May 14, 2004
Toppling tyrants with IT power
Technology Editor Francis Chin for Today Online, writes a great essay on how information technology (IT) has helped trigger revolutions and topple tyrants.
He looks through time and outlines which new technologies played a part in mobilizing populations and litterally, changed the world.
"-- Movable-type printing in the 15th century Europe was the first revolution.
-- The overthwoing of the Shah of Iran in the late 1970s thanks to audio cassette tape.
-- It was 1989 and Chinese students and pro-democracy activists were organising one of the largest demonstrations in Tiananmen, Beijing, to protest against official corruption and to demand a regime change. The word was spread discretely through the fax machine.
-- The use of cellphone text messaging on the streets of Manila was responsible for the ousting of President Joseph Estrada in 2000. Like the fax machine, it was used to organise crowd convergence and crowd movement, except the cellphone was more mobile and easier to handle.
Back to today.
"Chin writes, referring to the Iraqi prisoner abuse, "I have never ceased to be amazed at how blinkered some political leaders often are in their outlook. They have not wised up to the fact that it is not their million-dollar high-tech missiles that are capable of inflicting civilian damage only.
The latest cellphones with embedded high-resolution digital cameras, in the hands of courageous individuals, can inflict far greater damage on those in power.
Information without quick, easy dissemination is useless. And disseminating technology without truthful information can threaten the common weal.
But technology in the form of cheap, hand-held devices capable of recording and transmitting raw, unvarnished information, is a powerful weapon for any man on the street to create awareness, fight untruths and persuade enough of people to change sides.
This is what revolution is all about, the information revolution, that is."
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