Miriam Celaya
Miriam Celaya, Translator: Norma Whiting
(Work originally published in number 9, Voices magazine)
Several weeks ago an interview appeared in the virtual space
cubaencuentro.com. The two-part interview was conducted by Luis Manuel
García Méndez, and the person interviewed was the young American scholar
Ted Henken. Titled "Mapping Blogolandia" (May 2011), Henken traces, with
remarkable objectivity, his map of the Cuban blogosphere and its
different trends, and offers his personal views about the blogger
phenomenon in the Island. As expected, after this professor had been
warned by the Cuban authorities that he would not be allowed to reenter
Cuba, some official bloggers have reacted with special virulence towards
the analysis Henken conducted and, as usual, they have unleashed the
well-established smear campaign.
But beyond the irritation that the interview may have awakened, his
observations place the sights on a phenomenon which — perhaps for being
new or controversial, since it was born within the dissident faction of
the island — is quite unknown to Cubans. Possibly because it is "new" in
a country that since the last five decades has been characterized by
late access to technological advances, or the whiff of suspicion that
emerges from the unknown, the Cuban blogosphere is permeated by somewhat
confusing classifications, labeled with adjectives that do not clearly
reflect the reality of the phenomenon.
Thus, bloggers emerged spontaneously and free through our own personal
spirit and resources within the dissidence or the alternative civil
society (which in Cuba are almost the same thing), we do not have
statutes or programs and are not grouped under any direction,
association or institution or directed by any leader. We are the
so-called alternative or independent blogosphere. It's basically people
who do not associate with each other, with complete autonomy; we each
assume full responsibility for managing our blogs and what we publish,
while deciding everything about our blogging activities. So we are a
rebellious sectors of Cuban society, alternative voices to that official
aging press tainted by triumphalism, the manipulation of information,
secrecy, conspiracy and flattery to the system.
On the other hand, sometime after, the official blogosphere was created
(and the semi-official, its lighter variant), comprised of official
journalists, who have received the express direction of the Cuban
government through the Communist Party to create their own personal
blogs to attack the independent bloggers and counteract their potential
"adverse effects" on Cuban youth, and also represented by other
pseudo-official spaces, controlled or supervised by the government or
encouraged by leftist foreign sympathizers, i.e., blogs with relative
autonomy from the government.
As a variation between the two, the second has more critical views
–though moderated and tolerated by the authorities- and as their common
denominator, they enjoy the protective impunity that the status of
"revolutionary" allows them, and they have better possibilities to free
access to the Internet. However, one obvious glaring contradiction in
this concept (official blogosphere) jumps out, because the notion of
"blogger" in its most pristine sense is incompatible with the word
"official." "Blogger" is the essence of freedom of expression. Thus, by
its very nature, the official blogosphere can only be a phenomenon of
totalitarian regimes, as is a normal response directed against those in
power in sharp contrast to the freshness, freedom and spontaneity of
citizen journalism endorsed by the alternative blogosphere, devoid of
guardians, controls and fixtures.
At the same time, in 2008 a weekly meeting space for independent
bloggers also began, where they exchanged knowledge, information and
expectations, strengthening the links between participants and
consolidating at the same time in real space and in personal contact,
the blogger spirit born in the networks. This experience of regular
meetings, called "Blogger Itinerary", also had its virtual space and was
the direct forerunner of the Blogger Academy that between October 2009
and April 2010 provided free knowledge on the use of information
technologies and other topics of general interest, such as writing,
ethics and law, Cuban culture, photography, to help the formation of
bloggers, an experience which resulted in graduating thirty students,
adding new voices to the Cuban virtual independent spectrum.
Viewed this way, an approach to the Cuban blogger landscape would seem
like a kind of chaotic war between good and evil, repeating and moving
to the virtual venues the old, outdated and simplistic Manichean scheme,
established decades ago by the leader of the Cuban revolution, when he
decreed fascist statement "within the revolution everything, against the
revolution nothing", still absurdly applauded by one or another
Coryphaeus of power.
However, every social phenomenon reflects the nature of processes that
have specific causes, and the Cuban blogosphere is no exception to that
rule. This phenomenon is the child of circumstances and it evolves with
them; a free blogosphere could not exist in conditions of dictatorship
without its counterpart, the official blogosphere. And it is also
because of that that the official blogs, much to their annoyance,
constitute the consecration of our existence in Cuba. It is, in a
certain perverse way, the government's acknowledgement of our labors.
Short Review of a Brief History
The Cuban blogosphere is a recent phenomenon. It started around April,
2007, when the blog "Generation Y" was born on the website
desdecuba.com. By then, both the owner of this blog, Yoani Sánchez, and
the small group of graphic artists who worked on the page, which also
housed the magazine Contodos and also contained a section known then as
Portfolio, with different independent personal projects, took some time
in experimenting with the editorial work. Some of us were volunteers of
the magazine Contodos and also wrote for different sites, such as
Encuentro on the Web and other publications overseas. So the necessary
conditions existed for the occurrence of the blogger explosion
subjectively, a feeling of freedom of expression as an inevitable
individual personal right, and the individual willpower to put this
right into practice; in the objective field, the existence of the
Internet as a vehicle designed to overtake the government's monopoly on
the media, and the possibilities offered by computer information and
communication technology for the people to practice freedom of speech.
The introduction of the "blog" variant, an option that for many of us
was completely unknown until then, was fertile ground for the most
authentic manifestation of citizen journalism in Cuba to take-off.
Within months, what began as a spontaneous alternative among a group of
individual Cubans started to interest others, many of them young, with
some knowledge of the use of technology, who were experiencing in
finding a place for self-expression. A small number of people got
together, some of whom had already dabbled in online journalism or had
taken their first steps in isolated blogs. Blogger enthusiasm quickly
spread like an epidemic, giving rise to the platform Voces Cubanas,
which houses in the same web dozens of Cubans of diverse occupations,
interests and ages, who have found in the virtual network possibilities
to express themselves not possible, or extremely limited, in social reality.
In 2009 the first blogger competition, "A Virtual Island" was held,
convened by the independent blogosphere and directed to bloggers in
Cuba. By then, the international awards received by Yoani Sánchez had
put the focus of international public opinion on the blog Generación Y,
and, by extension, the alternative Cuban blogger phenomenon. This raised
the alarm in Cuba, so the government felt compelled to call on their
media Yeomen to "the Party's task" to start up their blogs, designed to
neutralize the voices of independent thought that were proliferating on
the Internet, offering the world a version of Cuba that differed
substantially from the idyllic image released by the official press. The
people's journalism belied the happy society that the official window
was displaying and it was damaging the perfect effigy of the tropical
version of Castro-style socialism. The Cuba that was reflected in the
alternative blogs had nothing in common with the victory speech of the
traditional press, controlled by the government; and what was worse, the
alternative blogosphere, free of controls, was a growing phenomenon.
Cuban authorities had delayed too long to understand the power of
technologies at the service of individual freedoms. Behold just a small
number of emancipated individuals with a bit of technology, minimal
access to the Net and a good dose of audacity, were putting the powerful
half a century monolith press in check, and, full of pride and
arrogance, the disinformation apparatus and computer intelligence agents
were summoned to face the new "threat." Thus began a new era of
repression in which the struggles and reactionary tendencies of the
ideology in power would move to the virtual space.
The Official Blogosphere
It is known that in the manual of the official Cuban repression the
first basic principle adheres to the policy statement "within the
revolution everything …" therefore, everyone who does not abide by the
designs of the government or who deviates from the limits or ordinances
established by it, is considered "the enemy" and must be fought to the
death. In turn, the first step to fight the enemy is to demonize him. It
is thus no coincidence that, after having been conveniently ignored by
the mainstream media -up to where it was possible or prudent to the
regime- we alternative bloggers are being presented under the generic
label of "mercenaries working for the U.S. government" or, to become
more in tune with the times and technology, "cyber-terrorists." Once
they have coined the term, almost everything boils down to mashing the
same refrain, in which an individual morphs from one day to the next
from a peaceful neighbor who is unhappy with the system into a dangerous
agent of the CIA, US Treasury Department employee, with all the shady
attributes that it implies… albeit without the benefit$$$.
The configuration of the official blogosphere and that of the
pseudo-official is also quite varied. It is composed of both vocal and
vitriolic journalists and "intellectuals" officers of long standing, who
have proved their obedience as a group of young "revolutionaries" who
have assumed moderately "critic" ideas inside the system. This last
trend includes some that point out the deficiencies produced "by the
bureaucracy" and the "corruption of the images of those who have not
known how to interpret the historic leaders" and other dubious novelties
of the "revolutionary" process. Neo-guevarism is a standard that seems
to focus Cuba's hopes in a sinister creed, with Holy Saint Ché and his
ideas as the main object of worship. There's even a group by the name of
La Joven Cuba (Young Cuba) as an organization run by Guiteras, a
revolutionary of the first half of the last century, known for his
adherence to terrorist methods of struggle. As for me, I distrust a lot
of those who declare themselves as followers of militant and violent
subjects. However, the repertoire of these hardened guys (reluctantly
acknowledged) results in various Trotskyists, Stalinists and
revisionists of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and even of a Martí, conveniently
decontextualized, setting a style that fills your hands with strong
ideological components.
Under the traditional militaristic discourse that so pleases the
revolutionaries, today the Internet is for them a "trench", a "new
battlefield" where a "cyber war" is developing in which "it is necessary
to eliminate the opponent". That is, in the government's mentality and
in that of its followers, the Net stops being a peaceful means of
communication between individuals and groups that shed and exchange
standards, knowledge, information and ideas to become a dangerous war
theater where it is necessary for some ideas to have to triumph over
others. I prefer to opt for peaceful proposals, in the style of Gandhi
or Mandela, to achieve freedom and rights for everyone, and I also hope
to continue to find, in the company of my readers, a civic venue of
debate and of the democratic application of opinions.
Another common element of combating blogs is that, without exception,
they shy away from contact or exchange with alternative bloggers and
refuse to direct and open public debate, either from their own digital
spaces or in a public venue to which they themselves might convene. In
any case, the official blogosphere and its variants, as the effect of
alternative response to the blogosphere, lack the freshness and
spontaneity of the alternative bloggers, and do not have the ability to
take independent personal or group proposals, therefore, they are
condemned to get exhausted by their own logic. The limitations of a
closed system cannot be overcome if an open, direct, and inclusive
debate cannot be established.
Internet: a Democracy Challenge
Nevertheless, I feel that the existence of such proposals within the
virtual spectrum of the Island is healthy. An essential component of
democracy is, certainly, plurality. The mere presence of places for
opinions, the practice of communication and the management of
technologies, however limited or controlled, will lead to the emergence
of large sectors that will gain in independence. A discussion forum
cannot escape the scrutiny of public opinion, and just as it spreads
free speech or a dogma, it also exposes your weaknesses and flaws,
thereby circulating ideas, whether related or contradictory to their
original intent. It is a big breakthrough in a society marked by decades
of stagnation, conspiracies and secrets.
On the other hand, to have raised a formal response of so great a
magnitude signals that the alternative blogosphere is not as
insignificant and innocuous as the government pretends. You do not fight
with such viciousness what is inconsequential, especially in a country
where the minimum accessibility of the Internet dramatically decreases
the effect of blogs of any stripe or affiliation. Contrary to what the
authorities intend, far from removing what they consider the blogger
threat, they are strengthening it. Somehow, when their own cyber-servers
read us, they are being exposed to a world of diverse opinions, the
exercise of freedom of expression and the debate among Cubans so long
proscribed. The more they glimpse at free venues, the more aware they
will be of their status as slaves and perhaps it is true that they will
be closer to the emancipation of granted and not conquered freedoms, but
freedoms nevertheless.
Today, when thanks to world technology many voices that have been
silenced for too long are earning their place, the Cuban government is
not willing to face the huge challenge of placing communication in the
hands of all Cubans. It is a silent admission of weakness. How is it
that people so revolutionary and educated do not have free access to
information and global communications? What is the justification that
the first illiteracy-free country in this hemisphere is now
technologically illiterate? Internet is peace and democracy, so, to
assume it is a battlefield can only mean a guaranty of defeat.
Translated by Norma Whiting
August 8 2011
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