Translated by Malcolm
Garris from original
article
MOBILIZATION
Make
Net, not war!
While sites
hostile to Bin Laden sprout like mushrooms, several initiatives are
born in favor of peace.
In our last
article, we noted that the Internet has become the dumping ground of the
frustration and the anger of those who regard Osama Bin Laden as the person
responsible for their suffering. If it is true that places reserved for
the expression of this ire are very numerous, sites which try to mobilize
opinion against Anglo-American military operations in Afghanistan are
also multiplying on the Web. From the United States to Japan to the United
Kingdom, networks have been created to bring more reason to public opinion.
Hundreds of people demonstrated in the streets of Tokyo on the initiative
of Give-peace-a-chance,
a group that adopted the yellow ribbon as a symbol of the fight against
the war, following the example red ribbon against AIDS.
Like the majority of online movements, this one is based on the creation
of a mailing list to inform its subscribers about the various actions
to be carried out, whether they are street demonstrations or mass e-mailings
– guaranteed without anthrax – to the representatives to put
pressure on the United States. The Internet facilitates the creation
of such networks without significant costs. Electronic mail appears
to be an extremely effective instrument of mobilization, as it has already
proven itself for the organizers of the antiglobalization protests in
Gothenburg and Genoa. It is probable, moreover, that the antiwar movements
end up taking an increasingly large spotlight in the weeks to come,
as American strikes show themselves to be as deadly as they are ineffective
in flushing out Ben Laden.
To quiet dissenting voices?
Other sites, such as Antiwar.com,
focus their activity on information, trying to bring to the other side
of the Atlantic a different voice from that conveyed by the principal
media in the pro-Western world. Created in 1995, this site is not an
opportunist invention, but reflects a major commitment to peace, with
criticism of American actions that have taken place during recent years.
It is essential that the Internet remains a place where partisans of
American intervention and defenders of peace can express themselves.
However, we fear that the bills relating to the Internet under consideration
in many countries may succeed, under the cover of fighting terrorism,
in quieting dissenting voices. It is enough to recall that British and
American governments were sufficiently "persuasive" to entice
the BBC and the American networks to refrain from televising images
from the Arab station Al Jazira, judged too close to Bin Laden.
Claude Leblanc,
Courrier International, October 16 2001
Courrier
International
16/10/2001
