-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.28/pageone.html <A HREF="http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.28/pageone.html">Laissez Faire City Times - Volume 3 Issue 28 </A> ----- Laissez Faire City Times July 12, 1999 - Volume 3, Issue 28 Editor & Chief: Emile Zola ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The King's Four Wives Watch TV by Richard S. Ehrlich LHASA, China -- Bhutan is a tiny, hermit, Himalayan, Buddhist nation where the king's four wives are sisters. Now it has made more unusual headlines: Bhutan has, for the first time, turned itself on to television. The monarchy has lifted its self-imposed, nationwide no-TV zone. There was an immediate rush to buy boob tubes. The Bhutan Broadcasting Service (BBS) began beaming television on June 2, as part of King Jigme Wangchuck's silver coronation jubilee. Bhutan's capital, Thimpu, is the only place targeted for the initial programming, but eventually BBS hopes to expand throughout the mountainous country. Bhutan (pronounced: "BOO-tahn") is only 47,000 sq. kms., or half the size of the US state of Indiana. The government-controlled TV broadcasts will be in Dzonghkha language, and English, depending on the program. "Ours will be a public service television channel that will complement the radio, the print media and the Internet, by providing information, education and entertainment, and by being a catalyst in the task of nation building," a BBS spokesman told Kuensel, Bhutan's national newspaper. "It will also extend a platform for the traditional, and the emerging, artistic trends in Bhutan," he said. The report added, "Equipment has been ordered, which includes an entire transmission system from Thompson Corporation in Paris, and a one-kilowatt VHF transmitter which will be installed on the existing short-wave transmission tower at Sangeygang." Making a television station work for the first time in an underdeveloped nation is not easy. BBS Executive Director Sonam Tshong said, "We don't want the people to have very high expectations, but we will try not to let anybody down. "We have given the assurance, and we are determined to build a television station that the Bhutanese will be proud of." Bhutan is a land where 600,000 people -- most of them illiterate, subsistence farmers -- live traditional lives remote from the outside world. The Information Explosion Until recently, some of the only information coming out of Bhutan was about the king's marriage to four women -- all of them sisters, who were unrelated to the monarch before they wed. They raised one son, a crown prince, who is now about 19 years old. Bhutan is also occasionally in the news due to protests and scattered rebel attacks by mostly minority ethnic Nepalis who were forced out of the country by the majority ethnic Bhutia. The government claims the Nepalis are illegal immigrants, while the minority group insists it has lived in Bhutan for generations. Worried about Bhutan's stability, the monarch had enforced the ban on TV, to maintain a vanishing status quo. To ensure conformity, the king even decreed a dress code for all citizens: large traditional robes with wide white cuffs, or else suffer a fine. Surrounded by a dominating India and a troubled Tibet, the land-locked kingdom controls a relatively passive society. TV threatens to change all that, in the eyes of some Bhutanese. But the monarch is now willing to take that risk. Displaying a new boldness, Bhutan entered both the TV age and the world of cyberspace all on the same occasion. In Thimpu, the capital, the eldest sister of the king's four wives, Queen Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuk, also clicked a mouse to open Bhutan's first Internet link, after a gorgeous Buddhist ceremony during the monarch's silver jubilee. Foreign TV broadcasters, manufacturers, programmers, engineers and commercial television businesses will find Bhutan's needs are extremely modest. But the Internet link will mean that some Bhutanese TV officials, or foreign experts advising them, may be surfing websites for TV businesses which have established a home page or advertising on-line. Dragon Net Bhutan's Internet service, capable of reaching any point in the nation, is called DrukNet. Druk translates as "dragon," which is a favorite motif in Bhutan, a nation culturally and spiritually influenced by Tibetan Buddhism. The equipment, however, is not ancient. Especially impressive is a new phone system, which broadcasters can use for feeds, and Internet fans can plug into modems, alongside normal public use. The British Broadcasting Corporation reviewed the machinery and announced, "Bhutan installed a 48 million US dollar, state-of-the-art digital telephone network to rival those of Singapore and Hong Kong." BBS, meanwhile, will broadcast news, documentaries, films and some international programs. Much of the new staff will be drawn from an existing radio service. A BBS spokesman said, "Faced with the challenge of converting a radio team to broadcast in both media, we will have to gain experience first and then attempt to grow." Bhutanese, who could afford to, had already circumvented the previous ban on TV sets. (These they discreetly unveiled to watch foreign satellite channels or rented videos.) Other bans, such as wearing jeans or allowing mass tourism, remain in place. In 1998, only about 5,000 tourists were allowed to enter Bhutan, and those lucky few had to pay several hundred dollars per visitor. Bhutanese officials have said they don't want their nation to suffer unrestricted tourism because then it will end up like nearby Nepal, especially Kathmandu, which receives negative marks for severe pollution and overpopulation, thanks in part to the lure of a mammoth tourism industry. Bhutan's government is considered unique because its near-absolute monarchy has no written constitution, and the king shares power with a Council of Ministers, a National Assembly and the Head Abbot of 4,000 Buddhist monks. The Beggar King As a result, the king has ruled for the past 25 years over a former British colony which is one of the poorest nations on earth. Bhutan's major international concern is to not suffer the fate of disappearance that struck three other Buddhist kingdoms in area -- Tibet, Sikkim and Ladakh -- which vanished through political treachery and violence. The king said Bhutan could drop the ban on TV because the nation had progressed both in technological terms and as a society. In January, however, Bhutan's broadcasting industry itself hit the headlines, in a story unlikely to get much coverage on the new BBS television station. A leading radio broadcaster fled to the Netherlands and sought political asylum -- claiming he was a minority ethnic Nepali Gurkha allegedly persecuted by the government. Radio announcer Nandalal Gautam worked in the Nepali language service of the government-run Bhutan Broadcasting Corporation, but left the country in December, officials said. The government has denied persecuting ethnic minorities, and instead has claimed its policies are only directed at illegal immigrants from Nepal. Bhutan's radio broadcasting is in Dzonghkha language as well as English and Nepali. Mysteriously, not so for TV. The British Broadcasting Service, analyzing the new TV station, reported, "It is considered significant, however, that television will not broadcast in Nepali, the language of tens of thousands of migrants from Nepal, who have settled in Bhutan in this century." Despite a loosening of the TV airwaves with the new BBS channel, access to any global network is still forbidden. Satellite dishes remain illegal. Last year, however, the king surprised the nation by letting them view the World Cup soccer game played in France, by granting permits to some Bhutanese sports associations to erect their own temporary dishes. Some schools are also allowed educational use of dishes to watch programmes considered beneficial to students. The TV Rush Is On The new TV station has meanwhile run into the problem of supply and demand. As soon as they turned on the switch and started the flow of shows on June 2, the public rushed to buy television sets, antennas and computer modems for the Internet connection as well. Equipment quickly ran out. Kuensel reported shopkeepers did not have a large stock on shelves "because of high tax on telecommunication equipment." Kuensel added, "Television sets were also sold in large numbers, with one dealer selling 80 21-inch sets in two weeks, compared with his monthly sale of about 20 in the past. "The only 'fishbone' television antennae supplier was also under heavy pressure, selling about 50 a day." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Richard S. Ehrlich has a Master's Degree in Journalism from Columbia University, and is the co-author of the classic book of epistolary history, Hello My Big Big Honey!�Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews. His web page is located at http://members.tripod.com/~ehrlich. -30- from The Laissez Faire City Times, Vol 3, No 28, July 12, 1999 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Published by Laissez Faire City Netcasting Group, Inc. Copyright 1998 - Trademark Registered with LFC Public Registrar All Rights Reserved ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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