Old Original Apple Mac Computer in Museum in Moscow. Photo: Maria Kray/canva
The other day we lost connection to our Microsoft Outlook service. We could virtually do nothing in the Columban Mission office because most of the work involved writing and answering emails. It reminded me how much our world is connected to and governed by computers and online networks. Mind you, at a more basic level, we depend on electricity. Interestingly, a few days before the Microsoft network was hacked, our neighbourhood in Lower Hutt was without electricity for a day while the local board worked on the electrical grid that serviced our area. That went further than closing down our computers. It meant that even lights and heaters didn’t work and we couldn’t even switch on our computers.
These recent experiences also reminded me of the time, towards the end of 1977, when I was appointed to my first parish in Fiji after language school. This was the parish of Ba which covered a large area to the north of the main island of Vit Levu and included at least 12 villages apart from the main town of Ba. The largest of all the villages I visited each month to say mass, conduct funerals, or attend meetings, was the village of Navala. There was no electricity in the village and we would rely on hurricane lamps for light. I always enjoyed spending the weekend up there each month because there was something soothing and peaceful about this simple lifestyle.
A few years later, I was appointed to the parish of Raiwaqa which is in the heart of the capital of Suva. While there, in 1986, I got permission to import the first computer to be used in a Catholic parish. Some ridiculed the idea because this Apple box computer had a massive memory of 2,000 bytes, I think it was! Whatever the memory was, it wouldn’t even be large enough to operate the flashlight on our modern mobile phones. Still, we could use it to publish our weekly parish newsletter and I could use it to write articles or keep the minutes of meetings. Little was I aware that I was contributing to the creation of a highly dependent world where pencil and paper would no longer be adequate.
But there was one aspect of life that computers could not replace and that was human interaction, conversation and story-telling. Whether it’s Navala or Raiwaqa, I know that I can go back to communities where the most important activity is to sit around the kava bowl and tell stories, sing songs or simply enjoy each other’s company.
The last time I went to Navala, I was sitting around in one of the thatched houses where there are still no electrical fittings and they still rely on hurricane lamps. We were sharing stories and catching up. Then suddenly, without warning, the familiar sound of a mobile phone ringtone could be heard. One of the young men serving the kava quickly pulled out his device from his pocket and left the house to answer his phone. The digital computerised world had made its way across the mountains and down into the tranquil atmosphere of this legendary Fijian village which had fought off invaders and enemies in the past. But this was a different invader, the so-called digital world. To be fair, it has benefitted the village by bringing people into easy and regular contact with family scattered throughout Fiji and other countries around the world.
On the other hand, however, while the young man walked out into the night to have his conversation by mobile phone, we continued to tell our stories continued around the kava bowl. You don’t need electricity and computers for that.
Fr Tom Rouse - Regional Councillor of Oceania
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