THE PRAVDA REPORT DISCUSSION AND TEMPORARILY
SHUT DOWN OF THE MUSEUM SECURITY NETWORK MAILINGLIST
Dear
MSNM subscribers,
This is
the very last about the Pravda report rumor I will burden the mailinglist with.
I want all of you to know that you did read only a small part of all messages I
received about this issue. The MSN hardcopy archive I have been building the
past six years (and information I collected even before MSN started) has grown
with some 60 pages of text with reactions pro and contra my decision to
disseminate the Pravda report. I am very much convinced this part of my archive
will constitute interesting reading for present and maybe even future
generations.
After
this deluge of mails I think I have the right to finally make my opinion,
points of view, emotions, disappointments, and gratitude public. I do hope all
of you are willing to invest some time in reading my message in full. This may
be redundant, but please realize that the English language is not the language my
parents taught me but my school teachers did at high school (and plenty of
practice thanks to this mailinglist). The avalanche of very articulate
messages, mainly from English speaking countries, in many cases made me sort of
mute because I do not have the English eloquence of well educated
Before
going into some details I want to inform all of you about my general attitude related
to (this) war
and terrorism. I feel obliged do this because several subscribers decided
without asking me what my political and humanitarian choices are. As list
moderator I have never commented on this war because this would be far beyond
the scope of the MSNM. Since the Vietnam war ( I was
born 1948 and sort of am a child of the tumultuous sixties) the
The last
speaker at the 2003 Smithsonian Conference on Cultural Property Protection was
a NY firefighter. His speech was impressive, and once again made me realize the
scope of the 09/1 events.
As for
the war: I do not understand the timing and really am not able to take a
standpoint other than that I hope it will be over soon, and will not take too
many USA, Canadian, Australian, Iraq (military and citizen), Italian, Polish,
and UK lifes. I do not know if there are any other
countries in the coalition. It goes without saying that my sympathies are for
those as well.
Further I
will try and cover the following subjects:
-
the
Pravda article, my decision to forward it to the list, and – most importantly –
the way I forwarded it;
-
the
character of the mailinglist and my role as moderator;
-
my decision to take a time-out of the list.
THE PRAVDA REPORT.
To explain
my decision to, and the way in which I sent this report to the list I really
must repeat it in full:
On Friday
night, a terrorist attack by US/UK warplanes on
Mohamed Said Al-Sahhaf, the Iraqi Information
Minister, questioned ironically “These are military targets?”
Donald Rumsfeld gloated last night that hundreds of
“targets” had been destroyed with “success”, while five innocent civilians were
murdered by warplanes under his orders.
Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY
PRAVDA.Ru
http://english.pravda.ru/
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey:
http://www.balochistanpost.com/item.asp?ID=3538
I will
not invite you to join me in a close-reading exercise, but want to draw your
attention at the
following:
None of
the MSNM subscribers wondered why I added the final part to the report:
Timothy
Bancroft-Hinchey:
http://www.balochistanpost.com/item.asp?ID=3538
I was
convinced that I did not need to explain this, nor comment on the contents of
the message. It is a Pravda report, and everyone following the news the past
weeks knows that at the moment a very strong anti-American sentiment is growing
in
Timothy
Bancroft-Hinchey:
http://www.balochistanpost.com/item.asp?ID=3538
There was
only one reason to do this: I wanted all of you to read another example of T.B-H’s
very prejudiced ‘journalism’. Adding this link apparently was a too subtle
‘comment’ on my part. In this respect I did overestimate the talent for subtlety
of some of MSNM’s subscribers.
THE MAILINGLIST AND MY ROLE AS
MODERATOR.
In the
past six years some 1000 MSNM messages were sent to the mailinglist, each
message containing some 6 to 7 reports. So in total about 6000 to 7000 reports
were disseminated. The Pravda report was just ONE out of this abundance of
information!
Notwithstanding
the magnitude of information the MSNM is a very passive mailinglist. Over 95%
of our 2800 subscribers consume the information I collect and disseminate, and
never ever participate actively in this mailinglist.
It was
strange (this really is an understatement) to experience that where it comes to
criticizing your moderator all of a sudden some of these inactive recipients of
free information became very active. Most luckily there also were many
subscribers who took some time to send me their support. I want you to know
that every unsubscribe message disappointed me, and I really do not intend to
comment on individual messages to leave the list. There is one exception I really
want to make: Larry Rankine’s (Security manager of
The past few days I have found myself in the position of accused and
condemned with only very little space to defend myself. I feel justified to take this space
now in my message to all of you.
It is
true that I have not always been just your tool for disseminating information
about incidents with cultural property, but every now and then I also expressed
personal opinions. The subtlety with which I ‘commented’ on the Pravda report
did not reach subscribers who’s objective views seem to be obscured by the
dreadful events that are taking place in Iraq.
On
another notion: after I forwarded the Pravda report and the online discussion
about the qualities of your moderator started I received reports about damage
to cultural property in
DECISION TO TAKE SOME TIME OFF
I will
take a few weeks off to reflect on the future of this mailinglist and my role
as moderator. MSNM has always been a free service – I receive not one single penny
for this activity – in which I invest an average of four hours per day. Many of
these hours are late at night, or even in the middle of night, and early in the
morning. The past 36 hours doubts have grown whether all of this is worth the
effort. Is it worth to invest this many hours (and some money) in this free
service when the result is that misunderstandings about a decision to forward a
report immediately generate attacks at me personally?
The
I really
am astonished that working for all of you 7 days per week does not give me more
credit when there are doubts about my motives. There is a difference in
voluntarily offering a free service and being in your service. Some frustrated
subscribes really addressed as if I am in their service and ought to be fired.
There
will be a MSNM ‘radio-silence’ for a few weeks. After that time I will inform
you about my decision how to face the future. Off list suggestions about MSNM’s future are welcome. These may range from offers to
take over from me, to become editor, suggestions for financing MSN, automate
the list (Listerv of Majordomo) etc. etc.
Ton
Cremers