Alternative Perspective
 Paradigms in Collision
Issue 50, September 23th, 2004
Compiled by Madhukar Shukla

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Alternative Perspective is an attempt to widen our awareness about issues related to business, environment, role and influence of media, geo-politics, culture, etc. It aims to share, on a regular basis, some of those pieces of news and information, which do not find place in the highly monopolised mainstream media. Please feel free to share/ forward/ distribute this newsletter to others who may be interested

There are a number of ways in which one can try to understand the conflicts and happenings around the contemporary world. It is also intellectually easy and seductive to fall into a bipolar stance of "we vs. them" as a way of making sense out of these events around us. The other, and at least more stimulating approach - and therefore, having the potential of creating a better understanding - is to look at the underlying theme across these apparently unrelated events and battle-zones. This 50th issue of Alternative Perspective - coming after many months (and celebrating its 2nd anniversary!) aims to look at some snap-shots of this theme... Call it Civilized World vs. Al-Qaida, RIAA vs. Kaaza, Mainframe vs. Distributed Computing - or any of the other one's below... they all represent the Clash of same two Paradigms.



Note: The URLs of sources used in the text are numbered and given at the end of the Newsletter.

In This Issue:
  • Jihad Vs. McWorld
    It was back in 1992, when Benjamin Barber propoed the thesis that the world getting split between the two opposing principles of "Globalism" and "Tribalism"[1].
    * the Globalism[2], which represents the "forces that demand integration and uniformity and that mesmerize people everywhere with fast music, fast computers, and fast food - with MTV, Macintosh, and McDonald's, pressing nations into one commercially homogenous theme park..."
    vs.
    * the Tribalism[3], which is manifested through "subnational factions in permanent rebellion against uniformity and integration -- even the kind represented by universal law and justice... they are cultures, not countries; parts, not wholes; sects, not religions; rebellious factions and dissenting minorities at war not just with globalism but with the traditional nation-state... [ethnic groups]...people without countries, inhabiting nations not their own, seeking smaller worlds within borders that will seal them off...".
    http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/WarOnTerror/McWorld.asp

  • The World Economic Forum Vs.The World Social Forum
    * The politico-economic future, as the first article describes, is decided by a mere 5000 "bickering, sometimes charming, usually arrogant, mostly male people who are accustomed to living in either phenomenal wealth, or great personal power" (sometime both), who meet once a year during WEF, and have "a hard time reconciling long term issues (global warming, AIDS pandemic, resource scarcity) with their daily bottomline foci." They represent just about 1000 organisations, about 70% of which are from USA and Europe[4]... and they have to meet under high security[5] (have a look at the pictures of security arrangements[6], even when protests were peaceful.)
    * Apparently, quite a large number of people around the world find this elite "corporate mercantilism" quite alien - and hostile - to their concerns... and therefore, The World Social Forum[7]. Unlike the exclusive WEF, WSF is a diverse network of people, held together by a need to have a voice, and a belief that "Another World is Possible" by Challenging Empires[8] (you can download this anthology of essays on the theory and practice on WSF)....
    Naturally, a couple of years back, one of the topics for discussion in the World Economic Forum was: �Do grassroots organisations need to be ring-fenced?� [9]
    http://www.crikey.com.au/whistleblower/2003/03/18-0wef.html
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1142036.stm

  • Internet Censorship Vs. The Anarchy of Internet
    Here is another example of the Clash of Paradigms:
    * The first report on Censorship and Control of Internet in around 50 countries reports: "companies seek to turn the Internet into a controlled distribution medium like TV and radio, and are putting in place the necessary technological changes to the Internet�s infrastructure to do so. Aggressive protection of corporate intellectual property has result in substantial legal action against users, and a corresponding deterioration in trust across the Internet....A wide variety of methods are used to restrict and/or regulate Internet access. These include: applying laws and licenses, content filtering, tapping and surveillance, pricing and taxation policies, telecommunication markets manipulation, hardware and software manipulation and self censorship.
    * But the terrain of internet - and of the Internet Engineering Taskforce (IETF - "tech wizards that create and oversee the technological future of the Internet") - is different, as the second article shows: "In the IETF, there's a kind of direct, populist democracy that most of us have never experienced: Not in democratically elected government... The IETF provides a counter-example of true grass-roots political process that few of us have ever had the privilege to participate in... IETF group process succeeds because of a profound connection with, and understanding of, the real world of networking."
    http://tinyurl.com/3nr9e
    http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.10/ietf_pr.html

  • The Cathedral and The Bazaar
    The centralised Globlism and the networked Tribalism are but the metaphor of what one finds in all spheres of life. Nowhere it is more apparent than in the sphere of Information space. The Cathedral is the paradigm of centralised control of the 'source code' based on legal rights of private property[10] - pitted against a scattered and networked Bazaar of Linux developers, who share an open-source code - and a social context based on sharing[11]
    http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/index.html#catbmain

  • The Media Mughals Vs. The Blogosphere
    Just about half a dozen companies control much what we see, hear or read in the mainstream media (Click here to see the chart[12] - it is slow dowload!), and most of them are owned by corporate conglomerates with other business interests. It perhaps also explains what's wrong with the news[13], and the way it shapes our opinons and sensibilities. Since two years back, when blogs started making the headlines[14], the blogosphere has emerged as the network of grassroot journalism. The response from the mainstream media has been ambivalent - from initial attempts at legal arm-twisting to a belated acceptance of its potential[15]. The Blogosphere, however, remains an independent ecosystem - providing "news in context", and more often than not, questioning the accuracy and emphasis of information supplied by the mainstream media, e.g., read this story of last week: how bloggers cut CBS to size last week[16]
    http://www.newint.org/issue333/facts.htm
    http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.05/mustread.html?pg=2

    Other Sources Quoted in the Newsletter:
    [1] : http://www.billsaysthis.com/content/misc/tribe_vs_glob.phtml
    [2] : http://www.polyarchy.org/essays/english/globalism.html
    [3] : http://www.startribune.com/stonline/html/digage/tribalis.htm
    [4] : http://www.geocities.com/pwdyson/wef_orgs.htm
    [5] : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1136059.stm
    [6] : http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/wef/2.html
    [7] : http://www.caledonia.org.uk/n-chomsky.htm
    [8] : http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/1557.html
    [9] : http://tinyurl.com/5w2od
    [10]: http://software.silicon.com/os/0,39024651,39122428,00.htm
    [11]: http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ar01s11.html
    [12]: http://www.mediachannel.org/ownership/chart.shtml
    [13]: http://www.fair.org/media-woes/media-woes.html
    [14]: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,56978,00.html
    [15]: http://ojr.org/ojr/business/1091660781.php
    [15]: http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=14859

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