thereisnoborderhere

There is No Border Here

Recently a good friend of mine gave me a picture she took in Havana. On the
picture (seen above) you see yellow tape that's made to look like police
tape, this was placed somewhere in Havana as part of the Bienal art festival
and it reads: The Is No Border Here.

This picture, what it says, what it represents and the friend that gave it
to me all make me think of one thing that I remember hearing for the first
time back in 1994 (even though it was written in 1986, by +++The
Mentor+++)... It makes me think of two paragraphs of the Hacker Manifesto
which read:

"We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you
call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without
religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you
wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's
for our own good, yet we're the criminals.

Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is
that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like.
My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive
me
for."

And it gives me chills, both the Manifesto and the picture. Even though I am
not a hacker, I am still a netizen, a citizen of the internet, as is
everyone else who reads, comments or posts here. Everyone with a facebook,
with a blog, with a myspace or anyone who has contributed to forums or
websites. We are all the same. This place, this cyberspace, provides us with
a borderless world, the true global village; it gives us a place where
color, age, race, location and religion don't really matter.

Oppressive and regressive governments try to limit access to cyberspace
because they see it as dangerous, but the more they say no the harder we
push to hear yes. It might seem like something simple and insignificant to
some of us, but for those living behind the walls of aggression cyberspace
is their gateway to a world they've never seen and a place to say things
that people would otherwise never hear.

So this post goes out to everyone who fights everyday to exist in this
global community and to have their voices heard among so many others. This
post goes out to anyone fighting and writing for their cause and for the
cause of others. This post goes out to everyone who tries to make a
difference.

Remember there truly is No Border Here.

Muchacho Enfermo