Award-Winning Cuban Blogger
Posted: July 18, 2010 05:57 PM
Sleepwalking Through History, Officially Newsless In Cuba
Every day at half past six we have breakfast while watching the first
morning news magazine on Cuban TV. Around nine, an elderly retiree who
buys the newspaper to resell it as a way to earn a few pesos, brings us
the daily Granma, and at eight in the evening we tune in again, this
time to the National Television News. By the end of the day we have
learned what the Cuban governments allows its citizens to know.
Fortunately, there are parallel sources. One of them is our friend
Manolo, whose aunt has installed an illegal satellite dish inside a
supposed water tank on her roof. She tapes the programs from Mexico or
Florida, makes copies, and sells that at a price that allows her to live
without formal employment. Another friend takes a turn on the internet
once a week in a European embassy, where he surfs all the sites which
are blocked on the connections ordinarily available to Cubans.
We, also, form a part of this alternative news exchange, because in the
brief moments when we connect to the internet to feed our respective
blogs, we download the most interesting articles about Cuba and the rest
of the world appearing in the foreign press. When these informal news
transmission systems fail us, we appeal to Lola - a rumor mill
specialist - who is said to be able to guess what was discussed at the
most recent meetings of the top leadership.
We realize, however, that being informed is like a disease, one whose
most visible symptoms are permanent irritation, distrustful paranoia,
and a sensation of being one of the few who remain awake in a land of
sleepwalkers. Sometimes we feel compassion - or is it envy? - when faced
with those who only hear or read the triumphalist headlines about our
national reality, or with the pessimism of those who have been convinced
that outside our small island, the whole world is in ruins.
This extreme government secrecy reaches sometimes dramatic, and
sometimes ludicrous, levels. For example, when two of our highest
ministers were dismissed the reasons why were only explained to a select
group of party members who were shown a top-secret informative video.
Carnivals are canceled and instead of announcing the fact to the
population, we are only told we how to get our money back for any
tickets we might have bought.
But the government does not only distort what is happening within the
country, it does so to an even greater extent with what happens outside
our borders. In Cuba, for example, no one has learned through the
official media that Saddam Hussein was a murderer, nor that Mugabe is a
dictator, and few know that in China and Vietnam there are both
millionaires and beggars. Neither television nor radio nor the official
newspapers ever hint that in much of the world people enjoy free public
education and health care. And many people on this island think that
Putin is basically a communist, and that the Basque separatist
organization, the ETA, is a political movement enjoying great sympathy
among Spaniards.
Yoani's blog, Generation Y, can be read here in English translation.
Follow Yoani Sanchez on Twitter: www.twitter.com/yoanisanchez"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/sleepwalking-through-hist_b_650532.html
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