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The Nobel Peace Prize: for The Internet?
Posted by: sgb on Mar 16, 2010
The Italian version of Wired magazine is behind the nomination of 'The Internet' for the Nobel Peace prize for helping advance "dialogue, debate and consensus".
The nomination has not been officially confirmed by the Nobel Committee,, who reportedly never confirms the nominations. What has been confirmed is the number of nominations for the 2010 prize - 273, a new record.
The prize winner will be announced in October. Only a restricted group of people can nominate potential winners (former laureates, members of national governments and select university professors, among others) : in this case the nominator appears to be The 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi.
The nomination begs the question: "What is The Internet"? It is obviously neither a person nor an organisation, so would seem to be not eligible for the prize. According to the Nobel Institute the prize goes to:
"whoever shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".
So again, "What is the Internet"? To my mind there is a simple 'philosophical' answer: 'The Internet is the prime democratic guardian of Free Speech'. It has very little organisation: basically around the naming conventions (.org, .com, etc) and about page structure (largely unstructured, HTML based). Other than that you can say what you like, when you like, how you like (I cannot include 'where you like' as specific site administrators may censor your submissions). In general, anything goes. If no-one else will print your opinion, you start your own site.
The internet cannot therefore be said to be 'morally' good or bad. Free speech is not a moral value: it is a democratic value, based on democratic notions of governance. It is often under attack: the current spat between Google and China, following on on China's attempt to force PC makers to load 'Censorship software' two years ago highlights that democracy and Free Speech is not yet accepted as a 'Universal Right'. It is almost a fight between two political ideologies: the (modern) Western form of democracy where the people rule, and other ideoplogies where a select few rule (autocracies, etc).
The very nature of the Internet should disqualify it from the Nobel Peace Prize: in one sense the Internet is too big for it. It is neither Peaceful nor Violent - there are many pages of both. It has the potential to cause either. There are skirmishes around many 'smaller' issues, issues that are all consuming to some people - the use of specific domain names for pornography, the banning of internet gambling in certain countries, the use of invasive cookies and other malware. It is a sign of the blinkered views of some politicians (not only in formal politics) that they do not want a domain name for pornography (e.g. .xxx) as it would lead to legitimisation. Are they blind? Whether they ignore it or not, it is there, probably more pages devoted to it that any other 'topic'.
Yes, the Internet has potential to change the world. But accept it as 'Free Speech', the ability to hear everyone. Don't accept it as peaceful.
I show some pages in this blog as examples: neither the best nor the worst. To be fair I have shown two alternative religious pages: Islamic Jihad and Christian Ku Klux Klan. I have included Beauty Without Cruelty, Earth Hour. And also instructions on how to create an Atomic Bomb. All pictures link you to the page from which it was taken.
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