"Exterminate all the Brutes"

When we were still in Switzerland, Andrew asked for a possibility to bring him a CD-print duplicatormaschine.
The ones who saw our luggages might know, these would have ben really to much. And we thougth it not a very nice idea, because the ink here is even more expensive then in our place, but the salleries at least 10 times lower.
So we tried to find a solution and proposed Andrew to do a a printing tool by one of these Stampmakers, and print then with ink and stamp pad.
The advantage of this woul be the possibility to give wort to local workers, also is it a much more cheaper way. This fits very well with the ideas of Andrew who produces and empowers local music.

Yesterday in the morning, I’ve seen “real” african rainshower for the first time. Drops as big as crocodiletears falling by millions and millions on the red soil, filling up the termits hollows. Their only way for them to survive, is to fly into the sky. A quite strange picture to me because it looks as if they would also fall out of the clouths. We really tryed to be at Poly in time, put on a longsleeved shirts and went coureagousely on the road to cetch a minibus. Afrer 3 minutes and 10 seconds, we had to capitulate and go back home, wett as cats fallen in a lake. The picture does show the garderobe at the entry of the library at poly.

(This image shows the american moonlander, that stands in the entrance of the Polytechnic)

When I was looking for the title for my Malawi project I’ve chosen a cite from the book of Joseph Conrads “heart of darkness”: “Exterminate all the brutes” describes the character of the classical imperialist, the insulanian, who came to impose his way of living, his moral and religion onto another world.

Some of us might believe, that this a view from the old colonialstic times. Malawi is just a free country for 40 years now and the western companies have found new ways to put african countries in their dependency.

I would like to remind of the “memorandum of understanding”, that Microsoft tried to do with the education Minister in Malawi about a year ago, so that the Microsoft operating system has to be used in Malawian schools only.

That time some students and systemadministrators of the University of Malawi have prevented this “pact with the devil” by writing an open letter. Even Bill Gates himself seems to have understood, that the fight on the operating systems is already lost for him. Why else should he quit Microsoft and do more engagement for his “Bill & Melinda Gates Foudation”? The Gates are wageing a neoimperialist crusade with the spreading of genetically manipulated seeds and american pharmaproducts. It’s also grotesk to read the following statement on the Gates Foundation Website: “And because information can change lives, we support public access to computing in libraries worldwide.”
Bill Gates didn’t support in his past the standardisation of formats (e.g. Open Document Format) but supports the introduction of softwarepatents in the european government.

But Bill Gates and Microsoft are only two examples out of the large comples image of africa. Many other western companies and single person own big parts of the local economies. The Tea plantations that go from the south of Blantyre down until Moçambique are almost all into the hands of white Landlords. While the malawian workers are employed for a very poor salery.
The seeds, that are sold to the Malawians in the shops are sold as “newest technology” and contain genetically manipulated sterile seeds, that can not be used after growing for producing seeds again, but has to be bought every year because of the sterile seed.

This principle describes the same way, that DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) works. Music, that is digitally DRM tagged, can only be listened to for a restricted time and cannot be used any more afterwards. This method of selfdestruction is imposed after an american model to other cultures and leads to the destruction of culture and culture-goods.

Today the “American Corner Blanytre” was opened. An extension of the Library of the Polytechnic, that should be accessible to the public and not only to the students of the University. Under the argument to provide Malawi a plattform for knowledge and education, the american government evangelises and propagates its own country ind Malawi.

In this way a lot of NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisation) are doing propaganda for western products. The strategy to sell african citizens anti-AIDS vaccine emerges to be a marketingstrategy much more than development aid. The moneys, that flow through the NGOs into such projects are flowing directly back into the western worlds pharma industies. Meanwhile the africans remain with their role of a guinea pig.

Also Madonna would better give away her music to the world using the creative commons license, than to go on a shoppingtour to Malawi to buy a new kid like a new handbag.

The spriral of neoimperialism makes it hard for african countries to stand on their own feet.

Chichewa is beside english the official language in Malawi and spoken from 50% as a native tonge. The habitants do take it as very respectfully and surprising, if an azungu (a white) is able to great and speaks some words in chichewa to them. Our host David connected us with his chichewateacher, and this is how it came that we take 2hours a week chichewalessons.
Here you can see a Picture out of my schoolbook. 🙂

Here is a small piece of our sundays Chichewa lesson: Chichewalesson.ogg

There shall not lack education to the “illiterate” africa. Not only the students, but also the public should have access to the Information of the Polytechnic Library.
That’s why the 13th of November the US embassy wants to open the “AMERICAN CORNER BLANTYRE” (ACM). The ACM is some sort of reading are, where the Malawian public can use the Internet for their research as well, as the books that were brought from an american Library. So far this seems to be a nice idea. A deed of which the american embassy is proud of itself.
But what else would you call more imperialistic than development aid: The furniture was entirely produced in the united states and imported to Malawi. Under the cover of altruism in this way the american industrie is assisted more than the local one. We all know that in Blanytre you can find a lot of very nicely produced furniture made out of the best Malawian woods (Mulanje Ceder, Mahagoni wood etc.) and you would assist the local industry. (Here I’d like to take reference to the locally produced CD-duplicator case.)
This way you would make sure the impact to the local carpenter would be longer lasting and effective.

When I look at the American Corners bookshelves I see that about 20% of the shleves are yet filled with books. The books are about american topics only. (I’ve put a list of some of the book titles.)
The Librarian said, that this was part of the deal between the Polytechnic Library and the US embassy and that the exchange between the two cultures should be established. What american culture is ment here? The Culture of the fear of evil?
Why should the history of the sectret war of Hillary Clinton, nor the american ideas on how to sweap the world of evil be in any ways of interest? What is happening here is not about helping nor donating. It is about occupation. It is the trial of manipulating the thinking and undermine the local Culture and Economy.

HOW CONGRESS GET ELECTED
AMERICAN DEMOCRATY
THE 9/11 COMISSION REPORT
LEGISLATING FOREIGN POLICY
IMPEACHABLE OFFENSE
AGAINTS ALL ENEMIES
CHALLENGE OF GLOBAL CAPITALISM
AMERICAN STATE AND LOCAL POLITICS
DEMOCRATY AND EDUCATION
PARTIES, POLITICS, AND PUBLIC POLICY IN AMERICA
THE PRESIDENCY IN A SEPARATED SYSTEM
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON LIVING HISTORY
GLOBAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
REFLECTIONS ON WATER
WHO IS RUNNING AMERICA? THE CLINTON YEARS
THE LIES OF GEORGE W. BUSH
ALL THE PRESIDENTS SPIN
KEEPING A WATCHFULL EYE

FREEDOM TRAIN
COLONOLIAN MASCULINITY
ROSA PARK: MY STORY
AND THE WINNER IS…
FIND WHERE THE WIND GOES
“WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE”
COLOR ME DARK, THE DIARY OF NELLIE LEE LOVE
BILL CLINTON, MY LIFE
JOHN F. KENNEDY
THE STORY OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
AMERICAN SPHINX
THE CONQUERORS
BEYOND THE RIVER

GOVERMENT BY THE PEOPLE
CIVIL RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES
THE CONQUERORS
AMERICAN DREAM
NEW LANDS, NEW MEN
HILLARY’S SECRET WAR
TRUTH AND DUTY
OUR ENDAGERED VALUES
THE BIG CHANCE
AN OUTLINE OF AMEICAN HISTORY
CRUCIBLE OF POWER
AMERICAN THOUGHT BEFORE 1900

So we’re desperatly waiting for the 13th of November. 🙂

In the Picturegallery you can find from now on a folder with my drawings orginated up to now in Malawi.

copyleft 2006 by Nathalie Bissig. Feel free to share and copy them, they are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license which gives you that freedom.

The last 3 days I worked with 4 students of the IT dept. on the setup of the servers for the thinclient Network, that will be installed at the library. The students first installed the motherboards, I’ve brought from Switzerland into the ATX cases. Then I needed 2 days, to download the newest Edubuntu 6.10 CD from the Internet. The post of Ramon as well, as the short Edubuntu Documentation are very helpful for the students. It’s the first time for them to configure an LTSP Server.
The next days the students will work out a presentation for the upcoming official handover of the system, so that they will be prepared to demonstrate it to the public.

My friend Andrew Msiska is a music producer here in Malawi of local musicians. Every day, he’s running around in town to produce some CDs or music cassettes. Producing music in Malawi is a pain, because the only guys, who own Cassette or CD duplicators in Malawi are richt Indians, who exploit the local musicians and generate lots of moneys for themselves only. (An analogy to the Music Industry and DRM?)
That’s why, I brought the controller of CD duplicator and gave it to Andrew. After that he bought a couple of CD-RWs and went to the local carpenter whot produced a case for the duplicator. In the next weeks he’ll go to find some artists who will design some african carving for the box.

I am amazed by how easy it has become to set up a server for an entire network of thin clients, provided that you use Edubuntu. Before the LTSP project (and its incorporation into the Edubuntu GNU/Linux distribution), it used to be very hard to set up a network for thin clients. I personally sweated bullets trying to get myriad flimsy network settings right, debugging problems with the TFTP server and battling countless other horrors before successfully booting my first thin client.

Today, all you need is one Edubuntu CD. Finished.

The standard installation of Edubuntu includes a fully working LTSP-based terminal server for thin clients, and it’s already set up and enabled by default. All you need to take care of is that your network has the address 192.168.0.0, i.e. your clients will receive addresses starting with 192.168.0 from your Edubuntu server, which is expected to be 192.168.0.1. If your network situation is different, simply edit /etc/ltsp/dhcpd.conf so that the DHCP server supplies addresses that match your setup. The IP address of the server may also have to be changed in this step. Also, depending on your net, you may want to add a second network card to your server and set it all up for forwarding. With forwarding, all thin clients on your network can access the Internet. You can then go on to more advanced setups, such as limiting the Internet access of thin clients to certain times of day, blocking certain bandwidth-heavy sites or installing the Squid caching proxy to speed up access to frequently used websites while lowering the impact on your Internet connection.

But all in all it’s breathtakingly simple!

I’ve tested this setup using both types of Fujitsu-Siemens thin clients that Alex took with him to Malawi (Futro S300 and Futro B220), and both worked. You can even have multiple users logged into a single thin client at the same time 🙂 I will do some more testing when I find the time (a scarce resource), so that I can give Alex hints in case we discover a few stumbling blocks.

This is fun! I hope you can replicate this setup at The Polytechnic and profit from the experience.

A note about the different models of thin clients

With this setup, I recommend using the S300 thin clients Alex brought. They boot faster and the display driver has hardware-acceleration — all in all everything feels much more fluid! Don’t be alarmed if your screen goes black in the beginning of the boot process. For some reason, the client switches into a strange video mode that some monitors don’t like. After a while, the Edubuntu login screen will come up after all.

The older B220 clients boot slower, have no video acceleration and seem to be having problems displaying certain icons. I’m quite sure it’s a problem with the video driver there. I might investigate that, but because Alex brought mostly brand new S300 clients, I think this will be less of an issue for you. Just use the S300 where it really matters (on student workplaces) and stick to the B220 where the speed and accuracy of the display is not that important, for example at the library administrator’s workstation. The display works well enough to set up users and accounts and to run a shell 🙂

By the way, the illustration you see next to this text is my attempt to draw a diagram of how a terminal server roughly works. You can download the original OpenDocument version or a PDF, too. Feel free to share and edit them, they are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license which gives you that freedom.

This sunday was the long expected day for the trial of courage of the Blantyre Karatekidz. Meanwile we cultivate a very close contact to them, so they aloud us to be part of it. The duty of the trial was based on touching a chamaeleon. To really understand the dimension of this duty, i ve to tell at this point that the Malawian usally fear this animal and keep the distance to it. The myth about chamaeleons tells that this animals is the messenger of death.
Each and every kid did pass with flying colours.