Lachman Khubchandani

One-week deliberations at the World Summit on Information Society in Geneva represented a microcosm of the plural world. This jumbo Summit was indeed a great learning experience; it provided an open meeting place for reflective thinking and for debate of ideas responding to the challenges of Information Society, and to chart a path for future action which ensures that the benefits of the new order accrue to all sections of the society.

The Global and the Local

My participation in the Summit was primarily concerned with the cultural and developmental issues of local communities and minority groups. The two-day side event Local Content CyberFestival at Foru Meyrin, a multiligual village situated on the outskirts of Geneva (which gave birth to the Web), focused on the issues of content diversity and manifold opportunities the innovative ICT could bring to local communities. Along with colourful presentations of tribal and nomadic communities in India and in Mali, Inuits in Canada, the Panel addressed the issues of a new Communication Order need to be evolved through emerging multi-channel and multilingual technologies in Information Society. Networks catering to diverse culturally relevant content ought to be pursued with a pluralist vigor so as to promote the flowering of cultural diversity, on the lines similar to the environmentalists' conviction for nurturing bio-diversity. Many participants at the Symposium advocated that present Geneva phase of the World Summit could act as a catalyst to initiate a dialogue among cross sections of the society for arriving at a consensus on evolving a code of conduct which ensures protection to individuals/societies/nations from 'aggressive' market forces dominating the newly-fangled phenomena of 'man-machine' communications. It is crucial to see that the technological advantages of information processing and communication networking are made available to the common man in a public utilities system, on the lines similar to the ethics of ensuring fresh air and pure water as basic necessities of LIFE.

Accessibility

Many information experts view globalization as a double-edged phenomenon. Discussions under the auspices of the UN ICT Taskforce highlighted the issues of accessibility to the masses. In the present system economic compulsions of ICT exclude the poor from global knowledge and undermine their communication assets ('folk wisdom', creative labour, inter-subjectivity and other down-to-earth worldviews) shared through their local languages. The trickle-down approach of emancipating the poor, a byproduct of the Industrial Revolution, has resulted in widening the chasm between 'haves' and 'have nots' in the world economy; new communication technologies have unfortunately been further adding to the digital divide. Powerful people-centered solutions of ICT should be turned as a celebration of the masses, their humanity, their rights, their aspirations to justice and their creativity. The agenda of the Summit outlined in the UN Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals, was brought under a close security. The Declaration embodied the value that " a governance system that is committed to working with civil society in a transparent and accountable way can resolve the imbalances and reduce poverty, safeguard the environment, redress inequity, foster security and fulfil social, economic, cultural, civic and political rights".

Many alternate projections envisage that the ICT content, created locally, should empower the voices of small groups. A political will need to be generated to adopt a Bottoms-up kiosk approach (replacing the present 'top-to-bottom' approach, however benevolent it may be, such as the ICT 'Marshall Plan' proposed at the Summit) to enable ICT facilities to percolate to the masses. In this regard, Adama Samassekou's emphasis on 'creating a digital solidarity' instead of the corrective efforts of 'bridging the digital divide' merits serious attention. The Global and the Local should be viewed as two sides of the same coin, rather than competing with each other

Building knowledge societies

In preparation for the World Summit, a month earlier I was invited to Geneva to participate in an International Symposium on Human Rights, Human Dignity, and the Information Society, sponsored at the initiative of PDHRE (Peoples' Movement for Human Rights & Education) where a Declaration was made by a group of independent academia and activists representing a diversity of backgrounds, expertise, nationalities, and perspectives, asserting "Human knowledge is the heritage and the property of all human kind." With the digital expansion of technology human rights culture has begun to take roots in many parts of the world. The UNESCO provided a feast of intellectual interactions by organizing a high-level Symposium on 'Building knowledge societies: From vision to action' and a series of thematic roundtable discussions in the areas of education, sciences, culture and communication. Stimulating discussions initiated by world leaders, Nobel laureates and other members of the academia over the construction of knowledge societies provided an effective platform to probe into the philosophical foundations of communication, (such as the conceptual basis of Information Society, relationship of 'thought-to techniques' to understand the routines and methods of data processing at human level) can lead to a deeper understanding of the phenomenon.

PUBLIC DOMAIN: DYNAMICS OF TRUST AND POWER

A serious concern was expressed over the present practices and legislation with regard to the Intellectual Property Rights. "A rich public domain is an essential element for the growth of the information Society." Promoting open source and free software will help communities to adopt tools for specific needs. Oral societies and local cultures in Asian and African hinterlands have for ages been transmitting unbridled 'folk wisdom' across generations. Assigning ownership of intellectual properties in the hands of major corporate empires, a legacy of the 'politico-economic divide' sustained through the monopoly of power, limits the opportunities the ICT could provide to the weaker sections of society. In this context, a policy statement 'Multi-channel and multilingual communication in the emerging Information Society' discussed at the Action Group meeting of the International Research Foundation for Development (IRFD) draws a significant point : " Human communications are built on two pillars: power and trust. The Human Rights Movement should be concerned not only with the rights of individuals, but at the same time with the duties of all agencies, the State and international forums committed to social justice and harmony" (Khubchandani).

A new Communication Order has to come to grips in formulating a coherent policy with an agenda to assure dignity to every human being irrespective of her/his caste, creed, culture, nationality and language, knitting complex pluralities which can contribute to the quality of communication in a changing society for an integral and sustainable development of humankind..

In the initial stages, no doubt, globalization has largely been catering to the Western audiences. Websites, by and large, reflect a Western tilt, heavy in the content with the dominance of killer English and other languages from the West. Network technologies ought to be made culturally relevant, accommodating online materials in local languages. As Wagner puts it 'getting technology into peoples' hands and getting people to use it is the key', so as to lead to a 'holistic' understanding of the Information Society as such. In this direction, a pioneering effort has been made by C-DAC (Center for the Development of Advanced Computing) in India to provide connectivity among different languages and writing systems through multilingual technologies. The Summit, no doubt, recharged me with an invigorating feeling that in this endeavor, a meaningful involvement of common man, represented by NGOs, activists and diverse sections of the civil society advocating alternate utopias to eradicate the ills of the contemporary society (such as those voiced at the World Social Forum held in Mumbai, January 2004), should be seriously considered. The intervening period between the present Geneva phase and the second phase to be held in Tunis in 2005 should be utilized to gird up our lions and generate a political will among nations and international forums to arrive at a consensus on such vital issues.