Hi All, here is a reminder, and a brief outline regarding tommorrow nights Masters of new Media lecture series. My apologies for any cross postings. ooking forward to seeing you there. cheers, John Power ========================================== THE VIEW FROM THE GROUND The Internet As a Medium For Democratic Struggle ========================================== Thursday, 7th September. 7pm Radio Theatre, Building 9, ground floor. RMIT City campus. Tedjabayu, our guest speaker was born in Jakarta in 1944, and educated at Gadjah Mada University in the Faculty of Geography in 1963. Between 1963 and 1965 he was a member of the Indonesian student movement. In 1965, he was arrested and detained without trial for 14 years in three different prisons, finally being released from Baru Island detainment camp in 1979. The year following his release, he became the head librarian for the Jakarta branch of the Legal Aid Institute, and in 1983 joined the Indonesian Amatuer radio society. Still working with Indonesian Legal Aid, in 1993 he became head of Information and documentation at the national headquarters in Jakarta. In 1996, he was a co-founder of the Indoneian Association for Legal Aid and Human Rights (PBHI), of which he is still a member. Tedjabayu's most recent work has been with ISAI, the Institute for the Studies on Free Flow of Information as a System Operator, and in coordinating the ISAI Journalistic Training Program. Tedjabayu is married with two sons. Here follows a brief description of his presentation: The Net as a Weapon > The Internet played a significant role in the process of democratization in > Indonesia, It was and is still used as a medium to disseminate human rights > issues, i.e. against racism, religious segregation, anti-militarism and > also an effective tool for a quick, global campaigns on workers, > women, land and indigenous people's right. It is also being used as a way to > communicate between NGO and student activists during the bloody days of > bullet sprayed demos in the months of change, 1998. It helped the activists > to bring down Soeharto, a strong corrupt dictator ruling Indonesia for more > than thirty years. It also helped the freedom fighters of East Timor to get > their independence. > > Now in the hopeful coming years that Indonesians call The Era of > "Reformasi", an important question arises; what can we do in this strange > world of cyberspace for the benefit of democratic life, for the benefit of > friendship among people of the world, a world supposedly without hatred and > prejudice? How can this question be addressed among Australians; the native Aborigines and the Europeans and Asians, who live in this big country of different races? Among Indonesians; the people of Ambon of Maluku, Aceh and other conflicting areas? Also of importance, what will be the role of the Net be to continue the good old > friendship among us, Australians and Indonesians that began in the forties > when Australian workers went to a strike against Dutch arms shipments to > Indonesia during the colonial war? > > The possibilities of an interactive way to reach people, to communicate > directly without prejudice, is one challenge for you all to dig out. What > are the possibilities of this relatively new technology for the sake of > humanity? Let us exchange ideas. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- hothouse: media arts discussion and action at the threshold of technology and the 21st Century MANIFESTO 2nd - 12th November 1999 Experimenta Media Arts www.experimenta.org
