By Dibussi Tande
In March 2006, South Africa organized its second annual South African Blog Award to recognize and celebrate the best of the South African blogs. The vibrancy of the South African blogging community was evident from the wide range of blog categories that were short-listed.
On June 1, 2006, Kenyan bloggers celebrated the first ever Kenyan Bloggers Day during which Kenyan bloggers around the world wrote about the state of Kenyan society, presented their vision of Kenya, and celebrated the ties that bind the tight-knit Kenyan blogging community.
Ethiopian, which has one of the pioneer blogging communities on the continent, caught the attention of the international media in November 2005 when Ethiopian bloggers gave minute-by-minute accounts of post-election political disturbances. Thanks to these bloggers, the world was able to get an alternative narrative of what was happening in the country. As a BBC report later pointed out:
“These eyewitness accounts of Ethiopia's November unrest did not come from the news wires or even on the BBC News website, where thousands of emails were received, but from a small but growing set of citizen journalists - Ethiopia's band of bloggers.”
With over 400 blogs, Nigeria has one of the most dynamic African blogging communities. Although Nigerian bloggers do not form a tight-knit community like the Kenyan bloggers, they have the same diversity in the issues that they tackle - personal musings, politics, music, sports, alternative lifestyles and expatriate views, etc. While they are a very small minority relative to the population of the country, the visibility of Nigerian bloggers (many of whom write from within Nigeria) is steadily growing. And it is not far fetched to imagine that with a little more organization, the Nigerian blogging community will become an influential political force within the next decade.
The Watchdogs
Increasingly, African bloggers in the Diaspora and on the continent are acting as watchdogs of the continent’s fledging democracies, and challenging the last vestiges of oppression; covering stories and issues ignored by mainstream media, particularly the West; and presenting a more upbeat and positive image of Africa and Africans. Says a leading a leading Zimbabwean blogger, The Zimbabwean Pundit, in an article on the state of blogging in Africa:
“Far removed from the grotesque images of yet another civil war, or pictures of extreme poverty and hunger from the slums on the continent as is usually the portrayed on mainstream media, Africa’s bloggers are telling the continent’s story from a rare and fresh perspective. Unrestrained by neither geographic boundaries, nor the repressive tendencies of corrupt regimes at home, African bloggers are sharp, incisive, and precise in their perspective on the problems that riddle the continent. And as blogs emerge as a credible news source, the African blogosphere is growing every day. African bloggers have seized the opportunity to share the continent’s story with the rest of the world.”
As in all ventures of that involve any form of critical appraisal of the African socio-political landscape, African blogging has a seamy and dangerous side. In many African countries, bloggers face the same trials and tribulations as print and radio journalists, and they can be jailed for their views.
In May 2006, the Zimbabwean Parliament passed the Interception of Communications Bill which is meant, among other things, to put a leash on the Zimbabwean blogging community and punish those bloggers that run afoul of the Mugabe regime, particularly those blogging from inside Zimbabwe. The effects of the bill are already being felt. According to EnoughZimbabwe;
“The Interception of Communications Bill is having a pronounced toll on the Zimbabwean blogosphere. Posts from domestic bloggers have slowed down noticeably over the last two weeks. Despite this tragic reality, several cyberactivists continue to chronicle the largely unheard Zimbabwean story.”
A potential victim of the draconian communications bill is Zimbabwean Pundit who worried about his/her fate months before the communications bill was passed:
“The thought of what fate would meet my family and me as well as the other Zimbabwean bloggers if we were discovered sends a chill down my spine and is the impetus behind several protective measures I take. Fortunately for me, I can still relish the opportunity to have this thought. There are several African bloggers who have been killed, imprisoned, and persecuted for their efforts. I’m thankful.”
A Bright Future against All Odds
In spite of the daunting technological challenges and the heavy hand of repressive regimes, African bloggers are slowly coming of age against all odds and making their voices heard. In the coming years, many of them will play key roles in the public discussions and debates that will shape future of their respective countries. Also, with the passage of time and the ubiquity of blogging tools, the African blogosphere will become more balanced with more bloggers writing directly from the continent, and focusing on non-political issues (gender, development, culture, economics, etc.,) that also relevant to continent and its people.
So where does Cameroon fit in the picture of the emerging African blogosphere?
Cameroon Again on the Fringes
There are over 1000 Cameroonian Internet discussion forums – some with thousands of members – that are kept alive thanks to the daily contributions of some of the most prolific writers in the African cyber community. Cameroonian forums such as camnetwork have an average of about 5000 messages per month. Paradoxically, this robust presence on Internet forums has not translated into a vibrant Cameroonian blogging community. In fact, there are virtually no Cameroonian bloggers out there….
A search of the Technorati website, which currently tracks 47.1 million sites and 2.7 billion links, and Blogger.com, the largest and most popular blogging serviced, pulled up only a handful of blogs about Cameroon, over 95% of which are run by expatriates (American Peace Corps Volunteers, Christian missionaries, etc) resident in the country.
Indigenous Cameroonian presence in the blogosphere is primarily due to JimbiMedia, a Cameroonian multimedia company, which has been creating free blogs for Cameroonian academics, political analysts, writers, and journalists since 2004. In fact, very few Cameroonians have taken up on the offer for free high-end blogs. And, the dozens of JimbiMedia blogs are not updated regularly. Most simply serve as repositories for articles published by their owners in scholarly journals, newspapers and magazines, rather than spaces t for fresh and off-the-cuff commentary and debates on events in Cameroon. An exception to this rule is Scribbles from the Den, arguably the most popular Cameroonian blog, which is updated regularly and keeps pace with socio-political developments in Cameroon.
The leading Cameroonian blog – another Jimbimedia creation – is Postnewsline, which is run by Cameroon’s leading English language newspaper, The Post. With over two million hits to date, Postnewsline is updated twice a week with articles from the print edition of The Post. The blog became a big hit within the Cameroonian community during the violent strike at the University of Buea in April-May 2005. Thanks to an army of citizen journalists armed with cameras, the blog was able to publish minute-by-minute accounts of the student protest, and police crackdown, along with pictures that ultimately became the iconic images of the student uprising. During this period an average of 1000 comments were posted on the blog by Cameroonians in the Diaspora and in Cameroon who could get the true story of events only from the Postnewsline blog.
Surprisingly, even though The Post became a household name thanks to its aggressive coverage of this uprising, and is arguably the most visited Cameroonian news website today, it has not fully capitalized on the blogging tools at its disposal to do more “citizen reporting” similar to its coverage of the UB crisis.
According to a Cameroonian cyberspace observer, two reasons explain the paucity of Cameroonian blogs. First, most Cameroonians are still very unfamiliar with blogging tools, many of which are free. They do not realize that unlike conventional websites blogs can be maintained even by the most technologically-challenged. Second, many of the individuals who are very active on Cameroonian Internet forums are wary of the discipline, commitment, and consistency required to maintain a successful blog. They would rather stick to the “free style” of standard Internet forums such as those hosted by Yahoogroups.
No Excuses!
In June 2004, Cameroon was paralyzed for days following a cyber rumor that President Paul Biya had died in Geneva. For an entire weekend, thousands of Cameroonians invaded the country’s cybercafés to read every available information about the President’s alleged dearth. And in the Diaspora, Cameroon Internet forums and chatrooms had the highest traffic ever. As Francis Nyamnjoh pointed out in Africa's Media, Democracy and the Politics of Belonging,
“The rumour arguably the most widely disseminated ever in the history of the country, benefited from a fascinating combination of the Internet, the cellphone, word of mouth and a popular hunger for democracy to spread far and wide, embarrassing a government unfamiliar with dealing with alternative media.”
This incident proved, if need be, that the Internet is the most powerful and most affordable tool for information, sensitization and mobilization, and that it has the potential to shape public opinion and bring pressure to bear on the powers that be. The Biya regime understood this after the 2004 event and even created a committee to monitor internet postings on and about Cameroon.
Thanks to blogs, web publishing is no longer the exclusive domain of computer geeks with mastery of bytes and bits, and of html and other programming codes. It is now the common man’s missile which any individual comfortable enough to use hotmail or Yahoo mail can set up and share his or her thoughts with the rest of the world. Says Zimbabwean Pundit,
“This miracle of cyberspace—that it allows for cheap communication unfettered by geopolitical boundaries—has made it possible for the African odyssey to share center stage alongside the big issues in the west, thanks in part to Africa’s bloggers. The latest news from Africa is available to anyone in the world with access to the internet.”
Given the number of free blog hosting sites that now exist, Cameroonians have no excuse for being at the rear of Africa’s ongoing blogging revolution. And, if the hundreds of comments posted everyday on the PostNewsline blog and the thousands of write-ups posted daily on various Cameroonian Internet forums are any indication, Cameroonians already have the tools to join the blogging bandwagon.
With municipal and parliamentary elections around the corner, with the perennial “Anglophone Problem” taking dramatic twist and turns every day, with the Government stubbornly trying to pass a new set of “liberty laws” to muzzle the Cameroonian press, and with the Cameroonian Diaspora trying to make its voice heard on issues such as dual citizenship and Diaspora voting rights, the time is just right for a Cameroonian blogging explosion.
Of course, not everyone is a political animal. The blogging tent is big enough for those interested in the economy, education, technology, humor, literature, culture, etc. So are you interested in making your voice heard on whatever issues that catches your fancy? Here are a couple of pointers.
Tips for Starting your own Blog
There are hundreds of blogging sites (listed on Google) where you can create your blog for free or for a small fee. However, two of these sites will suffice at this time. The first is blogger.com the most popular blogging site in the world, and Typepad.com which the home of Scribbles from the Den. Here is a PC World overview of these to blogging sites:
Blogger.com: Run by search-engine king Google, Blogger.com helps you step through creating and publishing a blog in just a few minutes. You can't beat the price: It's free. And you'll find good-looking design options and cool features like AudioBlogger, which lets you call in by phone to leave a message that's posted on your blog in MP3 format.
On the downside, posting photos could be simpler. Also, you can't password-protect your blog using this service. Nor can you post video or create fancy online photo albums the way you can with rival service such as TypePad.com. Still, Blogger.com is a good way to try on blogging for size.
TypePad.com: The TypePad service isn't free, but it's a good value, starting at $4.95 per month for a personal weblog with one author. (PC World named it Best Blogging Tool in the magazine's 2005 World Class Awards.) TypePad offers a really understandable interface, classy templates, and a text editor that makes it simple to jazz up the look of your blog. TypePad also expertly guides you through tasks such as password protecting blogs, sharing online photo albums, and setting up pages that blend text, photos, video and audio using the company's unique Mixed Media templates. All in all, TypePad will make your blog more sophisticated, for a reasonable price.
Let a thousand blogs bloom, a hundred schools of thought contend”!!!
"... many of the individuals who are very active on Cameroonian internet forums are wary of the discipline, commitment, and consistency required to maintain a successful blog." I feel that finger pointing directly on my forehead and threatening to pull the trigger!! If there is indeed someone with a blog that is hardly updated, that someone is your humble servant! I always wish my blog would look and sound like yours, but, more often than not, I don't do much to make it look and sound like yours!
Dibussi, this is a beautiful piece -- as almost all your pieces on this blog tend to be. My congratulations. I concur with the view that "Scribbles from the Den" stands head and shoulders above the blogs I'm familiar with. Beautifully scripted articles that are kept short and simple and that call for a second, if not a third, read.
Congratulations too to the JimbiMedia outfit for putting many of us in cyberspace. Were Cameroonians in the Diaspora to follow your lead and involve those of us at home in their various areas of specialty, we would also proudly thrust out our chests in just about every field of human knowledge. Or so I believe.
Posted by: Martin Jumbam | July 08, 2006 at 05:29 AM
Great piece as usual. Please find info below about an innovative and recommendable initiative (Dr. Shiyghan Navti) to encourage Cameroonians and indeed other africans to embrace the blogging and webspacing culture:
PickAfrica, the Open African Ecosystem, is a Web site that serves to facilitate collaboration between a nework of participants with similar interests. It is a community centered initiative.
PickAfrica.com lets you create a Web space for your community. Create a community Web space on PickAfrica.com and you can run workshops, share documents, journals and interests with a growing network of members with a common interest!
PickAfrica.com is for everyone:
Friends who want to talk Online
People seeking a mentor
Communities who want to keep in touch with geographically dispersed members
Business people and co-workers collaborating on projects
Classmates and study partners
Anyone looking for long lost friends!
We are a new site, developing new features as fast as we can. If you have suggestions or comments, please mail them to:[email protected]
Posted by: Nelson Muffuh | July 10, 2006 at 07:49 AM
First of all, thanks to Dibussi for raising this very interesting and enlightening subject, and Nelson for highlighting what we, in our own little way, have been trying to do for the African community.
I do agree with Martin that Blogging to many seems too daunting. After experimenting with the idea of providing blogging capabilities similar to that offered by JimbiMedia, I came to the conclusion that in the first instance, a much simpler blog service might be more attractive to a majority of users. The solution we adopted is to enable all registered users of www.pickafrica.com to maintain a simple blog, and also provide them with the ability to track their forum posts. We hope that by descovering the potential of the internet as a collaboration and communication platform, many of our fellow Africans will embrace the full power of Blogsphere and in so doing, contribute/giveback to their communities. Thanks and keep up the excellent work.
Posted by: Shiyghan Navti | July 11, 2006 at 03:44 AM
Great work as usual! Yours is a blog where readers leave feeling that the time was well spent.I've recomended your blog to many friends and they all love it. Thanks a million!
Posted by: Muchu Suh | July 18, 2006 at 03:46 AM