Theresults of the world’s first-ever global vote to determine the New 7 Wonders of the World were announced on July 7, 2007, in Lisbon, in the presence of 50,000 spectators. Now, after 7 years of campaigning, Bernard Weber, Founder and President of New7Wonders, shares his thoughts about what made this election so different and the results so special.
Who Voted the Most?
Bernard Weber’s analysis of what he discovered when he took a closer look at the 100 million votes from all countries of the world, is astonishing. Everybody who observed the project well was interested in what was the most numerous group of voters. The answer is simple: children and young people voted in great numbers. Bernard Weber explains: «Children up to a certain age do not have a strong national sense of pride, so they were our most objective voters, they voted for what they genuinely liked best. « Well-Connected and Full of Passion Another significant fact was the number of voters that came from the so-called developing societies, where the role of the interactive media (phone and Internet) is different from the one in the western world.
«It seems that people in developing societies use the Internet differently from us in the western, northern world of plenty. For them, it is the gateway to connect with the rest of the world. Our voting system proved to be well-balanced: Internet voting was the equalizing factor, while SMS and phone votes expressed the passion and strong feelings that people had for their favorite monument.» For Bernard Weber, the new list of 7 Wonders reflects quite accurately what economists predict as the upcoming economic and industrial regions in the world in the not-too-distant future:
China, India and South America. And another surprise: a huge number of votes poured in supporting the African candidate Timbuktu, in Mali. «Had the organizers started campaigning just a month earlier, Timbuktu would have had a serious chance to be elected as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World!» More people from Korea and Japan voted for the Eiffel Tower than did people from France.
Many children worldwide loved Neuschwanstein Castle, but the Germans didn’t. The United States, whose inhabitants voted very passionately and in truly huge numbers, did not vote for their Statue of Liberty.
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