Rationale and Design for the Peace Box An Electronic Device for your Home or Office A thesis submitted by Markus Sabadello, Austria, [email protected] to the European Peace University (EPU) – Private University Stadtschlaining/Burg, Austria in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Master of Arts Degree in Peace and Conflict Studies 1/23/2012 This thesis offers a summary of different lines of thought on how Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can be used for promoting the ideal of peace, for example by helping to manage a crisis, by supporting development and education, by overcoming authoritaran regimes, or by promoting a global civil society and global culture of peace. After introducing these ideas, the concept of a „Peace Box“ is presented, which is a small computer-like device that can be set up in any home or office to provide applications and services for actively supporting the various visions of using ICTs for peace. Contents 1. Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 1 1.1. ICTs for Peace .................................................................................................................................. 2 1.2. ICTs against Peace ......................................................................................................................... 4 2. Technological Considerations ............................................................................................................ 5 2.1. Properties of the Medium ........................................................................................................... 5 2.2. Network Architectures ................................................................................................................ 6 2.3. Digital Divide ................................................................................................................................... 9 3. ICTs for International Organizations and NGOs ...................................................................... 11 3.1. Development and Education .................................................................................................. 11 3.2. Crisis Management ..................................................................................................................... 12 4. ICTs for Revolutionary Movements .............................................................................................. 14 4.1. Censorship, Propaganda, and Oppression ......................................................................... 17 5. ICTs for a Global Civil Society ......................................................................................................... 20 5.1. Global Crisis ................................................................................................................................... 22 5.2. Global Civil Society ..................................................................................................................... 24 5.3. Surveillance, Manipulation, and the Need for Balance ................................................. 27 5.4. Personal Identity Online........................................................................................................... 30 5.5. Information Overload and Online Collectivism ............................................................... 34 6. ICTs for a Global Culture of Peace ................................................................................................. 38 6.1. Culture, Identity and Peace ..................................................................................................... 38 6.2. Cultural Diversity and Intercultural Dialogue ................................................................. 39 6.3. Toward a Culture of Peace ....................................................................................................... 41 6.4. Global Culture of Peace ............................................................................................................. 43 6.5. Cultural Violence, Conflicts, Imperialism, and Homogenization .............................. 45 6.6. Social and Cultural Identity Online ...................................................................................... 46 7. ICTs and Human Rights ..................................................................................................................... 49 7.1. Right to Access to Information .............................................................................................. 49 7.2. Right to Freedom of Expression ............................................................................................ 51 7.3. Right to Privacy ............................................................................................................................ 52 7.4. Right to Communicate ............................................................................................................... 53 8. The Peace Box ....................................................................................................................................... 55 8.1. Objectives ....................................................................................................................................... 55 8.2. Design .............................................................................................................................................. 56 8.3. Peace Network ............................................................................................................................. 57 8.4. Peace Apps ..................................................................................................................................... 59 9. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 64 10. Bibliography .......................................................................................................................................... 67 1. Introduction The widespread availability of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has led to the globalization process and continues to have a large influence on social, economic, political and cultural structures around the world. Much work has been done in the academia to get to a good scientific understanding of the causes, nature and consequences of today’s interconnected world, and to analyze both opportunities and threats that ICTs pose to humankind 1. In exploring opportunities for working toward a better world, the academic field of Peace and Conflict Studies with its inherent character of being based on concrete values rather than striving to always be objective on all accounts is especially suited and challenged to explore how ICTs should be judged and used when it comes to promoting an ideal – the ideal of peace. Many prominent statements exist which inspire thoughts about the potential of ICTs for promoting the interrelated concepts of peace, democracy, freedom, justice, and human rights. Already in 1993, media entrepreneur Rupert Murdoch noted that “Advances in the technology of telecommunications have proved an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere.” In 1999, George W. Bush asked us to “Imagine if the Internet took hold in China. Imagine how freedom would spread.” During the opening ceremony of the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis in 2005 2, where the United Nations as well as a large number of other stakeholders worked on evaluating the opportunities and risks of the now ubiquitous information society, the then Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan articulated the desire to use ICTs for working toward the ideal of peace, by declaring that “While most other conferences focus on global threats, this one will tell us how to best use a new global asset.” 1 For example, see (Castells, 2000) 2 http://www.itu.int/wsis/tunis/index.html 1 During the LeWeb conference in Paris in 2009, Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan said that “Digitizing ourselves has heightened our instinct to be selfless.” And United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated in her much-regarded speech “Remarks on Internet Freedom” in 2010 that “Once you’re on the Internet, you don’t need to be a tycoon or a rock star to have a huge impact on society.” 3 The importance of ICTs for promoting peace is also reflected in the fact that the United Nations have started a number of organizations to explore this potential, e.g. the United Nations ICT Task Force 4, the United Nations Group on the Information Society (UNGIS)5, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 6, or the sector on Communication and Information 7 within the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) . Indeed, ICTs can be used in numerous ways to promote a more just, democratic and peaceful world, however, they can also pose threats to democracy, peace, and human rights. This thesis is an attempt to give an overview of different lines of thought on how ICTs can be used both for and against peace, and to describe the vision of a specific piece of technology with the designated name “Peace Box”, which can be used to work toward the ideal of peace in various ways. 1.1. ICTs for Peace An online initiative started by the Italian version of Wired Magazine has successfully campaigned to nominate the Internet