1985 National Geographic Cover Featuring an Afghan Refugee
In April, nine technology executives from the biggest, baddest tech companies in the US are now well into day 3 of tour of Iraq. Having been invited by the US State Department to join a delegation to begin to build upon anti-corruption efforts, promote critical thinking in the classroom, and scale-up civil society, executives from Twitter, Google, AT&T, Meetup.com, Automattic (WordPress), and YouTube are meeting with Iraqi officials to discuss solutions to the technology gap within the country.
The issue is that less than 5% of Iraq has Internet access and most Iraqis must carry at least two cell phones from various providers just to ensure connectivity. This is not just a communications infrastructure issue but also an educational issue. Without access to the outside world, Iraq could quickly fall prey to the Afghan syndrome. For those of you that have no idea what that is watch Charlie Wilsons War or read Wikipedia.
Read also: Twitter, WordPress execs in Iraq to help country use new media
Cliff Notes: The Afghan Syndrome:
In the 80s, while America engaged in the pissing match with the Former Soviet Union we lovingly referred to as The Cold War, one of our major battlegrounds was Afghanistan. Why? Well, its a bit complex, but Afghanistan had recently been embroiled in a civil war where the Communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan had taken over power and asked the Soviet Union to help suppress resistance from the Mujahideen. This resulted in horrific atrocities where fathers were rolled over with tanks in front of their children, young boys, lined up and shot in front of their mothers and pregnant women bayoneted in the stomach. Many Afghans were forced to live in refugee camps operated by the Red Cross. You might recall one of the most famous images of this period, a beautiful Afghan refugee with striking green eyes in National Geographic (pictured above).
Afghanistan was in trouble, it was a covert battleground between the US and the Soviet Union with the Afghan people caught in the middle. Charlie Wilson, a relatively unimportant Democratic Senator from Texas with an unmatched collection of favors from other congressman and unparalleled access to black appropriations funding, secretly waged a CIA initiative to arm and train Afghan soldiers to fight the Soviets. The war was a success that expelled the Soviets from Afghanistan and Charlie Wilson was credited as not only initiating the largest covert war in the US to date but also with ending the Cold War. Even after convincing Congress to spend almost $400 million on the war effort and winning the freedom of the Afghan people, Charlie continued to press for additional funding to help build communications, transportation and educations infrastructures in the country to ensure safe and stable relations with the Afghans. Sadly, Congress, did not support Senator Wilsons efforts and the result was an uneducated population without access to the outside world, surrounded by nations that harbored resentment to the US. This fostered an environment where the Taliban could thrive, anti-American sentiment could breed and eventually terrorists like Osama Bin Laden could train dissidents to attack the US. We basically freed the Afghan people only to abandon them to a terrorist regime.
Read also: Charlie Wilson
What Does Any of This Have to Do with Iraq and Twitter?
Iraq is a broken country, torn by war, surrounded by countries that openly hate the US. Like post Cole War Afghanistan, Iraq is vulnerable to becoming a breeding ground for terrorism. With a weak communications system that is nearly a full decade behind other civilized countries, there is no way for the people to independently gain access to world news and events or educational resources in a timely manner or even communicate with each other in real time. So, I commend the State Department and the Obama Administration (And, believe me, it KILLS me to do that) for having the foresight to bring infrastructure providers like AT&T, information access portals like Google and social communications tools like Twitter together to discuss the issues Iraq is facing and brainstorm solutions. The access that a more robust cell and Internet infrastructure could provide Iraq would allow the country to grow connected to the outside world instead of as an insular nation, isolated from the world and vulnerable to neighboring influences without information to balance those influences. A more robust technical communications infrastructure could offer greater access to educational resources and improve both business and personal communications.
Now, lets make this personal. I have friends from all over the world from my travels and schooling. I use Facebook and Twitter to communicate with them and stay in touch and even find out what is going on in their world. Imagine the beauty of being able to directly communicate with people in Iraq – to build new relationships based on common interests through social networks. Facilitating the interactions of our cultures without trying to change theirs is just one other way in which we can build stronger bonds between our nations. Consider that it is a lot harder to hate or kill someone you know than it is to hate or kill someone you don’t know. Not knowing about another culture can breed insecurity, which spawns resentment and eventually can lead to hatred. By encouraging more interactions with both our businesses (infrastructure providers) and our people we can work together to build a symbiotic and respectful relationship that is not built on fear, but on real, valuable communications and information exchange. This principle comes from Alexander the Great who often occupied other nations through war but post war helped to strengthen the existing culture and integrate it with his own through communication and education. The result was, in many cases, cultural harmony between the Greeks and the occupied nations.
Follow This Story On Twitter Through
@jack Jack Dorsey, Twitter
@raanan Raanan Bar-Cohen, Automattic
@heif Scott Heiferman, Meetup
Hashtag: #iraqtech
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