Empowerment through the Internet

HAVANA – When I first stuck my nose in the world wide web in the mid 1990s, I had no idea what it was, or what it was for, or even how much the three W’s would change my life and that of so many others on the Island. 

Initially, connecting to the Internet was but a futuristic adventure: more than surfing, one wandered about, drifting, stumbling, and blindly hitting this or that, at times getting lost in the simplest thing just out of curiosity.

At the start of the new millennium the few people who could access the Internet in Cuba were mostly scientists, journalists, intellectuals or artists who had institutional links. That link allowed them the connection. And that concrete reality ended up mediating its digital adventures from top to bottom.

From there, we entered the social networks where not much more could be seen than the occasional photo of the children’s birthday, the union meeting or the weekend getaway. Of course, everything was posted two or three days late, long after it had happened, without any immediacy or anything of the sort.

But suddenly, and now outside of the workplace, there were those (who could afford it) who managed to connect. But if a trip through the Internet is expensive today, there was a time where one hour cost you $4 and required you to sit with your old laptop on your knees in a hotel lobby after purchasing a coffee or a beer. However, things began to change. A national blogosphere was developing, although it seemed like screaming in the middle of the desert, because with those prices, few could write and even fewer were able to read what you wrote.

That is, until the miracle happened: suddenly there was Wi-Fi internet at the corner park … it was still expensive, but at least it was half as expensive, half as uncomfortable, and one could even sit in the shadow of a royal poinciana tree to talk with family members, or a buddy, who now lived on the other side of the puddle.

Next came the unimaginable: Internet on cell phones. And if that wasn’t enough, a 4G connection. In Cuba. That was an epiphany, madness!

Since then we have not been the same. When people could connect from the living room of their house at whatever time they so pleased, without the boss looking over your shoulders, we began to post whatever came to mind, whatever he or she saw or wanted to post. It is still expensive, but totally different.

From then on the new virtual reality has become diverse: stupid and fallacious news is everywhere, but there is also debate, fights, small and great skirmishes, and sometimes the finger on the sore right next to the lone finger trying to cover the sun. There’s the timely complaint, the well-deserved “like,” and even an applause. And also with all of this there’s the possibility of contact, of opinions that come and go, but that cross from one shore to the other: the encounter, the disagreement, the surprise: thought. See, compare, contrast. It is a new version of that famous Fidel statement: “We tell the people: read!”

Above all, and little by little, people realize that there is an internet, which is useful for almost everything, when you learn to use it. The difficulties of what has already been a very hard year, all have been portrayed online: groups have emerged for this, for that and for the other, and from one to another you quickly find out where you can find what you need, or where what was lost can be found, and where you find what can’t be found.

When someone, whoever it is, does something stupid, almost immediately everyone finds out. Because now, as never before, there is always an eye — a mobile phone — that sees you.

What was once discussed is happening: People on this Island, with the Internet, are truly being empowered. It is not yet paradise, but at least it’s something.