Download the latest version of Internet Explorer to browse this site.

If only Gene Miles had social media

Oct 21st, 2011by 4 Comments

Last evening I went to the premiere of Tony Hall’s new play Miss Miles:  The Woman of the World at the Little Carib Theatre. This one woman play starring Cecelia Salazar as Gene Miles was a tour de force as Salazar portrayed with command the spirit of the dead Miss Miles telling us about her life from birth to the beyond. Through dramatic monologue, streams of consciousness and symbolism, writer Tony Hall presented to us the story of the short 42 years of life of this attractive and intelligent woman  – from growing up in pre-independence, colonial, Roman Catholic Trinidad to the black power days of the early 1970s, when a struggle to develop a new and just society gave rise to social transformation.

She paid the ultimate price because she did what was right. She took on the powerful state administration in an anti-corruption campaign, The Gas Station Racket in the 1960s. She was victimised, rediculed and even raped. At that time, Gene was alone. She fought a losing battle against the corrupt and powerful by herself.

In a conversation after the show, the question was asked, “What if she were living in today’s world?” We thought of Gene having at her disposal the social network and this thought makes quite a difference.

We have seen the power that the social network is giving to the everyday citizen. The continuing uprisings in the Middle East is a great example of how the internet has caused great change. Certainly if Miss Miles lived in a world of BBMs, Facebook, Androids and the like, the authorities would not have been able to suppress information from the commission of inquiry. The authorities would not have been able to quietly deny her of her civil rights nor quietly abuse her emotionally. The tweets and texts would have been trending at fever pitch and would have had the powerful abusers exposed for public scrutiny. They would have had to thread carefully with Miss Miles and the outcome may have been a different, happier one for her.

I still have some reservations on social media, however, where it gives the common man a loud voice for the betterment of society, I applaud.

You might also like...

  • The CMOs Guide to the Social Media Landscape The CMO’s Guide To The Social Media Landscape
  • Have a passion for social media?
  • Playful_Kiss_2 PLAYFUL KISSES IN THE SOCIAL MEDIA
  • Anti-Social Media
  • Social Media Bandwagon Social Media Reinventing itself in 2009
Blog, Off-Topic, Social Media

Facebook Peanut Gallery

  • Dennis Ramdeen

    Eric, I don’t know too much about Gene Miles beyond my impression that
    she was a fashionable lady and a whistle blower at a time when whistle
    blowing was not fashionable. And it still is not. Because people fear
    that they may be the ones targeted rather than the subjects of their
    whistles. So in a sense we have not progressed from Gene Miles. People
    still fraid and and the miscreants prevail, dr

    • Eric Barry

      I agree with you 100% about the fear people would have, however, the internet comes with anonymity, and this have given many people voices. So it might not have been Miss Miles here self sending out the messages, but the others who, like many of us, hear and know what goes on in the “secret” chambers of our government.  

  • http://www.carolinetaylor.info Caroline Taylor

    Indeed. The modern equivalent of channels of anonymous action for citizens are things like Crime Stoppers. But do we even know where that information goes, how it’s used, whether calls in really are anonymous or whether they are indeed being traced? Especially in T&T, there aren’t trusted systems in place to adequately protect and empower the whistle blowers. It’s too easy, and sometimes too terrifying, to think of what those with the money and power can do to undermine or otherwise silence those who can incriminate them.

    • Eric Barry

      Thanks for your contribution Caroline.  I agree that for the person who is at the centre of whatever situation, three can be mistrust of the system. I was, however, thinking of the information going viral and not a direct report on an incident. The last thing that people who are doing underhand things want is for their deeds to go public.