The Sound of Silence

The Sound of Silence / Rosa Maria Rodriguez
Posted on May 11, 2013

Miguel Diaz-Canel criticized the information silence imposed on us by
the authorities and called it an "impossible dream" to maintain it due
to the circulation of news that circulated among people who surf the
internet or who have email, and the avidity of our compatriots to have
alternative sources of knowledge of the news.

In the National Seminar in Preparation of the 2013-2014 School Year,
held in Havana, the Cuban government's second in command acknowledged
publicly and tacitly — even without saying it — that the authorities
have violated the rights of a society to free information have imposed
an incidental ignorance, biased information, and an obligatory official
and irresponsible journalism.

Which authorities is he referring to? Evidently, the number two Cuban is
alluding to the "gray quarantine" of the mandate of Raul Castro.

We all know that in Cuba people use the internet at their workplaces —
those who have it — to be able to communicate with family and friends
living abroad, and consume a little information about what is happening
in the world from an alternative perspective to the classical posture of
the unconditional government journalists.

A great part of the population is fed up with the visions and versions
aligned with the party and the high command offered by the professionals
of the national press, so distant from the Cuban reality that suffers
daily lines to buy meager food for the day, who have to face full buses
to get to work, and who at night consume super-politicized television
programming, mediocre and outmoded, that seem anchored in the decade of
the seventies.

The Cuban Vice President did not speak, however, about the cable that,
under the leadership of President Hugo Chavez, we have had in Cuba since
February 2011, which those in power tried to hide with all kinds of
misinformation and rumors, and the growing demand of the computerized
Cuban society to have their free access to information through the
Internet be respected.

This silent but progressive demand, which is imposing a renewed
conception of the information paradigms that should be established and
rule in modern society. There is no point in insisting on a lifting of
the so-called secrecy of the Cuban press unless the authorities take the
first step to greater transparency and information freedom, if there is
censorship, if they do not allow alternative news agencies, and if they
harass and condemn independent journalism.

The so-called socialist models that have been imposed in Latin America,
also have their share of influence in the new directions that should
guide our destiny towards greater social justice. What are called the
new systems of the continental left, have pulled the rug out from under
the Cuban regime with their multiparty system, with their social
programs, housing and technological development, among many others to
cajole their people.

When thinking about the development of their countries and giving them
greater benefits, they have left their Cuban ideological benefactor and
sponsor as the hemispheric "ugly duckling" with regards to freedoms and
rights.

But it seems that the day "is coming" when "the silence of the innocents
and the lambs" that the powerful has so greatly mocked and abused, will
break the wall of cyber censorship and begin at least to walk along the
highways of information and communication. New times dictate this, but
we expect more, much more that they owe to Cuba, to our people and our
history.

11 May 2013

http://translatingcuba.com/the-sound-of-silence-rosa-maria-rodriguez/