Are the processes of digitalisation of the society and eGovernance all been hijacked by the militarised cyber junta? In some sense, one could claim so, as the small green men have invaded the router rooms, built up backdoors and raided peoples homes in order to claim their authority to run the show. Most of these performances bear little to none reasoning, but indeed they are very powerful acts of theatre, to proclaim widely the capabilities of these new cyber caliphates. What's sad in this process, is that people are again reduced to be mere pieces in the game of beasts, and their value is reduced from none to the small tiny worth of their lives to the caliphates. The new cyber identity bears the notion of obedience to the imposed cybersecurity standards and commands. “Change your password!”, they yell, “encrypt your WiFi connection!”, and the whole identity of the people becomes reduced to the attachment and obedience to these rules, while the cyber command ensures people comply, globally, and if they do not, who knows what will happen. To enforce such a command towards the people, particular and various spectacles are required, to demonstrate the capabilities. No-one will obey someone who just pops up claiming to be the sovereign, but as soon as Facebooks are taken away, or in fact, surveillance means being leaked into the public, it is sure that the masses will grow up the willingness for obedience and acknowledge the identity and authority of the new caliphate.
This all bears down to the dangerous theatre, where the world is the stage, to demonstrate the capabilities of the legacy nations, as they rehearse shutting down sites, tracking down peoples laptops, and building up the power of evidence around digital fingerprints in order to take down anyone who does not demonstrate sufficient level of compliance to the new sovereign. On the other level, the Olympic games are defaulting back to the nationalism, as it is known that this appeals to the public. Instead of encouraging and supporting the people to go out, explore and network, indeed to play with the devil, the Olympic games aim to confine and build up the digital cages around the people, to ensure their loyalty stays to the sovereign and that they were not even aware of what is happening outside the narrow world and limited sight.
As the people will sense on what is happening, that the unknown is approaching, the limits of the comfort zone are just around the corner, it is only natural for them to fall back to the old ideas and schemes. Sticking to the old nationalism and its institutions is understandable, yet the old is unable to respond or provide security to tackle the challenge of the new and unknown, partly because it is itself part of the game, and partly because it has so strong legacy attachment to the territoriality and other obsolete themes which once were erected up to support the identity building process of nation-states, which now has become more or less obsolete.
While the legacy caliphates and sovereigns are neglecting the wellbeing of their people and concentrating into militarising the network infrastructure, institutions and surrounding loyalties, many people are already building up attachments to the modern transnational entities, as security providers globally, and more viable and potent in doing so. Let it be corporations, organisations or even some prototypes of post-national states, people express the creativity to survive even when their sovereign would collapse or grow hostile. The winners in the Olympic games could be assumed to form the womb to deliver the new modern state, which is not basing its ideology for the industrial exploitation of the people as workforce, and which by nature is non-territorial and can provide feasible narratives to build up the identity for attachment, for the native digital generation.
Author
Kristo Helasvuo, Guest Author.