Not in the Final list: The Acropolis in Greece.
The Pyramids of Giza.New wonders?
Not everyone is happy with the new seven wonders or with the voting method adopted.
Not everyone is happy with the new seven wonders or with the voting method adopted.
A. SRIVATHSAN
While nations like India, China, Peru and
Brazil rushed to vote, Europe and America appeared to be indifferent.
Photos: AP Not in the final list: The Pyramids of Giza, the only honorary member.
“List of shame, list of ignorance,” spewed an angry blogger. “How can you leave out Acropolis, which was formally proclaimed as the pre-eminent monument on the European Cultural Heritage in 2007?” said another? “Surprising, inexplicable, even suspicious,” was the response of the Vatican pontifical commission for culture and archaeology, reported The Times of London. The Vatican was disappointed at the omission of the Sistine Chape l. Cambodia was crestfallen with the omission of Angkor Wat temple. Not every one agreed with the list of new seven wonders or with the method adopted.
The campaign
The original list of wonders compiled by the Greeks was dismissed as “a travel guide for fellow Athenians” by the Swiss-based foundation that initiated the campaign. The New Seven Wonders Foundation declared that the compilation, this time around, would be democratic and open. Anyone was free to choose and vote. Straight, simple and easy — reach for your computer or phone and make a choice. So went the campaign.
Does this make the complaints and quibbles appear like crying sour grapes or does the voting pattern genuinely warrant a critical look at the results.
“About 80 per cent of people voted online and 20 per cent through SMS and phone (many, many more via SMS than telephone)”, e-mailed Tia Viering from the New Seven Wonders Foundation. This was in reply to my query about the voting pattern. “We are not divulging the votes obtained by various monuments. To us the new seven wonders are equal and without ranking,” she said.
Viering seems to have barely noticed the irony in her statement. If the seven wonders are equal so are the remaining 14 that were left out in the final race and, more so, the many hundred monuments that never made it to the list in the first place.
The Greeks, who first introduced the idea of seven wonders about 2,000 years ago, would hardly have imagined that a day would come when the architectural merit or the spectacle value would no more be a necessary benchmark. Nor would they have realised that society could dispense with high priests of culture — in their case Herodotus, the historian, and Callimachus, the chief librarian of Alexandria — to arbitrate taste and choose on their behalf.
What possibly would comfort them is that, even after many thousand years, people can still be as arbitrary and parochial as they were when it comes to listing the wonders. In the old list, only two of the seven wonders were outside the Greek culture. In the new list, each nation voted for itself with fervour.
The Foundation, through its spokesperson Tia Viering, claims that the voting was truly international. But when asked about the countrywise voting pattern, Viering refused to share any data. Her reluctance to share the information is understandable. Details, if and when they come, will reveal how Indians and other successful nations mobbed the voting machine, in this case their personal computer or the ones at Internet cafés.
Tracy Wilkinson, writing for the Los Angeles Times, described how people in Cuzco, Peru, filled Internet cafes for weeks and voted for the ruins of Machu Picchu. The foundation’s website declared that, as early as 2002, 70,000 Chinese were voting everyday.
The media blogsite http://www.danwei.org/, citing the The Beijing News, wrote that the Great Wall of China was temporarily top of the list in January 2006. In November, it fell to fourth place a nd, in April 2007, dropped out of the top seven.
According to the blogsite, the majority of Chinese were unable to vote because they could not read English. Hence a “SMS vote” service was developed. As the results show, this changed the course of the voting. The New Seven Wonders Foundation announced on June 7 that about 50 million had voted. By July 7, when the results were declared, another 50 million votes had been added.
Monuments in countries that are poor and do not have substantial access to SMS or the Internet fell out of the race.
Reason to complain
The disappointment, if not anger, as in the case of the 12th century Angkor Wat temple in Cambodia, exemplifies this. The Nation, a Bangkok-based newspaper, reported that Chan Sophal, deputy provincial governor of Siem Reap where th e Angkor Wat temple is located, had said that an architectural marvel being overlooked in this fashion was “regrettable”.
The governor had reason to complain. “The competition just wasn’t suitable for a country in Cambodia’s situation. It is a country with a very small population, most of whom know nothing about information technology or computers so they could not vote or contribute,” he was quoted as saying in The Nation.
The Internet may have the potential to create a relatively democratic space. But people still need capital and effort to take part. Those who did not mobilise it could not vote. This fact was overlooked right through this campaign.
The fate of the Pyramid of Giza was humiliating. The Pyramid is the only surviving wonder from the original Greek list. The Egyptian Government was apprehensive and worried about the voting system. There were fears that the Pyramids would not make it to the list.
While nations like India, China, Peru and
Brazil rushed to vote, Europe and America appeared to be indifferent.
Photos: AP Not in the final list: The Pyramids of Giza, the only honorary member.
“List of shame, list of ignorance,” spewed an angry blogger. “How can you leave out Acropolis, which was formally proclaimed as the pre-eminent monument on the European Cultural Heritage in 2007?” said another? “Surprising, inexplicable, even suspicious,” was the response of the Vatican pontifical commission for culture and archaeology, reported The Times of London. The Vatican was disappointed at the omission of the Sistine Chape l. Cambodia was crestfallen with the omission of Angkor Wat temple. Not every one agreed with the list of new seven wonders or with the method adopted.
The campaign
The original list of wonders compiled by the Greeks was dismissed as “a travel guide for fellow Athenians” by the Swiss-based foundation that initiated the campaign. The New Seven Wonders Foundation declared that the compilation, this time around, would be democratic and open. Anyone was free to choose and vote. Straight, simple and easy — reach for your computer or phone and make a choice. So went the campaign.
Does this make the complaints and quibbles appear like crying sour grapes or does the voting pattern genuinely warrant a critical look at the results.
“About 80 per cent of people voted online and 20 per cent through SMS and phone (many, many more via SMS than telephone)”, e-mailed Tia Viering from the New Seven Wonders Foundation. This was in reply to my query about the voting pattern. “We are not divulging the votes obtained by various monuments. To us the new seven wonders are equal and without ranking,” she said.
Viering seems to have barely noticed the irony in her statement. If the seven wonders are equal so are the remaining 14 that were left out in the final race and, more so, the many hundred monuments that never made it to the list in the first place.
The Greeks, who first introduced the idea of seven wonders about 2,000 years ago, would hardly have imagined that a day would come when the architectural merit or the spectacle value would no more be a necessary benchmark. Nor would they have realised that society could dispense with high priests of culture — in their case Herodotus, the historian, and Callimachus, the chief librarian of Alexandria — to arbitrate taste and choose on their behalf.
What possibly would comfort them is that, even after many thousand years, people can still be as arbitrary and parochial as they were when it comes to listing the wonders. In the old list, only two of the seven wonders were outside the Greek culture. In the new list, each nation voted for itself with fervour.
The Foundation, through its spokesperson Tia Viering, claims that the voting was truly international. But when asked about the countrywise voting pattern, Viering refused to share any data. Her reluctance to share the information is understandable. Details, if and when they come, will reveal how Indians and other successful nations mobbed the voting machine, in this case their personal computer or the ones at Internet cafés.
Tracy Wilkinson, writing for the Los Angeles Times, described how people in Cuzco, Peru, filled Internet cafes for weeks and voted for the ruins of Machu Picchu. The foundation’s website declared that, as early as 2002, 70,000 Chinese were voting everyday.
The media blogsite http://www.danwei.org/, citing the The Beijing News, wrote that the Great Wall of China was temporarily top of the list in January 2006. In November, it fell to fourth place a nd, in April 2007, dropped out of the top seven.
According to the blogsite, the majority of Chinese were unable to vote because they could not read English. Hence a “SMS vote” service was developed. As the results show, this changed the course of the voting. The New Seven Wonders Foundation announced on June 7 that about 50 million had voted. By July 7, when the results were declared, another 50 million votes had been added.
Monuments in countries that are poor and do not have substantial access to SMS or the Internet fell out of the race.
Reason to complain
The disappointment, if not anger, as in the case of the 12th century Angkor Wat temple in Cambodia, exemplifies this. The Nation, a Bangkok-based newspaper, reported that Chan Sophal, deputy provincial governor of Siem Reap where th e Angkor Wat temple is located, had said that an architectural marvel being overlooked in this fashion was “regrettable”.
The governor had reason to complain. “The competition just wasn’t suitable for a country in Cambodia’s situation. It is a country with a very small population, most of whom know nothing about information technology or computers so they could not vote or contribute,” he was quoted as saying in The Nation.
The Internet may have the potential to create a relatively democratic space. But people still need capital and effort to take part. Those who did not mobilise it could not vote. This fact was overlooked right through this campaign.
The fate of the Pyramid of Giza was humiliating. The Pyramid is the only surviving wonder from the original Greek list. The Egyptian Government was apprehensive and worried about the voting system. There were fears that the Pyramids would not make it to the list.
To be contd...
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