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: There 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