Wed, 13 Nov 1996 15:46:43 -0500 (EST)
Wed, 13 Nov 1996 15:46:18 -0500 (EST)
13 Nov 1996 14:40:51 -0600 (CST)
by mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu (8.7.6/8.7.3/mcfeeley.mc-1.17)
13 Nov 1996 14:40:11 -0600 (CST)
13 Nov 1996 13:39:37 -0700 (MST)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 15:35:13 -0500
From: Molly Molloy <mmolloy@LIB.NMSU.EDU>
Subject: Internet in Mexico/perspective
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To: lala-l <lala-l@uga.cc.uga.edu>, LASNET <lasnet@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu>,
latco <latco@psg.com>, Ed Erazo <ederazo@LIB.NMSU.EDU>,
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"Nancy A. Oretskin" <noretski@dante.nmsu.edu>,
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Reply-to: mmolloy@LIB.NMSU.EDU
Here is an article from the LA Times that provides an interesting
perspective on the development of information networks in Mexico.
Molly Molloy New Mexico State University Library Las Cruces, NM 88001
505-646-6931 mmolloy@lib.nmsu.edu http://lib.nmsu.edu/staff/mmolloy
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Subject: Mexico: Window on Technology and the Poor (fwd)
Mexico: Window on Technology and the Poor
LA Times
Monday, October 28, 1996
By Gary Chapman
Over the Columbus Day weekend, I was in Mexico City attending and speaking
at a conference marking the founding of the Mexican chapter of the
Internet Society.
That in itself was a potentially historic event. But that Saturday was
also Dia de la Raza--"Day of the People"--celebrated in Washington by the
largest Latino demonstration in U.S. history and in Mexico City by the
first capital city demonstration of the famous Zapatista peasants from the
mountains of southern Chiapas province.
Mexico City is always a jolting brace of contrasts. But the juxtaposition
of the Internet conference with the appearance of a Zapatista leader in
the capital--the terminally ill Comandante Ramona, who gave a speech at a
rally in the Zocalo, the city's imm ense central plaza--provided an
especially striking symbol of the tensions that will dominate world
politics in the coming century.
The coexistence of the rich and the poor in Mexico City, the largest city
in the world, characterizes the mega-cities of the globe, including
several in the U.S. But a new element in Mexico is armed resistance by the
poorest of the poor, first in the Chi apas revolt of early 1994 and
earlier this year by surprise attacks in Guerrero and other regions. A
showdown over democratic reform is looming, and that could be a harbinger
of trends in other parts of the developing world.
The growth of the Internet in Mexico has until recently been very slow, in
large part because of the abysmal performance of the national telephone
system run by Telefonos de Mexico, or Telmex, which until 1990 was a
state-owned monopoly. Under the previou s government, Telmex was
privatized and sold to a consortium of companies, including the Mexican
conglomerate Grupo Carso, France Telecom and Southwestern Bell of the U.S.
When Telmex was sold, it had only about 5 million access lines to serve a
population of more than 80 million people, and service was slow,
unreliable and expensive. Nevertheless, Telmex has been and continues to
be one of the world's most profitable compa nies.
A new Internet backbone for universities called Red Tecnologica Nacional,
or RTN, was initiated in 1994. About 90% of Internet traffic in Mexico is
handled through the universities connected to RTN. But commercial
providers can now be found in nearly 50 Mexican cities. In January, the
Mexican government will open the country's long-distance market to
competition, and a Mexican subsidiary of MCI called Avantel has announced
that it will offer Internet access.
Because of these developments, university researchers and some Mexican
entrepreneurs decided to launch the Mexican Internet Society. The new
president is Jeffrey Fernandez, who runs the computer systems for the
University of Guadalajara. The goals of the Mexican Internet Society are
to promote the international vision of the Internet as a means of
democratic communication and to help intensify Internet use in the
country.
Over the weekend of the founding conference, however, the newspapers in
Mexico City were filled with breathless reports of the visit to the
capital by Comandante Ramona. Over protests by the government, Zapatista
leaders were invited to attend a weeklong Congress of Indigenous People,
and, in a masterful stroke of imagery, they sent the tiny, dying Tzotzil
Indian leader, who wore the symbolic black ski mask during her entire
stay.
Fittingly, the Zapatistas themselves are a forceful presence on the
Internet. Jose Angel Gurria Trevino, Mexico's minister of foreign affairs,
has said, "The shootings [in Chiapas] lasted 10 days only; since then, the
war in Chiapas has been a war of i nks, of writings, and a war on the
Internet."
At the Internet conference, Jaime Morfin, a Mexican graduate student at
the University of Texas at Austin, presented a paper that described the
Zapatista party's use of the Internet. Communiques are distributed by a
coalition of support organizations in the U.S. called the National
Commission for Democracy in Mexico. This coalition maintains Web sites,
listservs (such as Chiapas95) and e-mail networks of activists.
At a leisurely lunch in a breathtaking hacienda restaurant in Tlalpan
south of the city, my Mexican friends and I chatted about the Zapatistas
and the Internet. "[Subcomandante] Marcos has a laptop in the jungle, with
a wireless or a satellite connectio n to the Internet," said one. "That's
nonsense!" another retorted. "There are many myths about Marcos," someone
else observed, smiling. "Myths that we enjoy. But he doesn't have an
Internet connection."
Eventually the conversation turned serious. "We fear for the middle class
in this country," said Erick Huesca, one of the founding leaders of the
Internet Society. The middle class of Mexico, never very strong, is the
class most attached to the promise of the Internet, just as in other
countries. But the fragile middle class is squeezed between two powerful
forces: the ultra-rich and corrupt oligarchy that rules the country and
the economy, and the tens of millions of poor who are increasingly fed up
with deferral of equality by the global, "neo-liberal" economic order,
symbolized by the North American Free Trade Agreement.
As I contemplated the weathered and earnest faces of the peasants from
Chiapas trudging through the Zocalo, it was clear that the Internet and
cyberspace are not a solution to theirproblems. But if the middle class
cannot generate and distribute wealth, it may be trampled by a conflict
between the rich and the poor.
The challenge of how the middle class can use education and technology to
improve the prospects of the world's majority, the desperately poor, is
the biggest issue of our times, and whether we face up to this will
determine our fate for generations.
Mexico is the country to watch carefully: What happens there will
influence the future more than almost anything else.
Gary Chapman Is Director of the 21st Century Project at the
University of Texas. he Can Be Reached Via E-mail at
Gary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu
Source:
http://www.latimes.com/
sbin/my_iarecord.pl?NS-doc-path=/
httpd/docs/HOME/NEWS/CUTTING/
t000093807.html&NS-doc-offset=7&NS-collection=DailyNews&NS-search-set=/
var/tmp/328a0/aaaa005ec8a0b56&
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