Cuban Blogographia / Regina Coyula

Well, yes. A Cuban blogosphere has come out with blog graphs. I have just read the works of the Spaniard Josep Calvet which appear in La Joven Cuba. It is patient work to scrutinize evidently diverse and diverse material on the Network.

Calvet commits an often repeated error that seems intentional which is to identify Cuba with the government. Cuba is all Cubans, wherever they are. No law, and of course no research monograph will change this truth: Cubans are Buddhists, gays, communists, vegetarians or any other of the countless personal decisions.

Although the author has repeatedly denied having an obsession with the author of the blog “Generation Y,” it’s rare that his text doesn’t appear. In it, he says he is suspicious of the absence of a visit-counter in “Generation Y,” suggesting that the blog’s figures are inflated. He doesn’t note the several thousand comments that accompany each new entry. They don’t seem to note the number of translations. They don’t seem to notice the hundreds of links to each post. Here I have to declare that I don’t know the importance of “Alexa” that the author is always mentioning.

“We don’t believe there is any blog coming from someone who pretends to do citizen journalism merits the adjective ‘independent’.”

Given that statement, the author should clarify what he understands by “independent” because the term is simple to explain: Everyone who express their views in a sovereign manner and does not receive payment for it. The author prefers the arguments of the libelous TV show “Cyberwar” to a field investigation or a healthy silence.

We find assertions in the statement like the following:

“… currently to be a 100% Cuban blogger, is to be 100% Combative.”

Naturally, Mr. Calvert is referring to a pro-government blogger.

So punctilious with the titles of journalism, which is not decisive, because a good journalist may not ever have spent time in the classrooms of journalism; Iroel Sanchez graduated in technical sciences.

Another thing Mr. Calvert seems to ignore is that the bloggers attached to the official canon never have an “enemy” among their links, despite the fact that among the rules of good practice is that if you are going to criticize the work of others, the least you should do is link to it, and if it is an author you customarily tear to pieces, then you should include them in your blogroll. In contrast, among the alternative bloggers, they list blogs “from the other neighborhood,” will that be for independent opinions?

As if his active participation in the Cuban blogs is insufficient, Calvet needed to take part in work with an aspiration of research, which he discounts.

The lack of real spaces (not virtual) to freely issue an opinion independent of the government, has resulted in the polarization of the most visible blogs made in Cuba. They reflect the social dichotomy that runs like an underground river. And attacks do nothing to establish what we need which is a culture of dialogue.

Finally, I offer the bad news. For now, there is no cable from Venezuela.

November 7 2011