Date: 9 Jun 1999 05:00:59 -
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From: Campaign for Digital Democracy [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Campaign for Digital Democracy [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Subject: A Digital Future for Kosovo?
Campaign for Digital Democracy
A Digital Future for Kosovo?
by Marc Strassman
Half a century after it wrecked havoc in Germany, the U.S. Air Force has
again reduced the infrastructure of a European nation to rubble. Again,
the time has come to talk about rebuilding a country's devastated physical
plant.
Why not do what worked so well for the Allies after World War II and
rebuild Kosovo, not as it was, but as it could be? Why not use the
billions that will no doubt be appropriated and spent there to give its
million people the technology to not just restore their level of
subsistence, but to move them, en masse and now, into the 21st century,
the internet century.
Before addressing some of the inevitable objections to such a suggestion,
let me just sketch out the rudiments of what I have in mind. Integrated
broadband telecommunications is at the heart of the new technological,
economic, and cultural paradigms that are emerging throughout the
developed world. The people of Kosovo are just as entitled to benefit
from these tools as anyone, and, with billions of dollars in aid money
soon to be coming their way, they'll be better able than most to afford it.
Instead of replacing antiquated, "legacy" phone systems in Kosovo, the
province ought to be made a testbed for the latest and best technology,
systems that can deliver wireless broadband communication services to
every farmhouse, village, and city apartment and house. To jump-start the
local economy, every resident of the province should be given the
opportunity to generate and use a personal, unique digital certificate.
This certificate could be stored on a smart card, and used to identify and
authenticate its owner in e-commerce, in transactions with the government,
for educational purposes and other in other appropriate situations.
The wireless broadband digital internet communications web that would be
created using cellular or related technologies would, in conjunction with
a good, basic, Pentium III-based laptop computer, enable every resident to
access educational and medical services, to communicate with friends and
family, and to participate in the democratic political life of their
country as it rebuilds.
Far from destroying the benefits of having a mixed economy that includes
intellectuals sitting around urban cafes while hardworking farmers
actually grow crops and raise animals, overlaying a powerful
telecommunications grid on Kosovo would allow those in the country to stay
there, while making all the cultural advantages of living in the capital
available to them right where they are.
As for the transportation of goods and people, if there are a few billion
dollars left after building the telecomm grid and supplying everyone with
a computer, I don't see why it might not be possible to build a network of
fast and quiet maglev trains to carry people into the capital for a visit
and whisk them back by bedtime.
One might imagine that there is something romantic about a people
innocent of the joys and tribulations of a fast-paced, diverse,
up-to-the-minute urban existence. Perhaps there is. But it would be hard
to argue that bringing the people of Kosovo into internet space on
internet time could be any more disruptive of their lives and their
beliefs than what's been done to them already in the last year.
Even if pre-ethnic-cleansing Kosovo was an arcadian paradise, it no
longer is. Of course, the people themselves need to be consulted and
asked what they want for themselves and their country. If they want it
rebuild just the way it was, they deserve to have that done. But if most,
or some, of them now decide that what they want is to experience, learn
about, and benefit from tools developed elsewhere that can make them more
productive, better informed, and better able to cope with all the forces
sweeping the world, some of which have recently swept them into exile with
much attendant suffering, then perhaps we should begin thinking about how
we can give them these tools, as a way of making amends, and of empowering
them against any future such incursions into their lives.
On top of this, of course, there is the fact that none of this
paradigm-shifting, transformative reconstruction will be offered to the
people of non-Kosovo Serbia until the engineer of the extended season of
ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, Slobodan Milosovic, is removed from
office. By itself it may not be enough, but when the general population
of Serbia sees how those in Kosovo are prospering while their economy
withers, they may be moved that extra bit in the direction of makin
