Asaf Rashid

It was 6:30pm on the evening of January 25th. The large assembly/conference room on the main floor of the Caracas Hilton started to fill, reaching near its absolute capacity at about a few hundred. The media folks, myself included, were getting ready to start recording. We were all waiting for, “A Discussion on independent media and the building of Independent World Television – Feraturing Gore Vidal”. Gore Vidal is a name well-known amongst the crowd of World Social Forum attendees; he´s an author who´s written a number of books about U.S. Imperialism and within the realm of social justice. And the subject of the discussion itself was an exciting one too. So we waited.

And we waited, looked at our watches, looked at each other. Some shrugged shoulders. No one left the room though. Finally, one of the other media folks, with an alternative media organization in the US (the card of which I can´t seem to find) came up to me and let me know that there was speculation that Gore Vidal might not be able to make it, and that the group hosting the talk might not either. He associate, who is also a panelist on another presentation/discussion on “Crisis in the US Media”, let me know that the oganizing group for the present event didn´t show up for a previous event either. I immediately looked at the crowd, thinking, “There´s probably going to be a lot of disappointed people”.

We waited for a little while longer, until nearly 8pm, an hour after the scheduled start, when Scott got up to the mic and informed the crowd that it didn´t look like Gore Vidal would be able to make it. But he immediately turned the potential emptiness into an opportunity.

“How about an open-mic?”. I´m certain that he also added in something along the lines of “about the media”.

No structure, no facilitator. The first person to go up to the mic was a Norwegian woman with a Media tag on her. She spoke of the need to have a satelite that could be used for Independent World Media. She then went on to talk about the need for something to change, the poor state of the world, etc.

I went up next, entirely forgot to introduce myself (which is why I usually put a bold reminder note infront of me, “INTRODUCE YOURSELF”, whenever I speak to an audience), and invited all people involved with Indymedia organizations to come up to the front for come kind of caucus meeting. I also added that maybe all the media would be interested in meeting. Several people raised their hands in response, and seemed enthused, when I asked who was with an Indymedia organization and would like to meet. There also seemed to be some excitement about the general media prompt as well. But only a few came up to the front to exchange contact information. I´ve been puzzling over why the others never came forward. Perhaps it was intimidating to come to the front of the room. Maybe the announcement wasn´t clear enough. But at least some people came forward and appreciated there being some effort to bring people together. I´ve agreed to email people on the contact list I now have and try to organize a meeting of Indymedia folks (and any alternative, small-scale media actually).

A number of other people came up to the mic as well. One fellow talked about how he was involved in an effort to have all nuclear weapons banned/eliminated by 2020. He struck me as an exceptionally polite individual. He spoke of how he could be contacted, I saw several people scrawl down the contact. Someone else spoke about various secret societies around the world and their ties to international power, which might have been what caused so many people to leaev. Unfortunately, I have a difficult time remembering some of the other impromptu speeches. I wasn´t taking notes and ceased to record after the regularly scheduled event didn´t go through.

The open mic was very interesting. Most people didn´t wish to come up to the mic. Only the particularly confident people did. Some of the people has a lot to say, but maybe too much to say in a short time. I kept mine short, basically focussed on the announcement, but forgot to introduce myself until someone in the crowd shouted out, “Who are you?”, in polite way. My basic conclusion of the open mic was that it was basically all over the place, with some egaging but overall disconected points. In retrospect, I think, for such an ocurrence as we had (no organized presentation), it would have been better to have shifted to a more engaging, set of circular formations with a designated facilitator for each group rather than rows of chairs looking up at a raised podium. The typical lecture setting is not a very effective way to engage a group in a discussion since it puts pressure on the people to put themselves in front of an entire crowd of people, on the spot. In retrospect, I think I should have made the announcement that, “I´m inviting all those interested in participating in a small group discussion on Indymedia organizations, their current states of affairs and future directions to join me at the back and we´ll find a space to meet. Or we can just discuss what would be a more approrpriate time and place to meet if people are interested”. Maybe that would have encouraged other people to have tried the same.