| s|a|m on 8 Dec 2000 05:02:30 -0000 |
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| <nettime> Indians speaking like Aussies |
They say that borders are collapsing but maybe its not meant to happen like this. In a recent article in the Melbourne (Australia) paper The Age (6 Dec 2000), Terry Walsh, the local chief of computer networking giant Cisco Systems is quoted as saying: "In call centres in India they are training people to speak with an Australian accent". What's going on here? What does does he mean? What Terry Walsh said was part of a speech bullying the Australian Government to invest and build better broadband infrastructure for use by the corporations which might want to relocate to blue-sky Australia. Sure, many transnationals are setting up or considering setting up their Asia-Pacific invasion from politically-stable Australia. But the reference (or threat) made in the speach to "call centres" is very interesting. Pine Gap is a military intelligence base operated from remote central Australia. Though its meant to be a joint Australia-USA facility, the Americans are very much in command. Australians provide a support role such as cleaning the premises. Anyhow - I wander what real role Australians will play in their own country. If Indians will be answering the telephones with an Aussie accent - maybe the Australians will be left to clean the toilets, like they do at Pine Gap. But then, what will all the illegal immigrants do? Maybe they'll take up gambling. Does anyone have any statistics on how much energy goes in to making a computer? - Sam. --- ... --- ... --- ... --- ... --- ... --- ... --- ... --- ... --- ... what is IRATI WANTI ? # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [email protected] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected]