Cuba Culture News and Information
Cuba News and Information
(see rest of story link below for video)
Wall Street Journal
On a recent morning, Yoani Sánchez took a deep breath and gathered her nerve for an undercover mission: posting an Internet chronicle about life in Fidel Castro’s Cuba.
To get around Cuba’s restrictions on Web access, the waif-like 32-year-old posed as a tourist to slip into an Internet cafe in one of the city’s luxury hotels, which normally bar Cubans. Dressed in gray surf shorts, T-shirt and lime-green espadrilles, she strode toward a guard at the hotel’s threshold and flashed a wide smile. The guard, a towering man with a shaved head, stepped aside.
“I think I’m able to do this because I look so harmless,” says Ms. Sánchez, who says she is sometimes mistaken for a teenager. Once inside the cafe, she attached a flash memory drive to the hotel computer and, in quick, intense movements, uploaded her material. Time matters: The $3 she paid for a half-hour is nearly a week’s wage for many Cubans.
Ms. Sánchez has done this cloak-and-dagger routine since April, publishing essays that capture the privation, irony and even humor of Cuba’s tropical Communism—“Stalinism with conga drums,” as she and her husband jokingly call it. From writing about the book fair that blacklisted her favorite authors to the schoolyard where parents smuggle food to their hungry children, Ms. Sánchez paints an unflinching, and deeply personal, portrait of the Cuban experience.
While there are plenty of bloggers who dish out harsh opinions on Mr. Castro, most do so from the cozy confines of Miami. Ms. Sánchez is one of the few who do so from Havana.
“What makes her so special is that she is fresh, observant and on-the-scene,” says Philip Peters, a former Latin America official at the State Department who now studies Cuba at the Lexington Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. “Almost all of the Cuba blogs are written by people who travel there occasionally, or by people who haven’t seen the island in 40 years, if ever,” he says.
Not only does she write from Cuba, she even signs her name and posts a photo of herself on her Web site. Most Havana bloggers are anonymous. “Once you experience the flavor of saying what you think, of publishing it and signing it with your name, well, there’s no turning back,” she says. “One of the first things we have to do, a great way to begin to change, is to be more honest about saying what you think.”
The problem is, saying what you think in Cuba can be dangerous. In 2002, Cuba imprisoned dozens of journalists who declared themselves dissidents and published criticisms of the regime—many are still there. Most Cubans are so afraid of being labeled a critic that they are reluctant to utter the words “Fidel Castro” in public. Instead, they silently pantomime stroking a beard when referring to their leader.
Direct Writing
Ms. Sánchez’s writing is direct. On Oct. 5, she wrote about Mr. Castro’s regular newspaper editorials, which usually focus on international politics rather than the problems of Cuba.
“The latest reflections of Fidel Castro have ended my patience,” she wrote. “To try to evade or distance oneself from our problems and theorize about things that occurred thousands of kilometers away, or many years ago, is to multiply by zero the demands of a population that is tired, disenchanted and in need today of measures that alleviate its precariousness.”
The fact that Ms. Sánchez has avoided jail is a source of great intrigue for global Cuba watchers and the Cuban exile community in Miami. Some experts say it signals new tolerance by Raúl Castro, who has taken over day-to-day leadership from his brother because of Fidel’s deteriorating health. Since taking temporary power in July 2006, Raúl Castro has called for an “open debate” on the country’s economic policies, and promised agricultural reforms to bolster the food supply. Cuba experts debate whether Raúl’s promises suggest a true re-examination of Cuba’s economic model, or are simply rhetoric.
Others, especially the exile community, can’t quite believe Ms. Sánchez gets away with what she does. They wonder if she is an unwitting dupe—or a complicit agent—in a campaign to make Raúl Castro appear more tolerant as he seeks greater foreign aid.
“From the bottom of my heart, I want her blog to be legitimate and be the seed that grows into something in Cuba,” says Val Prieto, a 42-year-old Miami-based architect who edits an anti-Castro blog called Babalu. “The reason the exile community is wary is that we’ve been bamboozled time and time again. You never can tell when it comes to Castro.”
There may be a simpler explanation. Some experts say Cuban authorities are mainly concerned about what people on the island think, and since the vast majority of Cubans don’t have Internet access, the government is less alarmed by a Web site available primarily to outsiders.
Taken Aback
READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE
Read her blog in Spanish here http://www.desdecuba.com/generaciony/
Read her blog in English here http://www.desdecuba.com/generationy/
The Havana Journal has supported her efforts ever since it was first learned that she was writing from Havana.
I understand Val Prieto’s concern but I think Ms. Sanchez is genuine because she said “The latest reflections of Fidel Castro have ended my patience”.
I have felt that and I think the younger generation of Cubans have felt that way too. This is not a feeling that the Cuban government would understand so I don’t think it is crafted.
In the past I hesitated to actively promote her blog thinking that maybe she didn’t want too much press. Well, if she’s sitting with an interview for the Wall Street Journal, I don’t think a little more “ink” from the Havana Journal would do her any harm.
So, Yoani, I wish you the best of luck and much success.
Signature:
This is my signature - get yours in Your Control Panel. Go ahead and add a link to your site. Self promotion is permitted as long as it is beneficial to our community.
I also feel that she is genuine. Even if the government is more tolerant many brave people are still in jail just for talking in favor of the human rights. She is very brave in talking about the real problems in todays Cuba.
We all should praise the extremely brave job of this courageous young Cuban.
como estan i just wanted to say to anyone hello i hope you all in cuba are doing ok
Nueva desinformacion del estado Cubano para detectar enlaces con YAONI SANCHEZ
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El gobieno del actual presidente por Raul Castro despues de aprovecharse de las falsas insinuaciones de mostrar cambio sobre la sitema dictatorial heredado por su hermano Fidel Castro a mostrado su naturaleza de no acceder a tales cambios.
El estado cubano (a intereses de una sola persona “su presidente militar") ademas de mostrar abiertamente su posicion intransigente como el anterior gobernador cubano Fidel Castro no permitiendo la salida de la ciudadana Yoani Sanchez, se ha dedicado a bloquear dentro de Cuba el blog mas visitado en toda la historia de ese pais, para mas con una paciencia de parte del lector si visita dicho blog se vera como el estado cubano ha plagado de “trolles internautas” dicho Blog, sembrando el desanimo y la contienda de dichos participantes mediante supuestos “no cubanos opinando o atacando a yoani por su premio” o simplemente ofendiendo directamente a sus participantes
http://desdecuba.com/generaciony/?p=254#comment-125061
Asi mismo tambien estan apareciendo links de contactos para Yoani Sanchez como el siguiente
http://www.camagueyanos.com/wwwboard/mensajes/74880.html
Una de las estratagemas del actual sistema de trolles para sembrar la confucion es copiar los nick de los participantes y dar mensages con intenciones a la contienda.
We in America have forgotten that in our infantsy, our citizens were jailed and hung for the thoughts, writings, and actions againts opression. Cuban citizens want these same things, for it is true that mankind everywhere want these things of freedom of thought, action, movement, and happiness.
The Cuban government has heard all this before and someday may realize the tastlessness of separation. Until then voices like Yoani and others must continue to speak and be heard. Throught time all things are brought in judgement, and throught judgement, then justice.
dennis vaughn
