Gross Happiness Product : Internet in Bhutan

Bhutan meets the World Wide Web and the World Wrestling Federation. In words and images, ORVILLE SCHELL chronicles the intrusion of technology into this isolated mountain kingdom. LOOKING down from Kungachoeling Monastery through fluttering prayer flags to the blindingly green rice paddies of the Paro River Valley below, one feels utterly escaped from the surly bonds of Earth. Not far from me, a solemn monk lights incense before the Buddha. In the silence of this remote and lovely refugeone of the Royal Kingdom of Bhutan`s hundreds of functioning Tibetan Buddhist shrines-computer chips, frequent flyer miles, the World Trade Organization, and IPOs seem part of another world. Especially here on the Indian subcontinent, awash in corruption, ethnic struggle, illiteracy, pollution, poverty, and the clash of civilizations, Bhutan`s pacifism, paternalism, and egalitarianism stand apart. It is hardly surprising that people here often speak of "the outside world" as if it were another celestial body. Under the spell of this tranquil monastery, the unexpected hum of distant engines is like an unwelcome tocsin awaking one from reverie. I spot a minuscule white dot moving against a distant peak as one of Druk Air`s two small planes drifts down out of the cumulus clouds toward the country`s only airfield. The yearning of postmodern Westerners to escape the velvet shackles of our hard-won progress to places like Bhutan is hardly new. In ig2i, when the British governor of Bengal, Lord Ronaldshay, visited Bhutan, he too felt intoxicated at the idea of leaving the aggressive, modern world behind. "Just as Alice, when she walked through the looking glass, found herself in a new and whimsical world," he effused, "so we, when we crossed the Pa Chu [and entered Bhutan], found ourselves as though caught up on some magic time machine fitted fantastically with a reverse." From such accounts, a Western fabric of mythology was woven, one that allows the tourism industry even today to proclaim Bhutan as "the last Shangri-La." No larger than Switzerland but with a population of less than 700,ooo, Bhutan is, in fact, a place of peace and natural beauty. Indeed, His Majesty King Jigme Singye Wangchuck refers to his country as "a paradise on earth." It boasts awesome snow-capped mountains, including Gangkhar Puensum, which, at 22,623 feet, is the highest unclimbed peak in the world. Climbers are not permitted to scale these peaks lest they "disturb the spirits." It has abundant wildlife, including 165 species of mammal, like the endangered snow leopard, golden langur, and takin. Because a 1995 law mandates that 6o percent of Bhutan`s land must remain forested.(while another z6 percent is already protected as parkland), it has extensive virgin forestlands. And its pastoral villages are filled with friendly people who show few signs of modern dispossession or malaise, perhaps because their government spends almost 18 percent of its national budget on education and health care (compared with only z to 3 percent for a country like China). "The real appeal of Bhutan is that we feel human," says Tshewang Dendup, a graduate of the documentary film program at the University of California, Berkeley, who now works at the Bhutan Broadcasting Service. "Maybe we are somewhat isolated from the world, but we feel part of a living community that is not just connected by wires. That`s why 95 percent of us exchange students return home. By and large, you would have to say people are happy here." But "one way or another, change is coming," King Wangchuck told the former New York Times South Asia correspondent Barbara Crossette a few years ago. "Being a small country, we do not have economic power. We do not have military muscle. We cannot play a dominant international role, because of our small size and population and because we are a landlocked country. The only factor we can fall back on ... which can strengthen Bhutan`s sovereignty and our different identity is the unique culture we have." And so the government has kept a tight grip on matters of culture, which have grown out of the Drukpa Kagyu lineage of Tantric Mahayana Buddhism. In 1999, only 7,000 foreign visitors were granted visas, and for 2000 the figure rose only to 7,559 Police are empowered to detain any Bhutanese not wearing official national dress, the robelike gho for men and the jacket and apronlike hira for women. It was perfectly in keeping with this strict but benign paternalism that the King should proclaim that "gross national happiness is more important than gross national product" because "happiness takes precedence over economic prosperity in our national development process." "Happiness has usually been considered a utopian issue," acknowledged Bhutan`s foreign minister, Lyonpo jigmi Thinley, at a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) meeting in Seoul, Korea, in 1998. But he emphasized that because an "individual`s quest for happiness and inner and outer freedom is the most precious endeavor, society`s ideal of governance and polity should promote this endeavor." What is needed, he continued, is "to ask how the dramatic changes propelling us into the 21st century will affect prospects for happiness [and] how information technology will affect people`s happiness." These were good questions, because only half a year later the Internet and television, both locally broadcast programs and imported cable channels, were due to arrive, and it was tempting to view Bhutan as a kind of a nouvelle canary in the cyber mine shaft. So, just a year after the advent of these two tectonic technologies, I travelled to this Buddhist kingdom, which had been so determined to maintain its own identity, to see how it was weathering the penetration of the information and entertainment highways. One thing was immediately obvious: whereas the old controls on trade, tourism, and foreign investment had depended on limiting physical access, Bhutan was now confronting new and more elusive kinds of globalizing influences that would not be impeded by mountains, rivers, and jungles. TV and the Internet had radically recast the terms of intrusion, and many Bhutanese were worried about what Dasho Meghraj Gurung, the managing director of the country`s postal service, Bhutan Post, characterizes as "the negative aspects of modernization" and "the mad race for the acquisition of material things in life ... which lead to a lack of public accountability." Walking past the main intersection in Thimphu, Bhutan`s capital city, only the most attentive person would notice the small blue and white sign that hangs unobtrusively beneath a second-floor window announcing a cybercafe. Upstairs, there is only a small room decorated with a single Buddha image dangling from a wall switch and three homemade booths equipped with ancient computers. Pema Wangchuck, a shy 2o-something who had been trained in India, tells me that he opened the cybercafe in this rented room a month ago, making it one of the first two Internet beachheads in Thimphu. He charges 3 ngultrum ($0.07) per minute to go online. "Until recently, all I knew of the Internet was what I read in books and magazines, but I believed the Internet was something extraordinary," Mr. Wangchuck says. "Now, as I understand it better, I see that it really is a boon. If people learn how to use IT, the benefit could be infinite, because it will help break our isolation and give us easy access to the world!" Der vollständige Artikel ist im Internet verfügbar

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