Vandana Shiva, globalisation, Aol/Time Warner, censure and dissidence

Vandana Shiva spoke last Thursday about the social control and violence, warning about the negative effects of the globalisation and destruction of nature, stressing that the biodiversity is the best guarantee for peace. She stated that the victims of natural disasters, the ones that scientists are unable to predict, are victims of the globalisation and the introduction of technology where it is not needed, giving an example of what is happening in hers country, India. Hers arguments have been heard all over the world and most recently in Seattle, where she participated in the protests against the summit of the WTO.

Many critical voices have been launched on Internet against the globalisation of the service of great corporations. These are ways of understanding Internet that share, in part or completely, the theories of Vandana Shiva. These groups of cybernaut-activists world wide criticise the recent merger of AOL-Warner because of the threat to the freedom of expression and diversity that is represented by the concentration of the ownership of communication media. We can find examples of this criticism in the latest number of the electronic publication Kriptopolis where David Casacuberta writes in the article AOL/TIME WARNER: NACE LA MONOFONÍA: "The dreams of John Perry Barlow and Esther Dyson of a freer and happier Internet by being controlled only by the hand of the market, have ended up being a nightmare where AOL/Time Warner is the bogeyman underneath every bed. Because sooner or later the creation of monopolies that combine hardware and contents only means one thing: censure of the market. Professor Korinna Patelis of the University of London has called this new media monster "monophony", since it implies the existence of one sole voice in the communication media. In such a global world as ours, to have true and trustworthy information available is simply vital for the workings of democracy, both on the Net and in the real world. For this reason Internet is every day more important, certainly one of the few areas where alternative information is possible.

Photo: © Antoni Font

Datum: 15/01/2000

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