National Indian Telecommunications Initiative
By James Decker
Today,
"opening up to other cultures" is an unambiguous reference
to economic expansion. After all, prosperity is understood to be the
reward and the result of democracy, the destiny of the free. When
seeking inspiration for the consitution of a new nation, Benjamin
Franklin "opened up" to principles and possibilities that
were not so incontrovertibly convertible. Franklin turned to the democratic
principles first established in the founding constitution of the Six Nations Iroquois
Confederacy. Here, leaders were servants of the people, prosperity
was a notion inseparable from peace, and to promote peace was thought
to be the purpose of human life. The concept was clear, but as words
always do… peace and freedom shifted in meaning. Treaties
are now about free-trade, legal instruments of corporations, not individuals
or their leaders. Richard Stallman has noted that free-trade treaties
"ignore the effect on the distribution of wealth within the country
and whether the treaty is going to make that more uneven." In
fact, the evenness that is preserved serves primarily to streamline
the control of property, labor, and just about anything except peace.
Corporations fill their days trying just to contain the entropy of
their legal properties. As "stockholders" are instructed
daily in their social darwinist beliefs,
where will the nonfinancial stakeholders gather to make their own
means? If we open up to how marginalized communities are getting
along today, we might discover notions that take root a decentralized
future. For Native Americans, intellectual capital and ownership rights
have never had the support of legal teams or financial muscle. Asserting
"intellectual copyright" has been a matter of challenging
mis-information and defeating stereotypes that dilute their histories
and stifle cultural growth. We might draw from such non-combative,
broader sensibilities regarding
property a remembrance of culture apart from copyright. Such
remembrances may not draw the attention of political leaders despite
an uncertain future where the shifting words will be "nation"
and "state".
I recently introduced myself to Karen Radney Buller at MIT's Race
in Digital Space conferece. Buller is Comanche and the founder and
President of the National Indian Telecommunications
Institute (NITI). 
She
has twice given testimony to Congress on the importance of basic infrastructure
to tribal communities. She explains that subsidies for e-rate (Internet
access for schools) never included Indian reservations. That 78% of
homes on the Navajo reservation are still without dial tone since
landlines cost upwards of $3000 per phone pole. But on the peer-to-peer
private discussions amongst friends, the talk may be less about Congress
and more about wireless and satellite technologies. NITI now actively
supports technical and cultural development of tribes nationwide.
Satellite broadband promises radically accelerate that effort. Today,
NITI trains teachers providing extensive curriculum models, lesson
plans, and resources for teachers and students. These are important
efforts to combat misinformation and preserve cultural heritage in
the emerging, non-corporate, global culture. NITI's sensibilities
are distinctive for not being founded on financial gain, but that
does not mean that individuals who benefit from NITI's efforts are
insensible to business opportunities. Tribal lands, after all, are
sovereign. Access to information, education and the potential of
providing e-commerce, skilled technical labor, and even tax shelters
will bring money to NITI members. All of this "opens up"
to a possible future where prosperity could again take its place beside
peace.