[Ecommerce] Mike van Graan in the Mail and Guardian: Google plays God

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

http://www.chico.mweb.co.za/art/2005/2005apr/050429-graan.html**

*Google plays God*

The Americans are at it again, this time seeking to rule the world with
their weapons of mass distraction. Or so the French would have us
believe, writes *Mike van Graan*

The Americans are at it again, this time seeking to rule the world with
their weapons of mass distraction. Or so the French would have us believe.

Recently, Google, the American search-engine, announced that it will
place 15-million (English) books from five leading libraries in the
United States (University of Michigan, Harvard, Stanford and the Public
Library of New York) and Britain (Oxford) on the Internet. In this way,
said a Google spokesperson, =EF=BF=BDthe entire world has access to our
collection=EF=BF=BD.

He forgot to say, =EF=BF=BDAnd we will have access to the minds =EF=BF=BD a=
nd pockets =EF=BF=BD
of the entire world.=EF=BF=BD He also forgot to qualify =EF=BF=BDthe entire=
 world=EF=BF=BD as
those who have Internet access, but then the Americans have always had a
limited view of =EF=BF=BDthe world=EF=BF=BD, as attested to by the =EF=BF=
=BDWorld Series=EF=BF=BD
matches played among themselves.

In reaction, President Jacques Chirac of France announced that he will
launch a =EF=BF=BDcounter-offensive=EF=BF=BD against this perceived America=
n attempt at
cultural domination by working with various governments to put the whole
of European literature online.

A report in The Australian newspaper states: =EF=BF=BDThe realisation that =
the
=EF=BF=BDAnglo-Saxons=EF=BF=BD were on the verge of a big breakthrough towa=
rds the dream
of a universal library seriously rattled the cultural establishment in
Paris, raising again the fear that the French language and ideas will
one day be reduced to quaint regional peculiarity.=EF=BF=BD While conceding=
 that
the Google initiative would be of significant help to researchers and
provide an opportunity for poorer nations to participate in global
learning, the president of the French National Library, Jean-Noel
Jeanneney, is quoted as saying, =EF=BF=BDThe real issue is elsewhere. And i=
t is
immense. It is confirmation of the risk of a crushing American
domination in the definition of how future generations conceive the world.=
=EF=BF=BD

Google estimates that the digitalisation will cost $7 per book. That
would place the cost of putting 15-million books on the Internet at more
than R630-million, about half of the entire budget of the Department of
Arts and Culture. But this is not simply a philanthropic endeavour on
the part of Google; it earns money from the project as soon as users
click on a follow-on page. So, as with the digitalisation of movies and
music, this is not simply a =EF=BF=BDcultural project=EF=BF=BD, but a busin=
ess
initiative that has to do with developing new markets that cross
national boundaries.

To place this battle for domination of the world=EF=BF=BDs cultural markets=
 and
for world hegemony of ideas and world views into some kind of
perspective, a gala fund-raising dinner was held in Cape Town recently
to raise funds for what was billed as the first major cultural project
of the New Partnership for Africa=EF=BF=BDs Development (Nepad). That is, t=
o
build a library in which to house 13th-century manuscripts discovered in
Timbuktu in Mali. These manuscripts provide evidence of reading and
writing in Africa at very high levels of sophistication, hundreds of
years before the advent of colonialism, so the symbolic importance of
this initiative is obviously high. But in order to provide a place of
safekeeping for these manuscripts in Mali, funds have to be raised from
the private sector in South Africa, thereby throwing into sharp relief
the relationship between global or regional cultural influence and
access to resources.

Google can invest more than $100-million to digitalise the books of five
major libraries, while a highly significant African cultural library has
to raise less than $1-million from business to get it off the ground.

The structure and patterns of world trade, the inexorable need for
corporations to find new markets, the ownership of media and cultural
conglomerates in the north and their global reach, and the advancement
of technology all mean that the values, the world views, the ideas and
the interests of those who have resources will come to dominate
increasingly. Where there are alternative values, ways of understanding
and viewing the world, alternative systems of thought and patterns of
human behaviour in relation to each other and their environment, there
simply are not the resources to project these into the global terrain,
where they may compete with those of the resourced.

But, before we complain too much or feel too resentful, let=EF=BF=BDs refle=
ct on
the resentment that others may feel towards us for the similar role that
we are increasingly playing in Africa.