Che Don't Surf

The mid-day equatorial sun warmed my back through the cool green water. As I paddled out through the incoming set, I could feel the shrimp ceviche settling in my stomach. I looked from side to side, I could not believe I had the beach to myself. Aside from a few fisherman casting lazily on the rocky shore or floating in their worn down boats further out to sea, I was the only person in sight. Past where the waves were breaking, I sat up on my board and gazed landward. Before me lay the small village of Montanita. A few hours west of Guayaquil and up a rural road from the resort town of Salinas on the Pacific coast of Ecuador, this is one of the westernmost points in South America. No paved roads, no ATM’s, and no broadband, but waves that seem to roll perfectly in from the endless sea. At this time in the winter, the swell travels in from the distant northwest, distributing its riches in the famed beaches of Hawaii before sharing some of its bounty with California and Mexico, and finally moving past Darwin’s bizarre Galapagos Islands to make its deposit on the very shore where I floated. With no one to compete with I was able to let countless waves pass me by and wait for the perfect one.

My solace was interrupted by a dive-bombing pelican that came from somewhere way above and behind my head and shot into the water only a foot or two from my side. Its smooth brown head emerged with a fish noticeably still flopping around in its giant neck. I was glad he did not mistake my foot for his seafood lunch. Watching these graceful predators effortlessly drifting above the surf I remembered what I was waiting for. Turning behind me I could see that the perfect wave had arrived.

But this is not a post about surfing. At least not the kind I was doing. This is a post about technology. About the kind of surfing that goes on in the Internet and the role that technology is playing in the development of South America. It is argued that the Internet has the power to be a “revolutionary” force for change in society. With the power to connect distant people, erase borders and create new groups the Internet has prompted technophiles all over the world to surmise that we are witnessing the dawn of a new age. The time has come, they say, that traditional ideas of geography, political power and state control may be crumbling around us in the move to a utopian, connected world. At the recent “Votes, Bits & Bytes” conference at Harvard Law School, a prominent blogger and former CNN journalist, Rebecca MacKinnon, stressed that in emerging democracies especially, we can see the “leapfrogging” political impacts of technology. She pointed to the example of the Philippines, where the government of Estrada was “brought down by SMS text messaging” and contrasted this to the US, where such an impact is hard to imagine. To what extent does technology play such a political role in Latin America? Latin America is certainly a region known for its political instability. In Ecuador alone, a new civilian or military government seems to take control on average every two years. Is this fertile ground for technology to work its magic? Could we therefore be on the eve of widespread social revolution?

In evaluating these ideas it can be helpful to recall previous attempts at revolution in South America. In the mid-sixties, the scent of revolution was certainly in the air. The Argentine leftist Ernesto "Che" Guevarra had teamed up with Fidel Castro and through armed guerilla struggle had succeeded in toppling the government and ushering in a new era of socialist leadership. Fresh from this experience and itching to leave his post as a Cuban government official and “export the revolution,” Che looked outward at the prospects for similar uprisings in other countries. His dream was to bring the revolution to his native Argentina. However, before this he strategically looked to several other places first. In 1965 he looked across the ocean to Africa in a failed attempt to bring the revolution to the Congo. Finding that he arrived too late, he spent a hopeless year there stricken with disease and health ailments that slowed him down and claimed a quarter of his body weight. Under pressure from Cuba he reluctantly withdrew and went back to the drawing board. His next attempt, and the one that would ultimately be his last took him to the interior, land-locked South American country of Bolivia. Here again, the revolution was stopped in its tracks. While Che’s heroic death in 1967 was a rallying point for leftist revolutionaries, it seems in many ways the hope for revolution died with Che. Portrayed by some as a Quixotic adventure doomed from the beginning it is interesting to explore what actually went wrong with his mission.

Che had intelligence, fierce determination and popular sympathy on his side. On the other side stood the military dictators, the U.S. C.I.A., and the inherent difficulties of organization. Of these, it is often considered that problems of communications were the most fatal. In his biography of Che Guevara, Companero, Jorge G. Castaneda has argued that “Communication was the Achilles’ heel of Che’s expedition.” Indeed, despite being there to fight for social change that would have been the dream of Bolivian laborers, Che lacked the tools to get his message to these people. With no understanding of Che’s message and goals, this untapped resource of popular support never materialized. Furthermore, despite representing the front lines of what was a large, international communist movement, Che’s group lacked sufficient tools to communicate with the leadership in other countries that could have provided support or reinforcements. The communications were so bad even internally that when Che felt it necessary to separate his forces at one point, they lost touch and never reunited – coming close enough only to exchange fire.

Ideas now are not as constrained as they were in those days. Communications technologies have advanced in remarkable ways. It is hard to imagine Che and his band of revolutionary guerilla fighters these days having the same difficulties reaching out to the local people or even reaching each other today as they did then. While not suggesting that communications alone would have made Che successful and allowed for revolution to sweep the continent, it is an interesting consideration nonetheless. Indeed, perhaps the most relevant question is not what would have happened to the guerilla fighters if they had more modern technologies, but what role modern technologies will play in the hands of the next Che Guevarra.

The power of the internet and communications technologies for social organization is just becoming realized. In lesser revolutionary hands than Che’s, we have already seen remarkable organizational abilities. Today, like minded groups of anti-globalization demonstrators have used the internet to mobilize in the face of free trade conferences. Even common pranksters have been able to organize “flashmobs” where groups will assemble at a certain time and place – seemingly for no other reason that to show that they can. People are drawn to the increased ability to find and assemble groups through cyberspace. At a recent conference at Harvard Law School, the head of Meetup.org spoke about the potential political ramifications of this rapidly developing method of organization. Not all uses of this cyber-organization have been so benign. In the wake of September 11, with the world on seemingly high alert, fundamental Islamic terrorists were able to use the internet to coordinate the train bombings in Madrid.

In modern Latin America as well, the potential revolutionary uses of the Internet are becoming realized. When the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia put up an official site with news and propaganda, the government was outraged an d demanded it be shut down. When it was discovered that the site was being hosted in Mexico, a diplomatic struggle ensued, with the Colombians using strong pressure on the Mexican government to shut the site down. The Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua was bale to attract significant grassroots support here in the US by means of e-mail and internet bulletin boards. And perhaps most significantly, the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico have long used e-mail and multiple unconnected websites to spread news of their revolutionary struggle and garnet international attention. In the face of strong governmental repression, the Zapatista leader Marcos’ speeches are quickly posted to the internet and disseminated worldwide. It has been said that they are fighting the first postmodern revolution.

But we must remember that the internet and communications technologies are just tools. While they may wield enormous power, the underlying desire or discontentment along with some capable direction must be there in order for this tool to have any effect. Che was known for his theory that the underlying conditions do not have to be present for a movement to succeed. Revolutionaries need not wait for the conditions to be right, they can create the conditions themselves. This was seemingly proven untrue in the jungles of the Congo and Bolivia. We should not expect that a powerful tool will do all the work. But we should also not expect that we sit on the final chapter in history and that people’s appetites for revolution have been forever satiated or numbed. In Latin America and other developing areas especially, the wounds inflicted by imperialism and exploitation still bleed. Anti-American and anti western opinions are gaining momentum and it stands to reason that developments in grassroots communications will only increase this trend. While we may ponder the future wide-ranging possibilities of social revolution aided and shaped by modern technology, it is useful to consider the revolutionary potential of the technology on much smaller scales. Changes in society can occur without toppling or removing governments. In fact, we may be seeing the revolutionary effects of technology already. In the region’s cafes, homes and even the cell phones of everyday people, the seeds of social change may be growing. The use of the internet and communications technologies in Latin America for organizational purposes is still in its infancy. Even compared to the organizational uses we have already seen in more developed areas, the ripples being felt today in Latin America seem impotent.

While the development and use of these technologies may seem like only ripples today, the potential revolutionary effects may prove to be much larger waves. Che didn’t surf – but his successors will. It appears inevitable that the next wave of revolutionary fervor will be influenced and aided by the modernization of communications technologies. As I wait patiently again for the perfect wave to hit the pacific shores of South America, I remember how long these waves have traveled. Sometime before California and Mexico, before Hawaii, they too were just ripples.