Winds of change swirl all around us

It hasn't just been Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Jordon to experience the extraordinary power of the internet to mobilise and inform people. Middle East dictators and "Royals" who were previously backed by many Western governments have started to see their hold on power being eroded over the past few weeks. As these popular campaigns, largely orchestrated by the educated middle classes using Twitter and Facebook took hold, tropical cyclone Yasi surged towards northern Queensland, Australia.

Whilst it was being monitored closely by meteorlogical experts, the Australian Federal and Queensland Governments responded to the looming threat by using the power and accessibility of all the tools of our modern communications era to advise and inform their citizens. Despite the incredibly destructive forces of a Category 5 storm landing in a populated area, nobody died as a direct result of the cyclone. One tragic loss of life has so far been reported but that was due to the inhalation of generator fumes.

The Australian newspapers heap praise upon their leaders for their presence and preparedness for two devastating events that have hit Queensland in particular this year: the floods and the cyclone. Using the internet and Twitter as well as FaceBook in particular, I have been able to keep abreast of how family living in the affected area have fared. I knew through blogs posted by the Cairns Post that their neighbourhood was without electricity and consequently not able themselves to reassure family in Europe or Africa. That's a definate sign of progress in my book! Once contact had been restored, I learnt that the local government authorities had already completed the clean-up of their street. That's an example of good governance and the undeniable importance of the formal public service to a community - in a land that already typifies community spirit and neighbourly assistance.

The British are sadly yet to learn and experience the real consequences of the currently proposed abolition of the public sector in favour of volunteers. It is a tragedy in my view that while we listen to politicians lecturing the world about the need for democracy, because of their current political agenda, we will most likely not be able to depend upon ourselves as a nation in the future!

However, history suggests (and perhaps we should take heart) that in our next hour of need, the social networks Twitter and Facebook will be used to alert the ANZACs to our plight and that we will be able to depend upon them to once again come to our aid - just as they have done countless times before.

Adding oxygen to the debate

Recently Clare Balding, a near neighbour of ours, was described maliciously by a Sunday Times journalist as a "Dyke on a Bike". She took exception (as did practically the whole lesbian and gay community). She protested to the Editor most eloquently in the same paper the following week - to no avail as the same journalist followed it a couple of weeks later with repetition of his infamous views on the Welsh.

Quite why the Sunday Times believes that it is acceptible to insult many of its readers with a type of humour that it itself finds offensive when directed against the English by Muslims, or by gay people against "the family", is beyond my comprehension. 

Sue Perkins, a comedienne of some worth, tweated on Twitter last night that she was "in Scotland eating a salad - spot the oxymoron". That sort of joke is good hearted and not malicious . . . well, certainly not to me a Scot who isn't prone to ordering salads!

So where's the humour and where's the offence? Where do we draw the line? I guess we have to look at what was the writer's intention. If it is to hold up a mirror and laugh with them - then that's fun and fine; if, however, it is to hold out a stick and point or jab: that's hurtful and puerile.

Communicating in 2010

A recent exchange of emails with my brother in Cairns, Australia, has brought into fairly sharp relief how communications have changed in my limited life time.

As a child on a farm in Karoi, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), I can remember the huge excitement that followed a telephone call from the local telephone exchange advising my mother to be ready, sitting beside the telephone on a particular date and at a specific time, in order to "take the call" booked in Edinburgh by her brother. The phone would ring and then, before the two could chat to each other, there would be literally minutes of different exchange operators talking to one another to set up the link: Hello Salisbury this is Karoi - I have Karoi 44126 on the line.... Hello Pretoria, this is Salisbury - I have Karoi 44126 on the line.... Hello Cape Town ... and so on."

The farm's telephone was on a party line which meant not only that we could hear every telephone being rung (each had a unique ring) but neighbours could, and sometimes did, pick up their handsets and listen in to other people's conversations. How that irritated my parents!

When I first came to the United Kingdom the first port of call was always a Post Office in order to send a telegram: arrived safely ... and then after that all communication was by letter. There's a stranger!

When I was doing my national service in the Rhodesian army as a signaller I loved to tune in late at night and listen to radio hams chatting to each other around the world: how I envied their distant, exotic sounding locations and ability to chat to each other!

Now I keep in touch by email - from a laptop using wifi, or a BlackBerry. Or even by SMS on my mobile telephone (my sister's favourite method of keeping in touch).

And it's all so incredibly fast, effectively free and not reliant upon anyone with a face - just a piece of equipment and network that is maintained probably by an army of de-humanised IT experts who have replaced the ladies in the telephone exchange (or the neighbours listening in). Progress - huh!

And then there are my Blog and Twitter sites (if you really want to know what I'm up to, you'll find me there )...

Twitter and tweating

I've taken delivery of a Blackberry so that I can not only do my email out and about but also Twitter ... suddenly the world has become a much smaller place as I swap tweats and follow tweats all around the world!

The world is a much smaller place than once it was and I never cease to wonder - particularly when visiting the United States and Australia - how lonely and vast it must have appeared to the early pioneers from Europe who set out to explore those two vast landscapes. Today of course we just jump back in the car, pull out a mobile telephone or twitter on a Blackberry and the world wraps its self around us.

When I was doing my national service as a signalman in the army I was always fascinated by radio communication across the world and would spend many hours in the solitude of the operations room before dawn listening to radio hams chatting to each other - usually on the other side of the world - and wishing that I could take part in their exchanges. Not even in my wildest dreams did I think that something like the World Wide Web, Chat Rooms or Twitter would be not just a reality but the norm within my lifetime. We all have access and this is being spread across the four corners of the world!

This speed of communication is a phenomenally powerful tool that could be bringing people and ideas together but sadly it brings also increased conflict. Religion, political and economic power or influence ... the list goes on. What will it take, I wonder, for us to use such power constructively to save our peoples, our resources and our world?