Is there a 21st century solution to our 17th century problem?

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In the emerging new economy of high tech companies, e-commerce, Internet and new media, the 'digital divide' between high tech haves and have-nots is seen as a major problem. Experts on this issue point out with great concern that many people are being left behind in the great societal transformation of big businesses and middle class society into hard-wired monster capitalists and totally networked mega-consumers.

But I question whether it is true that access to technology is the crucial issue. It seems to me that regardless of how many miles of fibre optic cable or how much broadband capacity there is in the ground, regardless of how many wizardly creative and visually stunning Web sites there are, if the whole point is just to sell stuff or do the exact same things we do now except faster, then the so-called 'high tech revolution' holds little attraction.

Technology is no substitute for more knowledge. In fact, based on what we have seen so far, describing the new developments in digital technology as a revolution is dead wrong. Technology has been used as a means to further the same ends as always.

People are buying and selling things, people are amusing themselves, and governments are spreading their messages. It's the same old thing, except 1,000 times faster. So far there's been no transformation in the social, political or economic relations that define our society because of technology. The only thing revolutionary has been the increase in the speed at which we can now do the things we have always done.

What's revolutionary about looking at pornography, gossiping on email, or sending silly jokes to your friends faster than you did before fibre optics was invented?

Of course, experts and industry worry less about content or the injustice of exclusion and more about market opportunities going unexploited. With all the attention on access to technology, the reason for using all of that technology is seldom questioned. Yet the constant refrain of the would-be high tech revolutionaries is that our new 'information age' will be more democratic and full of educated and empowered citizens.

If this is indeed true, the experience of Indigenous peoples should be the perfect way to determine the meaning of the transformation. Being society's most disempowered communities, if the digital revolution is true to its enabling promises, we should be the first people to realize some advantage.

In spite of the way technology has been used thus far, when new knowledge and high tech distribution means are combined, the true transforming power of digital technology will emerge.

The movement to a high tech society could represent a 21st century solution to the lingering effects of that nasty 17th century imperialist problem. In fact, as an instrument of social mobilization, the Internet has already begun to affect us.

Web sites and email distribution lists have been an effective tool in creating awareness and changing public perceptions of the situation of Indigenous peoples all over the world.

In Mexico, the Zapatista movement has used the Internet to develop a huge network of domestic and international support. The constant dispatches and photos transferred to the world via the Internet have discouraged the Mexicans from using violent repression against the Zapatistas (forcing them to lay siege to the Indigenous army instead of annihilating it), and held the Mexican government accountable to world opinion for its denial of the Indigenous peoples' basic human rights.

Closer to home, the recent defeat of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council's agreement-in-principle was achieved mainly using the Internet.

Nuu-chah-nulth-aht women, students, youth and traditionalists organized an internal public education campaign and co-ordinated forceful opposition to the BC treaty process' self-extinguishment model. The Zapatista and Nuu-chah-nulth experiences have demonstrated the potential power of the Internet as a tool for effectng political change.

The Internet, clearly superior as a means of distributing information broadly and quickly, could be a radical tool for building networks of solidarity and to undermine beliefs and attitudes that support Canada's colonial agenda. But the federal government recognizes its power as well, and has already begun to saturate the Internet with its own Web sites in the attempt to control public opinion and to legitimize its plans.

Like the Zapatistas, the federal government knows that a growing number of people (especially youth) take their information directly from the Internet, and the messages that flow back and forth as email and Web-based information have become a uniquely powerful political language.

Are we as Indigenous nations prepared to compete in this high powered but costly and complex high tech environment? The growing capacity gap between government/industry on one side and Indigenous peoples on the other is the true 'digital divide.' We must find a way to increase our access to and control over the means of communication in this new high tech world, or else we will be subject to ever more and increasingly sophisticated forms of manipulation by people who oppose our goals.