Observations on the WSIS-SMSI netcast of Wed. Dec 10th

I listened to almost the entire 8 hour webcast of the inital statements of presidents and prime ministers of the many countries that opened the WSIS proceedings. Watching the netcast was undesirable for the most part since only some spoke in english and the audio provided excellent presentation (not sure of the translation but UN standards are very high - of course)

The statements mostly set the stage for the days to come that should provide a lively debate on the uses of ICT and internet technologies throughout the world. Yes a lot of "hand wringing" by the underdeveloped countries or at least worried statements of hi-tech being used mostly by developed nations to further enslave the 3rd world. Certainly every country rich or poor agrees that internet and the benefits of digitization are coming and bowling over every obstacle in its path and could provide a new chance for authentic world democracy.

The developing nations feel helpless to defend themselves against the further use and abuse of their resources without the richer nations providing the education, the infrastructure, the money, the aid, and the volunteer organizations in great enough capacity to help them be a democratic partner in this new world. They are pessimistic that the richer nations best interests will prevent them from providing the aid necessary to defend themselves against the developed world.

Essentially this conference is set to be a trial for the richer nations to talk with the developing ones on how they can be helped to become more complete as democratic nations The needier nations see the digitilization as a new chance at the authentic democractization that the UN has been promising for the past 50 years but they are not optomistic that the wealthy nations will or can carry out their promises of aid in the amounts that will make a "real" difference. At least one African prime minister mentioned "open source software" as essential for their growth in the new few years since there is no money for the commercial software.

The next few days will show the path of this new democratic technological development. Some nations are very wary of too much individual democratic power within their countries since they see that as a threat to their soverieghty. So will world democracy become widely available and make the UN charter a true possibility or will the strength of individual nations vetoes hamper the spread of this true democracy? Stay tuned!

Catch all the action at http://www.itu.int/wsis/geneva/index.html

Fraser McAninch (ELAB) in Toronto