DigiActive.org

Discussion: Infanticide and ethical video sharing

Topic: Human rights group Survival International has accused American evangelical missionaries of inciting racism and presenting false information with a controversial online video denouncing infanticide among Brazilian indigenous tribes called “Hakani,” which has been viewed on YouTube over 350,000 times. The incident has put a spotlight on the fine line between digital activism and ethical responsibility.

Digital Tools Being Used: Video, Facebook

What is the Debate: The video depicts scenes, now deemed to be reenactments, of Indians in an Amazon village digging graves and burying several live children in them. It was directed by David Cunningham, the son of the founder of an American fundamentalist missionary organisation called ‘Youth with a Mission’, which has a branch in Brazil known as Jocum. The “Hakani” campaign also maintains a website and a Facebook group with more than 13,000 members. The campaign is urging people to donate money and write letters in support of the Muwaji’s Law, which is a proposed Brazilian law that would make infanticide by indigenous groups illegal. Survival said the film is “faked, that the earth covering the children’s faces is actually chocolate cake, and that the film’s claim that infanticide among Brazilian Indians is widespread is false.” While infanticide is common with some indigenous tribes with ill children, the practice has become more rare as medical access to rural communities has improved.

“I think the missionaries are stirring up hatred against the Indians, who they profess to be concerned about,” said Fiona Watson, a Brazil campaigner for Survival, in a Reuters interview. “The infanticide is not being explained, it’s being taken out of context. They have now suddenly become baby-killers.”

Tactic: “Cyberela” bridges digital divide

Description: As activists around the world celebrated International Women’s Day this week, this is a great opportunity to highlight the progress and barriers women and girls still face around the world. In the tech world, women are still disproportionately affected by the digital divide – the lack of economic and educational opportunities to access the Internet and other communication tools. However, there are many organizations around the world that are charged to close the gap. One group is using new media along with radio to do this.

Digital Tools Being Used: Podcasts

What Are They Doing: Brazilian nonprofit Communication, Education and Information on Gender (CEMINA) was founded in 1988 to educate poor women how to create and produce their own radio shows. The organization also works with local community radio stations across Brazil to run “telecenters,” where both women and men can learn various Internet tools. In 1999 CEMINA started “Cyberela,” an initiative that identifies enterprising women to create their own radio programming and upload them online. The radio programs are geared towards other women in their communities who feel empowered by the discussion topics such as education, agriculture and health care, which give way to spark action.

Theory: Poverty & Digital Activism

As our contribution to Blog Action Day, I’d like to offer a response to a common question I receive: “How can you promote digital activism in resource-constrained societies if poor people don’t have access to digital tools?”

In answering this question, it isn’t sufficient to respond with the multiple examples of activists without substantial resources mounting brilliantly creative and successful campaigns for social an internet center supported by the Brazilian Ministry of Culture and political change like the strikers in Egypt using Facebook, the Help Fouad campaign in Morocco, and anti-FARC activists in Colombia.

Answering this question in a persuasive way requires a more thorough analysis of how access to digital tools is changing and what this means for political activism.  The key trends here are sky-rocketing increases in mobile phone subscriptions in developing countries and more shared mobile phones and computers.  The digital divide is no longer defined by computer ownership.  There are simply too many other ways to get on the network.

Let’s take Brazil as an example.  To quote an article from World Politics Review from earlier this year: “In Brazil, the spread of communications technology is proceeding at breakneck speed. Internet usage statistics are breaking records every month.  As a result, Brazilian society is changing in ways that have hardly begun to be understood.”
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Tactic: Surui takes back the land with Google Earth

Description: The Amazon Rainforest is one of the world’s last remaining rainforests and comprises the most biodiversity on Earth. However, this is being threatened by man-made deforestation. According to the Amazon Rainforest Deforestation News, during the last five months of 2007, more than 3,200 sq. kilometers (an area equivalent to the size of the state of Rhode Island) was deforested during a time when deforestation would normally drop. But, Amazon residents are demanding to take back the land through technology.

Tools Being Used: Google Earth

What Are They Doing: Google and the Amazon Conservation Team officially launched a new initiative yesterday with Indian tribes from the Surui reservation of Brazil to help reduce illegal deforestation. With the help of the Surui chief, Almir Narayamoga Surui(pictured above), tribe members will use the free software Google Earth to police their 600,000-acre reservation. The images will be used as evidence to show the Brazilian government of deforestation, or at least scare away loggers and miners.

The chief discovered the tool while playing around with it and was entranced with its power instantly. He told the International Herald Tribune last year, that he “saw thin whitish lines suggesting deforestation in the vast verdant swath that popped up when he zoomed in on his reservation.”

The loggers and miners “will certainly be scared, because we’ll be watching all the time and denouncing the invasions,” he said in the interview.

Watch the chief here explain the problem of deforestation in his homeland, and the significance of Google Earth helping to perserve his culture.

Campaign: Brazilian bloggers vs. a WordPress ban

Description: After an unauthorized sex tape was posted on a Brazilian WordPress blog, a judicial order to shut down the blog was issued. This would mean a block on all WordPress blogs in Brazil, as they all share the same IP address.  Blocking that one IP would mean that no blogs on the WordPress platform would be accessible from within Brazil. Similar blocks have been imposed before in Brazil, and bloggers want to make sure it won’t happen again.

Digital Activism tools: blog, Orkut group, blog badge

How These Tools Are Being Used: The social networking site Orkut is extremely popular in Brazil, so an Orkut group has been formed (you need a Gmail account to access the page).   There is also an anti-ban blog, which explains the issue.  Finally, as it is an issue that affects bloggers, a blog badge has been created to oppose the potential ban.

Outcome: WordPress has not yet been blocked in Brazil, but it is too early to judge the success of the campaign.

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