SPEECH
BY PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC MARTTI AHTISAARI AT A
SEMINAR MARKING THE 20TH
ANNIVERSARY OF Institut Français des
Relations Internationales
IN PARIS ON 4.11.1999
A EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE ON THE FUTURE OF THE
INFORMATION SOCIETY IN A GLOBALISING WORLD
France and Paris are
an excellent setting in which to ponder the nature of
the information society.
We know France as a
country that is a pioneer in questions of the
information society. A fact that was understood here
years before it was recognised elsewhere is that the
most important thing in building an information
society is to get the entire nation and all citizens
involved in the process. Our host country is also a
cultural great power with not only a splendid
history, but also a strong grasp on the future.
France is a central actor in international economic
and intellectual interaction.
I am pleased that
France and Finland have especially close cooperation
in questions of the information society.
***
Here in a country
whose own revolutionary ideals ushered in a new epoch
in the history of our continent we can say in all
good conscience that we are again living in an era of
revolution.
Technocrats have never
triggered a revolution. The revolutionaries have been
the people with a clear view of the direction in
which they wanted society to develop. They have been
able to give verbal expression to the values in which
they believed. "Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity" was the slogan that two centuries
ago set in motion a change that led to our modern
Europe. The same three words still reflect the ideals
in which we Europeans believe. Can we, however, still
say in all good conscience that these or some other
values are guiding our decision-making in questions
relating to the information society? Indeed, can we
say at all what values we want a European information
society to be based upon?
What we are dealing
with is a challenge facing the whole of Europe. The
citizens of our countries have every right to ask
what objectives we are striving for in European
cooperation.
Europe should now
rally its forces and move up to the vanguard of
development of the information society, as a
continent which reconciles the requirements of
technology, the economy and balanced social
development with the rights of the individual. The
goal must be that our entire society – young and
old, the successful and the less-fortunate,
individuals and communities – are allowed to
have a stake in development. A social breakthrough
like that will give us an opportunity to demonstrate
what our values are.
Next I want to deal
with the transition towards the information society
from the particular aspects of the economy, culture
and democracy.
***
The transition towards
the information society is strongly altering the
structures of the economy. It is spawning an enormous
services market. It is also forcing us to make many
difficult political decisions. Perhaps I can take the
example of Finland in the present decade to describe
the situation on a more general level. My reason for
taking my own country as a case study is that we have
long experience of the development of an information
society. Therefore, as pioneers, we were among the
first to face many new challenges.
Increasing competition
in the telecommunications sector in Finland was a
conscious decision based on an initiative of our own.
Deregulation of the market began already in the 1980s
and had advanced so far by the beginning of the
following decade that access was completely free.
Unimpeded access to the market and the ensuing
competition facilitated growth in the range of
services on offer and led to the breakthrough of new
services such as the Internet. This, in turn, has
been reflected in other sectors of the economy.
Growth and evolution towards the information society
would not have been possible had constraints on
competition remained in place.
However, it would be
something of an embellishment of the facts if we were
to attribute the transformation of our economy solely
to the wisdom of our political decision-makers or
claim that it had been a planned process. Economic
historians often emphasise the importance of creative
destruction. We in Finland experienced our fair share
of that, too.
In the beginning of
the present decade, a confluence of several factors
drove our economy into a deeper recession than had
been experienced in any Western country since the
second world war. Public finances plunged into crisis
and unemployment soared within a short period from a
couple of per cent to many times that. Nearly every
Finn gained personal experience of economic distress.
The established
structures of our economy were immediately put to the
test. Our patterns of thinking likewise came in for
re-examination. We knew there was no going back to
the earlier world. We had to set about developing
something new.
Therefore we
channelled our energy into developing new technology.
Our research and development inputs had been
increasing for a long time anyway, and we had plenty
of well-trained personnel to call on.
Sacrifices began
paying off. Our competitiveness improved and our
companies began doing better and better in
international competition. New technology and
especially telecommunications equipment became a new
supporting pillar of our economy, which went into an
upswing that has remained strong to this day. Our
unemployment has now fallen below the EU average. We
were also able to join the Euro Zone and enter a
period of low inflation.
What could our example
teach others? The fact that what is especially
involved is a change of mind-set. The fact that we
managed to cope with the crisis was due in large
measure to our being able to shake off old attitudes
when we had to and turn our gaze towards the future.
There may also be
other lessons to be learned from our experience.
Structural change has, namely, prompted new
questions. Although development is bringing our
nation as a whole economic success, prosperity is
unevenly divided. Up to now, the distribution of
incomes in Finland has been one of the most equitable
in Europe. The Finns are now growing richer on
average, but that does not guarantee that our society
is just and fair.
It is clear that
enterprise and special ability must be rewarded. It
is equally clear that a society divided into winners
and losers can not be just and equitable. Therefore
we cannot invest all of our resources in elites. We
must see to it that all citizens are on an equal
footing when it comes to availing themselves of the
potential of the information society. This is a
central goal.
***
A pattern of thinking
that has ingrained itself on our minds in recent
decades is that development leads towards bigger
units, greater concentration and disappearance of
diversity. It has often been feared that this applies
both to the economy and culture.
It would appear that
the development of the information society is
shattering this idea. Our transition has been, in
fact, from large organisations towards flexible
networks. The value of diversity as a source of
creativity and flexibility is being understood better
all the time. Increasingly often, smallness is a sign
of strength rather than of weakness; more often than
not, David is more agile than Goliath. Today it is
possible for a computer operating system developed by
a Finnish student to challenge the world’s
biggest software house to a contest on equal terms.
Have we understood
what kinds of opportunities are now opening up? It
might now be possible to level out, in a way that has
never been done before, developmental disparities
both between and within countries. What is involved
is a capacity for innovation, an ability to apply
expertise in a new way. That is a genuinely
inexhaustible natural resource.
We must start
developing completely new kinds of solutions and also
a new kind of regional policy. With the aid of
telecommuting, distance learning, telemedicine and
other applications of telecommunications, we can make
it possible to use the skills and innovation
resources of remote and sparself-populated areas. If
we are able to declare in festive speeches that new
technology is reducing the relevance of distance, why
should we not believe in it also in our practical
lives?
The same thinking is
applicable globally. It would now be possible to
offer many a less-developed country an opportunity to
acquire expertise and play its part in development
through a substantially smaller investment than would
earlier have been necessary. I make so bold as to
believe that steering a course towards an information
society could be one way of getting places like
Africa onto a path of strong development.
***
The economy is not, of
course, the only thing that progress towards the
information society is affecting. It is probably
influencing culture even more. People’s
lifestyles and the ways in which they contact each
other are changing. Borders between nations are
likewise blurring as distance loses significance.
Change is affecting
also small cultural regions. We are following with
special interest the way in which languages like
Finnish are being influenced. A frequently-expressed
fear is that major languages will gain an
overwhelming position and gradually smother smaller
ones.
That has not happened.
Of course we need skill in foreign languages to be
able to go about our business in the world. At the
same time, however, I can tell you that the Finnish
language is more vital today than it has probably
ever been. Finnish is one of the official languages
of the European Union. Moreover, modern technology is
making it possible for more and more Finns to avail
themselves of services in their mother tongue while
abroad. Naturally, the same goes for speakers of
other languages. This opportunity is especially
important in a continent like Europe, where there is
such an enormous wealth of linguistic diversity.
Already now many
small, geographically dispersed groups are using
advanced technology to keep in touch. Herein lie the
seeds of great changes. From now on, people’s
identity will not be as rooted in their geographical
environment as it used to be. Their hobbies and
interests, views on society or religious beliefs will
assume a more central position. Thus societies are
becoming more pluralistic. In the information
society, minorities can be a de facto majority.
This ability of
minorities to maintain contact – even globally
– will lead to many positive things. It supports
linguistic and cultural diversity and it prevents the
majority from stifling the opinions of minorities. On
the other hand, it can also strengthen negative
forces whose attitude to some group or another is
hostile. However, censorship or surveillance is not
the way to defeat these forces. The strongest
antidote to them is a society that is healthy in its
foundations, and in which tolerance is a central
value.
***
Big social issues
always concern the individual. If we ask how
democracy can develop in the information society, we
must also ask what kinds of instruments it can offer
individual citizens.
Many non-governmental
organisations have already seized the new
opportunities. They keep in touch with each other and
try to influence public opinion through information
networks. I think we have had only a foretaste of how
this development can strengthen civil society.
The conventional
decision-making system must likewise boldly set about
restructuring itself. Citizens must be provided with
advance information about preparatory handling of
decisions and given an opportunity to participate in
discussions and decision-making. The experience that
local-government experiments have yielded indicate
that prejudices towards new methods of
decision-making are often unfounded.
The information
society is an important part of our lives, but our
operational models, administrative machinery and
management thinking are still based on the hierarchic
patterns of bygone days. We must learn to operate in
a new environment, one in which commands and
restrictions have given way for cooperation and where
open networks have replaced closed structures. It is
with regret that I must note that the European
administrative machinery still has a long way to go
in this thinking.
What can we learn from
the things that I have been talking about?
An evolving
information society contains great opportunities. We
have the possibility to build it in a way that
enables the ideals of liberty, common responsibility
and equality to come to fruition. Thus we are dealing
with more than just technology policy. It is a matter
of developing the whole of society on a basis of
shared values.
We must not be in a
state of perplexity as we await the future; instead,
we can now set about shaping it the way we want.
First of all we must
resolutely struggle against inequality. Experiments
in Finland have shown that the development of remote
and sparsely-populated areas can be stimulated by
increasing their inhabitants’ ability to exploit
the potential of the information society. It is
important to strengthen regional equality not only in
a European context, but also globally.
Secondly, we must also
get the older segment of the population involved in
the information society. A period of rapid change
calls on others besides the young to embrace new
things. We have gained good experience from, for
example, projects in which the roles of different age
groups have been reversed and children have started
teaching their parents IT skills in special study
circles. This has not only spread skills, but also
broken down intergenerational barriers.
Thirdly, we must
continue to work for tolerance. New technology is
making it easier to spread all kind of opinions, both
positive and hostile. Tolerance and protecting the
weak against the stronger will be more important in
the future. European societies can be healthy and
strong only if they are pluralistic and tolerant.
I am convinced that
Europe is able to cope with these challenges.
However, doing so will call for a lot of work and
revised thinking.
