Regrettably, those who regard such topics from the egotistical perspective of their own warped world view will never be able to understand that in the world we live in all factors are intimately related. The unilateral analysis to which we are accustomed, thanks to the whole educational, cultural and moral system that has shaped us, is part of the construction of a complex superstructure designed to reproduce and maintain the capitalist system in which we live. All the structures of the state and society, whether in the capitalist, feudal or slave systems, have always been defined and adapted to uphold the status quo. This pertains even to the use of a specific vocabulary which, without our realizing it, reflects the political domination enforced in all areas of society. This is how an ontology, gnosiology and epistemology specific to the dominant socio-economic formation are constructed, and it is for this reason that a true revolution will not be possible until we break out of the Eurocentric mind-set that has been imposed upon us.
Our own limitations within a given socio-political formation hinder us from understanding that all human activity is part of ideology and politics. By the same token, the conception that we have of science and technology make us unwitting participants in a particular political and ideological model. Thus, our opinions on information and communication technologies, and on free and proprietary software, are opinions framed within a political and ideological view, even when we ourselves are not aware of it. This is the case with all our opinions on any topic, and with all of our attitudes and actions in life. Our life endeavors are framed within a political and ideological world view because in our development from childhood and our formation of preconceptions, concepts and values, the outside influences that we receive (all of which are framed within a certain political and ideological belief system, although we may not see it thus) all act upon us. In the course of the educational and cultural process we adopt a number of such preconceptions, concepts and values, whether consciously or unconsciously. The process of attaining consciousness only operates when political and ideological clarity, and the profound understanding of how the psychological mechanisms which create values function, permit us to analyze our own selves, free, to the extent possible, from outside influences, reviewing each one of these preconceptions, concepts and values in the most objective manner possible.
Consequently, it is indispensable to separate ourselves from all co-opting influence that seeks to predispose us to accept as our own a warped and ill-intentioned opinion. We cannot expect to understand the workings of public administration, political parties and social movements if we are sometimes unclear even about ourselves, our family problems and our own limitations, or if, likewise, we have never accepted that in order to comprehend politics and ideology we must study these topics, that they are an integral part of life from the moment primitive society began to develop toward other forms of social organization.
Ideological struggle has existed for millions of years. The philosophical principles of present day political and ideological thought come to us from the ancient Egyptian, Greco-Roman, Sumerian, Assyrian, Etruscan, Phoenician, Persian, Taoist, Buddhist and Christian civilizations, forming what we know of as Western and Eastern political and philosophical thought. Even though today’s conventional matrices seek to render politics vacuous so fewer and fewer people will take interest in it, political thought does spring from philosophical and scientific thought. It is in modern society, following the industrial revolution and the emergence of materialist political thought, that the intention arises to separate ordinary human beings from genuine political thought as a strategy to conserve the power of domination exercised by a small political elite. In another dimension of this same theme, this line of thinking enables us to see how Eurocentric thought becomes dominant as all authors ignore, in these types of analyses, the scientific and philosophical evolution of our own American Indian roots. Their analyses set aside the political and ideological evolution of our own ancestral American cultures, which are closer to primitive society as it existed prior to receiving European influence through colonization, chiefly by the Spanish, English, Portuguese and German empires. Nor is there study of the subsequent political and philosophical development of our own liberation theory, which had been developing throughout America even before the industrial revolution, reaching pre-Marxian levels and later absorbing the influence of European pre-Marxist thought by way of our founding fathers like Simon Rodriguez, Francisco de Miranda and Simon Bolivar the Liberator himself, through their travels in the Old World.
In the era of electronic communication and cyberspace, some mechanisms have changed, some forms have varied, some relationships have become transformed. But philosophical, scientific, political and ideological thought remain the same. Humanity advances toward creating its own destiny, on two opposing tracks. One of these, the one we are most familiar with because we have been born into it and continue to live it every day, has brought us the alienation of all human values, the cruelest division between rich and poor, development spirals that lead us straight to the destruction of the world we live in because there are insufficient resources in the universe to sustain the frenzied rhythm with which the superpowers consume them, and we in the least developed countries are the first to suffer the consequences, as we are already doing (let us look in the crystal ball of our future, or watch on television the images of what is happening in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, etc.)
Free software is part of this same struggle. In the same way that philosophers seek to deepen their political and ideological proposals to establish new forms of state and societal organization for the benefit of humanity, computer programmers and IT developers around the world have done the same, conceptualizing what we know of as Free Software. The powerful momentum of the free software communities is so significant that it threatens to initiate a new technological revolution in the world, one as important as the Industrial Revolution but with the possibility of a much broader reach. Imperialism is attempting by all means possible to hold it back, fearing it could be the Achilles’ heel that may end up toppling the entire capitalist system and beginning to construct the Socialism of the Twenty-First Century. This is because Free Software is based on anti-capitalist principles. Free Software constitutes a socialist technological platform. We do not see this because given our excessive specialization, those who have a high level of understanding of the new Information and Communication Technologies do not possess adequate political and ideological background, or vice versa.
Furthermore, if we advance in the development and implementation of Free Software, and if we begin to unite our efforts to develop a whole platform of Free Hardware, I assure you that the days of Imperialism and Capitalism will be numbered. Likewise, if we deepen our political and ideological knowledge, and if we collaborate in an effort to get the political leadership which is most sincere and least interested in appropriating power for egotistical purposes to understand the significance of Free Software and Hardware, we can develop everything that the freedoms embodied in this technological conception can promote. In this way we will contribute to developing a more just society, a more democratic state and a new multilateral world order based in solidarity, cooperation and collaboration.
Let us break out of our own limited thought patterns, develop our social and political consciousness, and advance in building a better world. The battle of ideas is waged daily. Let us fight this fight and bring the best of ourselves to it. The future belongs to the victors.