THE CICAK.com

Beware the Internet…

By RAYMOND WOO

The undisputed truth is that information technology is making the world smaller and distances closer.

But does it make different nations, cultures and religions closer? Or rather, is this kind of globalisation actually driving apart the different peoples of the world, and contributing to disharmony, conflict and even violence?

Take a look at the recent global protests by Muslims against the allegedly blasphemous cartoons against Prophet Muhammad.

What started as a series of anti-Muslim cartoons in a small far-right Danish newspaper soon exploded onto the face of “civilised Europe� in the midst of Muslim hatred. But strangely, the troubles didn’t start until a few months after the incident, whereby a group of Danish imams launched a campaign on the Internet to discredit the cartoons.

Their message, which then spread like wildfire throughout the global ummah and which contained truths, half-truths and sometimes downright lies (like an alleged blasphemous picture which was actually that of a bearded Frenchman in a pig-dressing competition), rekindled existing Muslim discontent, and many lives and property were lost unnecessarily because of this.

How about the current diplomatic stalemate between China and Japan? In fact, China and Japan would like to, and would be beneficial for both countries to improve ties due to their close and burgeoning economic relationship. But the very vibrant Internet chatroom community in China may stand as a bulwark to this.

If one were to read their chatrooms about Japan, one will find xenophobic, racist and extremely hateful speech, some even calling for the nuclear bombing of Japan. One can argue that these hateful messages might just represent a small but vocal minority. But again, looking at these chatrooms, you seldom find rational arguments that condemn such hateful speech, for most people might be scared of being threatened or labeled a traitor and a running dog in regard to their comments. And through the Internet, much of this propaganda is spread outside of China to other parts of the Chinese-speaking world, and thus you rarely find a Chinese person not sympathetic to it.

People of reason might not have the guts to challenge the surrounding rise of xenphobia. Whenever an Israeli calls for decent treatment of the Palestinian people and withdrawal from the West Bank, he is labelled a traitor. Whenever a Chinese calls for better relations with Japan, he might be called a running dog. When a Muslim suggests that certain traditions accepted as part of his religion be re-examined, he is labeled a “heretic.” Regardless of location, the same treatment might apply to a Jewish-American, a Chinese-Malaysian or a British-Muslim.

Things like these have happened ever since the dawn of human history. Tyranny of the majority is very much a part of human nature, and even in the United States whose constitution was and is explicitly against this kind of tyranny, the mob lynching of blacks continued until the mid-20th century.

But there is a difference with the arrival of globalisation. Once, a person could simply escape the place in which he was being persecuted, and run away to another place for good, never to return or have contact with his former place, where he could educate his children on the evils of narrow-mindedness and the persecution of others. In short, immigration to other countries was a one-way street, where immigrants got absorbed into the local population and lived in relative harmony without much problems with the surrounding community.

However, people are easily influenced, especially by people of the same culture or religion. The first generation that migrated in the first place might not have been so susceptible, for they might have experienced first-hand bigotry and violence.

But their children might get influenced. It is possible that through the Internet today, they can be exposed to hateful material from their home countries, or from people of the same religion and culture. With chatrooms, they can communicate with their community brethren who might have dangerous ideas. Worse still, when it is hate propaganda against other ethnic/religious groups, conflict might occur even when the perpetrators are themselves a minority in a country where their forefathers have migrated.

The truth is, globalisation does indeed make people closer, but only people with the same language, culture and/or religion.

People tend to stick with their own kind, for birds of a feather flock together. A Muslim in the U.K., for example, might have more in common with a Muslim in Lebanon that his white British neighbor. Even though they might not even share the same language or life experiences, they share the same religion and pray five times a day.

Likewise, among Malaysians, a Chinese-Malaysian tends to have more in common with another Chinese from other countries and thus might be more sympathetic to their beliefs, compared with other Malay or Indian Malaysians. This is mainly because they share the same ethnic Chinese identity and have cultural similarities.

This rapid congregating of people of the same culture or religion living in different parts of the world is only possible with the Internet. As such, it makes it easier to speak with another ethnic or religion brethren from across the globe, than to walk out of the house, knock on your neighbor’s door of another culture/religion and say hello.

Samuel Huntington’s thesis of the imminent clash of civilisations has been criticised because various “civilisations� overlap, especially if people of different backgrounds live next to each other. But that assumes by living together, they can get along together too. That is increasingly becoming a fallacy with the advent of globalisation.

When people of the same background group together, it makes integration more difficult, not easier. And when people begin to form homogenous tribes scattered around the world but linked through the Internet, radical and xenophobic ideas might emerge more easily than it is within a multiracial group.

And since different groups live with each other, a kind of siege mentality builds in. It is always “us� versus “the Other.�

It might explain why Jewish-Muslim bad blood (from Palestine/Israel to the US to Europe) became globalised, even in places not linked in any way to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It might even explain why some Chinese Americans still hate the Japanese even when they are second- or third-generation Americans who may be living with Japanese-Americans.

Don’t forget that the 9/11 terrorist incident was planned by people living in different places around the world via the Internet. From the Internet comes the good, the bad and the ugly. Sometimes, ugly enough to influence certain people and cause havoc.

We shouldn’t limit the Internet. In fact, nobody should be left behind when it comes to gaining knowledge, and the Internet is one of the best agents. But let’s not fool ourselves by believing that the Internet has no flaws and can indeed create a peaceful human society in a world ridded of age-old ethnic and religious hatred, conflict and suspicion. Indeed, the Internet merely makes it easier for these problems to fester and explode.
-

RAYMOND WOO is a contributing writer for theCICAK.

Raymond is a writer who resides in Japan, and is usually out of touch with the world outside this island-nation’s shores. But don’t worry, he still likes his teh tarik and roti canai very much.