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.
