The old man, the Internet and me – Part Two

I don’t think it’s necessary to list the difficulties that impede access to the Web for the ordinary citizen, but I will just point out that they are greater than those that prevent access to the sea.  It is a current topic in the blogs and we’ve even created our own, Potro Salvaje [Wild Colt], where with humor we laugh at our limitations.  I don’t think it’s possible—without stating the obvious—to describe the liberating potential of the Internet with the possibility of exchanging information beyond the fence established by the government.  It interests me greatly to emphasize its effect,   its influence in Cuban society today, where we are beginning to take timid steps which can be the beginning of a new organization of civil society.  The “Email Skirmish,” the “Case” of Eliécer Ávila—a drama in two acts—the freeing of Gorki Águila, are stories that would be impossible without the Internet.  Timid steps, few walkers, but we know this is how you begin the longest journey.

In the present world autarchies of any kind are impossible.  The needs—not just for development, but the simple maintenance of information technologies—are forcing them to create openings, to be integrated into the world.  The whole economy is organized like a network of networks of value-added chains.  The survival instinct, on the other hand, pushes towards narrow mindedness, absolute control.  While our government stagnates in this contradiction, society pays the price of mortgaging our future a little more.  Armed with patience and flash memories, we are working inwards to create informal networks for the exchange of information.  Looking outwards, we make our voice heard through blogs, woven from the pieces of our national reality as we see it.  And our voice is gaining, in credibility and spaces.

In the classic noir novel there is a scene I enjoy remembering.  It’s when a character is beaten as a warning.  The attack confirms that our Marlowe has touched a nerve, that one of the old Mafia capos or corrupt politicians wants out of the plot.  The measures against several of our blogs and the harassment of those who are dedicated to the “constant monitoring of the Internet, issuing reports and the fights, as such, in this area,” constitute evidence of the interest with which they follow our exercise of our voice, and speak indirectly to our prestige.  The pathetic attempts to denigrate our ideas, and then to amalgamate them with the well-known meat-and-potatoes of the party line: the North American blockade, the foreign financing and the media campaigns; or the attacks on the authors through lies and character assassination, all these expose the lack of arguments among the censors and the convenient amorality of their executors.

These young fisherman, who ply the waters in motorboats provided by their powerful patron, attack us, aim their water jets at us, trying to sink our precarious rafts and sailboats, impelled by who knows what hallucinogenic combination of crudeness, credulity and enthusiasm.  They are the visible instruments of an entrenched and belligerent thinking, which determines that the Internet is a colt that must be tamed, a marketplace where only one voice is heard, an enemy to confront, conquer and destroy.  The use of a masculine gender to fabricate a confrontation should not surprise us; it’s difficult to dress up the feminine with an antagonistic image, and requires that we violate our tradition of respect and protection towards women.

How do we deal with that combination of ignorance and orthodoxy?  I think we can all contribute to the answer, just allow me to highlight two aspects.  The first is creativity.  Nothing is more disconcerting for a unadventurous thinker than variety, change.  Find new ways to circumvent the old reefs, to avoid the sunken dangers, the drag of the undertow.  Use intelligence to be the mountain facing the sea, and vice versa.  The second is humor.  Those who read Eco’s “The Name of the Rose” recall that the old monks were more afraid of laughing than of the devil himself.  If there is anything that efficiently and effectively disarms the most starched solemnity it is a good little Creole joke; so let’s hear it for the raspberry, the old Bronx cheer; it can be a good tool once in a while.  Don’t forget, a little kick in the rear now and again never did anyone any harm, not even us.