This piece is inspired by a BBC news article -  A world without planes.

Suddenly, children reminisce of old times and wonder why the older folks were so proud of the technological advancements of their time. They grudge till date about how global travel was affected for one week when Eyjafjallajökull erupted in 2010. How humans of the day could not innovate and invent new means of travel or better “aeromobiles” as we call them, than the huge aluminum shells they clustered in for hours on end. Dust particles and birds sometime impeded their travel – hazards they called them, resulting in complete shutdown of airports and global travel. Days later, they are on about the millions of their currency they have lost from the resulting lock-down. As much as they have contributed to the technological advancements of global travel, it still remains to our utter amazement, how in the 21st century they would build crafts without due considerations to the medium within which they traveled.

If they could only see what global travel have metamorphosed into. Ships the size of cities with all the comfort of a traditional home – apartment style comfort with all the amenities you could possibly imagine. Thousands and thousands of families move from one continent to another at will – truly global citizens. Visas, passports and travel documentations no longer an impediment to social or economic migration. Truly global citizens as declared by Articles 13 (1),(2) of the the universal declaration of human rights. Once they had classes – Business class, First class – segregated according to societal standing. The folly of their time. Wider seats, much better food, warmer blankets, and ever smiling hosts and hostesses were the distinctive characteristics of class separation. What compares with our current family communities – truly balanced, non segregated societies which travel together in our modern ships. We interact without segregation, distinction or classification. A truly open, transparent society.

If they could see that we only use our ships to migrate for pleasure rather than the need to be physically present at another global meet.

There is talk about some experimentation. A project by a 16 year old university professor on “holographic transportation.” While they talked about “out of body experience”, a concept which most of them could not nail down,  this project already in its version two, incorporates voice resolution into the senses components of our existing holographic experience. With the new version of voice resolution, we have eliminated the robotic non sensual tonality of our speech and improved on its projection to include pitch, emotions and feelings. This, in addition to the senses of touch, feelings, hearing, and seeing. A sixth sense they called it. A natural, integral part of being, existence, for us.

They basked in their advanced use of the hologram for election coverage. Flickering images that wowed the presenter of the day. We enjoy ours as an essential dimension of today’s existence. Not as a projection but as a state of being. We have developed it such that we could transport ourselves to Hawaii, feel the heat of the sun on our transported self; do the safari in Kenya and watch the animals stare in amazement at human creatures who are not scared of walking amongst them; or feel the sand dunes of the Sahara as it rests and buries us, only to re-emerge in the clear blue sea, swimming amongst fishes and in between the corals of the Indian ocean on the Mauritian coasts. Global travel is changed for ever! All because of Eyjafjallajökull!

Our ships are dust proof, bird proof and crash proof.

Our meetings happen in holographic conference venues. Participants meet from all parts of the world in preconceived places, in swiftness of seconds.

The world is no longer wired by fibre cables. Our technology uses the air waves, which ceases to become a scarce resource. Spectrum allocation is not a global phenomenon. Spectrum is smart and every kid could rent them, broadcast, and release them for later re-use. Spectrum space is no longer seen as a resource, neither does broadcast become a prerogative of governments or big media owners. The channels do exist for one to many government communication but they are rarely used as communication takes  a viral dissemination mechanism. Using “impulses”, government sends one to a node and then watch as it propagates across the entire globe. Social networks have again become mainstream and the core of existing personality, being and identity. And as people are not limited by distance, sending information from one to another largely depends on which ring in the ripple one belongs to at a given moment in time – and that as a matter of nanoseconds.

So, does that one week lockdown caused by Eyjafjallajökull such a complete lost in monetary terms? At the time, perhaps. But right now, it has completely changed the face of global travel and we have our fore fathers to thank for it.

I, again, find it difficult to post something to the blog this week. Not for reasons of a lack of what to write but rather because there are just too many things to talk about. Ok, too many things to write about aspects of life, society, culture, technology, principles, policy, pride, national identity, globalism or globalisation, education, educational technologies, etc, etc. And worse off, in my dilemma to find significance in these myriad of topics, I have to find the connection between them – the thin strand of commonality that links them, so that they make sense to me.

So I will try to start with globalism (noun, the attitude or policy of placing the interests of the entire world above those of individual nations or globalisation; verb, to extend to other or all parts of the globe; make worldwide) and link it to national pride and identity.

In 1960, when the Nigerian founding fathers gained independence from the British, a new national anthem was needed. One arrived from a combination of lyrics taken from the five best entries in a national competition. The first two lines of the new anthem (1960-1978) says,

Nigeria we hail thee,
Our own dear native land.

The second line of that anthem is similar, has the same number of syllables and almost ends with the same words as the first two lines of the Canadian anthem.

O Canada!
Our home and native land!

What is common to Estonia, Turkmenistan, Lithuania, Zimbabwe and Haiti? The reference to “native land” in all their anthems. Estonian (My Native Land, My Pride and Joy); what was called, the Black National Anthem (Lift Every Voice and Sing) has a reference to standing true to “our native land”; The Turkmenistan anthem has a line – “Native land, sovereign state”; The Lithuanian anthem – “working for the good of their native land and for all mankind”; the third verse of the Zimbabwean anthem beseeches God to bless our “native land” and so does the last line of the Haitian Anthem – pledging allegiance to the land and willing to die for it.

Besides the fact that some of these nations (Canada, Nigeria, Zimbabwean) may once have been under British colony and rule, these common references may highlight plagiarism in today’s context (D. Hlinka) but had nothing to do with it one or two centuries back. In fact, references or similarities in anthems may have been used as linkages, identity and relationships to colonial heritages so much that arguments for plagiarism or ownership of rights as today’s copyright laws demand were downplayed in the face of patriotism or identity to a higher power, colony or tradition. So, “God Save the Queen”, may no longer be used in most of these countries but the existence of lines that link these pasts to date, in these anthems may still remain an indication of such allegiance. What we sometimes fail to remember is that lines such as these moved from one country to another perhaps without the use of technology as we knew it – in their audio visual sense (the use of radio and TV) but technology did however play a part in the globalization of national pride and identity as defined by the anthems that characterized these nations. The ships, books, warring vessels and colonial tendencies enhanced by technology did play a role in how these words found their ways into widely dispersed national anthems.

So when Michael Buble started his performance by singing “Maple Leaf Forever” at the closing ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics, he ended it by singing the last lines of O’ Canada invariably linking centuries, times, identities, stereotypes, national pride, global influences, etc.

What was most fascinating during the presentation was the respect to time. It started at 7.30pm CET and ended promptly at 10pm CET. With all the chaos in between, the timing was still perfect. There were several points of failure in the entire production and one that stood out to me was the little “puck” skating in the midst of the giant hockey players. He could have tripped or delayed the production by a minute or two but everything remained perfectly timed. Perhaps David Atkins, the director of the production must receive credit for this but timing was important especially if this production was to be viewed by the global community represented at the games and separated by several time zones. Technology had to be respected and technology had to be used with respect to bring an exciting viewing experience to the global audience of the games.

Buble, sang a version of the song with a reference to lands; “Our land of peace, where proudly flies, The Maple Leaf forever.” Perhaps the common thread that linked all of these, from the time of colonial era signified by the 1812 version that referenced the queen to Buble’s (actually Radian’s,) 1997 version, Maple Leaf Forever is not just a reference to a flag flying in the sky but to one in which more significant value exists than meets the ordinary eye.

Background

The democratization of democracy is what modern internet technology brings into traditional people culture and society. The democratic features of web 2.0 tools have completely unfounded the rather stifling tendencies that may have characterized governance and the styles with and in which it is practiced. Combined with the pervasiveness of mobile phones, modern web tools have, and will continue to disrupt the once centralized power centered governance forms and transform them to those in which powers are extended to the edges, the peripheries, where standard forms of governance were, in the first place, designed. It is as if participatory governance was waiting for a catalyst that will accelerate the combustion of citizen involvement and power management at the center; a bridge that would link two very dependent but often disjointed entities in the governance process – the governed and the governors. The glue that will crystallize the relationship that is required for progressive and forward thinking nation states – entities. It is perhaps the conceptualization of web 2.0, not as the end in itself but as a means to an end2 that seeks to bring a certain dimension of ubiquitousness to this technological sphere. Indeed, technology, in and of itself may not in any direct way change the course of nature but it is its application to the socio-economic aspects of living that brings about this very disruptive tendencies that we only now see a tip of. It is yet still in a phase where life is totally dependent on it but it is not too long before over-dependence gives way to what becomes tradition, culture and finally defines an identity of a people or society. For it is the layering of certain forms, norms, and habits onto tradition that results in culture and identity.

Certain characteristics define today’s internet technology developments. For instance, the social networking platforms carry a collaborative characteristics of sharing, of community ownership, and of dependence for and on information flow. They further highlight the fact that the voice of the community do actually lie with the people of the community themselves. It is in these forms that modern forms of technology assumes an African attribute of dependence, of communal living, of democratic voices in the community village square, of ubuntu – a state of living that consist not of itself alone but of the community as a whole and as an entity of itself and by itself. So, when modern technology tools are adapted to the traditional African society, they present a form most powerful, most pervasive and most disruptive of what have become a large deviation and a variation of our traditional governance structure and style. Indeed, these tools could play an important role in the return to the forms of governance and administration as we once knew it – in the village square participatory forms, in which every citizen has a say in the price of fish in the next market day. Perhaps the adaptation of technology to normal societal forms may pose the greatest of challenges to the revolution of our now imbibed governance styles, but that may be the reasons for which they must and should be introduced in the first place. Like alluded, not as an end it itself but as a means to an end. In a form that it does not change what already consists but rather a layering of it to existing culture and tradition. This is expressed today in the way, for instance, the mobile phones have become an essential and integral tool in African society. Perhaps leveraging our vocal culture but more so layered over it to provide a now visible but unobserved and unrecognized neo-techno-cultural African society – the dependence on technology for daily living. It is this unobtrusive but pervasive adaptation that I speak of.

The Ghana Elections and the Role of modern technology in cultural democracy

As with any process, culture or society, things will happen whether technology is present or not. The sun will rise and set, business will run as usual and society will engage in its affairs as always. People will speak to each other whether the mobile phones exists or not. They do not need modern social networking internet tools to relate with themselves. Indeed, the very topological structures and forms of their immediate community is designed in forms that social networks have assumed, way before these tools ever got invented. Ultimately, Africa do not need these tools to run its affairs.

But also, as with everything, a little help as provided by technology goes to accelerate if not complement the efforts of normal practices. An abacus would help tally the numbers much more effectively than if the counting was done on the finger tips or if the marks were made on the sand. So, would a calculator and consequently a computer aid in the final sales of fish by the local fisherman in the traditional village setting.

So, when the opportunity to layer modern collaborative technology tools became apparent during the Ghana elections, it was not only out of necessity but more to leverage what have already become an integral part of the African society today.

To start with, social forms were recognized and leveraged. For instance, the social relationship between the electoral commission and the media was synonymous with existing cultural and traditional forms. I would argue that this relationship was the bedrock of the transparency that characterized the electoral process in Ghana – the establishment of a trust relationship that must remain respected throughout the electoral process. Indeed, the trust relationship was necessary in order not to call the election before its time even though the immediate sense of reason seeks to do otherwise. While technology itself cannot ensure the firmness of a trust relationship, it is the layering of technology on the relationship that enhances the trust itself. To expatiate, the use of twitter, (a web 2.0) tool, which is democratic in nature, to announce provisional results in an up-to-date form, while the use of a blog site to announce Electoral Commission verified results only goes to enforce that relationship. Images, flickred to the site further provided an eye to the happenings at pollen stations and around the elections in ways that benefited the absent. Together, these tools have ensured a powerful but yet simplified and transparent forms of monitoring. Eyes, voice and ears were needed everywhere, and the tools only went to ensure that these happened.

Now, the Ghana process was initiated with journalists, media persons, that themselves were new to the process. While they may have received their capacity reinforced in the use of modern technology tools for election monitoring, the global sense of their contribution may have eluded them. It is this lack of a fuller, more holistic understanding of the process that may pose a challenge to the larger more disruptive nature of participatory democracy. For if, only an ‘elitist’ few media practitioners are skilled enough to ‘contribute’ to knowledge on the elections, this certainly would not be representative of the electorate nor its wishes. The electorate is a number that far surpasses the the quantities that our representative eyes, ears and voice offered during the Ghana elections. Indeed, the ideal is for citizens themselves to be empowered in the use of the ‘tools’ that have become an essential part of their culture and identity. To use these tools in airing their views, opinions; and to participate in the democratic process. The quality of gleanings will improve, the voices will be numerous and transparency would be insurmountable If a check and balance, as provided by these tools were to come into play in the electoral process. While this larger test bed may present ambitious intentions potentially jeopardizing these concepts, it may be possible to incentivise citizen participation. This should be the next phase, not only in the process leading to the elections but, most importantly, the post election process where citizens are themselves involved in the monitoring of new governments and administrations.

Conclusions

We are only beginning to see the impact that Web 2.0 tools have on the daily lives of an average citizen, indeed, in the cultural and traditional forms that define today’s global citizen. The potential, mind blowing tendencies will define the way people interact with themselves, live amongst themselves and determine how they arrive at decisions – critical or trivial. If it does not outrightly take over the forms by which democracy is characterized, it would not be long before it actually takes over completely. And we would be best prepared to handle its disruption by the way we position ourselves.

— footnotes

What rules guided ‘blogging’ in ancient days and how can we correlate
the freedoms of those days with those of today?

The expression of knowledge as defined by Egyptian hyroglyphics was a profound and fundamental way of  self expression at a time when the world still grappled with tacit knowledge. The one way of stiffling this art of self expression was the ban placed on it by the invading romans. Today, hyroglyphics is lost and there are hardly any present expressions of it.

This is akin to the repressive stifling laws that have characterized the media today.  Represeive regimes have used draconian laws to suppress the voices of the media and these laws will make their way to the Internet space as
countries continue to grapple with cross border issues, jurisprudence, jurisdiction, laws, norms, regulations vis a vis the highly unrestrictive and perversive nature of the Internet.

Could it be that the blogging in the past were purely self regulated?
Who gave the spaces for self expression in the caves and what forms of
rules were employed for self expression in those spaces? Can those
characteristics be use to define a framework for self expression in
the blogosphere today and by extension, the online media? Or must
totally newly created rules be formed to govern this new space?

I believe that an expression of whatever guiding principle we choose
must reflect an African position such as recognizes our orality and
culture and not merely an expression of an internationally implemented
law which does not in any way reflect our African realities.

Self regulation may be sufficient but we all know that self regulation
in the African governance space may not last long before it is twisted for selfish gains.

I am at the 40th anniversary of FESPACO, a biannual event that bring together filmakers, films, intellectuals, everyone to a festival of celebration of creativity. This event is hosted in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso – an ancient West African city.

This is my first FESPACO. I am impressed, the crowd, quality of production of films, the intellectual discuss had around the event and creativity in Africa, etc. But I am also perturbed as I hear stories of woe around the table. “This might be the last FESPACO we will attend with our students,” Dr. Africanus Aveh said about the hassles of the current FESPACO where he has been attending for years with students from his University of Ghana, Legon. He sees no reasons why he must come here every two years and the quality of service continues to dwindle.

Prof. Kofi Anyidoho, a professor from the same university mentioned his off camera discussions with organisers last 2 years, highlighting that the government of the country has decided to pull out of sponsorship. This year, more than half way into the festival, even the conference program has not been created nor distributed – buttressing the point of Africanus Aveh that tickets had to be paid for this year to visit the movie theaters, in spite of conference registrations which in previous years covered all costs, including access to the movies. Such changes dissuade entry to the theaters for which students and future creative artists have had great access and benefits. “Theaters are empty,” he said.

Could this be another case of a failed African project after 40 years of success? Given that FESPACO is the one event that generates the largest amount of foreign income to Burkina Faso. Why would the government seek to pull out of a success story like this?

These are discussions had around the table organised by CODESRIA, a pan African Research Institution seeking answers to how African’s can tell their stories and perhaps change the negative images, rewrite wrong history that has been told about the African continent and its citizens.

Given that FESPACO is an African event, perhaps this is where the African Union may want to step in, not from a political perspective but from a more supportive role such as may be expected from a regional institution which should seek to ‘cover’ its own, as a mother hen covers her chicks from the  hawk.

I had connected my iPod to Banshee on Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop to sync and charge, something I had faithfully done for two years prior to the incidence. One faithful morning, on plugging it, I noticed the sided crunched recognizable apple icon go on an off, in an endless loop of restarts and shutdowns. I reckoned the OS must have hit a snag and since I didnt have a windows machine nor a mac nor was there any known way of flushing its OS, I laid it aside and retired to the entertainment -less travails of West African airlines. So much for proprietorship. Deciding to move houses, and going through my study, I came across several gadgets and toys that boys like us found of utmost importance, life saving devices and necessities you should not be caught dead without. Things we justified to our wives and partners, were absolutely necessary and demanding of our family budgets over that dinner dress, that Christmas toy for junior or even that pre-dinner snack (friends can wait patiently while the real food comes to the table. Snack is over budgeted). I came across, a charger for my whal shaver. Shaver has always remained in my bathroom, but my hectic travel schedule had left its charger displaced between suitcases or shelves. Plus, its input voltage was 110 and not 220 thus special stepdown apparatus was required to juice it up – a tradition I could not patiently and meticulously sustain. Then I stumbled across my Palm Pilot Treo – one of those technologies that told me Palm had visions of the future way ahead of its time similar to IBM’s Lotus Notes/Domino which is still struggling in today’s wed development and application’s world. LN/D has elements of security that amazes the FBI, rapid application development that my eight year old could easily use to develop a web-based home-work tracking system and lots of in-betweens to cater for any cadre of technology user. I remember the Palm version with an inbuilt Wifi adapter coming out at a time when data over mobile technologies was still in its experimental stages. I didnt have one of those but I envied Sonnie who had purchased one in the guise of a Christmas gift – to himself. I postponed my purchase till the next holiday but alas, there were more appealing gadgets this year. I further stumbled across one of those portable DVD players which I remember buying to keep kids entertained but at the same time, quiet, focussed and ‘busy’ while you concentrated on the holiday route ahead traveling at dizzying speeds. I would forever be grateful to it for that 18 hour drive from Dallas, TX to Destine and Orlando, Florida months after Katherina hit.. What was I thinking? The painful part of this exercise was the lockdown of the car stereo system through a self generated FM transmission to the booming soundtrack of Muffet Comes to Town, the bold voice of Kermit and the high pitched sound of Ms. Piggie, or those sounds of Dr. Seuss on some adventurous path to certain discoveries. Something’s got to give, and it was my music. These Chinese version portable players could play anything. From region 1-4 DVDs to MP3s, MPEG Videos, and VCDs which underscores the amazing distributions systems of Nollywood – the Nigerian movie industry. It came in handy, patched through series of red, white and yellow cables to my flat screen TV when my heavily expensive Samsung DVD hometheatre system decided it would only play DVDs it wanted. I needed to watch Prison Break. I am still way behind in season 2 but I will take my time and be patient with my new found old toy. I stumbled across my slim Canon digital camera and an old Sony camcorder. The camcorder died because I believe it had a time bomb in it. It worked perfectly until a certain year when it clearly said, ‘I am old enough, I need to be replaced with a more modern Sony version.’ And then it gave up the ghost to this day. I am still tweaking it with the hope that it would come back to life like my iPod which when I plugged to my Ubuntu Hardy-Heron 8.04 decided it would be recognized and would trip off my current radio session playing on Rythymbox 0.11.5 on Gnome ending one whole year of mourning. Hurray!

These events do not so much amaze me as the comments I received on my facebook page after posting the message about my iPod coming back to life. Two of my friends linked it to the Obama presidency. Cathy says “Obama is President……don’t ask me where the connection is….look deep within…” and Yiso says “”Yeah…Apparently there will be a lot of unexplained occurances, a black man runs the world… today the sun is shaped like a moon, at least in SA. Your ipod is merely going with the flow….”

I could not understand the linkages between the Obama presidency and the resurrection of my gadgets except perhaps that the only common denominator is the timing of the happenings. Coincidence? Perhaps. Luck? I am not sure. I may not believe in luck but I do believe in time and chance happening to all. You must be situated at a particular position at an opportune time in which you are hit by a brick load of embarrassing favors or disasters, as the case may be. It only happens once – when the earth, sun, moon and other cosmic bodies are aligned in a straight line.

Why was Laurent Nkunda, the Congo rebel leader arrested a night or two after the Obama inauguration? What has that got to do with happenings miles and continents apart? I stopped by in Kivu late last year for one of the most memorable 3 days of my life. The peace and tranquility of lake Kivu and the relative calm in Gisenyi on the Rwandan side when thousands are being killed just 10 minutes away. And I worried that the heavily mineral deposits of this region will be siphoned out unaccounted until something happens in the Western world that brings transparency to governance, to international trade, to the interests of the African people. To understanding the inequalities of classing Africa with Europe and the Middle East in the so called trade classification of the EMEA region. What commonalities exist between Europe, the Middle East and Africa that would warrant such classifications? What implication does this have on the purchasing power of the African continent, its countries and people, on software, hardware, DVDs, iPods, iPhones and all the gadgets that Sonnie and I would like to have for Christmas. Where does transparency in trade come into the picture? When is the African continent liberated from these so called international trade/business classifications? When does transparency come into the diamond trades of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia; the black oil bunkering deals off the Niger Delta coasts of Nigeria; or the gold and methane from Lake Kivu and other parts of Rwanda and Congo? Me thinks that the capture of Nkunda has a whole lot to do with the American administration. The same way the influential cabals of the Texan oil trade affects global oil pricing. For the first time we begin to see what may have been considered secretive and suitable only to a select few people – the insides of the white house, the swearing in ceremony of government admin staff, the commissioning of peace envoys to the Middle East, Afganistan and Iraq, Senate hearings and approvals of the American Secretary of State – linens and all, laid bare in public places for persons to criticize and agree with lesser evils. In a one phrase sentence, Obama, in his inauguration speech sums up the despondent images of the African presidency. Paraphrased, it would sound like, ‘woe to him or her, that holds on to power for their selfish gains…through corruption and deciet and the silencing of dissent. You are on the wrong side of history.’ They are old fashion. Transparency would reveal those US based and off shore accounts maintained by several links far removed from the average African president and politician, past or present but yet tied to them by a fiberglass thin umbilical cord of control. Transparency is the opposite of corruption. My iPod became transparent and thats why I would come back to life and I could read it on a linux based PC instead of its proprietary Windows or Mac machine.

Transparency would soon come to my iPhone and to Africa. I have hope. But the discussion on hope is yet for another time.

There is a black man in the white house and modern culture had a whole lot to do with it.

The simple statements, ‘go vote’, which President elect Obama often made appealed to popular culture but mostly those, youths, new voters and internet and technology saavy generation. Telecommunications had a lot to do with it and the average age group of supporters and voters bringing the first African American to the white house is a reflection of modern ‘culturism’.

What I would term modern culture is all the elements of popular culture plus today’s concept and culture of openness facilitated by technology. The culture of openness, freedom, rights and expression becomes more profound in recent times. Larry Lessig, Yochai Benkler and Pierre Levy would talk about the culture of the internet and postulate on the openness and freedom that it should have. Open access movements, in the last decade have kicked every ethics of knowledge out the window, challenging the culture of hoarding knowledge for power. Indeed, empowerment has come with a large degree of openness. The advancements of the internet, user generated content, the bottom up approach to information and creation becomes additional elements of traditional culture, making it more modern.

Modern culture does not primarily erode aspects of traditional culture. It however, enforces it and gives it an opportunity to thrive using modern technology as a medium for widespread dissemination. The traditional social element would fit into modern culture when they spread technology enablers on their bread of traditionalism. This is the dividing line between modern and traditional culture. The ability for one to recognise the gulf that separates modern culture from tradition, and the bridge that links them.

Obama recognised this and therefore took the approach of modern culture that such entities like facebook, linkedin, myspace, google, etc are characteristic of. He challenged traditional culture of allowing a cap over his campaign finance and would rather take the approach of unlimited possibilities when every one dollar from unseen, unknown millions would amount more than $85million dollars of tax payers money.

Obama would use the internet to facilitate pyramid marketing techniques to encourage voters, volunteers, and donors to move one candidate forward.

He would use the mobile phone knowing clearly, that communications is the oil that wheels mass mobilisation. And though he could stand at a podium and do the famous, ‘I have a dream’ speech, he would rather disperse his ‘voice’ via sms and mobile phone calls.

If the world were to vote, it would be a landslide. The seesaw would tip as all weights shift to one side. The appeal to global audience, knowing the support that comes from the international scene was capitalised on by media networks. Though journalists feign fairness, one could tell certain biased reporting to global audience. He is much liked and thus appealed more to global consciences, a reflection of the after effect of modern culture.

The face of todays internet is the face of the average youth. The average youth, well mobilised can change anything including change itself. Thats modern culture and that was the difference between Obama and McCain.