Letter to a Friend
for the spirit of competition instead of bloody war, and also my various shouts of protest such as "TAT-14 never again," or the inefficient and unfair "Bafo" process. Who will remember all these in the coming times? Who remember Buchanan‘s message to Queen Victoria?
Jean Devos My dear friend, I have been writing you letters several times a year for more than 10 years now, and this may be my last in SubTel Forum. My last "message in a bottle," my last "sermon on the mount,” my last "talk to a brick wall."
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It could be my "last word," just like the first Transatlantic cable, which became definitively silent after having just transmitted the messages exchanged between Queen Victoria and U.S. President Buchanan in 1858. That
telegraph line was exhausted by the one hour and seven minutes effort to transmit a 100 words message! The "cable has given its final death rattle and taken its last dying breath." (Stefan Zweig in The First Word To Cross The Ocean.) Exactly so, I am giving here my final death rattle! The appeals I launched so often for more individual responsibility from our top managers--more personal involvement, my calls for a certain degree of self regulation from our community, my calls
“It is a triumph…far more useful to mankind than was ever won… proves to be a bond of peace and friendship…and an instrument destined by Divine Providence to diffuse religion, civilization, liberty, and law throughout the world. In this view, will not all nations of Christendom spontaneously unite in the declaration that it shall be forever neutral, and that its communications shall be held sacred in passing to their place of destination, even in the midst of hostilities.” Such language is clearly outdated, but I like the vision, the spirit, and the capability to finger-point the deep meaning of such a project for the whole society. At that time, science, talent, and energy were perceived positively. A new cable was perceived as a "bond of peace and friendship," a means for a positive development. One was placing confidence in civilization and religion; one had faith in the progress of justice and liberty. One wanted these cables to be useful to everyone, to be untouchable, a "sacred object."