I once heard it said that the internet was like Guttenberg’s printing press, and while revolutionary, Gutenberg’s printing press resulted in the religious wars of a century later. This was voiced as a warning against cyber-utopianism.

Twenty years after the World Wide Web app was released so that the public could use The Internet, we have begun to see our wars play out. The religious wars of the past led to the creation of the Nation State, after the Treaty of Westphalia. Our present wars are a symptom of the breakdown of that international system.

Freedom fries: this domino line begins with McDonalds.

Ben Ali’s son-in-law wants to open a McDonalds in Tunisia. He meets with the American ambassador.

The ambassador goes home and writes a report on the meeting, noting the family’s opulent wealth. “He owns a tiger that eats 6 chickens a day”.

Because privacy is old fashioned a Marine private smuggles out gigabytes of material on a re-recordable CD marked Lady Gaga, and provides it to cyber-utopian Wikileaks. They publish it along with the Guardian and The New York Times.

The Tunisia reports are emphasized by Al Jazeera, and they spread on Tunisians’ Facebook pages. Two out of ten people have Facebook accounts because privacy is old fashioned.

So a frustrated young man is spat on by a policewoman and sets himself on fire. Tunisians take to the streets, and inspire similar protests in Egypt, Libya, and Syria. Egypt’s dictator is kicked out. Libya has an 8 month civil war, before its dictator is finally killed. Syria’s civil war continues.

Egypt holds democratic elections but the poor vote for the wrong people, a party that wants to govern in an oppressive way. They protest again. The army comes in and removes the president. The world doesn’t want to call it a coup d’etat, because it was simply the army removing the person who should not have won the election. Democracy is only a good thing when the right people win. The people who voted for him are upset, so they protest, until the army clears the square by shooting at them. Some more people die.

Meanwhile, in Syria, chemical weapons are used. Chemical bombs are equivalent to First World War nukes, number two on the list of taboo armaments, a century old and “never to be used again”. They’ve nevertheless been manufactured.

Syria hasn’t signed the anti-chemical weapons treaties. A thousand people die.

President Obama had said that the use of chemical weapons would be a line that should not be crossed, lest he send in the World’s Most Powerful Military. The weapons were used.

To be continued.

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Worth reading:
WikiHistory: Did the Leaks Inspire the Arab Spring?
Adam Curtis’ 2011 blog posting on Syria