We are against: social injustice, the opportunism of politicians who pretend to represent the interests of 'the people', the alignment of the 'mass' media with political and financial interests, and the resignation and passivity induced by the consumerist industry.
We are for: participatory democracy - everyone taking an active role in transforming their world, with equal rights, without exceptions; the freedom of expression - or everyone's right to say what they want about what matters to them, and not once every 4 years, but every day; the freedom of information - not just free access to it, but the power to create it ourselves; the democratization of elitist technologies and expertise - so that anybody can make use of them.
Global Indymedia history:
The Independent Media Center, IMC or Indymedia for short, (http://www.indymedia.org) was started by alternative media groups in 1999 in order to provide coverage of the protests in Seattle by the people who were involved. Since the mass media serves the interests of governments and money, it was judged necessary to give everyday people the power to produce their own media. After 1999 hundreds of local IMCs were started around the world and they've produced websites, newspapers, radio stations and documentary videos. Each local IMC is independent but also part of a decentralized, global organization which makes it possible to collaborate on a scale that was previously reserved only for state and corporate interests. Global Indymedia is made up of thousands of people on different continents who use e-mail to coordinate projects, meetings, and campaigns - and to bring an international magnifying glass to local events.
IMC Romania mission:
Started as a project (mailing list on indymedia server) in February 2003 and with official status as part of the global network since July 2004, Indymedia Romania (IMC-Romania) is made up of a mixed group of people - techies, media producers, journalists, philosophers, artists, researchers - and represents a variety of interests including social justice, human rights, minority struggles, feminism, ecology, peace as a positive value, media freedom, and the non-commercial uses of IT. Although diverse, we are united by a passion for the freedom of expression (or everyone's right to speak about what matters to them everyday, not once every 4 years) and the freedom of information (not just free access to information, but the right to create it ourselves), a desire to promote the democratization of technologies and expertise, and a belief that everyone has a right and responsibility to play an active role in transforming their world.
Indymedia Romania operates according to a collectively agreed-upon editorial policy and decision making policy and out of a commitment to active participation from as many people as possible and maximum transparency. Our guiding principles and goals include:
1. Creating a Platform for Social Change:
In order to solve the problems with which we are faced as a society, we need channels of information and action, of collaboration and exchange of ideas. In Romania, there are too few concerted strategies, especially at the national level, aimed towards the elimination of opressive social, economic, and political structures. Indymedia is a project that can facilitate the dissemination of information and the collaborations necessary for this goal of organizing for economic and social justice.
2. Breaking the Media Monopoly:
In Romania, due to a monopolistic and rigid media, culture and grassroots politics are even more underrepresented than in other parts of the world. 'Free Media' finds itself at the lowest level since the fall of Ceausescu with the majority of newspapers, radio stations and tv channels being under the control of politicians or corporations directly affiliated to political parties. As the situation worsens, 'the freedom of the expression' has become a necessity - but this should not be understood as something that belongs to journalists and media experts but as the possibility for everyone to become their own independent media.
3. Developing an "Alternative" Media:
An alternative to mass media means changing the focus to what is usually excluded or trivialized by existing media outlets: cases of media censorship, political infractions of the law, violation of people's rights, and local struggles for democracy, justice, and environmental awareness. As a voice of an alternative society we recognize the importance of portraying not just the 'culture of protest' - campaigns and demonstrations against corporate globalization and the war-economy that rules our world - but the emergence of new values, styles of life, and desires. And although a change of content is important, it is equally important to create a different style from the mainstream. We want to avoid becoming another channel for propaganda by trying instead to represent the different sides and perspectives in any conflict and by acknowledging our own position is not 'universal.'
4. Promoting Do It Yourselfism:
The rise in new technologies and cheap consumer electronics has made possible the growth of independent media production and global networks of collaboration. In principle, everyone has the power to do it themselves. In reality, cheap consumer electronics are not so cheap everywhere, and real inequalities of technical knowledge have not placed media production in the hands of the vast number of people. As an organization based on shared work and collaboration, we want to prevent inequalities of knowledge - which lead to an atmosphere of passivity as people wait for someone else who is more 'expert' to do it for them. We believe in the necessity of helping each other, but the best form of help is not to make it a habit to produce something for others who don't know how, but to pass down the knowledge and skills so that others in the group can learn how to do it themselves.
5. Using Software as a Social Principle:
Most of the computerized world in Romania, and South-east Europe in general, is living off pirated Micro$oft software. While piracy might diminish some of the economic control of corporate monopolies, it lives under the threat of being discovered and fined, and it does nothing to change the forms of mind control which take orwellian restrictions on freedom as something normal. A real alternative to Microsoft's monopoly is not theft through unlicensed use of its software, but choosing operating systems and software which are not based on distinctions between payment and theft and on rules of private property, but are based instead on freedom of distribution, an ethic of sharing, and the freedom of users to control and customize products to fit their own needs. We encourage the use of free software, and a section of our website is devoted to translations of important texts on free software, the general public license, and the battles against intellectual property - which are all still relatively unknown in Romania. As a corresponding practice, we promote open publishing as a form of electronic democracy that allows visitors who come to the Indymedia website to put their own opinions, texts and stories on the site and become active participants.
6. Networking and Cooperation:
It is not through opposition alone that alternatives to the 'world order' emerge, but through new values and new forms of cooperation. In this sense Indymedia Romania is not just a media experiment but a social laboratory. As people become used to doing things for themselves rather than relying on experts, to claiming their right to participate (in the media and not only), to using technologies that promote sharing and cooperation rather than privatization and competition, old forms of passivity and social control will begin to wither away and a truly alternative civil society can emerge. To overcome the culture of isolationism which makes it easier for governments to control its 'citizens' (citizens who have no link to each other except an abstract relation to the nation), one of our main goals is to promote real social links and working collaborations between media producers and social activists (and a blurring of the line that separates them), between groups who don't yet know each other in different cities in Romania, and between Romanians and groups with similar interests and activities in other countries.
