICT4All expo is divided into two areas, basically housed under giant circus tents. (I'll let someone else make a comment about the irony of that.) In one area, the air is cool and pleasant; in the other, it's stifling hot and uncomfortable.

For example, the TakingITGlobal Youth Hub is located near where the two areas intersect. Everyone working there is in a constant state of sweatiness. It's taking its toll on TakingITGlobal; less people are visiting the booth because it's so uncomfortable. Even worse, it seems like it's beginning to affect equipment: their DVD player kept freezing up at random, and Nick Moraitis and I feared it's because of the high temps.

I guess there are two ways of looking at this. On the one hand, NGOs and other exhibitors paid serious money for display space at WSIS, and having arbitrary cooling throughout the expo means that some of that money might as well have been flushed down a toilette. Clearly (and in this case, quite literally) the circus tent-like atmosphere in the Expo hall means that some groups are getting shafted while others stay comfy cozy.

On the other hand, isn't this just another manifestation of the digital divide? I've lost track of the number of telecentres I've visited that don't keep any lights on because it's already so damn hot. Air conditioning may seem like a pre-requisite for a community center, but that's just for us spoiled northerners. Try visiting a telecentre in rural Ghana or Bangladesh - I wouldn't count on A/C. For them, this means greater challenges in keeping equipment functional and visitors happy. It's so easy to assume that most telecentres have some kind of environmental control systems but I would guess the opposite is true. So for the next few days, at least, the hundreds of exhibitors will get to experience this rarely discussed aspect of the digital divide - those communities who can afford to live in cool comfort and those who have to deal with mother nature.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 05:26 PM | TrackBack

Less Show Girls, More PhDs, Please

Is it me or are there a lot of busty women in tight, low-cut outfits in the ICT4All expo? I'm not talking about delegates , mind you - I'm talking about the young women working many of the corporate and national booths in the expo. Around each corner, I feel like I'm greeted by yet another gorgeous woman repeating the same five talking points about whatever product or service the booth is featuring.

It's not like I haven't seen this before; just go to the NAB conference or another big business confab, and you're bound to see attractive women manning the booths, as it were, no doubt to catch the eye of lonely businessmen and suck them into a sales pitch. But there's something really, really unseemly about having similar tactics used at WSIS. If I recall, the last expo at WSIS Geneva had lots of women, but they were all actually key players in the projects on display - PhDs running national libraries, technologists demonstrating the latest solar panel system. Here, though, I feel like I'm surrounded by women who were hired solely for their looks and not for their knowledge in IT or the digital divide. Is it possible that these vendors don't have any women working for them? Or are they just trying to pull in male delegates, particularly ones from country not used to seeing women flaunting their beauty in public?

I'll spend more time in the Expo this week, of course, as will everyone else. So I'm hoping this is just a weird and somewhat incorrect first impression. Let's just wait and see. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 05:24 PM | TrackBack

Opinion Polls, Telecentre-Style

Video from the first day of the Telecentre Leadership Forum. Participants spread themselves throughout the room along a line of tape representing the continuum of thinking regarding the notion that a telecentre absolutely must have high quality Internet access in order to be a real telecentre. Most people disagreed, others agreed. This video captures some of the opinions discussed during the forum.

Posted by acarvin at 05:01 PM | TrackBack

Tuesday Morning at the Kram Palexpo

Podcasting from the Kram Palexpo in Tunis, site of the WSIS summit. Just a quick update on my plans for the day, including the Telecentre Leadership Forum. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 11:43 AM | TrackBack

Wifi at the Hotel, Slow Uploads from WSIS

I finally managed to find Internet access at my hotel, the Golf Royal in downtown Tunis. There's no access in the rooms, but the lobby has wifi for three dinars every 30 minutes - about five bucks an hour. The speed wasn't too bad, particularly upload speed. Meanwhile, here at the Palexpo, there's decent wifi for downloading content, but the upload speed is abysmal. I hope it gets better or I will have a hard time podcasting and videoblogging during the summit. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 09:39 AM | TrackBack

November 14, 2005

A Quick Evening Podcast from Tunis

A quick podcast from Tunis. Nothing special; just a summary of what I've already written about in my previous blog entries today from the Kram Center. Mainly I'm just testing the bandwidth at the hotel. So far, so good. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 05:27 PM | TrackBack

Swallows at Sunset

Video of thousands of swallows flying over Tunis at sunset. The sound they make is quite extraordinary. Too bad it never occurred to me that thousands of swallows produce copious amounts of bird droppings. Better go change my shirt.

Posted by acarvin at 05:14 PM | TrackBack

Blogger Questioned for Taking Photos During WSIS Registration

Pakistani blogger Shahzad of BytesForAll recently posted a message to the APC blog warning people about taking pictures around WSIS facilities. Here's a part of the account, with added emphasis by me:

Maxigas had to register and collect his badge from the WSIS registration centre. I accompanied him to the centre and then thought of taking some pictures of the registration area to share with folks@bytesforall.

Looking at our cameras, when we still had to take a picture, this security person came to us and warned us to refrain from taking pictures. Then, he asked for our passports and started questioning as to why we want to take pictures.

We informed him that we plan to share these on various blogs and websites, to which he responded that only accredited journalists are allowed to take pictures. He also went through all the snapshots available in our digital camera.

In the meantime, the lady translator was apologizing again and again for this. We were detained and questioned for about 15 minutes and allowed to go. We did request them though to place some notices and signs to let other delegates know that photography is forbidden in the WSIS area.

For me, it is very interesting, since almost every delegate is carrying this weapon and surely would want to photograph their event, exhibition area, friends etc. and, in doing so, could seriously fall into trouble.

I personally haven't taken any pictures yet, and I don't have any plans to curtail my photography based on this incident. My guess is some jittery security guard though someone was trying to take pics of registering delegates. But even so, it's next to impossible to take a picture at WSIS without getting some other delegates in the frame accidentally. And as Shahzad said, probably every delegate here is armed with some kind of camera. And 15,000 delegates can't be wrong. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 03:31 PM | TrackBack

WSISBlogs Off to a Busy Start

My WSIS blog digest WSISBlogs.org is getting very active today, now that lots of people are arriving in Tunis. We have more than two dozen bloggers participating, including group blogs from Panos London and APC. The site will display only the 50 most recent blog entries (yes, that's a lot, but the site is updated frequently), so I've decided to create a Web archive on the Digital Divide Network. It will take a few hours for the site to kick into action, but hopefully by tonight it will begin capturing blog entries and storing them for posterity's sake... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 03:22 PM | TrackBack

Tunisian Cyberdissent Faces Off with Police

This news just coming in from APC... -andy

Flagrant Violation of Human Rights this morning alongside UN summit

14/11/2005 11:56 APCNews writing from Tunis, Tunisia
Under the incredulous eyes of the participants at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), journalists and human rights defenders were manhandled, insulted, and then violently beaten.

09.30 am of Monday, November 14, 2005, at the Place d'Afrique in Tunis, more than 30 plainclothes policemen impatiently awaited international and Tunisian delegates and members of civil society. Omar Mestiri, Director of the online magazine Kalima (http://www.kalimatunisie.com) and a founder member of the National Council for Freedom in Tunisia (Conseil national pour les libertés en Tunisie - CNLT) was seized as soon as he arrived at the site for the meeting of the coordinating committee of the Citizens' Summit on the Information Society (CSIS). Bombarded with blows and insults, Mr. Mestiri kept calm, before he was able to break away from the group of plainclothes policemen.

Posted by acarvin at 03:15 PM | TrackBack

Orientation: Kram Session

I'm over at the Kram Center north of Tunis, home to this week's World Summit on the Information Society. Even though WSIS doesn't officially begin until Wednesday, there are thousands of people here, setting up booths in the ICT4ALL expo, participating in side events, attending the resumed Prepcom, etc. As for me, I'm just trying to orient myself to the space. There's lots of last-minute construction going on, so you have to dodge carpet as it unrolls and duck when men pass you with large planks of wood. Internet access is up and running at the main cybercafe, as is wifi. Both are unfiltered and free, which is a relief. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 03:09 PM | TrackBack

Finally in Tunis

Arrived in Tunis around midnight last night, after a 12-hour wait in Paris and a two-hour flight during which the person next to me threw up twice. Immigration took around 45 minutes in the queues set up for WSIS attendees. I wonder if it would have been faster in the regular queues.

My hotel, the Golf Royal Hotel, is a 1-star dump masquerading as a three star. My room is quite uncomfortable, with a bumpy bed, a loud, broken air conditioner and a bath instead of a proper shower. To make matters worse, there doesn't seem to be Internet access, despite assurances by WSIS organizers that all official WSIS hotels would have it. I will have to ask the afternoon manager of the hotel to see if he or she knows anything. Meanwhile, the bus schedule is erratic. One was supposed to come by the hotel at 20 past the hour, but by 40 minutes past the hour, I had to take a taxi instead. Not exactly the best start if you ask me.

Fortunately, the badging center is quite efficient. I arrived around 11am and there was no wait - the whole process took well under 10 minutes.

I'm still a bit jet laggy after the hellish commute, so I plan to take it easy today, probably exploring the medina, maybe getting some tea over at Sidi Bou Said. I'll try to swing by the Kram Center as well to see how preparations are going. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 11:16 AM | TrackBack

November 13, 2005

Still in Paris....

It's 8:30pm here in Paris; I'm finally about to board my flight for Tunis. Somehow I managed to kill the last 12 hours in the business class lounge, courtesy of my frequent flier status on Air France. I spent much of my time watching Star Wars DVDs - homework for my post-WSIS excursion to southern Tunisia - and checking emails at the lounge's iMac lab. I even got to shower, which made the day feel, well, less grimy.

My flight lands in Tunis at 11:45, about 36 hours behind schedule; if I'm lucky I'll be asleep by 1am.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 08:40 PM | TrackBack

AP Article on Digital Solidarity Fund

I'm quoted today in an AP article today by Nick Jesdanun...

African-led fund aimed at digital divide

An African-led initiative that will use high-speed Internet connections to treat AIDS patients in Burundi and Burkina Faso offers inspiration for those working to bridge the world's digital divide. Its great promise lies in its linking of technology spending with existing campaigns to extinguish poverty, diseases and illiteracy, averting the need to choose one over the other. Yet such projects remain few, despite great need. The age-old challenge remains: Who's going to pay for such works?

As world leaders convene in Tunisia on Wednesday for a U.N. summit on extending technology to the poor, the very fund that was to be its legacy still wants for support. Much of The Digital Solidarity Fund's contributions comes from African nations least able to afford it. The challenge is huge. Worldwide, just 14 percent of the population is online, compared with 62 percent for the United States and an even higher ratio in some Western European countries, according to the International Telecommunication Union. Less than half the world's people have telephones, even as some in developed countries are so wired they can't seem to get away from ringing phones.

(snip)

"There is general agreement we need to do more, ... but there is very little agreement on the best way to do that," said Andy Carvin, a U.S.-based expert on improving access to technology and the Internet. "Many countries feel they have already set up successful programs."

(snip)

At this week's summit, closing the digital divide will likely take a back seat to heated discussions on whether the United States should share control of Internet traffic and directory computers.

In fact, negotiators already reached agreement on much of the language concerning the digital divide.

The draft document calls for using technology not in isolation but as a means for meeting other development goals. But it doesn't say where the money will come from, other than to suggest a mix of old and new funding sources.

For some, the summit will be more important for making contact.

Although the policy discussions may appear like "we're all just rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic," Carvin said, civic leaders, philanthropists and others will be there to exchange ideas and forge new partnerships.

Posted by acarvin at 10:49 AM | TrackBack

12 Hours at CDG

Greetings from Paris CDG airport.... Arrived about two hours ago after a bumpy ride from boston. Now I get to sit here for 12 hours waiting for my flight to Tunis. There are several other flights there today but they will not let me get on the stand-by list. At least they have let me into the business class lounge for the day.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 10:44 AM | TrackBack

November 12, 2005

So Much for Arriving in Tunis Today....

Right now I should be posting this from Tunis, but I'm not. Last night, my Air France flight from Boston turned around after 30 minutes, citing "mechanical issues," which they wouldn't explain until we reached the ground. This, of course, made people worry if we'd actually reach Boston, but landing was just fine. The tarmac, though, was filled with ambulances and fire trucks flashing their lights, so clearly they thought there was a major problem with the flight. The pilot then said that they'd detected smoke in the cabin and turned around as a precaution. Next thing we knew, firemen in oxygen tanks were going up and down the aisles with smoke detectors.

The firemen wanted to search more extensively, so we were asked to deboard the plane. We spent the next three hours waiting for them to sort out the situation, at which point they officially cancelled our flight. While I waited at the baggage claim with fellow WSIS delegate Avri Doria, I called the airline to figure out how I'd get to Tunis. They've rebooked me on an 8pm flight tonight that gets into Paris 8am Sunday. Unfortunately, because thousands and thousands of delegates are all trying to get to Tunis, the next flight with an open seat isn't until 9:15pm. So I'm stuck in Paris for more than 12 hours. Now I just need to decide if I'm going to sit at the airport or go into town and take pictures of people rioting. :-/ -andy

Posted by acarvin at 03:48 PM | TrackBack

November 11, 2005

Almost Forgot: My Panel Session at WSIS

Almost forgot: I'll be participating in a forum organized by CONGO in conjunction with several other groups, including the Telecentres Caucus. The session, "Scaling up best practices to bridge the digital divide," will take place in Salle St Augustin on Wednesday, November 16 from 1pm to 5pm Tunis time. I'll be speaking about regional initiatives to bridge the digital divide. For more info, here's the PDF pamphlet put together by CONGO. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 09:56 PM | TrackBack

The Long Commute to Tunis

It's just before 4pm here in Boston and I'm sitting in the Air France lounge waiting for my flight to Paris. If all goes well, I'll have a two-hour layover in Paris and a two-hour flight to Tunis; that should put me on the ground somewhere around 11am local time. It sounds like they've set up a welcome desk for WSIS delegates so they can take shuttles to the registration area, then to our hotels. I'll probably be pretty exhausted then, but I suppose it's best to get the badging procedures completed early, so I don't have to waste time at the start of the summit.

Meanwhile, I'm pleasantly surprised there is free wi-fi in the Air France lounge. Massport, which runs Logan Airport, had shut down all the free wi-fi points in the airport lounges, insisting that passengers use their fee-based service for "security reasons." This was a bunch of BS, of course, so complaints were filed by passengers - including me - to the FCC. I didn't think the situation was resolved, but nonetheless I've got free access. Not that I'm complaining or anything.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 03:46 PM | TrackBack

November 10, 2005

Getting Ready for Tunis

In just under 24 hours, I'll be heading to the airport to fly to Tunis for WSIS. I haven't started packing yet, but that's because I've spent part of the afternoon backing up my laptop. Given the fact I had my Treo and camera stolen on my last international trip, I'm not taking any chances with my laptop data.

If all goes well, I'll be arriving in Tunis early afternoon on Saturday. Looking forward to exploring the Tunis medina again, pictured here.

Posted by acarvin at 04:20 PM | TrackBack

What Do Bloggers and Jerry Falwell Have in Common?

Wired.com recently posted an interesting story about a defamation lawsuit in Florida. Eliza Thomas had sued two news outlets because she felt she had been defamed by them while covering her involvement in a right-to-die case (she wanted to pull her husband from life support, apparently). The case didn't get much coverage on TV because it was overwhelmed by the Terry Schiavo case. But there was a lot of discussion about the case in the blogosphere and elsewhere on the Internet.

With her ruling this week, Judge Karen Cole sided with the news outlets. Her reasoning, though, is raising eyebrows, because she takes the position that Eliza Thomas was essentially a "public figure" because of all the online chatter about her case. And thanks to the famous Hustler v. Falwell case, public figures have a harder time demonstrating defamation in the eyes of the court.

For those of you who don't remember the Hustler case, Jerry Falwell sued Hustler magazine because of a parody they featured in which Jerry Falwell recalled intimate moments he shared with his mother in an outhouse. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of Hustler. As a public figure, they said in essence, Falwell should expect to put up with criticism and parodies that might otherwise be defamation if Hustler had done the same thing against a private citizen. In other words, it's defamation if you do this sort of thing to John Q. Public, but it's not if you're Mr. TV Personality.

Fast forward to the Eliza Thomas case. Thomas, a private citizen, found herself being discussed a lot in cyberspace because of the legal proceedings surrounding her husband. She felt she had been defamed by the local media outlets, and decided to sue them. But the court took the position that Thomas indeed was a public figure because she had been discussed repeatedly in cyberspace. It wasn't like she was sending out a PR rep to encourage bloggers to cover her; instead, she got mentioned a lot due to the nature of blogs and websites in general wanting to cover interesting legal matters.

In the Wired article, University of Iowa law professor Randall Bezanson said that the judge made a bad decision, in part because Thomas didn't seek out public notoriety.

"(Someone doesn't) become a public figure just because a newspaper or some part of the media picks (a story) up and makes a big deal of it," Bezanson said.

Only time will tell if this case becomes precedent, but legal experts have their doubts. But it will be interesting to see what happens the next time around when a blogger sues someone for defamation. Clearly, Ms. Thomas wasn't seeking attention online, but bloggers are another matter. One could easily argue that the nature of blogging itself is an act of public self-promotion. Does this mean that bloggers or other citizen journalists lose their right to sue someone for defamation because the act of blogging makes them a public figure? I sincerely hope not. Otherwise, millions of us may have far more in common with Jerry Falwell then we would have ever realized... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 01:55 PM | TrackBack

November 09, 2005

Mapping the Digital Divide on a Global Scale

Screen shot of Alcatel and Maplecroft's new digital acccess map.

Just in time for the World Summit on the Information Society, Alcatel and Maplecroft Consulting have announced the launch of an online tool for mapping the global digital divide.

According to Alcatel and Maplecroft,

Much of today’s information is accessible on the Internet and other electronic forms through ICTs. For many people however, access to electronic information is difficult or even impossible - leaving them excluded from opportunities to access global markets and information resources. This lack of access creates what is commonly referred to as the ’digital divide’.

This ’divide’ threatens economic growth and social development and mostly affects marginalized people with reduced access to ICTs due to a lack of capacity, finances or infrastructures. Overcoming this divide through digital inclusion is mostly about enabling social inclusion - using ICT as a vehicle to improve skills, enhance quality of life, drive education and promote economic wellbeing for all of society.

The website generates a map of the world, with each country color-coded based on its score in the ITU's Digital Access Index. The data is a couple of years old now, but at least it allows you to get a visual sense about the yawning gap between developed and developing countries.

As you explore the map, you'll find little symbols indicating specific remarks about what's going on in a particular country or region. You can also click onto a country and get a broader collection of development data and other local statistics. You can even explore other data sets related to political instability, landmines, the environment, corruption, and other important global indicators.

Occasionally the tool gets a little sticky - sometimes data boxes pop up on the screen and don't disappear - but otherwise it's a fascinating visualization of the digital divide. Too bad they didn't design it using Google Maps or another tool that would allow digital divide activists to add their own data to the map. Now that would have been really cool... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 02:16 PM | TrackBack

November 08, 2005

Kansas Boycotts Science; Maybe We Should Boycott Kansas?

Once again, the Kansas school board has reaffirmed their status as the most backward and foolish group of "educators" in the country. As of this afternoon, the school board has passed new educational standards that question evolutionary biology:

TOPEKA, Kan. - Revisiting a topic that exposed Kansas to nationwide ridicule six years ago, the state Board of Education approved science standards for public schools Tuesday that cast doubt on the theory of evolution.

The board’s 6-4 vote, expected for months, was a victory for intelligent design advocates who helped draft the standards. Intelligent design holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power.

How far does this lunacy have to go before we realize that policymakers like this are sending the US back into the Dark Ages? This is more than just religion, folks. The anti-science wing of American politics is cutting away our ability to produce a new generation of innovators. How will the US maintain its leadership role in science and technology when we let fundamentalist fanatics dictate how science is taught in our schools?

So Kansas wants to boycott science? Fine. Maybe we bloggers need to start boycotting Kansas. Want to go on vacation? Don't go to Kansas. Get invited to do business in Kansas? Take it elsewhere. Want to buy something from your local store? Make sure it's not made in Kansas first. I don't know how realistic it would be to do this, but people who care about science in education really must take a stand. I wish I had better Photoshop skills or I'd start creating buttons people could post on their blogs. Any artists out there? -andy

Posted by acarvin at 06:02 PM | TrackBack

My Departure from EDC

Hi everyone,

We've recently learned that the primary funding for the activities of the Center for Media & Community will not be continued, including support for the Digital Divide Network. The Center is therefore in the process of closing its doors, and Andrea Taylor and I are preparing to leave EDC at the end of November, following our involvement in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis.

Fortunately, this transition will not mean the end of DDN. Over the last several weeks we've worked out arrangements for DDN to move its operations to TakingITGlobal (TIG). As many of you know, TIG is an online community of nearly 100,000 young activists in more than 200 countries. They've played a major role in getting young people engaged in bridging the digital divide and other aspects of global development. I'll say more about the arrangement when we make an official announcement in Tunis next week.

As for me, I'm just beginning to sort out my options. While I still hope to volunteer with DDN - several people have joked about calling me "editor emeritus," which is kinda funny at my age - I'll have to start searching for a new day job. Susanne has expressed interest in moving back to DC or the Chicago area, either of which would be great, but we'll probably search more broadly as well. Having spent the last few years on the fundraising side of things, I may explore going back to the grantmaking side of the business (I started off as a program officer at the Corp for Public Broadcasting creating Internet-related grant programs back in the day.) Or I may want to focus a bit more on participatory media and citizen journalism - who knows. And I certainly don't want to end my involvement in digital divide work. So if any of you know of anyone looking for a digital divide pundit who spends a lot of time blogging, podcasting and vlogging, please do let me know. :-)

It's been an amazing six years with DDN - four years at Benton, two at EDC. So this is quite a bittersweet moment for me. At least I know, though, that DDN has reached the size and maturity to succeed well after I'm gone; and with TakingITGlobal taking it over, I know it'll be in the best of hands. Thanks to everyone who's made my involvement with DDN a pleasure all these years - I really appreciate it.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 11:27 AM | TrackBack

The First Student Video Blog from Atlantic City Rough Cuts

Students from MLK Elementary School in Atlantic City, NJ interview school board members for their first video blog.

Yesterday after wrapping up a blogging workshop at UMass/Boston, I was giving a demonstration of Mozilla Thunderbird as an RSS news reader. Just as I was about to close my laptop, one of my news folders got a hit: a new blog entry had been posted somewhere. To my surprise, I discovered that the blog entry was the first student video blog posted to Atlantic City Rough Cuts, the elementary school video blogging project organized by Art Wolinsky.

Last July I went to Atlantic City to teach local school teachers how to video blog, and helped Art set up the blog. The teachers posted several short videos to the blog, but there weren't any videos produced by the students. Until yesterday, at least.

The video, entitled Witches, Aliens, and School Board Members, does the impossible: it makes a school board conference funny. A group of students went to a recent New Jersey state school board conference, where they got to shoot some video and interview board members. They went back to school and made comic strips about the meeting, which they gave to the board members. Now, several groups of students are making documentary shorts about the experience. They're basically using the same script, but the editing decisions will be their own. The first of these videos is available on the blog, and the others will soon follow.

I'm really excited about the video; it may indeed be the first video blog ever produced by elementary school students in a classroom environment. I can't wait to see what else they'll come up with over the course of the year.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 10:15 AM | TrackBack

November 07, 2005

Refugees: The Liberians of Buduburam

Video documentary of my July 2005 visit to the Liberian refugee camp in Buduburam, Ghana. I learn about the challenges faced by Liberians forced to flee their homeland, as well as some of the training programs available to them. I visit one of the camp's telecentres, as well as an women's literacy support group. Music used with permission of Alula Records. Nine minutes, 50 megabytes. Low-res version (20 megabytes): http://www.andycarvin.com/video/refugees-low.mov

Posted by acarvin at 01:16 PM | TrackBack

November 06, 2005

York Harbor Dam

Panoramic Quicktime VR clip of a dam in York Harbor, Maine. There are also larger versions of the basic panoramic photo pictured here.

Posted by acarvin at 11:15 AM | TrackBack

November 03, 2005

Citizen Journalists Rise to the Occasion During Ethiopia Riots

A young man is treated in Black Lion Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia after clashes between youths and armed police in Addis Ababa. At least three people were killed in the violence. Photographed Tuesday, November 1 2005 by blogger and freelance photographer Andrew Heavens.

Over the last few months, Global Voices has become the best place on the Internet to check the pulse of bloggers from around the world. Case in point: their extraordinary coverage of the riots this week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. As Ethan Zuckerman has been reporting, dozens of people have been killed by police; local media outlets have been shuttered. Yet bloggers in Addis Ababa are keeping right on top of the story, covering their own frightening experiences as they unfold.

Nazret.com has been compiling eyewitness accounts from local residents. Mimi writes

I was shopping in Merckato with my friend, all of a sudden I heard people screaming and runing around me. I was in a state of panic for a while and my friend started to pull me towards her. Then we started running as fast as we can with live bullets fling past us, with the confusion I lost my friend. Now I don’t know where she is, all I can do is pray for her and every one in Ethiopia. This government is refusing to give us our freedom, they shot us like mad dogs, I am in tears as I wright this. GOD help us and pray for us.

Tsigereda adds

I don't need to ask how your day was as the answer is very clear and the same from any concerned citizen. Today all Ethiopians, who wish to see a better Ethiopia, are saddened and disheartened by the barbaric and brutal act of Meles Zenawi and his entourage. Now more than ever our CUDP leaders, who sacrficed themselves, needed our struggle going till an ending solution is certain. If we, the concerened citizen of Ethiopia, keep the struggle going and accomplish what our true leaders fought for, then we are true warriors. On the contrary, if we back out and throw what has been done so far then without any doubt we will be prisoners of our conscious for the rest of our life and we will be modern slaves slaved by vultures and traitors. Let's not forget that our leaders are being harrassed, humilated, thrown to jail and even killed to protect our right and to be the voice of the voiceless. So if we back out or stop the struggle, we will be accountable and be no different to the tayrants.

Some of the most desperate accounts of the situation in Addis are being posted at the Made in Ethiopia blog. They've been compiling emails from people in Addis and beyond who have been affected by the violence:

I am leaving around Urael today early morning about 5.00 am federal polices took about seven teenagers from 12 to 16 years old approximately, after torturing them in the police quarters to inform them who are the major activists partsipated on the demonstration. About 10 o clock they came back with one police informer to capture suspects. all the villagers screamed and came out blocking the entrance of the villages, confronted with the people. While the confrontation one person from unknown location throw a hand bomb on the face of the informer I sow him falling , and they tried to fight with the people but retreated back . And since then villagers was waiting out side expecting them to come back with more enforcement but they didnt show up. we are expecting them to come this evening or the next night....

... i recived a phone call from my family around Yereber. the facisit
troops started fighting with the farmers around yereber. another phone call from my friends from different parts of addis tell mu that starting from 6:00 oclok during mid night to 12:00 the solders taking thousands of teenages out of the city. Nobody knows where they are taking them.

and yesteday around a palce calld 24 near wuhalemat while the solders
were tring to take a boy a lot of people flooded in the area and strated fighting with gejeras and stones. Immidiatly the soliders run away....

... Let me update you know. just fathers and mothers come from Minilik
hospital where the body of Solomon is found. They confirm that the hospital is not willing to give the dead body of the young solomon with out the permition of the police. Look, Jesus, to take the body need to get permition form Federal Police officers. JUst like the Derge Regime and RED Teror ERA .

PLEASE ACT NOW. CALL THE PPL OF THE UNITED STATES FOR HELP....

The situation in Ethiopia will likely get worse before it gets better. Mainstream media is finally beginning to pay attention, but so far what I've seen on television pales in comparison to the urgency captured by these citizen journalists. -andy

Posted by acarvin at 01:43 PM | TrackBack

Coming to WSIS and a US Passport Near You: Surveillance?

Security expert Bruce Schneier has written a must-read editorial on the US State Department's numbskull decision to put RFID chips in US passports starting in October 2006. While embedding a smartcard-like chip inside passports as a way of preventing terrorists and crooks from stealing someone's identity makes sense, the State Department has taken a much more reckless approach.

RFID, or Radio Frequency Identification, is a technique for embedding data on chips that can read by radio receivers at a distance. Mundane examples of RFID in action can be seen in chips embedded in packaging so shipping companies can track boxes, or hypodermic chips planted under the skin of your cat, so kitty can be identified by the Humane Society in case he's ever lost. Have one of those little boxes on your car's windshield that allows you to speed through tool booths without having to scavenge for pocket change? RFID. Have a smart key that automatically unlocks your Toyota Prius when you approach it? RFID. Now the State Department wants to apply this same technology that allows people to track packages, identify stray felines and open car doors to safeguard passports.

Unfortunately, there's nothing safe about the idea. As Schneier explains in his essay, RFID-embedded passports open US citizens to surveillance. Since a chip can be read wirelessly by the right kind of scanner, a criminal could sit back with his or her RFID reader and pick up a person's vital personal information off the passport without ever coming near them. The State Department says the chip is designed so that it can only be scanned from a couple of inches away; Schneier notes that with the right equipment, a criminal could read your passport from 69 feet away or more. And even though the chips are being introduced as part of the war on terrorism, they could even increase casualties: Schneier notes a terrorist could design a bomb with a radio receiver designed to explode when four people carrying American passports approach within a given radius. Makes me almost wish I never left the country so often.

To their credit, the folks at State have listened to the whithering criticism they've received from privacy advocates and security advocates. They've introduced a metal screen that would be embedded on each passport jacket; the screen would prevent RFID chips from being read when the passport is closed. But think about the number of times you have to open your passport when traveling abroad: at border crossings, at banks, at hotels - and now apparently at Italian cybercafes, thanks to a new regulation there. All too often, your passport gets used as a basic ID when traveling abroad, and each examination of your passport opens you up to further scrutiny and surveillance.

The State Department keeps coming up with "fixes" to protect citizens carrying RFID passports, but each fix seems to have a loophole seemingly big enough for a terrorist to lob a dirty bomb through it. If the government wants to protect its citizens, it needs to find a technology that isn't a threat to our well-being. RFID may be fine for Fed-Ex shipments and EZ-Pass tollboths, but that doesn't make them fine for protecting citizens.

Oh, and for those of you going to the World Summit on the Information Society, take a good look at the photo badge you receive. As was the case at the 2003 WSIS meeting, there will be a RFID chip embedded in it. Considering there will be dignitaries from 200+ countries at WSIS, the spooks of the world's intelligence agencies will have a field day at the summit, I'm sure.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 09:41 AM | TrackBack

November 02, 2005

My New Digital Camera: The Canon Powershot A610

As traumatic as it was to have my old digital camera stolen in Bangladesh last week, at least it gave me the perfect excuse to upgrade. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce my new digital camera, a five megapixel Canon Powershot A610.

Self portrait of my Canon A610 Powershot digital camera. Click the picture to see the full-size, five megapixel version of the photo.

I've always been a big fan of Canons; before I switched to digital, I used a 35mm Canon EOS Rebel for almost 10 years. I then bought the 2.0 megapixel Canon A60, which served me well for the last two years, from Hong Kong to Oman. When it was stolen last week in Bangladesh, I immediately started looking at the latest generation of Canon Powershots. I was tempted to get the seven megapixel Canon A620, but since I already have an eight megapixel Konica Minolta dImage A200 for professional occasions, a more compact (and more affordable) five megapixel camera seemed to make the most sense.

I didn't receive the camera until sunset today, so I haven't had a chance to put the camera through any rigorous tests yet. Hopefully I'll have a few minutes during lunch tomorrow to run outside, snap some pics, shoot some video and see how they turn out. Until then, I'm just happy to have a digital camera I can slip into my pocket and carry with me to Tunisia late next week for the World Summit on the Information Society.... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 05:27 PM | TrackBack

Will WSIS Help Achieve a World of "We" Media?

Andrew Nachison of the Media Center recently published a provocative post in which he raises some questions about the upcoming World Summit on the Information Society, which is just a couple of weeks away in Tunis. Here's a taste of what he wrote:

Maybe you're into technology and love thinking about the future of gear and systems and circuits. Or maybe, like me, you want to try to put all the pieces together and think about the future of humanity. And when I think really big, about life, the universe and everything, sometimes I wonder if the light at the end of the tunnel is a train, not utopia. The promise and hype of social software and the coming era of collaboration take on darker overtones and recall the World War II experience of IBM, which sold Nazi Germany the record-keeping devices used to operate the human-trains-gas-crematorium supply chain.

Policy makers in the U.S. are finally starting to think about what happens to privacy and social responsibility in a global marketplace of data, to determine whose rules govern the limits of collaboration with repressive governments such as China. The U.S. policy makers may have to play catch up to the diplomatic corps. In November 2005 a series of UN-sponsored discussions, largely invisible to ordinary people and registering minimal coverage by big media, will convene in one of the most repressive countries on earth, Tunisia, to consider how to govern the Internet. The World Summit of the Information Society will include governments and policy activists.

I haven't been invited and I'm not sure who will represent me there, so I thought I'd share with all of the delegates, and you, some of the questions I'm asking about the information society. I'm not sure why people in media seem to think life's big questions are all about media - or why they don't like to ask the big questions, at least in public.

I wasn't exactly invited either, but I'm attending nonetheless (it's not really an invite-only event - you just have to go through the morass of bureaucracy to register your organization and yourself). Hopefully I and others like me will do our best to represent the promise of participatory media, but frankly, it's been rather demoralizing how little "We Media" has been discussed in the 5+ years that have gone into planning WSIS. There are a few notable exceptions, of course, particularly the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation and Open Knowledge Network, both of which are committed to empowering local populations to become masters of their own knowledge destinies. But apart from these trailblazers and a few others, most of everyone's energies has been focused on technical issues of Internet governance and funding mechanisms to bridge the digital divide between north and south. Even the language we've used for naming the summit is telling: by referring to it as a world summit on the information society, we do a dissservice to the notion of empowering people with knowledge. Creating more access to information is pointless unless people are empowered with the skills and tools needed to turn it into something meaningful - knowledge that helps prevent disease, educate rural village girls, help people with disabilities live prosperous lives, combat oppression, etc. We shouldn't be striving to give people in the developing world the same information overload we experience in the developed world; we should be focusing on a equitable knowledge overload that can reach everyone and act as a tipping point for catalyzing development and positive social change.

Andrew goes on to list some questions he wanted to share with WSIS delegates, which I'm including below, along with a somewhat feeble attempt to offer responses to them.

Will we be better-informed and better able to apply the unimaginable volumes of data at our fingertips?

From my perspective, there's been scant talk during the WSIS process about information literacy and media literacy. We talk a lot about information itself and sometimes about basic literacy, but it's rare to hear much being said about the importance of helping people deal with the mountain of information that comes from having greater access to technology. If you lack the skills to understand the context of information - who created it, their biases, the motives - or don't understand how information can sway your opinions and beliefs, then information becomes nothing but a tool of control.

The UN Millennium Development Goals call for achieving basic universal literacy - certainly a goal I can support with all of my heart. But basic literacy in a digital world isn't enough. We need to understand the nature of information, how it's produced, why it's produced, and how we can produce it ourselves. Otherwise we're just creating a bigger universe of information consumers and not setting the stage for making the world a better place.

Or - will we nest, retreat to familiar territory, dine on meatloaf and "comfort media" while we tune out the complexity and noise of suffering elsewhere?

This question seems to hearken two issues: Internet governance and media ownership. While I'm personally leary of having the US government keep Internet governance its personal pet, I'm more fearful of seeing countries like China, Turkmenistan, North Korea, Iran and Tunisia receive more power to dominate their citizens through control of the Internet. If want to talk about "tuning out," just try being an informed citizen in Pyongyang or Ashgabat. Meanwhile, let's not neglect the troubling patterns of media ownership here in the US, where fewer and fewer companies are given more and more control of multiple media. Thankfully, we have millions of bloggers and others having their say in the public sphere, but that doesn't change the fact that diversity of opinion in broadcasting and print has fallen by the wayside.

If the digital divide dissipates into a global wireless cloud, will democracy and freedom flourish?

That's a big If, Andrew. ;-) The digital divide isn't dissipating, either here in the US or abroad. Sure, there are more people online than ever before, but generally they represent the mainstreams of society - the educated, the middle class, the comfortable. We've done a bang-up job of getting the suburbs online, no doubt, but there's a hell of a lot of work to be done when it comes to helping disenfranchised populations, from ethnic minorities and the disabled here in the developed world, or entire populations in the developing world. Mobile phones are deploying at an extraordinary rate, and this'll certainly help expand Internet access to the developing world, but it's not a solution in itself. (Try throwing away your laptop and relying on a mobile for all of your information consumption and creation needs. My thumbs hurt just thinking about it.)

But Internet access rings hollow without Internet freedom. Millions of people in China are online, but websites are routinely blocked and bloggers must register with the government. Cybercafes can be found all over Tunisia, but try to find one that doesn't block countless websites or threaten punishment if you browse "questionable" websites. Does bridging the divide divide lay the groundwork for broader public discourse? Certainly. But draconian controls over public technology infrastructure create a chilling effect that makes it all the harder for freedom to flourish.

Will the spread of information reduce starvation and slow the spread of diseases?

If information spreads in conjunction with education, then the answer is yes. Information campaigns can educate people about AIDS, birth control, malaria prevention, you name it. When done well, the possibilities are endless. For example, Open Knowledge Network conducts AIDS awareness trivia contests in kiSwahili via text messaging. As more people across Africa acquire mobile phones, SMS campaigns will be a natural way to get the word out on public health challenges. But it still requires broader efforts to improve education: basic literacy, information literacy etc. Information campaigns are meaningless if they're not backed by public education campaigns.

Will the next government-sponsored propaganda campaign lead to war, or crumble under the weight of truth and instead lead to peace?

If you go back to early 2003, around the time the war started, you'll see that there were already at least a couple million bloggers out there, many of whom who were writing fast and furiously about the foolishness of going to war. Did that stop things? No. Bloggers, 0; Military-Industrial Complex, 1.

Fast forward to, say, 2006. The White House is rallying its forces to strike at Iran, or Syria, or Venezuela, or France - take your pick. (I'll save the actual wargaming for another blog; as far as my online persona is concerned, that's not my bailiwick.) Is it likely that bloggers and others in the world of We Media would be in a position to stop it? Perhaps, if online discourse reaches a tipping point that forces the mainstream media to follow their lead. But in some ways I think that likelihood would be based on the overall position of weakness of a politically wounded presidency, already damaged by a difficult war, an inept Supreme Court selection, a couple of hurricanes, perhaps a couple of indictments, etc. For better or worse, bloggers make their biggest impact in policy circles when there's blood in the water and they're in a position to join the frenzy. But let's say there's another major terrorist attack here at home, and it's clear who instigated it. The calls for a military response will be overwhelming, the president emboldened. Would bloggers be able to call off a response? Would enough of them even want to? Hard to say, but I doubt it. I do wonder, though, if blogging had started just a few years earlier.... What if the number of bloggers that exist today had been around prior to the invasion of Iraq? Would they have made a difference? Maybe. Maybe not.

If Google indexes the world, will the index be an instrument for good or evil?

Good, evil and everything in between. The Internet-as-microcosm-of-the-real-world metaphor has been beaten to death, but that doesn't mean it's not true. I can use the Internet to create a video blog to raise public awareness about suffering at a Liberian refugee camp just as easily as a terrorist can use the Internet to create a video blog of kidnap victims being beheaded. I can use Wikipedia to educate the world about converting my gas tank to consume vegetable oil or I can use Wikipedia to educate the world about how to make explosives out of household cleaning agents. We can put all sorts of information out there, but will we have the knowledge and wisdom to use it responsibly? Depends on how your conscience calls out to you, I guess. Yet another reason for our country to embrace civics education, but that's another blog entry.

Will technology be an instrument of enlightenment, or stupification, or repression?

All of the above. Like you said in your blog, I don't know if the light at the end of the tunnel is daylight or an oncoming train. But I still believe that achieving an information society requires achieving an educated society first, or at least at the same time. Technology can be an instrument of enlightment if we all have the same rights and skills to use it constructively. But if access, skills, or media controls are limited, repressed or consolidated, that's a horse of a different color. See my previous comments on Internet freedoms and media ownership regarding notions of stupification and repression.

What's a collaborator in this new infotopia?

This is my favorite question. I've always been fascinated by the term collaborator, because in my mind at least, it simultaneously evokes two people that couldn't be more different: Philippe Pétain and Jimmy Wales. Philippe Pétain, of course, was the head of state of Vichy France, an archetypal collaborator in the most malevolent sense of the word. Jimmy Wales, on the other hand, is the creator of Wikipedia, one of the best examples of collaborative knowledge-building on the Internet. A collaborator can be someone who partners with others for the most evil or reasons, or for reasons to make the world a better place - though the rhetorical baggage of the word "collaborator" is certainly on the former, and not the latter. Go back to its Latin roots and you'll see it's a combination of "com-" (with, togetherness), "laborare" (to work or toil) and "-tor" (one who does something). Collaborator: one who works together with others. Toils together. If all people are given equal opportunity to use information technology and have the skills to do it effectively and constructively, "collaborator" will hopefully lead to a world with more Jimmy Waleses. But an information society that's accessed by only some people and controlled by even fewer people likely means a few more Philippe Pétains in our future. My gut tells me it'll be both. Let's just hope the Waleses outnumber the Pétains by a significant margin.

Will the phrase "Never Again" ever be true?.

Never, I fear. In the 70s, broadcast media didn't stop Cambodia. In the 90s, cable networks and early Internet access didn't stop Bosnia or Rwanda. And as of this afternoon at least, We Media/Web 2.0 hasn't stopped Darfur. It hasn't stopped the systematic use of rape by the Myanmar military against Shans and other ethnic minorities. And it hasn't exactly caused all of Iraq's children - Sunnis and Shia and Kurds and Turkmen and Assyrians - to join hands together and sing Free At Last. Perhaps it's simply because the Sudanese Janjaweed, the Myanmar junta, or Iraqi insurgents don't read blogs yet. (There's certainly a lot of blogging going on in Iraq, but who's reading it? And what about those bloggers supposedly subsidized by the CIA?) But even if they all did read blogs, the opinions of the We Media universe wouldn't mean much to them. Participatory discourse and participatory democracy only work when everyone respects the rules. If those with the power choose to throw away the rules, then "never again" simply becomes "yet again." (Perhaps what we really need to do is teach the current members of the UN Security Council about RSS feeds and aggregators. Imagine how they'd react when they saw how many Lebanese bloggers were writing about Syria and the Hariri assassination....)

Anyway, those are some quick thoughts on Andrew's questions. Are any of my answers satisfying? I doubt it. But it's certainly a dialogue worth having... -andy

Posted by acarvin at 10:25 AM | TrackBack