Genocide Meets Google

Media has always keenly quoted Thomas Jefferson: “If I had to make a choice, to choose the government without the press or to have the press but without the government, I will select the latter without hesitation.”

The dilemma seems particularly applicable as of late. Last week, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum teamed up with Google to allow every Google Earth user to visualize the genocide committed by the Janjaweed militia in the Darfur region of Sudan.

The system is remarkably simple: The “Crisis in Darfur” interface adds a layer to Google Earth that makes the region’s sorrows interactively accessible to anyone that has downloaded the free software. Any user can zoom in on burning villages and access pictures and text describing what has happened there. Maps, text, and images are seemingly worth much more than a thousand words.

And this initiative is aimed at more than scattered techies. Like anything undertaken by Google these days, the scale is colossal: Over 200 million people have already downloaded Google Earth since it became available in 2005. According to executives at both the company and the museum, this is just the first in a series of collaborations to highlight past genocides and (the threat of) future ones wherever they may arise.

But this collaboration is a symbol of an even larger phenomenon. For decades, if not centuries, democratization has been a pillar of the Western ideal of progress. Whereas political democratization took world wars and falling empires to evolve, media democratization is quickly becoming a tangible reality through publicly accessible content over the Internet. Web 2.0 is ever furthering its reach.

Unlike its more primitive predecessor, this enhanced web is not merely about people going online to request content, but involves individuals actively contributing and exchanging information themselves. MySpace and Facebook thrive on content created by some users and downloaded by others. Whereas blogs spawn localized news and controversial opinions, websites are increasingly emphasizing interactive information available to anyone willing enough to click on it.

The underlying problem is that when it comes to Darfur, governments have thus far done little more than talking. Neither the U.S. nor the E.U. are willing to forcefully intervene for humanitarian reasons, and rising powers like China have undermined multilateral economic pressure by signing trade treaties with the Khartoum regime that sponsors the Janjaweed paramilitaries. And as usual, with no willing hard power around, United Nations’ resolutions seem at best inconsequential.

Now, media democratization presents us all with a real test: Thanks to Google Earth and the seemingly endless flow of information from all around the world, we can all see and know like never before.

The scarier question is: Do we want to see?

Democratization is an enlightened ideal and the West’s reality, but it is only beneficial if individuals transcend apathy and get involved. Updating Jefferson to better fit our times, it is not about choosing between media and government, but about using democratized media to appropriately influence government.



Pierpaolo Barbieri ’09, a Crimson associate editorial chair, is a history concentrator in Eliot House.