Message-ID: <199512140536.GAA16130@utrecht.knoware.nl> Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 06:35:24 +0100 From: Maarten van der Heijden <mailto:mheijden@KNOWARE.NL> Subject: Re: Africa and the internet To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
Hello friends,As a non native English speaker, I would like to pinpoint another problem. Aside from the dificulty to get to the internet physically and Litterally, I needed to have learned a foreign language too. It was logical enough for me as a European, but it is much more difficult for those who have little resources.
There is frightningly little non English comms on the Internet!
Maarten van der Heijden
>A. Graham Lowe wrote:
>
> I have not been following these communications for very long. I find
>the limitations of media extremely interesting ... could someone tell me
>how any medium which relies on the written word (including this list)
>can help to liberate those who cannot read? I'm sorry if I am being
>obtuse. Education, or lack of it even at the simplest functional literacy
>level has long been a tool of control by "governments" which do not
>deserve such a name.
>
> Communication through imagery is highly conditioned by cultural
> environments (does a man wear a skirt?; does a woman wear pants?) a
> thousands of years of pictograms have rendered chinese writing the
>domain of a calligraphic elite or the subject of draconian teaching methods.
>
> Unless people are given the simple tool of literacy, their access to
>the internet will always be a function aims and objectives of the person
>providing the interface ... and surely the ulimate question becomes "How
>do I get rid of this intermediary?". Only the most altruistic of
>go-betweens will accept to show how he or she might be shouldered aside.
>Since internet is only a tool, its potential and power will always be
>limited by the people who use it ... and those who do in Africa have
>their own agenda, not necessarily that of the "people".
>
> Please refute my thoughts as these questions will allow us to
>understand the fundamentals of the transmission of ideas which go beyond
>the NET.
>
>==============
>Steve Worth wrote
>Mr. Lowe is quite right.
>Literacy: this has been clearly covered by Mr. Lowe. And therefore most
>use of the internet will be by already literate people.
>
> However, if we are seeking to
>free/proctect the internet in Africa from the fetters of vested interest,
>then as I said in my previous posting, start with the universities. Being
>edcuational institutions, they have a legitimate need to be on the internet
>and can generally afford the costs of establishing an in-house system. This
>will give access to those members of that country's society who are likely
>to have a far greater influence in the future of that country than an
>interloper like myself. At universities one can solve all of the
>constraints listed above.