Technology and Power

Technology is power. Having just refamilarized myself with Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, I am reminded that technology can be used as a powerful oppressor. Whether intentional or not. Where once being poor meant not having enough to eat, a place to sleep, access to education, today it denies you access to the cyber world. A world we live in more and more every day.

I was not surprised to learn that most of my colleagues don’t have PC’s. I was surprised that most of them had never had an email address and could not conceptualize navigating the web. It’s simply a matter of exposure.

Recently, the volunteer house in which eight tubaabs were living, awaiting regional assignments, was robbed. The burglars sawed the metal bars off the wall, broke the glass and then stole four computers and ipods, several cell phones and a pair of sandals right out of their rooms as they slept. I count myself as terribly lucky for having escaped unscathed. I had just moved to my Kaolack cave.

Upon hearing about such an incident, I was immediately frustrated by my organizations lack of security. I also thought it unjust when the organization hesitated to buy replacement lap tops for the victims to use for the remainder of their stay. Their justification: they can’t even afford laptops for their Senegalese employees (who make up 99% of the organization). I reasoned that those Senegalese employees were at least getting paid.

Now that the newly purchased laptops are residing with the volunteers, I question this line of reasoning. People get robbed here constantly. After the incident, a Senegalese friend explained how one night she came home to an empty house (even the couches were gone). And this is just one recount of the many stories that were offered up in sympathy. Whose responsibility is it really to secure your possessions?

It’s true that the volunteers have built their lives around computers. The West demands it. Some volunteers who were writing their thesis or in the midst of a university program, would have been forced to return home. Senegal is not yet so demanding. But of course the argument rises that a lack of PC’s is one of the reasons Senegal is still developing.

Listening to my Senegalese colleagues admit their ignorance about computers and the necessity for a computer in order to do their work well was quite compelling. So who deserves those new laptops more? The volunteers or the Senegalese staff?