ER April 2001/Sara Speicher/- 27 -

A Web of Concern

Modern Communication Technology in the Service of Peace-making

Von Sara Speicher

Sara Speicher (Church of the Brethren), worked with the WCC Programme to Overcome Violence and “Peace to the City” campaign from 1997 to 1998 and now serves as communication officer for the WCC. This article was developed in collaboration with the WCC Web editors, Douglas Chial and Miriam Reidy-Prost. It was published in Ecumenical Review, April 2001.

Almost daily, four hundred million people - in developed and developing countries - turn on a computer to read e-mail messages from colleagues a few offices down the hall, friends in other countries, or business associates in other cities. Many then “click” to the World Wide Web looking for everything from recent United Nations resolutions to the latest news from the BBC, from a book they can’t find to pictures of newborn family members.

Millions of people take for granted on-line access to virtually any piece of information or product. But millions more - billions in fact - have never seen a Web page, let alone sent an e-mail. Technological advancements over the past twenty years, for some sectors of the world’s population, have revolutionized the way information is acquired and shared. That revolution is spreading – fast...

Those of us working in the church, with human-rights networks, on conflict resolution and social-justice issues, have caught on to the opportunities this modern technology affords. It offers tremendous potential to expand the churches’ witness for peace and justice even as it continues to test the churches’ role in demanding fair and just access to information and advances in technology.

This article examines four recent peace-building initiatives that make use of the Internet, highlighting the Internet’s great potential while noting some of its limitations. Before turning to a series of case studies, it may be helpful to look briefly at the origins of the Internet, the World Wide Web and how they are used today.

In the name of scientific research and military defence: The Internet’s ironic origins

What is now known as the Internet was first conceived in the early 1960s as a way of allowing computers to share information on scientific and military research. Developed under the auspices of the United States Department of Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA), one purpose was to provide a “communications network that would work even if some of the sites were destroyed by nuclear attack”.[1] In 1969, four universities in the south-western United States were “on-line”, connected through what was called ARPANET.

Electronic mail, or e-mail as we now know it, made its debut in the early 1970s and quickly became the most popular feature of the ARPANET. Network connections beyond the United States were made in 1973, bringing the University College in London and the Royal Radar Establishment in Norway on-line. The number of ARPANET users was estimated at 2,000.[2]

As technology improved, the ARPANET started to move from its original purpose and in 1982 the term Internet began to be used.[3] Newsgroups, discussion forums, list-servers were developed, though still primarily for an academic and scientific elite.

The growth of the Internet proceeded at a rapid pace. In 1984 there were 1000 computers “hosting” the Internet, over 10,000 in 1987 and over 300,000 in 1990. By 1990 connections, particularly among universities, had been made between the United States, Canada, many European countries, China, the USSR, Australia, Israel, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Chile, India, Korea, Brazil and Argentina.

The beginning of www.accessanything.com

In 1991 Tim Berners-Lee, a researcher working at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland, developed the first “pages” for what he called the World Wide Web. Berners-Lee dreamed of a “common information space in which we communicate by sharing information. Its universality is essential: the fact that a hypertext link can point to anything, be it personal, local or global, be it draft or highly polished.”[4]

The concept was quickly grasped by programmers and the public alike. The technology became easier to use, leading to an explosion of Internet and Web activity. By the mid-1990s, governmental funding that restricted the use of the Internet to research, education and government use came to an end and commercial use quickly came to the forefront.

By 1996 there were approximately 40 million users in 150 countries using 10 million computer hosts and doing more than US$1 billion per year in business.[5] The success was so phenomenal that a number of Internet Service Providers in the US had trouble keeping up, calling into question their ability to support the rapidly expanding technology.[6]

Ironically, a system designed to function during a time of war was almost overcome by the extent of its use during a time of relative peace.

Use today - and trends for the future

Statistics point to a radical transformation of the Internet. In 1969 there were four computer hosts; by 2000 there were over 93 million. In June 1993 there were 130 Websites, by October 2000 there were over 22.3 million sites with over one billion indexable pages.[7]

The Computer Industry Almanac, Inc. calculates that at the end of 2000 over 400 million people used the Internet regularly for business or at home.[8] (This still amounts, however, to just over six percent of the global population of 6.1 billion). Thirty-three percent of the users were in the United States - a percentage of global use that is dropping as more people in other countries gain access to the Internet. After the US, the following countries currently have the highest number of regular users: Japan, Germany, Canada, UK, South Korea, China, Italy, France, Australia, Taiwan, Netherlands, Sweden, Spain and Russia.

The Almanac predicts that by the end of 2002 there will be 673 million Internet users, and one billion by the end of 2005. Much of the Internet user growth is in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. Wireless Internet use via cell phones will be especially important in these regions.

With the growth of the Internet have come restrictions on its use in some countries – measures requiring users to register with police, limiting access to newsgroups, limiting use to universities and hospitals, and classifying information for censorship or seizure.

As the Internet grows, the variety of languages used increases. English remains the predominant language of Internet users (47.6% - down from 51% from about one year ago), with Japanese (9.6%), Chinese (7.6%) German (5.5%) and Spanish (5.2%) following.[9]

Parts of our global society have been transformed by the revolution in communication technology. Other parts of the globe remain untouched - so far.

Within 30 years, the Internet has grown from a cold-war concept for controlling the tattered remains of a post-nuclear society to the Information Superhighway. Just as the railroads of the 19th century enabled the Machine Age, and revolutionized the society of the time, the Internet takes us into the Information Age, and profoundly affects the world in which we live... Today some people telecommute over the Internet, allowing them to choose where to live based on quality of life, not proximity to work. Many cities view the Internet as a solution to their clogged highways and fouled air. Schools use the Internet as a vast electronic library, with untold possibilities. Doctors use the Internet to consult with colleagues half a world away. And even as the Internet offers a single Global Village, it threatens to create a second-class citizenship among those without access. As a new generation grows up as accustomed to communicating through a keyboard as in person, life on the Internet will become an increasingly important part of life on Earth.[10]

Digital divider - or digital equalizer?

A typical history of the development of the Internet characterizes the technology as another dividing line between North and South, between developed and developing countries. This is, however, not an entirely accurate portrayal.

Charles Harper, former director of the WCC Human Rights Resource Office for Latin America, argues, “It is not a North-South divide, it is a class divide - elites in both the North and the South had access while the lower classes did not.” He remembers how human-rights networks particularly in Latin America were early users of the Internet because they immediately grasped its potential for sharing information with an international advocacy base. “Lots of groups in Latin America were far ahead because they leap-frogged old ways of communicating and moved right into computers and satellite communication. It builds up the power of small, grassroots movements to run large campaigns.”[11]

This is one of the challenging paradoxes for modern communication technology. In an age of information, information is power. The Web helps to make information available to all, not merely an elite class of people. And yet the Web remains primarily a tool of the elite, available to those with access, those with education, those speaking English.

Cyber-ecumenism and peace

It was in part pressures from partners in the South who were already using e-mail and shared databases that pushed the WCC to the forefront of global technology - at least for a few moments.[12]

The potential offered by the Internet in connecting existing networks of people and increasing the breadth of participation was clear to many, says David Pozzi-Johnson, former director of WCC Computer and Information Services.[13] However, it was not easy for an organization like the WCC to change its ways of working, its ways of building community, to accept new ways of “being the church”.

On 14 February 1994, the World Council of Churches went on-line with its own Website. According to Pozzi-Johnson, the WCC was the first official church institution on the Web. The Presbyterian Church (USA) came on-line a few days later and it was not until the next year that the Vatican went on-line.[14]

The “fellowship of churches” went electronic at http://www.wcc-coe.org, sharing information and connecting churches around the world rapidly. In just a few years the site has grown to include links to no fewer than thousands of church Websites.

Looking for the latest news from Anglican churches? Try the Anglican Communion at http://www.anglicancommunion.org/site.html or the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia at http://www.anglican.org.nz/ or the independent Anglicans On-line at http://anglicansonline.org/.

Following the Ecumenical Prayer Calendar (http://wcc-coe.org/wcc/news/99-00-01.html) and wanting more information on the countries and churches you are praying for? Visit the Church of Christ in the Democratic Republic of Congo at http://ecc.faithweb.com/, the Orthodox Autocephalus Church of Albania at http://www.orthodoxalbania.org/ or the Communion of Churches in Indonesia at http://www.pgi.or.id/.[15]

As more people and more churches go on-line we must ask ourselves, how do we move beyond sharing information - as vitally important and transformative as that already is - to building and strengthening communities centred on common beliefs, committed to common issues and joined together in common action? Will we let the Internet develop merely according to the trends of dominant use (e.g. business) or will we help to shape this new technology as an expression of Christian faith?

At a time when the “fellowship of churches” has made a decade - long commitment to overcoming violence, and seeking peace with reconciliation, we must ask: Can the Internet, and particularly the Web, offer new opportunities for global advocacy? How can the ability to offer faster access to a wider and more diverse group of people be used in efforts to promote peace and reconciliation? Some of the answers - and more questions - are found in examples of how the Internet has already been used in the service of peace-making.

A case study: The “Peace to the City” campaign of the World Council of Churches[16]

In 1994, the WCC central committee established a Programme to Overcome Violence (POV) “with the purpose of challenging and transforming the global culture of violence in the direction of a culture of just peace”. Through consultation with WCC member churches and grassroots peace-makers, POV chose as its focus for the period leading up to the 1998 Harare assembly a global campaign called “Peace to the City”.

“Peace to the City” was designed to lift up creative models of peace-making and reconciliation with the hope that these stories, methods and results could teach and inspire others to do more in their own contexts. It focused on seven cities: Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Boston (USA), Belfast (Northern Ireland), Colombo (Sri Lanka), Durban (South Africa), Kingston (Jamaica) and Suva (Fiji). The campaign aimed to create a global network for peace - and it had a new tool to hold the network together.

When the campaign began, the World Wide Web was chosen as one of the main communication tools. At first, WCC staff had serious questions about using the Web – asking, who had access and who did not? It was the “Peace to the City” partner in Rio de Janeiro that settled the matter, taking WCC staff to the favellas of Rio and pointing to the computer labs they had set up there for youth. “These kids”, they said, “cannot physically move into the next neighbourhood but, through the Web, they have access to the world.”

The campaign enabled partners in each of the cities to get access to the Web and post information about their city and region, including monthly updates on their peace-making efforts. In some areas this was the first time local organizers had seen the Web.