Andy Carvin wrote: > Dr. Steve Eskow wrote: > >> And it is not clear--to me, at least--that if we had a thousand >> telecenters >> in Iraq that the other divides would shrink. > > > Hi Steve, > > If there were 1,000 telecentres in Iraq that did nothing but provide > people email access and an outlet for online gaming, I'd have to agree > with you. But when done well, telecenters are epicenters of hope and > human potential -- places within the community where people can rally > together for educational, economic, cultural and civic development. > And when all members of a nation are given equal opportunity to > improve the quality of life of their families, some of these other > divides, I hope, would lessen over time. > > Much of the work of NY Times columnist Thomas L Friedman has dealt > with this issue; for example, he's written about Lebanese telecentres > serving as ICT job training centres, and how these institutions are > helping improve the country's overall socio-economic prospects and > strengthen local democratic institutions.
The flip side, unfortunately, is that these would either not be used much because of the present explosive climate of Iraq, or that they would be used and become targets. Iraq presents a really problematic scenario because of many factors which society has had to deal with - from Saddam Hussein (is he still alive somewhere?), to the decade of embargo, to the invasion, to present day Iraq where no matter what you want to call who, it's apparent that there is no peace between members of society. What's funny here - at least to me - has been the role of ICT in what has created present day Iraq. On the Linux end of things, it was actually illegal to send copies of Linux to Iraq after the war (really!). Rosen flew over immediately after Bush called an end to the War and rewrote Iraq's Copyright laws. The war itself used a lot of ICT on the part of the U.S., where satellite guided munitions relied mainly on computers. Tanks form roving wide area networks... many people may not realize it, but the U.S. bought a lot of bandwidth for that invasion for coordination and so on. It stands to reason that at least a fraction of that is being used now. I'm fairly certain that there must be some Iraqi telecenters now, though. Do we know anything about them? That ICT gathers people together in Telecenters is usually something we consider to be good. But I wonder if people would want to be gathered together in such a way in present day Iraq - and I am very sure that what we see on the television, hear on the radio and read on the internet cannot provide us the insight into what would or wouldn't work. The benefits are there, as Andy points out... so how do we get it to work? Maybe we should start a 'Blogs for bombs' amnesty program, where people trade bombs for a voice on the internet. While that may sound stupid and perhaps facetious, it's a blind stab at part of the problem - when people feel they must resort to violence, it is usually because they do not believe that they are being heard. At least people would start discussing things again. -- Taran Rampersad Presently in: Panama City, Panama [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.knowprose.com http://www.easylum.net http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/Taran "Criticize by creating." — Michelangelo _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
