The Digital Divide; the Epica Awards and the Untold Depth.

The Epica Awards, Europe's 'Premier Creative Awards', had a powerful winner that simply astounds me.

The winner is here (Flash required, and worth it) - and features Mahatma Gandhi in a role that exactly matches the way many people involved in the Digital Divide would like to see technology used.

But wait, there's more.

The ad, featuring Gandhi talking across the world about a message of Love through a webcam and seen on cell phones and computers and even large screens in public areas - this speech is an interesting speech in itself. The excerpts used came from Gandhi's Speech at the Inter-Asian Relations Conference, New Delhi. And this speech is very interesting in a modern context.

The part used for the advertising, edited, doesn't really say what the original speech did:

If you want to give a message again to the West, it must be a message of 'Love', it must be a message of 'Truth'. There must be a conquest (clapping), please, please, please. That will interfere with my speech, and that will interfere with your understanding also. I want to capture your hearts and don't want to receive your claps. Let your hearts clap in unison with what I'm saying, and I think, I shall have finished my work. Therefore, I want you to go away with the thought that Asia has to conquer the West. Then, the question that a friend asked yesterday, "Did I believe in one world?" Of course, I believe in one world. And how can I possibly do otherwise, when I become an inheritor of the message of love that these great un-conquerable teachers left for us?

You see, Gandhi's speech - though powerfully used in the context of communications for the advertising - was cut and paste. The speech, made on April 2nd, 1947.

He first makes mention about his speaking in English instead of French, and also points out that being in India he could not speak his mother tongue and be understood by the 20,000 people in the audience. He makes it a point not to apologize, and does so in a way that is not only unoffensive and unassuming - he does it in a thought provoking way.

His message, in the end, pointed out that the only conquering that should happen should be through love. Bear in mind that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed two years prior - and that World War II had just ended.

Language. Communication. East. West. This has a lot to do with the Digital Divide. In a modern context, with the advertisement... it is a good question.

What could Gandhi have accomplished with the ability to communicate like that, from a Bhangi cottage. I'd tune in. I might even download his podcasts if he didn't feel like writing. ;-)