Tuesday, May 27, 2008

The song ICT4D is abstract and obstructive

Real demand for ICT should not depend on massive advertisement on the part of telecommunication companies but more from investments in education and capacity building as more people may begin utilising ICTs, and ICT Ministries. And oh yes, may also think about the need for national ICT policies, and strategies, define the roles of the public, and private sectors, and civil societies in regards the revolution ICT is causing. Only then can ICT become nutritious for holistic development in Uganda, South Sudan, and Africa. A phrase has been edited to suit Salam Taki.

The title of the blog article was inspired by an article published in the The Monitor website and authored by one Mr. Aramanzan Madanda. Read his article published on the 16th May 2008 entitled ICT hype is a joke. A phrase in that article was the subject for the fore mentioned edit. The motivation for writing this article comes after reading a counter argument article in the same media by a one student of Msc. Information Technology for Management, Conventry University, a Mr. Ivan Kahangire's article. And there was this urge to weigh claims with a Salam Taki article alleging ICT for development is hocus pocus. Treachery of the highest order ...' published published Monday, March 31, 2008 under a title Rocking the Boat.

Mr. Aramanzan Madanda has read widely and knew his trade. Had the chance to listen to him and will say, was he just being at times in the same lambda with Salam Taki? ICT4D song is really pathetic. Like a wild beast tearing through a forest, here and there left up right down. It is like singing a song one doesn't understand but should love all the same and all the time and yet sings it so loudly. It is ICT. While the soon-to-be permanently head damaged PHD holder was discussing competition among telecommunication companies in Uganda and was irked as to why these corporations were obsessed with identifying with star musicians, he soon fell into singing the auld usually sung loud song dna banjuka tu ict njakunoba i4ict song. It is also broken here that ICT4D was crap.

ICT on their own are merely gadgets, an industry and less worth to bring about solutions and the development being sought. Thus the mantra, a hocus pocus, ICT4D is deemed crap. However, when ICT is systematically integrated with sciences, people, and domains like health, education, medicine, etc, ICTs will be seen to cause much cherished holistic developments and solutions and at that point we should no longer hype ICTs are causing the development but a system causing development. Such should be the light in which ICTs contribute to development.

ICT hype is a joke didn't go well with Ivan and so our Msc. IT for Management fellow was drawn in and he drew the dagger: ICT is a key tool for development. Lets understand it this way: Like dancing to a tune so compelling that one just has to go a dance school just to learn how to dance it best. One books a break off to display what one has learnt so far if anywhere but on the big platform open to a critiquing. Salam Taki don't head that way. We shan't. So lets instead welcome and salute the learning process. Ivan, Kije, ay, horro, ay, agandi, ndimarungi. Welcome bro. Lets critique.

Ivan, ICT4D is a ride. We are yet to come to terms with its nitty gritties. Salam Taki hopes that ICT4D shall eventually become ICT in development. It is like Space conceiving beautiful kittens we may label informatics or e -*, where, "*" could be domains such as commerce, health, banking, citizenship, education, governance, journalism, name it but all components in a development. Oh shall we?

Note
Space is the name of a cat of a blogger, the 24th Comrade . Space recently gave birth to three beautiful kittens. The phrase Space was therefore used figuratively to illustrate the relationship as in the cat giving forth kittens. ICT, for instance (and health) brings about e-health or health Informatics.

Henry Owera is a blogger whose blogging exercises are Information Society, ICT, informatics, mass media, new media, social media, information economy, e-citizenship, e-governance, policies, and strategies. He blogs on Uganda, Southern Sudan and Africa.
Blogging at URL http://www.owerahbits.blogspot.com/
Emai
l: owerah@gmail.com Skype: owerah14

Monday, May 26, 2008

Salam Taki Twittered

First: Twitter is amazing. It calculated yours trueness' popularity index! Uploading. It may take longer if you are popular. Cool. Me thinks Twitter is cool but will hesitate recommending it just as yet. Will experience it before recommending it. Soon!

Salam Taki has been twittered. Hopes that word is in the dictionary. If google is why not twittered the dictionary? Well with Salam Twittered, get a glimpse of what is happening in the course of the day and oh owerahbits. Kid sis is chatting me up, Mzee girl is online and still asking about twitter. She doesn't know how to get it ... permit Salam Taki twitter that ... hold ... twittering, twittering ... twittering finished. Salam Taki has twittered that! Thank you for the patience, its has been twittered ...

Well, I see twitter technology would be terrific for a news website not the current newspaper websites Uganda has in URLs newvison.co.ug and monitor.co.ug. Twitter makes updating possible as it nearly happens. Imaging incorporating twittering with video - something akin to live television, you would wish to crash you TV set. A live show of your choosing. And ah! with broadband connection.

Oh yes, Salam Taki is twittered at URL http://twitter.com/owerahbits

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Democracking SPLM leadership: SPLM elects Salva Kiir

The Sudan People's Liberation Movement convention just had to elect Gen. Salva Kiir. Period! Salva Kiir was at the helm of SPLM leadership not because of ambitious reasons but because tragic circumstances that caused the demise of late Dr. John Garang dictated it so. The aspirations of the the marginalised people in South Sudan, Darfur, Abyei, name it, Sudan have to be realised and so Joshua and the promise, Salva Kiir, SPLM and a cause, the New Sudan.

But in the democratisation process of the SPLM convention, some ambitions had wished to challenge the position of the leaderships. Won't name names but their intentions were a public secret and a clear threat and negative role of democratisation on leadership wherever.

There seems a moment in building a nation when leadership should prevail over democratisation because leadership is not always about popularity, but like Napoleon Bonaparte would say, a leader is a dealer in hope. And here is the class act. A leader is best when people barely know he exists; Not so good when people obey and acclaim him; worst when they despise him. But a good leader who talks little when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say "We did it our selves" - Sun Tzu

The challenge for the New Sudan is beyond personal egos even as the Sudanese Armed Forces wreck havoc in the contested Abyei region and the Darfur. Something must be done differently.

Monday, May 19, 2008

As we mourn with China

Year 1998: My dear mum's leg is blown into tatters by a land mine made in they know wheres and planted by bedeviling agent supreme Mr. Joseph Kony.

Year 2008 and today while an amputee proper, Ms. Margaret Orech is today one of many many others who advocates that land mines should be banned from planet earth. And so should be in Dublin, Ireland.
The Dublin Diplomatic Conference on Cluster Munitions to negotiate a new instrument of international humanitarian law banning cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians will take place from 19-30 May 2008.
- Micheál Martin T.D.,
Minister for Foreign Affairs
We need them land mines and cluster munitions and other unexploded ordinances banned from the surface of the world and here is the problem ... Mr. Brown is a Prime Minister of the United States of America.
Britain has been accused of being the main barrier to an international treaty that would ban cluster bombs, weapons responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians.

British soldiers fighting alongside American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq would face criminal prosecution if the government goes ahead with plans to sign a treaty limiting the use of cluster bombs ... (Source: Telegraph.co.uk)
No brown lining expected even as we hopeless show solidarity with China's victims of the earthquake in Beichuan, Sichuan Province, China Monday morning, May 19, 2008.and so send condolences Salam Taki.

The earthquake was well beyond us and the banning of the cluster munitions, made by us - well them, we can ban cluster munitions if we so wish but the cluster munition nuisances are not in London, are not wrecking havoc in New York so two gentle nations' policy will not see the reason for banning them anyway. This is selfishness on the part of firstly, the United States of America, and secondly and potentially, Great Britain and allies.

Shame on you all who perpetuate havoc, abet terrorism of a kind and make the world a hell for thousand of others in Africa, Middle East, Asia and South America.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

CheMarleyMahatMandelAungSanSuuKyi Rights

It seems the State, the governments, corporations and man made systems have connived against the citizen in the twenty first century. Phone and communication system eavesdropping /tapping, censorships and arrests in Uganda, in the Sudan as it is in Burma and world over is nothing but systematic rape, grander act of terrorism against the citizens today.

But look, the heart of governments, states, technology and corporations are fellow citizens and what do I do in the end? I censor and rape my own conscience.
Aung San Kyi:
Fear is not the natural state of civilised people.
Mahatma Ghandi:
Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed.
Citizens are terrorising others and themselves for merely positions, and the pay.

Che:
If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade ...
We can free ourselves. Something is possible as I listen to Bob Marley's redemption Song redone by Cassandra Wilson. Play and feel or read the lyrics below as we reflect.

Redemption Song - Bob Marley
Old pirates, yes, they rob i;
Sold I to the merchant ships,
Minutes after they took i
From the bottomless pit.
But my hand was made strong
By the and of the almighty.
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly.
Wont you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
cause none of them can stop the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look? ooh!
Some say its just a part of it:
Weve got to fulfil de book.

Wont you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our mind.
Wo! have no fear for atomic energy,
cause none of them-a can-a stop-a the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look?
Yes, some say its just a part of it:
Weve got to fulfil de book.
Wont you help to sing
Dese songs of freedom? -
cause all I ever had:
Redemption songs -
All I ever had:
Redemption songs:
These songs of freedom

Monday, May 12, 2008

Salam Taki SPLM convention, Khartoum attack, Yes New Sudan

Salam Taki: It is absurd that this site hasn't been updated through out the month of April year 2008! But let it be said. Salam Taki was being blogged using Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) internet resource but as of now as it was three weeks ago, the entire GoSS ministries have had not internet! It is an e-blackout! The blackout coupled with remote travels made it impossible for Salam Taki to be updated. Salam Taki goes now ...

An e-blackout? A government without internet connection must be dark in there and it is a mockery of a government that GoSS is. How can an entire government in the information age lack internet communication? How are they coordinating business? Imagine the US government without internet? Imagine a Rwanda without the internet. Add India, Malaysia and NASA without 21st century communication systems. Horrible stuff really. Lets look into the manner the second Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) convention is being organised.

The very first SPLM convention after the demise of Dr. John Garang, the more critical convention for the hope of a people, the only second SPLM Convention of all times, how would they organise and mobilise for it? How many delegates expected? Over 1,500. key stakeholder? A people so improvised by decades of war and yearning. Where? in Juba, Sudan. Where exactly? A cultural centre near a filthy customs area. Rate the convention organisation and mobilisation out of ten: 1.7 out of ten! 10.7%. Pun it and it is still alright, somebody should be fired, posters were seen being pinned on the d-day.

In the midst of the 2nd SPLM below par organisation, coordination and mobilisation, the Interim National Council (INC) meet which precedents the grand convention had to be postponed and so did the grander meet. That some delegates had not arrived yet. On a Saturday, when and near the venue where the INC meet was to take place, bulldozers were still seen demolishing Ugandans' market place structures at customs in the name of making a healthier environment out of filth. Hell dust raising, cholera in the neighbourhood, women rescuing their belonging, a man wonders and what does one later hear over BBC? Talk about taking Darfur to Khartoum. Khartoum, the fore safest city in Africa was under mortar attack.

So the INC meet was postponed and so did the grand strategy meeting of the people. The INC meet today 12th May 2008 and somewhere else home and away. The slogan? No for war yes for New Sudan. Beautiful slogan it isn't. Yes New Sudan. A New Sudan would heal the wounds of Sudan so goes the wish as one laments the tragedy that befell GoSS leadership in air crash.

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