***  Haus der Kulturen der Welt: Forum1 Archive  ***
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   [Date]: Thu, 9 Dec 1999 21:31:25 +0200
   [From]: "Ami Isseroff" <ami_iss@netvision.net.il>
     [To]: "Cultural Exchange via Internet" <forum1@hkw.kbx.de>
[Subject]: Re: [forum1] Olu Oguibe: "Connectivity, and the Fate of the Unconnected"

Dear Pat and Olu,

Thanks for pointing out this thoughtful article. Olu shows that the Web tends to give a distorted picture of what is "out there," and that it may be very wrong to assume that life and culture - or political opinions - in any part of the world - are the same as their virtual representations on the Web.
On the other hand - before the Web, there was often no opportunity at all to see or meet "the other." Before the advent of the Web, the probability for example, that I, living in Israel, would get to see Kuwaiti Art, have a conversation with a Palestinian intellectual or with an Indonesian high-school student - was pretty near 0. I am fully aware that the "virtual Other" I meet are not quite the same as the real ones - and they are aware, I hope, that I don't represent 
more than myself (not always very well, either) as well.
There is a big danger though that as the Web becomes more and more a big business, the proportionate distortion will get worse, rather than better.

Olu also wrote:

"Today such individuals and groups abound across the capillaries and nodes of the Net; lone campaigners and make-shift pressure groups, organizations of concerned friends and self-appointed revolutionaries, messianic figures coming 
to the rescue of the helpless, anarchists in search of preoccupation and activists left-over from failed causes eager to find new ones that might assuage 
their passion to serve."

So well said that I am sure we all wish we had said it first.
As a concomittant, there has also developed (mostly by the same sort of people) a  culture of verbal one-upsmanship which is intended to preclude communication rather than to facilitate it.

We shall have to learn a new culture of tolerance so that we can also hear the voices of the unpolished, so that we can also be unafraid to express doubt about our own opinions in public, and in general, do the kinds of things that promote thought and communication, rather than promote ourselves and "causes."

Ami Isseroff
http://www.mideastweb.org



----- Original Message -----
From: Pat Binder <pat@uinic.de>
Date: Thu, 09 Dec 1999 17:40
Subject: Olu Oguibe: "Connectivity, and the Fate of the Unconnected"