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Democracy, Memory
and Digital Divide*
The Digital Divide

Rafelrey Campoamor
NGO EmpoderaCuba
Webmaster, Plataforma de Integración Cubana,
Cuban residing in the United States.

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he subject of this conference is Democracy and Memory, in addition to six questions. One of them will allow us to touch
upon the topic of the digital divide: what is the
responsibility of the current and future generations regarding the honoring of past trials, concentrating on an analysis of our conflicts, and discussing different interpretations of the past?
Last September 1, 2013, was the fortieth anniversary of the violent coup d’etat that took down Salvador Allende’s democratic regime in Chile. That
same year was the 20th anniversary of the attack
on the Moncada barracks, when a group of young
Cubans decided to resort to weapons to restore the
democratic order that had been usurped by a military man. That group’s leader was the lawyer Fidel Castro Ruz, who made the following declarations immediately after winning power:
“Those who speak of democracy should begin by
knowing with what respect for all ideas starts, all
beliefs, what freedom and rights and many other
things are all about…that we don’t persecute anyone…that if we persecute a newspaper, we close
it down. Although, when newspapers begin being
shut down, no newspaper can feel safe; when a
man begins to be persecuted for his political
ideas, no one can feel safe; when restrictions are
created and brought to bear, no right can be considered safe. When a right is repressed, all other
rights end up being terminated, and a deaf ear is

turned on democracy. Ideas must be defended
with reason, not with weapons.”
What happened after those two events may be
read two different ways, depending on what historical point of view one has and what concepts
we see as the most fair, so we can actually talk
about democracy.
We all have a notion of democracy, a form of social organization that attributes the control of
power to a whole society (dēmos, which can be
translated as ‘people,” and krátos, which translates into ‘power’).
In the strictest sense, democracy is a State form
of organization in which a people adopt collective
decisions via involving direct or indirect mechanisms that confer legitimacy on its members. In a
broad sense, democracy is a form of social coexistence in which members are free and equal, and
social relations are established according to contractual mechanisms.
The term’s meaning has changed with time; the
modern definition has greatly evolved, particularly towards the end of the eighteenth century,
with the successive introduction of democratic
systems in many countries. This is particularly
true after the acknowledgment of universal suffrage and former slaves and women getting the
vote towards the end of the nineteenth century.
There is indirect and direct democracy, depending upon whom we allow to make decisions. If