Category: Yoani Sanchez

To the memory of Teresita Fernández.

Why did that song of the kitty Vinagrito touch our souls so deeply? I don’t think the answer is the children’s visual wasteland we experienced in the seventies and eighties, filled almost entirely with the productions Made in the USSR or other Eastern European countries. Nor is it found indirectly in the human search for recognition, already so brilliantly described in The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen. No, it wasn’t just that, although these, too, could be enumerated as some of the reasons to repeat the catchy chorus.

The story of Vinagrito, the cat rescued from the street, had that sweet sensitive side missing from so many socialist camp cartoons. These were sober, tragic or instructive enough, but they lacked the melodrama spiced with touches of humor and ridicule that define the Cuban identify. With his name alone — a diminutive of the vinegar used in cooking — the crazy-haired feline already made us love him and mock him at the same time. There, we found a story of rejection, redemption and transformation. Vinagrito managed to become what no one expected of him: a beautiful and happy pet, calmly dipping his whiskers in his milk.

It was hard not to identify with the “ugly and skinny” guy picked up off the street, when so many of us also felt that the “outside” represented a loss of self and the end of the individual. Vinagrito returned — instead of us — to a home with the warm embrace of a family, surrounded by attention. He was rescued, while we were lost. He ended up at home, while so many of us were leaving for a dorm, a camp, a platoon. He meowed to the moon… while we chased an ideological mirage.

It was nice to have his tail and his taste for the fish, without him everything would have been so much more boring.

11 November 2013

“When the teachers aren’t listening, what do the students in your classroom talk about?” I asked my son a few months ago. He barely paused before answering. “The boys talk about football and the women about telenovelas,” he replied, sure of himself. I confess, I expected more. I had imagined slightly risqué topics like sexuality, or problems such as drug use or, in some cases, political controversies. But no, the long minutes of the breaks between one class and another are dominated by Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and the latest wickedness of the Brazilian soap and its heartthrob who shows his face on the small screen every week.

My first reaction was dismay. “If, at the most rebellious age, this is what they talk about… we’re in bad shape.” But then I stopped myself. I was not going to fall into what older people had warned me of when I was a teenager. “Your generation is lost,” they told me, followed by an enumeration of everything they themselves had accomplished. So, before answering Teo, I tried to understand why the reality of the country, its serious problems and possible solutions, occupy so little time — or none — in our young people’s conversations. Apathy, escapism, indifference… were some explanations. After the initial moment of disappointment, I felt relief. Comforted knowing that even this inertia is a way of bringing the current system to an end.

The Cuban model needs people who applaud wildly, committed soldiers, ideologically convinced individuals. Indolence will never be the soil where rebellion grows, nor will it foster partisan fervor. As I’ve said many times, “I prefer apathy over fanaticism.” From apathy, one can wake up, from fanaticism, I have my doubts. Frivolity is also corrosive to a sober and outdated totalitarianism.

These young people of today, they still have plenty of time for their civic consciousness to awaken.

10 November 2013

Robert is closing down his 3D movie business. He has put a price on the projector, the glasses, and even the popcorn machine. He was only three months into the business knows he can’t recover his investment. A briefing note in the official Cuban press ended his entrepreneurial plans. He was forces to close the same week he had planned to start showing children’s movies in his air-conditioned room with cushy armchairs.

Of the more than 442,000 self-employed workers in this country, a good share of them have been affected in recent weeks by new legal restrictions. The Granma newspaper announced the immediate closing of the private movie and videogame rooms, suggesting that these had never been permitted.

Certainly the list of the more than 201 private licenses don’t include film projection, nor computer rooms devoted to entertainment. However, entrepreneurs have taken advantage of a small crack in the law, to operate. In a short time, these “neighborhood theaters” began to appear all over the country, some luxuriously appointed, some very modest.

Perhaps something that annoyed the State is that the three-dimensional projectors were introduced to the country by private hands. Or that the once powerful Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC) saw that some small businesses got ahead of them on implementing such a new technology. The State apparatus sees itself threatened with losing the monopoly over the broadcast of audiovisual and places where it happens.

On the other hand, the private 3D rooms brought a lot of people back to the idea of neighborhood movie theaters. For example, in mid-20th century Havana, including the municipalities of Regla, Guanabacoa and Marianao, was host to 134 movie theaters. Some of them with between 1,000 and 2,500 seats, including lower level and balcony. The main ones came to have even as many 5,000 seats, like the Payret, the Radio Central (currently the Yara), the Metropolitan, the Blanquita (today the Karl Marx).

Of these, only 12 theaters remain active, largely in the most central parts of the city. The concept of nearby and intimate space, where you could go most Sundays, is unknown to Cubans under 30. So this opening of movie rooms by the self-employed, awakened memories in some and surprised others.

The programming of these new spaces, was based primarily on action, horror and animated movies. Halloween night, 48 hours before the ban that would close them, the 3D film rooms showed a wide range of “nightmare” movies. It was an advance premonition to what their owners would experience two days later. Spiderman, Avatar and Jack and the Giants were some of the productions that paraded across the private screens. Entertaining movies with no major artistic flights, but very popular among Cuban youth and children.

At the last congress of the government-sponsored Hermanos Saíz Assocation — an organization of young artists — one of the most striking approaches was their coming out against movies promoted by the private cinemas that are “frivolous, banal and consumerists.” We must “return to the principles of the cultural policy of the Revolution,” some cries. It was only a matter of time before the government ban would fall in the private theaters. Because it was known that the Cuban government, given a choice between extending the limits of the current legality, or maintaining it despite the reality, I would opt for the second.

Fear of independent dissemination of information, a political strenght-testing gesture, a backward step in the economic reforms. All this and more is hidden behind the new restrictions against 3D movies and videogames. However, it’s difficult to control a phenomenon that has gained so much popularity and whose technological infrastructure is already in the hands of so many Cubans.

Many, unlike Roberto who is unloading his equipment, plan to continue underground. The magic lantern will shine again behind closed doors, more discreetly, without neon signs, and without the aroma of popcorn escaping from the room.

6 November 2013

In an album for weddings there are photos of blouses, pants, shoes. They aren’t good photos, but you can see the labels and brands, which is most important to the buyers. They have everything: evening wear, tennis outfits, socks for teenagers, sportswear, underwear. Most of the goods come from Panama and Ecuador, but they also come through Terminal 2 at the international airport. So-called “mules” bring them on flights from Miami, and also through Nassau and the Cayman Islands. Ephemeral fashions, trendy colors, synthetic fabrics, big names painted on the fabric, it all fills the precarious catalogs displayed door-to-door.

The so-called private “boutiques” or “trapi-shopping” (‘trapi’ comes from the word for ‘rag’), have been hit hard legally in recent weeks. After becoming a growing phenomenon in the country’s most central doorways and streets, they’ve now been given an ultimatum to clear out their merchandise. They have until 31 December to sell what they already have in stock, but 2014 will be “a year free of imported clothing sales by the self-employed.” That privilege will be enjoyed only by State stores, where a bathing suit can cost three-month’s wages. Merchandise that is old, poor quality, and out of style, meant the government stores couldn’t match the more modern and cheaper offerings provided by the private sector.

Reluctant — or unable — to compete, the Cuban State has put an end to the business of “trapi-shopping.” Several of the best-known and air-conditioned places have already closed their doors to the public. Some have invested in redecorating their living rooms to receive their customers, having seen that their prosperous business days are numbered. However, as happens in a country with so many prohibitions, some are already looking for a solution to the current crisis. For now, they are shifting from doorways to catalogs; from on-site sales to in-home shopping. No law can stop people from looking for what they need. So they will go underground, continuing to sell skirts, shorts, sandals… with that aura, so attractive, of the new and forbidden.

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6 November 2013

[The following is from Stanford University, originally in English]
November 1, 2013 – Program on Liberation Technology In the News
Cuban blogger uses technology to break information blockade

By Sarina A. Beges

On October 28, Cuban blogger and dissident Yoani Sánchez addressed a crowd of over 100 during a special event hosted by the Program on Liberation Technology at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Sánchez described to the audience – through the use of a translator – how technology allows her to narrate the harsh realities of the closed island nation of Cuba to the world.

From the computer she constructed with spare parts in 1994 named “my little Frankenstein” to her Twitter account with over half a million followers today, Sánchez illustrated how technology is an ally for information and freedom in Cuba.

Sánchez described the launch of her blog – Generation Y – as a turning point for her life. Generation Y became an outlet for her to unleash her own personal “demons” through the written word while providing a more realistic portrait of Cuba to the international community.

“The greatest gratification has been to see how that small crack that started in 2007 has turned into a window through which many more Cuban activists and ordinary Cuban citizens can now express opinions,” said Sánchez when describing the impact of Generation Y.

Since that time, Sánchez has gained international acclaim for Generation Y – which is translated into 17 languages – and has received many accolades, including a 2012 nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize and recognition by U.S. President Barack Obama.

Sánchez, who received permission to leave Cuba for this trip, was in the San Francisco Bay Area meeting with technology giants – Google, Facebook and Twitter – to discuss the challenges of using technology in a country that restricts Internet usage and social media access for the majority of the population.

In a climate of control, the demand for information is high and Sánchez described the incredible clandestine network of information exchange in Cuba where terabytes of data are shared through flash drives. The black market for information has helped bloggers and civil society activists reach an international audience with their messages.

“The day in Cuba when there is political change , I expect there to be monuments raised not to men who fought with weapons and machetes, but in the shape of a USB drive … or in the shape of a little blue Twitter bird in Havana,” said Sánchez, emphasizing the important role that technology tools have played in the struggle for freedom.

Audience members engaged Sánchez in a series of questions about the political situation in Cuba, curious about her position on the U.S. economic embargo, Raul Castro’s new policies and the Cuban exile community. Her responses provided a new narrative and perspective on long-standing issues that have defined U.S. – Cuban relations.

Sánchez closed her talk on a somber note, discussing how the life of the nation is linked to the fate of a single man.

“My mother was born under the Castro’s, I was born under the Castro’s, my son who is 18 years old was born under the Castro’s – that is three generations,” said Sánchez. “If the system is prolonged several more years my grandchildren may be born under this regime.”

While it is unclear what the future holds for Cuba, Sánchez’s talk reminded the audience that technology is helping to slowly chip away at the information blockade in Cuba, giving people the tools to be more free.

This talk was co-sponsored by the Association for Liberation Technology, the Center for Latin American Studies and the Stanford Human Rights Center.

To view the picture slideshow from the talk, please click here.

Senior executives from Google and Twitter promised Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez that they would technological tools to protect the freedom of expression of Cuban civil society.

The author of the blog Generation Y, in an interview with martinoticias.com, said that with her visit to Silicon Valley in California she established serious conversations with these social media giants regarding the need for protection of Cuban activists.

Twitter Representatives agreed to provide resources to detect fake profiles used by people in the service of the Cuban government to discredit and threaten independent journalists living in Cuba.

During a meeting with students and professors at the University of Miami, Sanchez spoke about the elements that characterize the current Cuban civil society and the impact of technology as a force for change to awaken youth and the Cuban population general from their apathy.

For Sanchez, technology is a unifying element that will help the Cuban people to lose their fear of the Castro regime. Her plan to create a digital newspaper aims to contribute to this.

With regards to that publication she said that there are 8 journalists preparing every detail of the launch, so this will be “a newspaper of the 21st century.” So that it can circulate in a printed edition in Cuba, it will be available on the site in a pdf version.

For young people at the University of Miami, who have studied Yoani Sánchez’s work in class, it was particularly interesting to see the positive spirit this communicator maintains, in the face of daily obstacles in Cuba.

The blogger, who has over 526,000 followers on her Twitter account, is considered a pioneer in the use of new technologies in Cuba.

Cubanet, 30 October 2013

The lady counts the coins before leaving home: she has fifty-five cents in convertible pesos. It is the equivalent of a full day’s pay and barely fills a corner of her pocket. She already knows what she is going to buy… the same as always. She has enough for two chicken bouillon cubes and a bar of bath soap. So eight hours work is just enough to flavor some rice and work up a few suds in the bathroom. She belongs to that Cuba that still calculates every price in national currency — the Cuban peso — a part of the country that doesn’t receive remittances, has no special privileges, no family abroad, no private businesses, nothing going on under the table.

Just before arriving at the store to buy her Maggi cubes, she stops to stare at those drinking beer at a snack bar. Every can of this refreshing drink is the equivalent of two days’ pay. However the place is full, packed with couples and groups of men who talk loudly, drink, try some of the food. It is the other Cuba, with hard currency, with relatives abroad, with their own businesses or some other illicit source of income. The abyss between the two is so great, the divide so major, they seem to be running in parallel, never touching. They have their own fears, different dreams.

When the beginning of a timeline to eradicate the dual currency was announced this week, the two countries that converge on this Island reacted differently. The Cuba that lives only on its miserable wages felt that finally they had started to put an end date to an injustice. They are those who cannot even have a photo taken on their birthday, pay for a collective taxi, nor imagine themselves traveling anywhere. For them, any process of unifying the currencies can only bring hope, because it couldn’t be any worse than it is now. The other country, in convertible pesos, received the news with great caution. How will the exchange rate change relative to the dollar or the euro? How much will the buying power of those who live better today be devalued? Their thoughts were pragmatic.

In a society where the social abyss is increasingly unfathomable and economic inequalities grow, no measure helps everybody, no relaxation will make life better for each person. Twenty years of monetary schizophrenia have also created two hemispheres, two worlds. It remains to be seen whether a simple change of banknotes can bring closer these two countries that comprise our reality, these two dimensions. If it can make it so that the lady who — almost always — eats rice flavored with a little soup cube, can one day sit down in a snack bar and order a beer.

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26 October 2013

I’m in the same park where thirty years ago my sister and I ran and played. Two girls turning pirouettes similar to ours hide behind some bushes. However, there is something very different in this deja vu: missing is the fountain with its sound of rain falling on marble. With rare exceptions, a very similar panorama repeats itself in every Havana plaza. Scarcity, negligence or urban policy, no one can explain it, but in recent decades this city has lost the moist presence of its fountains.

Guided by my memory, I decided to take a water tour. At the corner of Belascoaín and Carlos III all that is left of that pond where we dunked our hands and sometimes our feet is an empty tank. A few blocks further on, rusted iron marks the site of one of the more ephemeral fountains of my memory. It only lasted a few weeks after its inauguration in an official event, speech and all. Known as “Paulina’s bidet,” near Sport City, now and again downpours turn it into a greenish lake with tadpoles. And don’t even talk about the Fountain of Youth — drab and decrepit — so close to the sea, so far from its former glory.

In a brief investigation of why this city has lost so many sources, I find varied and revealing answers: “The problem is they stole the pump that supplies the water,” an official told me. At another site an annoyed employee assured me, “We had to close it because some people ended up bathing here, because they don’t have showers in their homes.” The nicest was a lady who looked at me with narrowed eyes while reproaching me, “Oh my, what a tremendous memory you have, this fountain hasn’t worked for decades.” In the center of Plaza Vieja stands one of the few that still functions, surrounded by an imposing fence, to keep the neighbors from taking the precious liquid bucket by bucket. My water tour ended, desert-like, at the well-known La India fountain, also without a drop of H2O.

As residents of this city we must do something so that our children can experience the beauty of parks with fountains. I know there are other priorities to be resolved, but how gray is the asphalt, how solitary a little square and how oppressive the heat without this sound of water skipping over the stones.

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16 October 2013

Last week a friend asked me if the coming of democratic changes to Cuba would result in independent journalism. I stopped to meditate, because there are answers that shouldn’t be thrown out there without carefully weighing them. In the seconds I remained silent passing through my head were all the images and moments of those reporters of risks and words that have influenced my life. I thought about Raúl Rivero, who left journalism and the official institutions to take a dangerous leap toward freedom for his pen.  I remember the typewriter permanently on the table in his apartment on Peñalver Street, the smell of his cigar, his arms reaching out to receive everyone who came. Undoubtedly a man who loved his profession which put him at the center of so much repression and damage.

I kept going over the names. Reinaldo Escobar who permanently infected me with the virus of journalism, my colleagues of Primavera de Cuba, the many friends who have fed the pages of Cubanet, Diario de Cuba, Café Fuerte, HablemosPress, Misceláneas de Cuba, Voces Cubanas, Penúltimos Días and of so many other sites, blogs, press agencies and simple bulletins with just a single sheet folded in half. Spaces in which they have narrated this country concealed by the official media and the triumphalism of political slogans. People who choose the most difficult path, instead of remaining silent, faking it, staying out of trouble like the vast majority. Thanks to them we have heard innumerable news stories silenced in the national newspapers, television and radio, the private and hegemonic property of the Communist Party.

So, when my friend sprung that question on me, I concluded that in a democratic nation journalism has no need of surnames. It is not “official” or “independent.” And so, as a small tribute to all those reporters of yesterday and today, I have written the prologue to the anthology, “Con voz abierta/With Open Voices,” which presents a selection of news and opinion written from within Cuba and in the most precarious of conditions from the legal and material point of view. It is a book of journalists… simply journalists, without qualifiers that determine their affiliation to any ideology. A compilation that will bring about this future in which we will not need to make distinctions between professionals of the press.

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10 October 2013

When I was in high school two of the many words used as insults shocked me. One of them was “self-sufficient.” Its stigma came from the mea culpa processes to join the Young Communists Union, where the candidates criticized themselves for not behaving — always — as part of a collective. Another pejorative terms was “conscious” or “aware,” which in that context referred to someone too intellectual, too devoted to books, too engaged in learning. The good students were labeled “super-conscious” and the natural leaders who emerged in each group also felt the taint of self-sufficiency. Better not to excel, not to overexert yourself… these disqualifiers seemed to warn us.

Worshiping individual mediocrity generates mediocre societies. Vilifying the talented and entrepreneurial hinders the development of a nation. Professional capital is not constructed only with titles, degrees and post-graduate degrees, but with the need that arises from a population that reveres knowledge. It is also imperative that intelligence is not something to be hidden, almost with embarrassment or shame. We are all potential scientists and discoverers, in need of an environment where our capabilities find respect. A country of scientists should be able to show off its laboratories and vaccines; but also ensure that ordinary people can patent their achievements and be rewarded — materially and spiritually — for their ingenuity.

There may be many university graduates in Cuba, but as long as these people do not find true social and legal recognition and salaries commensurate with their work, we can hardly call ourselves a nation of science. It’s sad that more statues are raised and more plazas dedicated to people who have wielded machetes or weapons, than to those who have saved lives with their microscopes and syringes. The prodigious milligram* of knowledge needs an environment where it can multiply. That fertile soil that carries the seed of education, the irrigation to imagine a better life through scientific discovery and the essential fertilizer of freedom.

* “An ant censured for the subtlety of its loads and its frequent distractions, found one morning, on straying once again from the road, a prodigious milligram. Without stopping to think about the consequences of the discovery, it took the milligram and put it on its back. Happily it discovered that it was the perfect load just for her. The ideal weight of that object gave her body a strange energy: like the weight of their wings on the bodies of birds.” (Taken from “The Prodigious Milligram,” Juan José Arreola, Complete Works, Mexico, Alfaguara, 1997)

** Thanks to Universal Thinking Forum for provoking this reflection … and much more.

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6 October 2013