Categorizations and The Internet; Names as Fences - and more Questions than Answers

Of late, I have been coming across a common theme in a lot of what I have been reading, and a lot of what I have been seeing in the media and in the new media: Fences. Ownership. Control. Dominance.

The... Caribbean? Latin America? Americas? Huh?

It's a pretty well known fact that the blogosphere has been dominated by bloggers from the United States, and continues to be - though that is beginning to change as the people of the rest of the world find their own voice. GlobalVoices Online is proving to be a great instrument in this regard, and yet I've been pondering why the Americas category contains Caribbean countries. I'm not sure that it should. As I wrote in 'Oh Yes, We Have Some Bananas', Latin America and the Caribbean have very different perspectives - competing perspectives, at times. I sent an email out to the MISTICA email list about this, and wasn't surprised when nobody responded.

Within ICT itself, there is an almost solid line drawn between Latin America and the Caribbean; Latin American countries tend to be a bit further ahead than the Caribbean. Why? Is it because Latin America views the Caribbean as a few small islands floating off to the East?

And where does the Caribbean start and end? Consider CARICOM, which has Suriname, Belize, and Guyana as members... members which, oddly enough, are in South America and are not islands. Perhaps they are not a part of 'Latin America' because the languages of these member states of CARICOM are not Spanish, but Latin America is in South America.

Maybe that explains why all the CARICOM observer status countries do not have English as the major language. Aruba, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Netherlands Antilles, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. Is there a trend? Is the observer status of non-English speaking countries in CARICOM a sign of progress, where a larger community is building to deal with economic and other problems in the region? Or is the fact that they are still observer nations a show of inertia? Colombia is definitely on the fence because of bananas.

Fences. Ownership. Control. Dominance. But where are the fences? And for a twist, why is it that Europe doesn't have this problem despite languages?

And then, the 'Americas' encapsulates the United States as well. And the United States has a very rocky relationship with Latin America and the Caribbean, though the Caribbean itself lacks the resources to make it a bumpy ride. Brazil, however, is a bit different. Consider this quote from Vandana Shiva:

...instead of applauding Brazil for its success in fighting AIDS through generic drug production supported under its 1997 Patent Law, and making this kind of law a model, the US has taken Brazil to to the WTO dispute panel in order to force Brazil to undo Brazil's patent laws. If US patent monopolies are globalized through TRIPs as a result of being allowed to undo Brazil's patent laws, then millions of AIDS victims in the Third World will be denied affordable treatment and thus their right to life.

So... it becomes apparent that language, economics and law are borders. Fences. Ownership. Control. Dominance. And these things become a reality based on where imaginary lines were drawn across the globe.

Is it appropriate to categorize based on those imaginary lines in such a connected world?

The New Media On The Fence: Terrorism

Citizen journalists around the world write about their worlds - however large or small those worlds are. Some artificially inflate their worlds by writing about what exists in others worlds, and immediately become 'experts' to their peers instead of the bridges - and sometimes poor bridges - that they really are. Then there are the people in countries which are relatively unknown, who write about global issues.

Then there are categorizations like the Muslim bloggers. Why isn't there a categorization like the Hindu bloggers, or the Christian bloggers, or even the Buddhist bloggers? Why aren't they asked about their stance on terrorism? Simple, really - these religions aren't being accused of being terrorist, and being a Buddhist doesn't send off alarms at airports the way the name Mohammed does. But then, what risk would a Muslim run by saying that they agreed with the bombings? Of course they disagree, and likely many of them do. But where are the people who say that they agree? I suppose we can define any terrorist as someone who doesn't own a weblog? I do not color the pacifists in with their extremist brethren - but why is it politically correct for some American bloggers to blame Muslim extremist groups for anything wrong that happens, but it is not politically correct for a Muslim such as Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens, remember him?) to make statements that were apparently inflammatory enough to cause Denial of Entry into the United States?

While nobody in their right mind would do anything but condemn a terrorist attack, are we really so foolish to believe that only people in their right minds have weblogs? And if people aren't writing about why they would go to such extremes... maybe, just maybe that explains why these attacks happen in the first place. Because people may feel that they cannot express themselves in a less destructive way. And look what happens - we give these people the attention they want by talking about what they did instead of asking why they did it. The 'why' is taboo. It's an unspoken. It's labeled as 'Evil', wrapped under a poultice of censorship and never looked at. The wound - because there simply has to be a wound for terrorist acts to even be thought of - is never looked at. It's never inspected for infection, for inflammation... for necrosis.

But denying that something exists does not mean it does not exist. But there's a fence there - a fence of censorship that even the most candid blogger dare not cross if they wish to stay out of jail, or to be able to travel freely. Who knows? Maybe by writing this, even as a Buddhist, I may not be able to travel freely. But there it is - the elephant in the middle of the room that nobody wants to talk about.

And that fence of censorship almost certainly guarantees that terrorist activity will continue. Why? Because (1) the media glorifies and validates the gruesome aspects, and (2) because the only way that these people feel that they can gain prominence is by violent action. Non-violent means apparently doesn't get their point across, and it's escalated to this point in global history. Frankly, it's a sad state of affairs and it would be wise for us to remove the poultice and look at the wound. But that fence of censorship - an imaginary line drawn in the media - keeps that from happening. The sadder truth is that though these acts of terrorist activity are acts of self-destruction, self-mutilation... and that they destroy the very fabric of what caused the emotions in the first place. You can't fight self-destruction, and that's what terrorism is - but nobody seems to want to talk about the self-destruction.

Maybe the bandage will fall off by itself.

The New Media: Who's Who?

Moving right along beyond censorship as a fence, let's talk about identity as a fence. I'm not an expert on anyone else, and I'm hardly an expert on myself (a good friend told me things about myself last night that I needed to know), but I'm the best person to write about myself in this context. Who am I?

We could categorize me as a Buddhist. Even a 'bad' Buddhist, or a 'non-traditional' Buddhist, or even a 'Core' Buddhist. We could categorize me as a Buddhist that revels in his teeth sinking into meat; or we could categorize me as a Carnivore who is true to the Carnivore creed and practices Buddhism between meals.

I'm a dual citizen. Am I an American? Yes. Am I a Trinidadian? Yes. Am I both? Yes. Am I one more than the other? Should I be seen as one or the other? How do I get categorized? Oddly enough, many Trinidadians would see me as an American and many Americans would see me as a Trinidadian. Why? It's a matter of convenience, sort of like what Uncle Albert once said:

If my theory of relativity is proven correct, Germany will claim me as a German and France will say I am a man of the world. If it's proven wrong, France will say I am a German and Germany will say I am a Jew.

When the BBC wrote about the Alert Retrieval Cache, I was from a small island on the other side of the world - never mind that I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. When I was mentioned in the Associated Press, the story was about my hometown... but where is my hometown? Would I say it is Milwaukee, where I was born, or Dayton, Ohio, or San Fernando, or Dallas, or New York City, or... I slide around that definition. The most time I have spent as an adult in one place was in Clearwater, Florida, where I stayed for maybe 6 years. Do I even really have a 'home town'? Is it important that I do? Does my identity require geography?

I didn't draw any of these imaginary lines on the globe. I don't even have responsibility for my heritage, which is as mixed as they come. I was talking with friend MAPA over a bottle of tequila a few months ago, and he asked me if I saw myself as Indian, as Greek, Dutch... or what I saw myself as. And I said, "I'm all of them. I'm me.". And while that may seem like a profound statement to some, it came through years of asking myself the same question. In the grand scheme of things, I have no control over any of that and I'm just 'me'.

But suddenly I found referrals on this site from DesiPundit, I thought it might have been about my entry on Hindi in Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana - but instead it was about this entry on the Simputer. Simputer, DesiPundit. Hindi - not DesiPundit. OK. I'm not from India, but some of my ancestors were (about half of them, give or take a few undocumented relationships). Then I started thinking about the 'India blogosphere' in this context, and all of this came into a focus a bit.

So I emailed DesiPundit and asked the question: does the Indian blogosphere extend beyond the borders of India?

In other words, where does the Indian blogosphere start? Where does it stop?

I got a reply (with permission to quote):

Of course it does. The Indian diaspora is as involved as the resident bloggers. That is the beauty of the cyberspace. There are no boundaries. E.g. Michael Higgins, an American blogger is often cited on DesiPundit because he tends to write India-centric posts and we love to feature his unique viewpoints.

OK. Now... India-centric. Not Indian-centric, and it would be a question mark if a Guyanese Indian descendant in New York City (such as Monologist)would be as much of an Indian as my friend Suhit.

Consider this from the Monologist:

...
A few days ago this week, I was in a cab doing an errand for my father. The cab driver was Pakistani.
And I knew he would ask the far too familiar question that he asked, "Ma'am, Can I ask a question?"
I laughed, "technically you already did" laughing even more uncomfortably because I already knew the question that would follow.
"Where are you from?" he said, wearing a cynical smirk as if he pinned me in some state in India.
"I'm from New York" as my eyes met his in the rear-view mirror. I saw the puzzled look he wore, the one that I knew he wanted to ask,
"No, originally" until he finally said it out loud.
"Sir, I'm Guyanese"
There was this eerily silence in the car, as I look at his shocked face of misbelieved.
"Ma'am, you don't sound like if you're Guyanese." I don't really have a problem in what he said, but it’s definitely the way he said it, in this scornful tone as if Guyanese were lower in status than he was.
The all too familiar, " second class citizen syndrome" as I would call it and it's sickening.
The Indian descendants of the West Indies aren't accepted anywhere, no matter how mannered they are, they won't exactly be considered "mannered" because of the color of their skin. They can't really call themselves Indian because they aren't from India but instead they are Indian-Guyanese people that incorporate both worlds and it does no justice to their home land, in my case Guyana although my ancestors were from India and that too, even Indians [and I mean the people of the subcontinent,] treat them differently...

Nailed.

Is the difference that they write about India, or is the difference about what they write about? Is an Indian descendant not an Indian? An interesting thing to ask, and while it makes sense that it is - the Indian blogosphere, as it is, is limited to what the perspective of what the present Indian blogosphere, collectively, thinks. Or is it what the blogosphere in general thinks? Who labels people like this?

In The End

These labels get really tiresome, trust me. But these labels are... Fences. Ownership. Control. Dominance. And they are completely natural to almost everyone - they can't be avoided, but it would be wonderful if it were openly recognized. Admitted, up front. That's the beauty of the molecular media; that we have these separate perspectives. And if some Indio-Greco-Dutch-xyz Buddhist-Trini-American in the Caribbean/Latin America/South America/Americas Open Source/Free Software developer/writer/ICT Consultant/poet/technologist/internet activist with leanings towards criticizing present patent and copyright law writes something...

Which slot do you stick it in? Whose labels have we inherited? How do we define ourselves - by geography, by race, by gender, by culture, by color, by caste, by dietary habits, by medical conditions? Do these labels fit?

Maybe we should look to our labels more often. Well, maybe you should look at your labels more often. I'm busy being me. :-) The question you might want to ask is - how do I label you? Or, do I? Should I? Will I? Won't I? Why does it matter to you?

Or maybe, we should find more fitting categories for each other. Categories we're all comfortable with, borders of the mind which we are all comfortable with...

How about a ripped, waterstained and faded manila folder with the label 'Computerisation' weighing about 3 lbs (I knew that tree...), containing information on how to make a paperless office? :-)