EMFA: T1E3 - E-mail in Bangladesh - Alam

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Theme: Universal E-mail
Author: Shahidul Alam, Drik Picture Library Ltd. 
E-mail: shahidul@drik.net


Online-lifeline

'Come out, we won't shoot.' The sound of a police megaphone
jolted us to attention.After they left our flat in Dhaka I went
up to the roof to try and find the person they thought we were
hiding. I found no-one, but the raid made us realize that the
nine-year-old dictatorship of General Ershad was feeling the
pressure.

Running Drik, a photo library set up to promote a more positive
view of developing countries, we were already in the business of
disseminating information. Up to this point we had managed
quietly to distribute our photographs abroad through helpful
friends. Now the need was more urgent: we had to prevent further
bloodshed. We couldn't phone or fax since none of us had an
overseas line. Two days later in December 1990, when General
Ershad did finally step down, we began collecting the money for
the line.

The need came quickly. The new government elected a few months
later turned out to be less than democratic after all. So in 1994
we decided finally to take the leap into high-tech
communications. We linked up with TOOL, an overseas NGO, and set
up our won electronic mail network, called DrikTAP. There was no
way we could afford faxes, let alone telephone calls and mail was
much too slow. Now with an ordinary telephone line we could send
messages overseas cheaply.

We soon discovered that others were keen to join into e-mail too,
so we began to offer it as a service to local NGOs and activists.
UNICEF and the Grameen Bank were amongst the first to join.
Grameen was in the business of giving loans to the poor and had a
wide rural base. UNICEF had field offices all over the country.
They used the network to link up all their offices country-wide.
Then Drik began to send photographs via e-mail. Something that
could only be done earlier by big Western agencies like AP, AFP
and Reuters. 

Now our little network was beginning to connect to other
like-minded groups and Drik was becoming known as an organization
out to change the way the poorer countries were perceived. Our
'bulletin boards' were useful for everyday things like renting a
flat or locating an expert but crucial when we needed to stay in
touch in times of danger.

Two months later the Bangladeshi feminist writer Taslima Nasreen
received a death threat from Islamic fundamentalists and was
charged with blasphemy by the Government. We needed to move
quickly - to create national and international pressure so
Taslima could come out of hiding to alert PEN (the international
writers support group) and Amnesty International and the campaign
took off. Our fragile network was working. Later one of our
members showed us how to use traditional 'search engines' to
locate human-rights groups and Bangladeshi 'news groups' overseas
(Bangladesh.Soc.Culture is a good one). We knew things were going
to get rougher politically and we needed a way of getting
information out fast and cheap. If some of us got arrested,
others could mobilize enough pressure to stop us simply
'disappearing'.

Our network became more popular by the month. Major NGOs,
universities, research groups, UN agencies, even government
organizations and embassies all joined. Conferences on a wide
range of subjects sprang up: music, child rights, job
applications, even buy and sell. We had begun talking to each
other and to learn to be comfortable with the medium. We started
to use Bangla (albeit in Roman script) so we could at least speak
our own language. Overseas friends were posting our human rights
messages in the popular Bangladesh news groups. When police
raided the university to arrest student leaders the news was
round the world in hours. Letters to the Prime Minister poured in
from all over giving us some breathing space and sparing some
lives.

Realizing how fragile our link was (a single telephone line
connected up all our users, local and overseas) we campaigned for
treating e-mail providers as special clients requiring quality
lines. Though we were the leading e-mail provider in Bangladesh,
DrikTAP was not fully legal - we had no 'official' government
permission. On the other hand we were surprised that despite the
amount of critical information we were pumping out over the
network we had not faced any direct censorship. There had been
doubts when one Drik worker was attacked and wounded and again
when our telephone line had been cut for a week. But on the whole
we were getting away with it. I suppose shutting down the largest
and most popular e-mail network in the country was something even
the Government was reluctant to do, particularly with an election
looming.

Gradually we began to find other uses for the technology. We set
up training programs and eventually an e-mail club where we would
meet and discuss problems. We would share the responsibilities of
the network and decide collectively on future plans. It was a
strange mix. The computer whiz kids and the computer illiterate,
both came. Those comfortable with the technology took turns
training newcomers. Political activists took on the role of
lobbying for extra telephone lines and Internet access.

When Drik could no longer cope with the demand for technical
support many of our more experienced members volunteered to help
out answering queries. Some set up a system so users outside the
capital could access the network using local calls. We began to
work more as a family and the network took on a more human shape.
We put up a notice for help from a local school that was
struggling and a doctor offered his services. Others provided
teaching aids, some gave money.

However, e-mail is still very expensive for most Bangladeshis -
even local elites. A computer costs as much as half a year's
average salary and a modem costs more than a cow, never mind the
price of a telephone line. So we began performing like an
electronic post office. People come in with a floppy disk; we
send their e-mail and they come back later to collect their
reply. And not everyone who uses the service is an activist. 

Our oldest user, Golam Kasem, had just turned 103 and had never
seen a computer before. I would cycle over to his house in Indira
Road with a printout of a message from his grandson in Canada and
next day peddle up to collect his reply. I remember the frail old
man, straightening up the computer printout and adjusting his
thick glasses as he held the paper by his tungsten lamp.

There are some areas though where we totally failed. Our
'bulletin boards' were entirely dominated by men and many of the
jokes were sexist. Some even racist. When a woman user objected
to a sexist statement the men retaliated viciously. A few loud
voices dominated the bulletin boards. The technology was new to
many people. Often private mail would get posted accidentally on
a bulletin board, sometimes with embarrassing consequences -
making the system scary for novices.

On the whole however, DrikTAP has become a powerful way of
talking to the outside world. And, more importantly, to each
other. When our 'node' in Bangladesh grew bigger than the one in
the head office of our Northern partner in Amsterdam we argued,
for political reasons, that the head office should be in the
developing world. Last July we proposed relocating the head
office of our global network in Bangladesh. In a small way we
were witnessing a shift in the balance of power.

Shahidul Alam
Dhaka
First published in the New Internationalist, December 1996

http://zonezero.com/magazine/articles/shahidulinternet/shahidulli
feline.html


Shahidul Alam
Photographer
Drik Picture Library Ltd.
House 58, Road 15A (New)
Dhanmondi R.A. Dhaka 1209
tel: 880-2-812954, 9120125, 823412
fax: 880-2-9115044
http://www.drik.org
http://services.toolnet.org/

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