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From notes@igc.apc.org Thu Apr 18 12:19:45 1996 Received: from igc5.igc.apc.org (192.82.108.36) by MediaFilter.org with SMTP (Apple Internet Mail Server 1.0); Thu, 18 Apr 1996 12:19:47 -0500 Received: from cdp.igc.apc.org (cdp.igc.apc.org [192.82.108.1]) by igc5.igc.apc.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id IAA29067; Thu, 18 Apr 1996 08:53:49 -0700 (PDT) Date: 17 Apr 1996 03:27:00 Reply-To: Conference "zamir.chat"From: KATHERINE.LAYTON@ZAMIR-ZG.ZTN.apc.org Subject: Jezik To: Recipients of zamir-chat-l Message-ID: <670W8FK2DWB@pz-kate.zamir-zg.ztn.apc.org> X-Gateway: conf2mail@igc.apc.org Errors-To: owner-zamir-chat-l@igc.apc.org Precedence: bulk Lines: 51 ## Forwarded message of 17 Apr 96 ## Origin : /ZAMIR/!ALERTS ## Creator : KATHERINE.LAYTON@ZAMIR-ZG.ztn.apc.org A little late but hopefully not last: I get a bit frustrated now and then that I can't read (without a great deal of time involved in translation) some things that are obviously important and informative on Zamir as a whole. HOWEVER, I'm willing to swallow a great deal more frustration in this regard and vote for more postings in the "local" language. The Zamir system seems geared towards serving certain groups, "higher" educated people and organizations (local and other) in particular. But individuals working in organizations most often also have a higher level of education. Which often means that they can read English language material, which gives them advantages on top of their existing privileges. And I see that this system works out that those who already have advantages are mostly talking to themselves, thereby closing out other less-advantaged individuals/groups. The people I'm working with in Camp Bistrica (Sutivan) would like to have access to information and all of these rich resources that Zamir provides. We have a computer and the equipment we need to access these resources. But most of my partners in Bistrica can't read a huge portion of the information that comes across Zamir because they can't read English! This problem echoes UNHCR's latest attempts to provide information to refugees (as per the Dayton Agreement) - not surprisingly, UNHCR's new information reports are in English! So who do they think they are providing information for? Certainly not refugees in camps in Croatia - most can't read the damn reports. Witness the ICVA phenomena - their valuable "Directory of Organizations" is in English. I've been pushing for months to get the Directory in the local language. Unfortunately, this request is low on the priority list and will probably never happen. So what do we have here? A monopolization of knowledge and information by those who already have the upper hand in information access. My posting here in English is a reflection of my local-language deficiency (ali probam uciti). But it'd be a wonderful miracle if tomorrow I couldn't read a damn thing on Zamir. K. ## CrossPoint v3.02 ##