| Cynthia |
voracious reader and knows lots of things. I’ve since found that I’m better off learning from her than resenting her intellectual acumen and breadth of knowledge.
So I asked her what “e-mail” was. She explained that she had read that it involved using computers to send messages. The computer was still new (to me) and the concept of e-mail was totally Greek. I quickly moved on to more familiar conversational territory. A few weeks later, I became part of the “e-mail crowd” with my very own @utoronto.ca address.
But first, I needed a computer. My fairy godmother, Prof. Ursula Franklin, physicist and first female professor of metallurgy and materials sciences at the University of Toronto, took it upon herself to make it happen. She applied to a women’s organisation for a $3,000-grant toward the purchase of a computer and printer for me. With my all-in-one Compaq and Brother printer set up, I was ready to go on the Internet, but where and what for?
Prof. Franklin suggested that I should find a “bulletin board” of Nigerians. She was certain that would cure my homesickness. She dug around – and that was quite a task in pre-Google era – and found Naijanet, an online community of Nigerians in the Diaspora. Her faith in the power of technology to enhance the quality of life for this fresh-off-the-boat international student was obviously founded on her academic interests (and books) in the sociopolitical implications of technology.
Eventually, I became part of an online community of Nigerians. I was excited beyond words, both with the technology and the ability to communicate with “my people” all over the world, though most of the “Netters” were US-based. Also, with the Internet being still fairly new in the public domain, most members were from the academic community. It was a year after the annulled presidential election of June 12, 1993 in Nigeria and a lot of the debates revolved around it, breeding various camps and cliques. I chose to be on the fence, the good journalist that I was, but my playing Switzerland didn’t always work for many members. And so every now and then I was drawn into heated debates. I unwittingly pricked so many bloated egos that “Sistah Peshe” soon became a swear word!
Naijanet was also a social forum, or so I believed. Members announced their upcoming travels and sought to meet other Netters who lived in the places they visited. In the spring of 1995 when I was visiting Vancouver for a week, I followed suit by announcing my availability to meet with netters in that “neck of the words.” The most (in)famous netter in Vancouver was a guy with whom I had sparred on numerous occasions. He responded to my announcement and asked me to call him when I was in town. We met up on the last day of my visit at the University of British Columbia where he was a doctoral candidate. He gave me a tour of the campus and then we walked over to his home so I could meet his family – wife and child. Afterwards, I took a cab back to my hotel and returned to Toronto the following day.
When I logged into Naijanet that evening, I was shocked to see what this fellow had posted. He gave the impression that something inappropriate had occurred during my visit. It was reminiscent of adolescent years when boys try to one-up each other by falsely claiming to have “done it” with this or that girl (who probably is unaware of their existence). It was clear that technologies were only facilitating old (and in this case, childish) habits. The technology did not create the nonsense; it just allowed the man-boy to broadcast it to a wider audience.
In technology lifespan, those days have gone into antiquity. There is a lot more going on now for the young and not-so young: social media, the chief of which are Twitter and Facebook, e-mail, YouTube, smartphones and the unique thing that Blackberry phones have – the ability to “ping” other users at no additional cost. More dangers lurk behind the (touch) screen and keyboard (pad) of our modern communication devices than did in my Compaq computer of the 1990s.
But it would be wrong to blame the technology for these dangers, as has occurred in the last couple of weeks following the tragic murder of the General’s Daughter, Ms. Cynthia Osokogwu Udoka. These technologies, especially as they enable social media, have crucial functions in our society and politics. The Arab Spring, for instance, was partly enabled by social media, as was the short-lived “Nigerian Harmattan” in January. Information and communication technologies have empowered the powerless and given voice to the voiceless.
Unfortunately, the criminal minded have also seen technology’s functionalities to facilitate their activities. The original 419 scams have since gone high-tech. Matching-making websites are filled with Nigerians preying on lonely men and women for material gains, or worse. Out here in the United States, there have been many murders of people lured through Craigslist, an online swap meet such that “Craigslist murder” has entered into the lexicon.
In a departure from Prof. Franklin’s view of technology as an ideology, I see it mostly as a neutral set of techniques or tools. It becomes good or bad depending on the purpose to which we apply it. The killers of Ms. Udoka did not become killers because they had access to Facebook or the Blackberry Messenger. They killed because they are killers … period! While we must be cautious about our online interactions, we should understand that killers and rapists are everywhere. People (morphing into animals) drugged, raped and killed Ms. Udoka; Facebook didn’t do it, just like Craigslist hasn’t killed anyone.
- Patience Akpan-Obong (pakpan2004@yahoo.com)
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