Internationally savvy Americans?

Rosie tells a story here about one of her European friend who thought “Americans myopic and that people in European and Middle Eastern countries tend to have much more informed world views.” Well, that is actually one of the European prejudices against the Americans. You can always find good examples of this. I remember a former classmate (at another American university) asking me to write my name in my own language (Danish) so she could see the characters. She realized Danish was not like Arabic or Chinese but more similar to English. She had never heard about the European Union or other basic things about Europe.

 

Rosie also points to the fact that it had not occurred to her that war and propaganda had a long history, way longer than the history of the United States. In a recent blog about war and propaganda I talked about Thucydides and the Bayex Tapestry that are part of my European background. 

 

Isn’t this exactly what America is about? The first settlers left Europe because they wanted to dissolve the ties and build another society. Part of the foreign policy debate in United States is aimed at the schism isolationism versus anti-isolationism. And I guess for a long time, it has not been necessary for the average American citizen to bother about the rest of the world as long as the United States was a leader in the world on foreign policy, technology, and trade.

 

Is it changing now because of the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan? And because United States position is challenged (see Graff’s First Campaign). In my journalism class at American University in 2001, my professor talked about how few correspondents American media outlets have overseas. Garrett Graff also talked about this (class 4), and nothing has really changed. Rosie sent me to Gregg’s interesting blog entry about the war and social media. I am not sure that social media will get Americans more interested in foreign relations and welfare. Social media is a tool for those who are already interested and want to be part of the conversation. But as Gregg notes that is data and not information, someone has to put the facts into context.

 

The First Web 2.0 War

I knew it was out there. I have probably not really wanted to look into it. But I have seen way too many You Tube clips and blogs about war and death the last of couple of days. It is more “safe” to read about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in New York Times from time to time in order to keep up dated on the political debate and the war itself.  I am totally on the same path as BeckBlogic Weblog and CMK Dimples Weblog.

 

Watching You Tube, listening to podcasts like War News Radio or reading blogs like this one and this one, you get behind the political debate and face the people who are really fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Do we need those stories? Absolutely – because it gives us unfiltered access to Iraqis, soldiers, spouses, and the enemy. Of course all of them have their own agenda and you should not loose that perspective. Is it good or bad? I do not know what good or bad means in this case. I guess we see more horrified pictures from the front lines, but did anyone expect it to be less bloody? Tangets in a Virtual Playground has a good point in saying human beings have always been fascinated by war and fighting. And propaganda has always been part of wars and winners have defined history. Think about the great story of Thucydides and the Battle of Hastings (1066) recorded in the Bayex Tapestry. Hitler is famous for his propaganda machine and I am not so sure that it would have made a huge difference if he had a Nazi Website as my professor Garrett Graff remarked in class. I am not sure Churchill or any other political leader would have reacted in a different way. I am not so sure this contra-factual discussion is helpful because no matter what Web 2.0 means that the governments and military organizations cannot control the message anymore. Future wars are networked wars. Collaboration instead of control will be the keyword for the military just like for companies and governments.

 

The Web also gives voice to veterans to oppose the war. Is that good or bad for the American political debate and democracy? In the Atlantic Monthly, Andrew J. Bacevich argues that “empowering groups of soldiers to join in the debate over contentious issues is short-sighted and dangerous” because it implies that wars cannot be fought without the consent of the soldiers. I agree – it is a political decision to go to war. On the other hand, since the president has prerogatives in deciding when and where to go to war (as far as I understand) isn’t it healthy in a democracy that citizens can challenge the decision? And can we in a democracy ask a group of citizens not to participate because they have served the country?

 

In class we talked about blogging and You Tubing as a psychological way to processing the horrifying experiences soldiers go through on a daily basis. I am actually a bit surprised to see the feelings that tough soldiers express in their blogs and their morbid humour on You Tube. It might change the stereotyped perceptions of soldiers and vets: they do have feelings and they are not afraid to share them with the rest of us.  

Blogging from Afghanistan

Afghanistan is the first country listed on Global Voices. Women’s Day in a Unrest Country, Blogging for a Freer Afghanistan, and Returned Refugees, Police Fatigue, and Freezing Children are headlines on Global Voice conveying that Afghan bloggers are facing a total different society than the one outside my frontdoor.  It is not about the culture differences like between Germany and France as Scoble and Israel describe in chapter 8 in Naked Conversations. It is about a society that is struggling after decades of war and conflict. Bloggers like Nasim Fekrat are fighting for human rights, freedom of speech, women’s rights and democracy.

Go and read the interview with Fekrat who is blogging from Kabul on Global Voices. Fekrat is also active in citizen media projects likethe social media site Afghan Press and Afghan Penlog, the Afghan Association of Blog Writers. The goal is to bring Afghans bloggers inside and outside Afghanistan to defend their rights. As Fekrat says in the interview:

“We don’t have free media in Afghanistan, but through blogging, journalists and other people who can’t (or don’t want to) use their real names in Afghan media can share their ideas.”

Fekret also says:
“As you know, we don’t have online media to provide news to the world independently. Every day we hear bad news of explosions, suicide attacks, road bombings, killings, robberies in Afghanistan, but there is no one to provide information on social issues, women’s issues, education, music, literature, culture and Afghan traditions.When I read the news, I feel sorry for myself and wonder why our country and our people are defined as violent and tough people. I want to explain through Afghan Press that we are no different from the rest of the world; that we are forgotten, and you need to remember us today.”

On top of this, Afghan bloggers suffer from power outages several times a time. Fekrat describes how he writes his posts on paper, put it on a memory stick, and have to walk to somewhere else to get access to the Internet.I admire the courage of Nasim Fekrat to work hard and challenge the culture and the political system of his country. It takes more to blog from Afghanistan than blogging about Afghanistan – as a lot of the blogs I passed by today do.