The true new wonder

We've voted Table Mountain a natural wonder.

Amid all the patriotic glee, however, there are a few small, confused voices pointing out that if you Google “New 7 Wonders”, the first few entries are about how it's a scam, how the UN has distanced itself from the whole fiasco.

The campaign would never have gained such momentum if we hadn't all banded together and given it the power.

Tallulah Habib, social media activist

If you follow the hubbub on Twitter, in between the ASCII pictures of Table Mountain and jokes about Capetonians, there are some who are muttering about how they feel duped. They spent money SMSing the hotline number, they spent time going to vote on the Web site, politicians were driving this... was it all a fake?

It depends very much on your definition of fake.

As the Unesco Web site says: “There is no comparison between Mr Weber's mediatised campaign and the scientific and educational work resulting from the inscription of sites on Unesco's World Heritage List.

“The list of the '7 New Wonders of the World' will be the result of a private undertaking, reflecting only the opinions of those with access to the Internet, and not the entire world. This initiative cannot, in any significant and sustainable manner, contribute to the preservation of sites elected by this public.”

Ouch.

The point about access to the Internet is valid. Nevertheless, this doesn't mean the election was a fake. No one ever said that winning this popularity contest was anything more than that. No one promised the sites would be added to a UN list, or that every citizen of Earth agreed with the choices.

Let's stop for a moment and consider the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. There was no worldwide voting for those. Those were chosen by a handful Greek conquerors. They didn't even know that Africa existed. In fact, all of the original Seven Wonders lie in the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions.

I remember vaguely when Bernard Weber launched his campaign for a new list in 2000. He was on the radio and waxed lyrical about something a bit more democratic, something that took into account the parts of the world that no one making such lists knew of back then. If the UN wasn't going to do it, he was. I have no idea if he really was in it for the money, but that's not what's so important about this campaign.

What makes it so important is the very fact that it was done outside of the UN. That those countries who do have Internet access rallied around it the way they did. Could you have imagined such a multi-continent-spanning campaign happening before, even in the early 90s?

The New 7 Wonders campaign speaks to more than just making a list of cool places. It speaks to the democratising power of the Web. No longer does the world have to rely on some authority to tell us what is best, what we should dote upon. We can do it for ourselves... and as the digital divide closes, more and more of us will be able to take part.

It seems to be a reflection of our general headspace of global society, of the way we are seeing normal citizens take power into their own hands. It's not the Arab Spring, it's not the Occupy Movement, but it's something similar.

The campaign would never have gained such momentum if we hadn't all - across the world - banded together and given it the power. It may not have been the fairest voting process, it may not have included everyone, but it was a lot more democratic than the original Seven Wonders list. More importantly, it showed us that this kind of worldwide, democratic initiative is possible.

If we can do this for a couple of mountains and rivers, imagine what we can do for more important subjects.