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| What Can Tactical Media do About Illegality |
| Menno Grootveld |
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By organizing a Tactical Media Lab in the Bijlmer, the part of Amsterdam
which probably hosts the biggest amount of illegal people of the whole city,
The Next 5 Minutes forced itself to somehow deal with this issue of
illegality. But at the same time we knew that we would be in for a couple of
difficult problems. |
One of the most important missions of tactical media has always been to give
a voice to the voiceless. Undoubtfully illegal people belong to this
category, but usually - for very good reasons - they prefer to remain
'invisible'. There is no obvious route out of this problem, so the best we
can do is to look for 'smart solutions'. One example of such a solution is
the film which was edited in the mediastudio of the TML by Joost Bohlen,
about a refugee from Mauretania who for four years has been living on the
street because he was unable to get a legal status here. In this film he
tells his story (why he left his country, how he ended up in the
Netherlands, what his experience was a an 'asylum seeker'), but he remains
out of sight, you only hear his voice. The film will be screened as an intro
for the debate, and hopefully Ibrahim, the refugee in question, will be
joining the discussion.
Another problem is the institutional bureaucracy regarding refugees, asylum
seekers and illegals. There are lots of organizations which devote all their
time and energy to the cause of refugees, but they have to work within the
existing legal framework. This usually means that they can do virtually
nothing to protect people who have been refused as legal applicants for a
legal status from eviction. Obviously the situation, which was already bad,
has become worse since the last elections. Illegals are more and more
becoming 'free game' and the hunting party is out to get them.
Given the circumstances I think it is time for a radical change. We, the
tactical media community, should not accept the existing standards of
categorization anymore. It does not matter why a person chooses to leave his
or her homecountry to embark upon an uncertain trip to a supposedly better
world. We should welcome all of them, regardless of their motivations. If we
want to get rid of Fortress Europe and its inhuman laws of immigration, we
should reject the notion of any possible discrimination on legal grounds
between different groups of immigrants. The 'Everybody is an
expert'-campaign is a fine example of how mediatacticians can develop tools
to counter the current policy-trends, both mentally and practically. Paul
Keller of Expertbase will represent this viewpoint in the panel.
Finally, most foreigners who have been living here for some time feel the
need to be in touch with their homeland. During this TML we have been trying
to set up a regular exchange of programming by streaming audio through the
internet between radiostations in the Bijlmer (RAZO) and radiostations in
countries like Ghana and Surinam. This way people here and there will have
direct access to all kinds of information concerning their community.
Another way to make this possible is through a website. Baobab Connections
has such a site, which is treated as a magazine with a different theme every
month. This month the theme is 'refugees'. Yehudi of Baobab will explain how
they think tactical media can be important for all kinds of immigrants. |
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