Bloggers Who Blog about New Media

Today, I ran across a blog entry which provides a list of TOP 100 blogs dealing with new media. Some of the blogs listed are familiar to me. I found this post useful for me as a scholar and course instructor. As for the blog post itself, wow, well done! :)

My Article in The New Star Newspaper (AU-CA, Bishkek)

Click on the picture to enlarge the image.

The Dangers Behind Oversimplification: Rape of a Four Year Old Russian Girl in a Kyrgyz Village Petrovka Provoked a Pogrom of Kurdish Family Houses

There was a girl raped in some village in Kyrgyzstan.
This is not big news. Violence towards women, especially young women in traditional patriarchal societies, takes place every day all around the world. These are stories with variations, which give me creeps. The rape of a Russian four year old girl in a Kyrgyz village of Petrovka, and the rape and murder of her grandmother which took place later as a result of her attempt to bring an action against a 21 year old Kurdish young man --- this story is not an exclusion. But it received an exclusive attention of the local and international news media.

On 26th of April, the ayil okmotu (village gathering) ended up in a verbal and physical abuse. The Kyrgyz and Russian villagers demanded that the criminals, who happened to be ethnic Kurds in this case, got punished. And that was not only it: the Kyrgyz and Russian villagers demanded that Kurds leave the village. The Kurdish villagers with guns organized themselves and confronted the anti-Kurdish crowd. According to AkiPress.org, the militia major Aliev could not stop shootings: three people were wounded. The Kyrgyz and Russian villagers looted the Kurdish property. The MIA Vice-minister Isaev reported 6 autos were severely damaged, one of which was set on fire; the windows of 15 houses were broken, etc. Around 800 villagers participated in pogroms. 100 villagers were arrested. The next day, the participants of the Sunday pogrom organized an action on the strategic route Bishkek-Osh demanding from the militia to release the arrestees.

The bloodiest "inter-ethnic conflict" in Kyrgyzstan took place in 1989 in Osh, Ferghana Valley. In 2005, there happened another inter-ethnic conflict between the Kyrgyz villagers and Dungan diaspora of the Iskra village. The controversial story that took place in April 2009 was served by the local news media as another manifestation of the latent inter-ethnic conflicts. Most of the local press explains the violence in Petrovka: the rape of a four year old Russian girl by a Kurdish twenty one year old Kurd and then the murder of her Russian grandmother could not be tolerated by the Kyrgyz villagers --- these accidents provoked pogroms of the Kurdish houses and forcible exclusion of the Kurdish diaspora from Petrovka.

This oversimplification of the conflicts between the Kurdish, Kyrgyz and Russian villagers is outrageous! By storing the problem into the box labeled "inter-ethnic conflicts", we avoid answering the long-standing acute questions raised by the demonstrated intolerance time and time again.

To be continued.

WEIRD VOTING ABROAD EXPERIENCE: A Short Story about How One Citizen Cast Her Vote for the Kyrgyz President in 2009 During Her Stay in Germany

23rd of July will stay in my memory as a stressy day when I, the citizen of Kyrgyzstan --- currently studying and teaching in Dortmund, Germany --- got on the train to Frankfurt-am-Main in order to practice my right to vote. In this blogpost, let me praise the Hauptkonsulat der Kirgisischen Republik in Frankfurt-am-Main for the Kyrgyz --- "vote easy" --- organization of the presidential elections 2009.


Failure to Inform Voters to Take Active Part in Elections
I have received official notification about the Kyrgyz Presidential elections 2009 neither from Konsulat der Kirgisischen Republik (Frankfurt am Main) nor from Botschaft der Kirgisischen Republik in der BRD. I was not in the lists as a result of not being registered in Konsulat (How was I supposed t know about it?). I learned about the dates of elections from relatives, friends and Kyrgyz news media. Surprisingly, Botschaft der Kirgisischen Republik (Berlin) announced about elections only on the Russian website (!!) Compare the German version of the Embassy's website, which I always consulted, and Russian. If you are attentive enough, you will see pink (Russian language) and then blue (Kyrgyz language) sentences running above the picture of the Embassy, Font 14, perhaps, Times New Roman. Today I have discovered a banner inviting to taking part in the presidential elections on the German version of the website, located --- or rather, hidden --- down-down below... The scarlet banner is worthless. The dead link. Please, leave a comment if you manage to open the link!

The website itself looks too simple. To my astonishment, my first impression of the website was: how unprofessional! (For the sake of comparison, here is the official webpage of the Deutsche Botschaft in Bischkek.)
It does not function in an efficient and effective way. It is clumsy and unattractive, absolutely non-interactive, rarely updated, consequently, uninformative, and user-unfriendly. To sum up, the Kyrgyz Embassy and Kyrgyz Consulate in Germany failed to provide sufficient information about the presidential elections in Kyrgyzstan in 2009. Yet it is worth of noticing that I have received a reply concerning voting and requirements the very next day after sending a short message via e-mail. Yet the website and other tools the Kyrgyz Embassy and Consulate apply to outreach the eligible voters in Germany should be considerably improved.


How I Cast My Vote for the Kyrgyz Presidential Candidate in 2009

23rd of July will stay in my memory as a weird day when I stepped into the Hauptkonsulat der Kirgisischen Republik in Frankfurt-am-Main around 7:30 p.m. to discover that the voting cabins were not in use anymore and the commission started counting the votes!

The voting was supposed to stop at 8 p.m. I still had time. I was asked to proceed to the office of Mr.X. and sit at the table where Asian dry fruits, biscuits and soda drinks were generously served. "Ah, how Asian!" I thought, I was supposed to wait in that room, have a snack and drink if I please, and proceed to the cabin to cast my ballot.

Wrong. This was the place where I was supposed to vote!

Mr.X was sitting right opposite to me. We exchanged greetings.
"Are you Russian?"
"My parents are Russian."
"Don't be ashamed of being Russian. Russian language has a special status in Kyrgyzstan..."
"I am not ashamed of being Russian. I just prefer to identify myself not according to ethnicity..."
After a short clumsy conversation, I was supposed to tick the box openly and pass the ballot into his hands directly(!!!).

My natural curiousity (some would say, bitchiness) could not but break through. "Why no voting cabins?" The answer was: "None showed up during the previous hour, so we are about to start counting the votes. You came late."

I did not.

Jakshy Kalynyzdar! (Good Bye in Kyrgyz) I felt like suffocating. And here I was walking down the street in the direction of the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof to catch my --- German --- train. I felt relieved to walk through the German city and hear the German language, and meet immigrants... I felt it was all so wrong in that room I just left. Does my vote matter? Will it be counted?

I fulfilled my duty as a Kyrgyz citizen --- one of the other 108.000 --- living and studying abroad.

Results:

Kyrgyzstan’s incumbent president appeared Friday to have won a landslide victory, gaining more than 80 percent of the vote in a contest that local and Western monitors said was marred by major violations of election laws.

Ballot stuffing, intimidation and media bias were just some of the infractions noted in Thursday’s election by observers from the monitoring arm of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or O.S.C.E.

With about 86 percent of the ballots counted on Friday, the incumbent, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, had won about 85 percent of the vote, according to Kyrgyzstan’s election commission. The commission said official results would be announced Saturday.

But Radmila Sekerinska, the head of the observer mission for the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the O.S.C.E.’s monitoring arm, declared Friday, “Sadly, this election did not show the progress we were hoping for, and it again fell short of key standards Kyrgyzstan has committed to as a participating state of the O.S.C.E.”

In a statement, she said, “The conduct of Election Day was a disappointment.

Meanwhile, an observer mission from the Commonwealth of Independent States, a Moscow-dominated alliance of former Soviet republics known for its rose-colored reporting on the region’s elections, announced Friday that the elections were “open and free.”

Fair or not, the elections in Kyrgyzstan appeared largely to be a domestic sideshow, eclipsed by the competition between Russia and the United States for influence over the country.” Read more in English

"The Internet's Role in Campaign 2008"

This is the title of the report published by Pew Internet and American Life Project. You don't want to miss it! It's like reading a cool American thriller! The PDF version is a click away! =))

My Grand-grandmother Was Technophobic

My grand-grandmother was technophobic. She was “Staroverka” (that stands for female Old Believer). Today, we are supposed to be technophilic---or at least techno-friendly---in order to function and develop our skills and talents to their full potential within the modern society. (Or ‘post-modern’, if you please).

There is a never ending debate between those who see new informational and communicational technology as the key to solving problems of social and human life, opposed to those who see technologies as something dangerous, harmful and unnatural. Nevertheless, the companies and corporations involved into development and improvement of information and communication technologies position themselves as lending hand in solving problems of the 21st-century Homo sapiens. Communication is the key. Talking, texting, connecting to data services, etc---these are like oxygen to us. (In my opinion, the ‘O2’ brand successfully managed to incorporate all these values in their logo and branding strategy).

What was considered internet addiction in 90’s is socially acceptable today. (To what extent are you addicted to the internet? Take a test). “The concept of addiction is not easy to define, but central to it is dependence on a substance or activity.” (Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., 2004) “Hooked on Internet? Help is just a click away.” (Unknown internet user) Fight fire with fire (?!).

The advances in computer technology and internet have changed the way humans live, learn, and interact. Thanks to internet, I found out about the Master and PhD opportunities in Germany. I had a long-distance relationship with my Beloved. If something happens and there will be no internet, I am afraid, there will be no way for me to carry out my research projects and fulfill my career dreams. All in all, I am pretty sure, my grand-grandmother would have exclaimed, “My God, she is crazy!”

Obviously, internet has become an integral part of economic, political, and social life. Yet one should not forget that there are places on the Earth, where internet is still considered to be luxury. According to the 2007 report of the OpenNet Initiative, “an emerging regime shift toward more restrictive policy, dependence upon Russian and Chinese Internet connections, and political instability pose problems for clear and continual access to Internet in Kyrgyzstan.” (Interested in details?.)

Prof. Richard Rogers, who introduces himself as a Web epistemologist, views the Web “as a knowledge culture distinct from other media”. He concentrates on the research opportunities that would have been improbable or impossible without the Internet. The IssueCrawler software, which helps to trace “issue networks” on the Web, was one of his initiatives. Unlike Google Search which bases results on outside factors like links and popularity, issue networks do not privilege individuals and groups. His book "Information Politics on the Web" opened my eyes: there are certain “philosophies” behind new information and communication technologies. They do have (different) impact on certain dynamics within our society. And I am looking forward to dicussing it all in class in the closest future. The first "moment of Zen" (for those who don't know: this is our in-class excercise) demonstrated that there are many students interested in learning more about these problems.

I did not expect this Zen-moment to be so "juicy" from the very start! I have done a preliminary overview of the potential research questions and hypotheses the students shared with me---this is awesome. I really hope someone decides to write a research paper or thesis about any topic we touched upon during this class. The "moment of Zen" excercise demonstrated how reflective my students are ("my students"--- hey, folks! I am sorry if it sounds possessive!!:) You have many reasons to be proud of yourselves!! I will prepare a brief report on your successful start with a list of top-questions and problems you shared today. The *Zen-moments* will be available next week. This is a very good material for your future blog-posts. Just don't forget to give credits to those authors who triggered your interest in the problems.

One of the purposes of this course is to create a mini-community on the web, and see how it functions. We will start our blog-projects in two weeks. Yet I already encourage you to start thinking about the topics for future blog-posts. ...Did you also have a technophobic grand-grandma? :)

Comfortably Dull

I love poetry. Sometimes I have some rhymes in my head. I will share this with you.

Comfortably Dull

It’s good when people leave
And shut the door---politely.

Emerging from black sleeve,
Refined white fingers
Clutched door-handle lightly
And tightly shut the door.

The micro-slam caused fracture of the skull.

Then everything became so
Comfortably dull.