MEDIA
Saturday afternoon, between 2-7 PM, Radio N5M will focus on The
Connectability of the Balkans (hotlines with sarajewo and Tuzla)
and the
relation between MultiMedia and MultiCulture.
January 1995
IRMA in CYBERSPACE
Six days after the Schengen agreement went into effect, closing the
borders of the European Union, Irma Hadzimuratovic died in the Great
Ormond childrens hospital in London. Five days later Sarajewo will
enter its fourth year of siege. International newspapers around the
western world are dedicating a media-event to Sarajewo called
RSarajewo Alive, Sarajevo on-lineS.
The European Union is closing its borders. It is sending refugees from
Croatia and Bosnia, and from Sri Lanka and Somalia and from
Kurdistan and Afghanistan and, and... Back home, or at least away from
Europe. The life line that was established when governments around
the world were forced by the media to help dying children from
Sarajewo, the life line that was symbolized by Irma with-the-
difficult-surname has proved shorter then the need for the Contact
Groupies to continue their performance of RSave your face, fuck
SarajevoS.
International media report on the results of Schengen: traffic
problems on the borders between the European Union and Slovenia,
Hungary, Checkia, Slowakia and Poland. The European Union is an
Exclusive Union. You canUt deny the facts. But you can clarify them,
like Poland is doing: they refuse to separate EU-traffic from, non-EU
traffic at its borders, so everybody has to wait while the computer
system is being tested. I hope they have a good time together.
If you can+t change reality, you can also create a new reality. That is
what the international newspapers are doing with their electronic,
virtual life line between Jthe citizens of SarajewoK (in fact mostly
people working in the media who have access to telephone and
computers or to some international collegue) and journalists who
donUt want to wait for Maybe Airlines (they have all been in Sarajevo,
itUs time Sarajevo comes to them. No not really, just virtually!)
Sorry I am getting a bit cynical. It is great that journalists and
editors around the globe have found a new way to discover and exploit
Electronic Mail, Internet, World Wide Web, Cyberspace and all that
jazz.
But I happen to be a journalist myself. I know that the wet dream of
every journalist is to create a media event, if possible with him or
herself in the center of attention. Like in All the Presidents Men,
Under Fire, or Missing. And like all normal humans they would like to
help their fellow suckers in Sarajewo. No problem. But the reality is
that journalists are almost never there when really something
happens. They watch televison and telex in Intercontinentals and
Holiday Inns. They copy stories of their collegues and they pay
interpreters and Humanitarian Aid workers with presents and
propaganda for their RexclusiveS information. The good journalists is
first on the scene, after the event happened. The rest can report on
the consequences of and reactions to the event itself. Just read any
newspaper, and you will find not a single new fragment of reality,
just reflections, echoes and shadows of what is actually happening.
Irma was news, not when she was hit by a grenade, but when she was
produced as the ideal victim for international consumption. And when
she died. An echo of innocence. The innocence that was on offer to all
those who were looking on, when Sarajevo was being shelled, besieged
and betrayed.
In the same way, international media now discover and exploit the
fact that Sarajevo is not only besieged and betrayed, but that
Sarajlije are also fighting back, and that they know how to use
telephone, computer and modem. In fact 700 people are using E-mail
already for months through the homegrown network Zamir. But these
international journalists didnUt know that, or did not want to know (a
journalist from Reuters international press agency wrote about it
three months ago). Simply because it was not exclusive! Everybody can
have access to Zamir. That is the basic principle of the Zamir
Transnational Network (Available in Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-
hercegowina, Kosova, Makadonija and Slovenija, and worldwide
Through APC, the Association for Progressive Communication).
Therefore my conclusion: the Sarajevo Virtual Lifeline is a media
event staged by journalists who are realizing their wet dream, a
performance of electronic masturbation in cyberspace. And of course
they put themselves in the center of attention. That+s only human. And
it is exclusive, because they ask the questions, and they decide what
to publish in their papers. It is not exclusive in the way that other
people can read all the questions and answers, e.g. on Zamir
(/zamir/media/list/cyber,.pub). So you can judge for yourself the
quality of the questions, and the answers. But that is nothing new! The
newsconference apc/yugo.antiwar is available on Internet for already
four years! And you don+t have to be rich, or a journalist, to steal that
news.
Is it a coincidence? Irma dies, Europe closes, the rest of the world
disappears, and the media stage a symbolic rebirth of Sarajewo: Irma
in Cyberspace.
Zagreb 3-4-1995
Email jo@xs4all.nl
p.s. In part as a reaction to this article an attempt was undertaken to
continue the service that the project Sarajevo on-line started to deliver to
citizens of Sarajevo and people interested to contact them.
Info:
Paul Garrin, NY. mf@mediafilter.escape.com
One year later, January 1996, a state of the art Satellite Link with
surrounding hard- soft- and wetware, is bound to get installed and operative
by March.
Info: http://www.vu.nl/~vusus.