Indymedia: A success story of free speech and radical democracy

by Hannah Wettig

December 2003

The breaking news box of Indymedia Beirut announces the arrests of two Union activists in Iraq. An article about Samir Kuntar is featured in the middle column. Below, you can find a collection of articles by the activists Imad Mortada from Beirut and Dahr Jamail from Alaska about their experiences in occupied Baghdad.

The website of Indymedia Beirut, also called independent media center (IMC) Beirut, went online in April this year. It is one of 128 websites in 47 countries that popped up with the emergence of the globalization critical movement and are as such a phenomenon that many watched in amazement; researchers even started writing their Ph.D.s about it.

The websites all have the same structure. In the middle column, many articles are found about protests, but also about social and political issues considered important by the local editorial team. A newswire on the right, or as in the case of Indymedia Beirut on the left, is filled with miscellaneous news. In Beirut, human rights organization from the whole Arab world post their reports on the newswire, Islamists write about Palestine day, Auonists report on anti-Syrian protests in Canada.

The plurality is concept. Indymedia stands for free speech. The software enables the user to post articles directly on the website’s newswire without being viewed previously by the editorial group.

When the first indymedia was founded in Seattle in 1999 during the protests against the World Trade Organization, all articles stayed there - even postings by fascists.

But after many indymedias have made the experience of being spammed with unwanted articles expressing racist or sexist opinions, commercials, or even pornography, most came up with editorial policies that allowed them to take these articles of the website.

In Beirut, the team takes of racist and sexist articles and can put articles they consider not interesting for a Lebanese public on a second page.

“There are postings by Indian Yogis or on Anarchist theory written by European Proudhonists. We felt that the articles by Lebanese would get lost between the many articles posted by people from abroad,” explains a Beiruti indymedia activist.

The emphasis on local politics and autonomy are considered one of the reasons for the success of the concept. Many indymedias evolved out of local struggles or were set up when global protests happened in their city ñ as in Seattle or in Prague.

The idea was to enable demonstrators to write about their experiences on the protest immediately and thereby show the world that there is a different view of these events than the one expressed in other media outlets. So, indymedia activists set up free internet cafes for the protesters.

But there is also a common platform and criteria new collectives have to agree to before they can become part of the network.

They must consider the open access to information a prerequisite to a more free society. They agree not to make any profit, recognize the importance for social change and the principles of human equality, work towards anti-authoritarian relationships and commit themselves to caring for one another.

Yet, most fascinating about indymedia is not that they managed to link 128 websites under the same mission statement. It stands for a new model of democracy. More than a thousand people manage to take decisions and find common grounds over the internet without any hierarchical structure.

The local indymedias communicate on dozens of mailinglists; every decision must be taken in consensus. For the founders of the concept it was clear that such radical democracy only works with total transparency. Therefore, all discussions can be followed by anybody in the archives of the network and the outcome is precisely documented.

The indymedia activist Sheri from IMC Seattle explains why this doesn’t lead to constant infighting:

“Our roots are wide and diverse but one important one is the Zapatistas which brought (..) to light a new form of inclusivity that took us far away from any kind of sectarianism and fundamentalism: the kind that says we are right, you are wrong; we are more radical than you so we donít want to work with you, let alone play with you.”

The indymedia Beirut collective is open to everybody and looks for many new people to tackle future projects, such as an activist internet cafe, a video group, a newspaper. Contact imc-beirut@lists.indymedia.org

Hannah Wettig is a reporter at the Beirut-based The Daily Star. She wrote this analysis for Alternative