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Date: 17 Apr 1996 03:27:00
Reply-To: Conference "zamir.chat" 
From: KATHERINE.LAYTON@ZAMIR-ZG.ZTN.apc.org
Subject: Jezik
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## 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.
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