Nihao

Nihao!

Nihao means Hello in Taiwanese. We were greeted ‘nihao’ along with friendly smiles and waves upon our arrival in Taipei. On the first day of our CALD Political Communications Workshop, it was critical that we assess the capacity of our countries to use the different ways of communicating. It may be Nihao for others, Hello for some or Mabuhay in my language, clearly, knowing the right and suitable way of communicating is not only important, it is the only way of ensuring harmony and cooperation.

Connectivity is important if we are to reach across continents and oceans. But what if we’re not yet connected? One feels a sense of panic when you’re not wired, when you can’t connect, let alone, when you can’t even find the right buttons to get your laptop working in a foreign country. Speaking in both a figurative and a literal sense, our countries and our partners see our capacity to communicate as both a boon and a bane. We want to be wired but in some countries, its too expensive. In some countries, its not even available. In other countries, where its very cheap and the different modern tools are available, it is abused because of its pervasiveness and openness.

As a new friend, Abe Olandres, raised in one discussion, all tools have both advantages and disadvantages. I say, it is up to the user or the one that wields the tool that can determine if it will be used for good or evil…but this isn’t discussion on ethics. We all agreed that there must be transparency and accountability in all forms of political communications that are used to spread your message like wildfire. What is frightening though is if we don’t use these tools. Why so? Because you will be rendered obsolete if you don’t.

Connectivity is important if we are to penetrate the thoughts of an infinite number of people, and for them to delve into your ideas and use it maybe just maybe in their lives. All democracies are taking advantage of connectivity and utilizing it as the best platform to get their message across across their country and the globe. Liberal democracies use all the tools that the world has to offer – connecting to the infinite possibilities of the world wide web, texting to a mobile provider of information, really simple syndication. If these are not made available to all parts of the globe, then the fear of the unknown becomes real. The fear of not being able to touch base with the rest of world must be prevented. People need people. Saying Nihao. Logging on. Typing your latest solution for making the world a better place. The ability to communicate is the very first significant step to fixing the world’s problems. I found in the GCAST website that Bono’s One Campaign chose GCAST to help get the word out about Africa’s problems. We need to know what’s going on in the rest of Asia if we are to help each other as a region. When a tsunami hit Asia, the first to respond were those willing to donate by mobile phone. Wow. Imagine what fellow Asian Liberals can do to help other Asian Liberals…