Arthur C Clarke, satellites and democracy

It is very hard for tyrants and dictators to control a populace that has access to global telecommunications. In Iraq under Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath regime, satellite dishes were prohibited. After the regime’s overthrow in 2003 they flourished, and today are a big retail business there.

Earlier this year in Iran, the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance sought to crack down on satellite dishes, which had become popular as a source of overseas entertainment and unfiltered foreign news. Six thousand dishes were confiscated from citizens’ rooftops, daubed with slogans such as ‘Enemy of Islam’ and ‘Enemy of the Family’, and then transported to a stadium and destroyed.

Yet, according to the Minister for Islamic Culture and Guidance: ‘Wherever we collect the satellite dishes from rooftops, two days later the dishes are returned. It seems that we only create business for the dish installers’.

The satellite telecommunications potential, foreseen and promoted by Clarke in 1945, is unstoppable and in the final analysis beyond the control of governments.

Ten years ago, 16% of the world’s population accessed the Internet. Today it is 40% - and growing. Satellites are the key to extending access to remote areas of the planet.

Satellite manufacture is entering a new phase with mass production in the near future. Google has a plan to build 180 satellites that will bring the Internet to the remote and poor parts of the planet.

A more ambitious venture, involving Sir Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Airlines, seeks to put 648 small light-weight satellites into orbit in the coming years to ensure that there will be affordable Internet access for the four billion humans currently without it. The entire world will be connected via the ‘OneWeb’ project.

Yes, there are downsides. But there is no downside to the capacity of satellites to bring education to the remotest places, and thereby help empower people to work out their own solutions to problems. And there is no downside to the free flow of ideas (which is why even in the democracies we must fight to keep the Internet unfiltered by governments).

None of this would surprise Arthur C. Clarke, who would undoubtedly see it as reason for his confidence in a brighter future for humanity.