Tools of Peace and War

Oh mother oh mother, war the deadly dragon,
Swallows like a python, with no care for love,
Nor fear of God above.
Weep not; cry not, enough isn't enough,
For they are so deaf to your plea oh mother,
None will ever bother.

A teacher and poet Jokondino from Uganda wrote these verses and posted them recently on the Internet. Jokondino lives in a northern zone of this African country, which for long has been torn by a local war. As Patience Akpan-Obong, African scholar who lives in the U.S. and investigates Ugandas’s Internet put it, Jakondino gives voice to unspoken fears and dreams unutterable during the war.

The curious part of the Jokondino story is about a lack of reliable, fast access to the Internet available to an average family in Canada. Jokondino accesses the Internet via equipment that runs on 12V solar batteries. Steady supply of electricity is not available in those refuge camps. The battery-operated equipment is an American technology and its installation in refugee camps has been made possible by international aid programs. Akpan-Obong explains that this unusual access to the Internet gives an opportunity to disarmed soldiers and victims of the war to tell their stories to the outside world. Jokondino uses the Internet for practical purposes as well, announcing when his school needs rechargeable batteries and chargers.

In another refugee camp, a secondary school teacher was able to connect via the Internet his students with overseas donors who offered scholarships. Not only that educating overseas has guaranteed better prospects to these young people, but they were also rescued from temptations of surviving by volunteering for paramilitary formations.

These vignettes from Uganda tell us that the Internet can be a tool of peace. It can help communication, openness, discussion, and acceptance of differences as the conditions for democracy and advancement of civic society.

But the same Internet can also be used in the opposite way, as a tool of war. Individuals, groups and organizations with extreme political views air their aggressive agendas on the Internet. Beyond this obvious communication abuse, the Internet can serve as a venue for stealing sensitive information of national interest, breaking into defence computer systems in order to damage them, attacking power grids, water supply facilities and other infrastructure that uses computers connected to the Internet. All this has given rise to a new sort of war called “cyber warfare.”

Cyber warriors include intelligence, military agencies and other government organizations, industrial espionage, and militant groups and individuals around the world. A recent example of cyber war is the attack on computer systems of Google China in December 2009. Google provides the world’s most popular Internet search service, along with a free email system and some other services. The alleged cyber warrior: the Chinese government. The cause for the attack: getting hold of information on human rights activists. A number of other foreign companies doing business in China were also attacked. In fact, militant uses of the Internet continue on the 24/7/365 basis. The dragon of war spits fire through the Internet as well.

Technology is what you make of it.