David Sasaki

Ghana: It’s Harmattan again, Re-denomination of Ghanian Currency Looms Large, Why the Ghanian Worker Wants to Leave, and 82 Steps to Renew a Visa

The dry, dusty winds of the harmattan are once again blowing along coastal Ghana, writes Emmanuel K. Bensah, who presents us this week with stories of currency redenomination, what an OSFAM intern learned during a one-year stint in Ghana, and the prospects of returning home for Ghanaian expatriated professionals.

The Global Voices iTunes podcast feed — alive again!

For those of you who subscribe to Global Voices podcasts using iTunes, Georgia Popplewell has some good news: it is working again. Now is the perfect time to download the latest edition of The Global Voices Show, which samples recent podcasts from around the world.

Russia: Roma Wedding and Christmas

The photographs alone provide us with an artistic and revealing glimpse into Russia’s Roma population. But it is the accompanying text of Russian photographer Tanya Kotova which extends a hand of acquaintance to one of Eastern Europe’s largest and most excluded minority communities. We learn, for instance, that Roma marriages are arranged, why red flags are hung outside the home, and how sex helps the eyesight.

Brazil Again: Blogs Banished from 2007 PanAm Games in Rio

Brazil, where the average internet user spends more time connected than anywhere else in the world, is fast becoming the epicenter of tension between old media monopolies and the unregulated info-consumption of the self-publishing web. First there was the censorship of weblogs during last year’s elections, then YouTube was blocked because of a celebrity sex scandal, and now the entire internet is barred from the upcoming 2007 PanAm Games in Rio.

Chavez Plans to Revoke Station’s Broadcast License in Venezuela

Writing from Caracas, Luis Carlos Díaz kicks off his inaugural post by looking at how fellow Venezuelan bloggers reacted to President Hugo Chavez’s announcement that the broadcasting license of an anti-Chavez television station will not be renewed.

A Week Goes by in Kuwait

We end the beginning of the week in Kuwait, where we are introduced to the head of the Kuwaiti cheerleaders, walk through a traditional Friday market with photoblogger “Forzaq8″, and learn of one blogger’s campaign to organize a charity bazaar for children with autism.

Roundups

Islam and government in the Horn of Africa, the death of a priest in Sri Lanka, a musical rally against forced prostitution in Israel, and much more can be found in today’s Global Roundups.

• Global Voices and Social Dreaming
  Some interesting thoughts on GVO, "social dreaming" and journalism. First time I had seen this even though it's from a year ago.

Some interesting thoughts on GVO, "social dreaming" and journalism. First time I had seen this even though it's from a year ago.

It is a wonderful thing to have a friend as a boss and a boss as a friend. I use the term “boss” loosely, but “friend” is meant with appreciative precision. Checking up on my unread RSS items this morning, the first and second items I read were improbably related. Both by co-managing editors of Global Voices and both (somewhat, sort of, not really) related to cats and dogs.

I had always been a dog lover myself (first “Spike”, then “Toto”), even though my own personality is undeniably feline (a false assertion of independence, etc.). Just like Georgia’s friend stuck in middle America, I was convinced that I was a dog’s man - or man-dog according to some - and my singular interaction with a black cat named Midnight that peed on every corner of every rug had me convinced that all cats, like totally suck.

This discrimination served me well for 26 years until Bill, or William, or Billard, or even Guillermo, depending on my mood. The deal was that to love Mari I would have to accept Bill. Worse, I would have to convince him to accept me. I won’t lie, it wasn’t always an easy process. Kung-fu claw kicks were delivered to my aorta, pouty paws would push my head off the pillow, and vomit stains dotted my favorite chair. Bill, too, had to endure some regrettably childish behavior (he doesn’t, for example, understand why I get a kick out of making his ears twitch).

But now we’ve been through a lot and it turns out that Bill is my favorite pal here at the office. See how he keeps me company:

Georgia’s right, it’s much easier for me to say that Bill is uniquely uncatty than it is to admit that my stereotypes of cats were a bit short on evidence. Why is it that stereotypes are so easy to form and so difficult to change? HP is fond of saying, “it’s not discrimination, it’s statistics” and that’s fine if the statistics really back it up, but more often than not, they don’t.

It never ceases to amaze me how often I hear, “but he doesn’t act Black”, “but she’s not, like, really Mexican”, “but you weren’t born in India?”, or, in my case, “but you don’t seem American.” I hear that all the time when I’m abroad. Of course, like any good, college-aged liberal I would take it as a compliment. But then it made me curious and even a little bothered; not because I feel patriotically American, but because I don’t not feel American either. In fact, the more I think about it and the more time I spend abroad, the more irreversibly Yankee I feel.

Here in the States it is amazing how ethnic identity teeters on the border between gangsta rap and indie rock. Not too long ago I was talking with a Filipina friend who was shocked when she came to the Bay Area and found out that to be Filipina here is to listen to hip-hop, R&B, and to dress “urban”. Likewise, last week Steven, who is Iraqi-Canadian, a fan of the Decemberists, and a really bad shot, wondered if he would be wearing size 40 pants and listening to The Game had he grown up in San Jose like his cousins. And a few months ago, Alejandro and I bonded over a memory shared by all who went to junior high in Southern California: whether to listen to KROQ or Power 106. For a 13-year-old, that decision seemed to set the path to your social destiny.

One of the most eloquent speakers against the culture of “you don’t act black” is HP’s hero, Thomas Sowell. HP gave me Black Rednecks and White Liberals (without having read it himself mind you), which argues that Southern and urban black culture today comes not from Africa, but rather a rowdy part of Scotland. You don’t need to read the book to understand the argument; just go to a high school with both American Blacks and recent African immigrants.

Just as their is no single definition of “black” or “latino” or “white” or any other check box on the SAT, there is no single definition of how every “member” of each group acts. How we pronounce vowels, the clothes we buy, the music we listen to, the friends we have: these are all things we choose, sometimes consciously and sometimes not. I recently read a wonderful piece about those very choices by David Matthews. No, not that David Matthews.

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South Asia: Human rights, blogosphere, traditions, democracy, discrimination, travel and festivals

From Bangladesh, we learn of an airline hostess hoping to help Dhaka’s poor; Bhutan dances its way to democracy; in Kathmandu we’re afforded a glimpse of a Nepalese prison; buying a house while Muslim in Mumbai; and sex in Sri Lanka. All this and more from Rezwan’s most recent rundown of South Asian cyberspace.

Ukraine: Two Years of Yushchenko’s Presidency

Has Ukraine’s celebrated Orange Revolution turned to apple sauce? Reflecting on the progress of the former Soviet state two years after the inauguration of President Victor Yushchenko, LiveJournal user “didaio” argues that Yushchenko is not to blame, “but rather ourselves - those people who overthrew Kuchma and led Yushchenko to power. We lost when we switched to our personal affairs, thinking that the revolution had been won.”

Elections in Serbia

Serbian elections (which can claim the best party campaign slogans if nothing else) came to a close on January 21, but many Serbian bloggers see little change ahead other than more elections. Ljubisa Bojic translates the post-poll punditry.

The Iranian Nuclear Crisis

While US President George Bush readies more troops for more combat in Iraq and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice makes rounds in the Middle East, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shrugs off UN sanctions, vows to continue uranium enrichment, and heads off for Latin America to sign deals with US adversaries. The building tension has got Iranian bloggers worried, writes Hamid Tehrani.

Arabisc: Hijab-clad Doll Under Fire in Tunisia

Amira Al Hussaini introduces us to “Fulla, the Hijab-clad Arab Muslim adaptation of the decadent West’s Barbie doll.” Find out why she has got Tunisian authorities riled up. Also, the ongoing court case of Egyptial blogger Kareem Nabeel Suleiman, sneaking a drink en route to Beirut, and the hefty price of learning to drive in Yemen.

Chilean Senator Explores World of Warcraft: Scholastic Team Building or Time Wasting?

Chilean Senator Fernando Flores, like many, is intrigued by the educational potential and sociological implications of multi-player, online games like World of Warcraft. But are digital fantasy worlds ready to be implemented in Chilean classrooms? You decide.

Roundups

Awaiting reconciliation between Turks and Armenians, the challenges of being a young entrepreneur in Kenya, cricket ads gone wrong in India, and much more can be found in today’s Global Roundups.

Last Tuesday I watched almost the entire Oakland City Council meeting on TV while adding every single country as a category on what will hopefully become a version of Global Voices in Spanish. I started watching the meetings to catch glimpses of Mari. I still do. But in all honesty, I’ve sorta gotten sucked into the character plot along the way. Watching the different council members interact is like the best of bad reality TV. Only it’s realistic.

The last meeting centered around a flower. This flower as a matter of fact:

Speaker after speaker after speaker came up to orate indignantly on behalf of the endangered petals. I’m pretty sure that 80% of Oakland’s Caucasian population spoke that night in defense of the flower.

Don’t get me wrong, I love flowers. We even have them stitched on our pillowcases. But I don’t understand why plants and trees and sea bacteria have so many representatives speaking on their behalf while languages die out left and right.

Most linguists estimate that around 3,000 of the world’s 7,000 languages will likely be lost forever by the year 2100. According to this National Geographic interview with linguist David Harrison, a language is lost forever roughly once every two weeks. Harrison described how languages tend to die out:

Children are like little barometers of social standing and they understand - if there are two languages spoken in their community - they understand that one of them is viewed by the community as being better or more useful and so children will make this decision to switch over to speaking the dominant language and once the children in a community make that decision, it tends to be irreversible and so they will grow up speaking the dominant language and their children will not speak the ancestral language any more.

…

It doesn’t have to be a trade off. The human brain is completely capable of speaking two languages or even three languages. In fact, that’s the norm - most of the world’s population is bilingual and so it’s not true that you have to give up one language to learn another.

He does bring up bring up, however, the possibility of “language revitalization” and this is what I was most interested in:

There are some great examples now of what we call language revitalization, like the Mohawk case you mentioned, where transmission of the language was interrupted for a generation but now the very youngest generation has expressed an interest again and so they have to go not to their parents to learn a language, but to their grandparent’s generation.

I’ve seen this myself. When I was studying at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, a lot of Navajo students took college level classes to learn an ancestral language their parents did not speak. But how will that revitalization take place if all the native speakers die out?

Enter Podcasts

I was listening to the National Geographic podcast interview with David Harrison during the first half of my run around Lake Merritt. Next in the queue was Georgia Popplewell’s incredible Global Voices Show podcast #4 (have a listen when you can). I really liked this fourth one even more than the previous three because it featured so many different languages. I forget how intimate audio can be until I listen to a properly produced podcast. Listening to the Global Voices Show, you really feel like you’re in Bolivia one minute, Zimbabwe the next, and then off to Senegal.

And it got me thinking, we need a lot more audio in a lot more places before we lose record of so many beautiful languages and the knowledge they contain. Just imagine how grateful HP’s great grandchildren will be when they’re able to hear audio recording of their great-great-great-grandma. Assuming, of course, that he loses his virginity one of these days.

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Hong Kong: Impartial rule or discrimination?

When the public broadcasting station Radio Television Hong Kong featured a documentary about same-sex marriage it received a strong rebuke from the government’s Broadcasting Authority for not - among other things - mentioning “the undesirable aspects of homosexuality such as AIDS.” Local bloggers, translated here by Oiwan Lam, take the regulatory agency to task.

Malawi: Malawian Blogger Passes Away

“January 18th, 2007 the Malawi blogosphere was robbed of one of its prominent bloggers,” writes Steve Sharra in his mournful though appreciative obituary of Mangaliso Jere who passed away at the tender age of 27 while undergoing surgery. As Sharra makes apparent, Jere’s online legacy will not be quickly forgotten.

Philippines: Election season begins

Every new election comes from some other election’s end. In the Philippines this year’s midterm congressional elections could mean impeachment for President Arroyo if the opposition gains a majority in the Lower House. Inter-party bickering, however, has led to a third coalition of candidates which so far has inspired a mixed bag of reactions from local bloggers.

Lebanon: General Strike

More political maneuvering; this time from Lebanon, where the opposition called for a general strike that brought the entire country to a standstill. The citizen cyber-historians were, of course, out in the streets and behind their keyboards posting photos, analysis, and video clips of what escalated into a violent protest.

Kurdistance: The End of Saddam

No other group was so brutally impacted by the heavy-handed rule of Saddam Hussein as the Kurds. And yet, writes Deborah Ann Dilley, “Kurdish reaction was fairly slow to develop.” What did finally emerge, though, was well worth the wait: impassioned analysis that is uniquely Kurdish in its frame of reference.

Chile: First Bloggers Association

We end the day in Chile where the newly formed “Chilean Association of Bloggers” hopes to bridge the gap between the web2.0 culture of participation and offline civic engagement. Rosario Lizana introduces the organization and their objectives.

Roundups

Debating the effect of foreign students in Malaysisa, Post-Independence literature of the Caribbean, , segregated bus lines in Israel, and much more can be found in today’s Global Roundups.

Hahahaha!!! How awesome - one of Dr. Cereal's students found his flickr porn.

The Global Voices Show #4

If you are short on time today (really, who isn’t?), then drop what you’re reading and have a listen to Georgia Popplewell’s incredible podosphere audio collage as she fills your earbuds with celebrity scandal analysis from India, slam poetry from Zimbabwe, a recent report from the World Social Forum in Kenya, and an invaluable language lesson for lovers of Chinese food who are chopstick challenged.

Malawi/Zambia: Remembering John Chilembwe, Debate Over Using Yahoo Messenger At Work and ICTs and Gender Based Violence

Victor Kaonga introduces us to the issues affecting bloggers in Malawi and Zambia. We learn why January 15 is a day of importance both in Malawi and the United States, how a Malawian man created a windmill out of spare parts, and how communication technology plays a part in violence against women in Zambia.

What Salvadoran bloggers are saying — on the 15th anniversary of peace accords

It has been 15 years since the signing of the Chapultepec Peace Accords which ended El Salvador’s twelve year civil war. Without diminishing their importance, Salvadoran bloggers still reflect over the past 15 years as a time of unfulfilled promise and incomplete reconciliation.

Roundups

Supporting blogging defendants in Malaysisa, Belarus’ first vlog, translated posts from Bahrain, and much more can be found in today’s Global Roundups.

I should have been much much smarter than to think that I was the first person to coin the term “Googleganger.” (from Doppelgänger)

My own googlegänger (that is, a person with your same name who shows up when you google yourself thus guaranteeing that you both are aware of each other even though you have not communicated) is a 53-year-old a public health veterinarian with the Hawaiian state Department of Health. He wears sandals, just like me, and likes to garden.

What about you? Who’s your googlegänger?

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