<nettime> Amsterdam Blues: ASCII, Micro$oft, 'Digital Playgrounds' and marketist ideology...

[Patrice Riemens <patrice@xs4all.nl>]

Amsterdam is on the verge of losing (an even larger, tr) number of not-
for-profit public facilities run by activists. Just as one would have
thought that the Fall of the Wall would have delivered us forever
from ideological humbug, comes the municipal real estate management
agency with a jejune brand of marketist credo according to which
society thrives best when everybody relentlessly sucks everybody else dry.
 
This is the reason why the ASCII Internet cafe faces closure
following a fourteen-fold increase of its rent. If that were to happen, this 
would witness to an extremely stupid policy, and this for a host of reasons. I 
will name but one, and it comes from an op-ed piece in the mainstream 
'Automatiseringsgids' (Dutch Computertrade magazine).

The writer of that op-ed, Peter Lievense, points out that there  is a growing 
aversion in business circles against the subscription system that Microsoft is 
introducing from October 1st for its business software. He writes that there is 
a good chance that enterprises will rebell against this system.

In that new commercial dispensation, users will every year fork out  between 25% 
and 29% of the 'new' price of the software in an upgrades subscription scheme 
most customers do not want at all and could very well do without.

Meanwhile, the Dutch authorities also appear to be trying to escape from 
Microsoft's clutches. The op-ed goes on: "Compared to the remainder of the EU, 
the Netherlands are lagging behind in the use of Open Source software. Euro 
commissioner Liikanen wants to have a report on the issue, while the German 
Parliament has already passed a resolution in favor of Open Source. The French, 
traditionally averse to McDonalds and Microsoft, are running Linux on a big 
scale."  So much for this mainstream trade magazine.

On the local level, we see that the municipality of Amsterdam has been pursuing 
for some time ICT policies geared towards lowering the threshold for computer 
and Internet use. To that effect, it has established 'digital playgrounds' with 
monies from the central government. In itself a very useful idea. However, the 
words 'open source' are woefully absent from the website of councilior Saskia 
Bruines (http://www.bia.amsterdam.nl/bruines) who is in charge of ICT policies. 
Amsterdam is no exception to the general Dutch backwardness in the matter.

One could say that Internet cafe ASCII is also a digital playground. Connecting 
there is for free and courses (ao Linux) are being offered for a modest fee. No 
grants or subsidies are involved. And, quite remarkably for the Netherlands, 
ASCII runs entirely on open source software. They have never ventured into the 
Microsoft swamp out of which both business and government are now trying 
(feebly, tr) to extricate themselves. This situation makes ASCII into something 
more than your run of the mill computer facility or average Internet cafe. It 
plays a pioneering role in disseminating knowledge in a highly competent yet 
grassroot way, and this in a matter for which the societal demand is growing 
fast.

Many technologies have become widespread after a phase of pioneering whereby 
informal networks of enthusiastic early adopters and politically motivated 
amateurs functionned as catalysts and hothouses for the new inventions and their 
possibilities. It worked like that with the bicycle, and in the early twenties 
it were hobbyists who made the radio popular. Same thing with the PC which would 
not have become ubiquitous but for the efforts of its proselyting enthiusiasts. 
In the Netherlands, public access to the Internet was the handywork of hackers 
whose vision was reaching further than just commerce or technology. And we could 
go on. ASCII belongs to that role of honour and is such a knowledge hothouse.

Whereby I only wanted to make the point that it would be remarkably 
short-termish and economically inept to let an outfit like ASCII disapear at 
this very juncture.



Peter van der Pouw Kraan is a  political, cultural and on-line activist of long 
standing living in Amsterdam. He contribbuted this piece to the Dutch-language 
nettime list (nettime-nl) on August 31, 2001.
Q&D  translation by yrs truly.


Aditionnal commentary by yr translator:

The point is taken, but shall not be followed. Save a highly improbable miracle 
ASCII will close - or more likely, given the resilience of its staff, it will 
relocate itself into some other TAZ. 
And one thing is certain: it will never, never *ever* be given the official 
status of a municipaly sanctioned 'digital playground'. Ms  Saskia Bruines, and 
asorted regents at City Hall would rather (unfathomable statement censored). 
This has nothing to do with an economic or technological rationale, but 
everything with a socio-political one. To those in power and influence (and 
besides the regents at City Hall, that includes vast tracks of the established 
cultural circles, including the purported 'new media' ones) the ASCII folks are 
definitely *not our sort of people*. The very fact that they are on the forward 
path conceptually only adds to the despise, the disgust, not to say the hatred, 
their mere existence generates. Their principled refusal of subsidies (with all 
the shackles attached to them) further enhances these feelings into outright 
rage.
 
Anyway, the list of  worthwhile initiatives that have been harassed, victimised, 
criminalised and eventually supressed (or, if  that proved for some reason to be 
impossible or merely inconvenient, co-opted and in that magnificent Dutch word 
'dood-geknuffeld' - cuddled into death) by the prevalent Dutch Polder Model 
generally is endless: Ruigoord, the DDS in its old days, countless street 
galleries and squatted cultural hubs, etc etc. Unfortunately enough ASCII is not 
the first and will not be the last. And yet it will survive. (Expletive against 
regents in general censored).   

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