In "Communication Flows and Flowmations" by Paul Adams the author talks about the "leapfrog phenomena" where a country that isn't as technologically developed skips over one form of communications technology to begin utilizing a newer form. He gives the example of how many countries that never had an extensive landline telephone network are jumping to embrace cell phones. Adams notes that the Gaza Strip is the number one of these "leapfroggers," having a 74 percent cell phone usage, despite its meager $1,500 per capita GDP.
Adams goes on to explain how insecurity and fear among the Palestinian population have contributed to a rate of personal cell phone use throughout the Occupied Territories that is much higher than the area's relative wealth would indicate. In fact, the ratio of cell phone use to GDP is higher in the West Bank and Gaza Strip than anywhere else in the world.
He concludes that the cell phone "is not the same medium in the Palestinian territories as it is in New York or Senegal. The medium is not just a technology but a complex, heterogeneous, network of relations between people, technology, money, ideas, and elements of place...Anomalous places with regards to media penetration have interesting stories to tell."
I've never been to the Gaza Strip, but I have spent in a month in the West Bank, so this passage really resonated with me. I saw firsthand how cell phone users would snap into action in the aftermath of a tank attack or a home demolition by the Israeli military. Often civilians, who were trapped indoors from military curfews, would call someone across the street, who would shout to his neighbor, who would, in turn, dial a relative further down the road. Because movement was so tightly restricted, the cell phone network became this living, breathing, thing that would spread out in all directions from wherever the sound of gunfire was coming from. The mere act of looking out your window too long was considered a violation of curfew and could draw gunfire. Many Palestinians would tell me how disorientated they became while waiting inside for days until the military trucks would drive by, announcing through their loudspeakers that the curfew would be lifted. And while not every family had a television, almost everyone had a cell phone. It became, during those days of curfew, their only link with the outside world.
Being a foreigner, I was allowed to walk the deserted streets while everyone else was kept indoors. Many days it was only me, the occasional military patrol, and a line of stray dogs. I could look up and see the shadows of people moving behind drawn curtains, talking on cell phones.
We've talked a lot in several of my classes about how certain forms of technology can, by their very nature, communicate their own message independent of whatever is being transmitted at the moment. This is something that Adams could have delved into more deeply as he examined the Palestinian cell phone phenomena.
I don't know if this is still the case, but when I visited the area in 2002 you couldn't call the West Bank with an Israeli cell phone, and Palestinians couldn't call Israel. You needed to either change the chip or carry two cell phones.
In this way the occupation and it's message of "you are under control" was built into the very design of the everyday technology people used. Not only were there fences, checkpoints, special roads, and different languages to keep Israelis and Palestinians from communicating with each other. They also couldn't just pick up a phone and call a friend or family member on the other side of the Green Line. The cell phone was a double-edged sword, both helping people to communicate and keeping them from communicating at the same time.
If you are being forced to live under a military occupation you need to communicate with the people you care about to let them know whenever violence is popping up, which is fairly often. But what can you do when the only form of communication you have access to is supporting and profitting from this occupation? This article touches on this issue for anyone who is interested:
http://www.whoprofits.org/Newsletter.php?nlid=46
-Dan Gordon
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