ARCHIVES > ARTICLES

Websites for Peace: Education for Peace via the Internet In Bosnia-Herzegovina
A Proposal to Use Cyberspace for Preventing Ethnocultural Wars
By Keith Spicer

I. Europe and the Origins of War:

Europe is seeking to define a new international role, a role faithful to its values and traditions but updated and mastering the tools of our time. The project below – requiring modest resources but offering a very considerable practical and symbolic multiplier effect – might well fit in with this reflection.

The idea of Education for Peace via the Internet (EPI) rests on two elements of Europe’s reinterpretation of its mission in the world: keeping the peace, and development of the Information Highway.

This coincidence of objectives perfectly reflects the unavoidable dilema faced by dictators inciting their peoples to war through their monopoly of information of all kinds. On one hand, in order to modernize their economies to stand up to foreign pressures, they have to connect their people – especially students – to the Internet; on the other, letting their people go online destroys the ability of these same leaders to monopolize the content of education curricula: for in the long run, and in spite of many attempts, it is impossible to censor the Internet.

National sovereignty is the indispensable tool for suppressing ideas hostile to dictatorships, including ideas promoting respect for other peoples. But in five or ten years at most, the Internet will inevitably destroy « information sovereignty » and will thereby undermine the dictators’ political power. How? By exposing young people (and through them, their parents) to pluralistic ideas coming from abroad, either from foreign citizens or from political refugees and other expatriates living abroad but trying to fight for democracy at home.

The Internet, a new and unstoppable mass media vehicle, is the only source of information that, over time, will be totally free of national political-cultural censorship. Indeed it is the only one – unlike radio and television -- which can completely escape even limited technological control: it lies outside the international assignment of frequencies (ITU). If the medium is the message, the Internet’s message is uncontrollably free.

To cling to power, then, dictators are obliged to imperil the very ideas that keep them in power. To win today’s wars, they are condemned to risk losing tomorrow’s wars in their citizens’ minds.

II. The Futility of Classic Means to Counter Ethnocultural Wars:

The UNESCO Charter states it simply: "War begins in the minds of men." Unforunately, national sovereignty, whatever its virtues, allows unscrupulous leaders to create walls between peoples and enables tribalist or merely cynical dictators to manipulate minds toward murderous adventures: e.g. government domination of the Serbian and Croatian media before and during the massacres in Bosnia; and the incitement to genocide in Rwanda orchestrated by the infamous Radio Mille-Collines. Milosovic’s crushing of the Kosovars also fits this pattern, again by peddling a blood-drenched, mendacious orthodoxy.

Until now, the great democracies eager to maintain or re-establish peace in areas trapped in tribalist madness have mobilized enormous resources to fund often ineffective tools: troops, humanitarian aid, embargos, complex negotiations. All of these means have their proper time and place, but they are all also short-term band-aids. For beneath every tribalist war lies UNESCO’s argument: the root of all evil – the actual cause of inter-ethnic aggressions – is the systematic exploitation of public opinion: by racist media and education systems, as well as by cultural, intellectual and religious élites which, to cling to their privileges and prestige, play the xenophobic card in a discourse which they monopolize.

III. The Only Irresistible Weapon: Ideas:

If the flames of aggression are lit by more or less orchestrated hate, isn’t it obvious that the war must be fought in people’s minds as well as on the battlefield?

The core idea of Education for Peace via the Internet is simply to favor diversity of opinion, especially in the schools, in spite of national borders and the monopolies of ideas these borders sometimes allow. Understanding that "a broadcast is better than a brigade" – and incomparably cheaper – we need to use all the modern electronic media, especially the border-hopping Internet, to foster the free circulation of fact-based, civilized ideas (e.g. religious tolerance, multiculturalism, shared humanity during lengthy peaceful eras). The goal: to sidestep national mind-control by authoritarian regimes.

EPI would facilitate the expression of such ideas in a broad historical and cultural context, and look ahead to the imminent, universal and irresistible explosion of the Internet. It would attack the intellectual causes of conflicts without violating the national sovereignty --already in partial eclipse almost everywhere -- of countries where the State’s and the élites’ monopoly of ideas is inciting intellectually ‘captive’ peoples to hatred and, in the long run, to war.

Recent experience in Russia and China has proven the power of the New Media in weakening centralized mind-control; now we can focus this power on preventing or resolving the many ethnocultural conflicts defining the post-Cold War period.

In the elementary and secondary schools and universities of areas at risk of ethnocultural war, the economic imperative of connecting as many citizens as possible will guarantee the circulation of « healthily subversive » ideas (as well as bad ones) – of ideas different from the prevailing orthodoxy of the men in power. A variation on this could reward young people of different ethnocultural groups for creating worthwhile websites together.

Therein lies the simple logic of EPI : for extremely modest budgets, we can « surf » on the dictators’ economic needs for the Internet to peacefully undermine their power. We can make the dictators allies of their own elimination: the more they allow young people to surf the Net, the more the young will discover sites which plant seeds of doubt about official propaganda.

In international law and diplomacy, EPI would be irreproachable. No EPI representative would cross any borders either physically or electronically; neither would any government supporting EPI. Simply by offering seed money to individuals and groups outside authoritarian countries’ State-approved ‘official’ truths, EPI would favor the creation and worldwide availability of all kinds of websites offering ‘unorthodox’ visions of relations between peoples – interpretations banished from countries trapped in monopolistic mind-manipulation.

In sum, this project fights racist fire with anti-racist fire. It challenges the monopoly of ‘official’ ideas, beliefs and histories of cultural monopolists bent on maintaining personal power by controlling what their people can think. Already the NATO force in Bosnia-Herzogovina has shown it understands the power of unchained ideas by taking TV stations from Bosnian-Serb hate-mongers, and opening the airwaves to more moderate voices. Such action contrasts sadly with the West’s earlier refusal to challenge pre-massacre Serbian, Croation and Rwandan racist media campaigns.

NATO’s action is necessary progress, but possibly short-term, temporary progress. EPI extends this thinking to a permanent worldwide strategy : of peacefully spreading diversity of opinion in ethnocultural danger zones. In this, it is much more than a quick cure for ethocultural conflicts; it is deep and lasting preventive medicine. Like all preventive medicines, it is incomparably cheaper than trying to cure crises. It is propaganda for peace.

As the Internet continues to explode, and to escape control by governments everywhere, it will become the world’s first interactive means for individuals and groups to explore ‘unauthorized’ facts, ideas and opinions. It will become the ultimate peacemaking, peacekeeping tool.

IV. Making This Work in Bosnia-Herzegovina:

This project could be an independent, flexible, non-government effort with, if possible, at least tacit support of BiH politicians. Ideally it would enjoy their enthusiastic public support in principle as a non-partisan, non-ethnic project of benefit to all children and youth. The main goal : foster creation of thousands of excellent « tolerance-accepting » websites on BiH and Balkan affairs to eclipse and « drown » the hate-mongering websites already out there and coming. The project might be built roughly as follows :

SUMMARY OF OPERATIONAL PLAN:

1. Motivations for children and youth:
   • learn the exciting new idiom of their future life and society : the Internet
   • express their ideas, and personal as well as ethnocultural identities
   • cross ethnocultural borders their parents often could not make new friends across the country and the world
   • gain recognition online and in media
   • win an honored place on an online « Peace Portal » for high-quality, non-hateful sites
   • earn free prizes of software donated by Corel and other firms
   • membership in a worldwide honor roll of young « Internet Peace-Builders » (each receiving a diploma and online listing).
2. Training in website design: This could be done via at least three different methods, all of them free or almost :
   • online self-taught courses in web design (many models available free)
   • volunteer teaching via a corps of young volunteers (recognized by diplomas, online honor rolls, donated software rewards)
   • train-the-trainer courses offered by advanced companies (e.g. Corel)
3. Building websites by intercultural cooperation: Although any individual young person (ages 8-28?) could participate in this program, the program would favor websites created across ethnocultural borders by, say, a young Serb and a young Muslim, a young Croat and a young Serb, etc. This would in itself exemplify cooperation for peace and the free circulation of ideas – the essence of the project. This could work as a kind of intercultural « buddy system » involving mutual discovery, joint responsibility, and probably long-term friendships. The inspiration: « If you wish men to look upward to peace, have them build a tower together. »
4. Mechanisms for recognition: We will aim for an all-voluntary system, as follows: a multi-ethnic editorial committee of website judges of high character, probably including retired school-teachers and editors; these will apply the criteria below and award appropriate recognitions and prizes. Their challenging task will demand that they reconcile the widest possible freedom of speech with a rejection of systematic hate propaganda from any quarter. an online « Peace Portal » to become the most solid, reliable, rich and prestigious menu of worthwhile websites on Bosnia-Herzegovina in existence. It would strive to rival Yahoo! And other search engines by three advantages
   1. ts expert knowledge of the region;
   2. its focus on only examined, high-quality sites
   3. its exclusion of systematic hate-mongering. a small team of volunteer webmasters who will manage the Peace Portal and the online honor roll.
5. Criteria for recognition: The fundamental standards the above editorial committee will apply should be:
   • high quality in terms of originality, accuracy, and thorough research;
   • any reasonable subject-matter of interest to the young persons building the site;
   • preference for sites built by young persons from two or more different ethnocultural groups (to exemplify intercultural cooperation and to guarantee a multicultural perspective);
   • imaginative interactivity features which facilitate dialogue with other ethnocultural groups;
   • good taste and admirable values;
   • absence of systematically hateful or aggressive representations or comment about any ethnocultural or religious group (reasonable latitude must be allowed for fair comment as judged by normal international journalistic standards.

SUMMARY OF ADMINISTRATIVE ARRANGEMENTS

A small coordination office - Project Director plus 3 specialized staff whose mission will be to:

1. promote the Education-for-Peace-via-the Internet idea in the media and among politicians, aiming to rally public support. Large promotional budgets should not be needed. Press articles, interviews and profiles, plus talks and demonstrations could do most of the job almost free of charge.Then one could count on dictators to carry the promotional ball by trying to censor the sites or by just denouncing them.
2. identify areas of education programs and intellectual life where fostering a diversity of websites could make the largest impact : i.e. areas where authoritarian regimes are using education and the media to preach hate against neighboring peoples, or even within their own entity
3. assemble and distribute free-of-charge web-making manuals of all kinds, both online and off-line, and facilitate train-the-trainer courses;
4. advise in creating and/or distributing online educational "contents" (multimedia, TV, radio, film) that are factual, but tend to foster reconciliation between peoples threatened by warlike manipulation by controlled media and hyper-nationalist education.
5. create a BiH Internet « peace and reconciliation » portal (or « Peace Portal ») to lead to all BiH-related and Balkan-related websites meeting specified standards of accuracy, fairplay, tolerance, taste and ethics. Very quickly this portal could become a powerful central website archive aimed at encouraging reconciliation in an honest, factual way. Eventually, this archive or portal could offer an attractive entry-point for young people wishing to visit high-quality sites on topics they care about.
6. establish links and regular liaison and exchanges with educational systems and websites in other countries, especially multicultural ones (e.g. Australia, USA, UK, SchoolNet in Canada -- thousands of sites on every educational topic
7. advise and assist educational systems in BiH to develop high- quality websites and Internet training courses for all subjects, students and teachers – all consistent with OHR-defined standards of tolerance.
8. create and maintain a multilingual website explaining and administering the education-for-peace idea (with free downloads of web-making manuals, contests, plus honor rolls, etc.)
9. solicit financial and technical assistance from international corporations, foundations and foreign universities with Internet expertise (Cisco, Corel, Nortel, Microsoft, etc.). One corporation could sponsor and maintain the project’s own website and the portal; others could offer software, training, and possibly some funding. The University of California in Los Angeles (one of original Internet inventors) will almost certainly help, as would many other universities.

A small multi-ethnic consultative committee: composed of highly reputable, tolerance-minded educators from both BiH entities and all ethnocultural groups. This committee would be available to advise the Project Director on new opportunities and on political-cultural issues, and it would help the Project Office extend its networks of contacts in government, schools, the media and elsewhere.

Responsibility to OHR: The Director would report directly to the OHR Media Department with which it would work in close liaison and – at least until it became financially independent -- report to for policy and financial matters.

Budget : With the Director soliciting financial, technical and staff help from a wide variety of major corporations and universities (and the OHR perhaps lending start-up office space), the Project’s yearly budget could probably be kept to something like 500,000 DM : 250.000 DM a year for all salaries (not counting benefits for local staff) and another 250.000 DM for travel, communications, publicity materials and general overhead. The key would be to use the Director’s corporate, foundation, government and university contacts to secure donations and cooperation of all kinds at no extra cost to OHR. The Director’s specific goal would be to try to develop the Project as a virtually self-sustaining one after a couple of years, with OHR basically supporting only the central Coordinating Office, and with program activities eventually being funded from outside sources. Start-up office staff would include the Director, one Web-savvy specialist, one specialist in the political-cultural-educational milieu of BiH and one personal assistant-cum-office manager.

V. Conclusion: The Education-for-Peace-via-the-Internet project offers many advantages:

• a phenomenal, growing and permanent multiplier effect: in preventing inter-ethnic wars at their educational roots. Even if few students are on the Net as of now, inevitably they will be, and at a faster and faster rate as telephone rates and costs of computers fall (already several major firms are offering free computers in exchange for ISP contracts; and exploding broadband technology is dropping access rates to a fraction of today’s rates);
• escape from ethnically-biased education systems using « national sovereignty » as a cover. By definition, this project jumps over borders without attacking any government or group.
• an intelligent, effective use of information technology: anchoring peacekeeping in the 21st-century’s ubiquitous medium of communication;
• a libertarian approach: rooted in the bedrock western values of free speech, free press and diversity of opinion
• a much-needed humanistic vision: that all democratic countries (including public-spirited corporations, foundations and universities) could support to make a statement of solidarity among all peoples;
• a strong, easy-to-understand commitment in favor of peace: and of international cooperation;
• negligible cost in relation to other peacekeeping tools (soldiers, humanitarian aid, embargos, etc.); this is a shoe-string proposal with greater long-term impact than any other program on the horizon;
• a minimum of political complications: EPI would broadly back up UN, OSCE, NATO and other peacekeeping efforts, as well as important private programs such as Soros, yet remain outside the institutional politics that often bedevil and paralyze international peacekeeping.
• a tested model for other areas ar risk of ethnocultural war. This first websites-for-peace project can become an invaluable ready-to-go, adaptable model for similar projects in other areas where ethnocultural conflict may be likely.

OTHER ELEMENTS TO DEVELOP IN PARALLEL WITH THIS PROJECT:

The above plan can work on a small scale even under existing conditions in Bosnia-Herzegovina. But for the project to reach the hundreds of thousands of young people who can benefit from it, we need to work simultaneously on the following issues:

availability of computers: prices are dropping, and literally millions of second-hand computers will be thrown away in future years -- most good enough for getting students started on the Net. For massive expansion, we will need to organize the transfer of tens of thousands of computers to BiH, possibly using existing donor channels; or not, then next channels. OHR must insist on the freest possible access to these computers; they must not be kept in « protective custody ».

access tariffs: It is vital for OHR to persuade the BiH government and telecom authorities to offer dramatically low access for Internet access throughout BiH especially in schools, Internet cafés and other special Internet centres that may be set up to anchor this project. Without very low tariffs, the wholeproject could be seriously inhibited.

fast access: OHR should encourage all of the evolving means to speed Internet access -- such as ADSL via copper wires, satellite modems, and cable where economically feasible.

school curricula: OHR should assist all BiH educational authorities to adapt their curricula to the full potential of the Internet, facilitating access to the best online international teaching materials in all subjects. It should also facilitate training in free and focused research of all kinds on the Net, as well as to learning in other languages.