To my readers: As has become customary, our desdecuba.com has been hacked again for several days, therefore, I have not been able to update the blog. To my surprise, today I found out it could be accessed, but since I did not have a post ready to be uploaded, I will duplicate an article I wrote, published May 7 by Diario de Cuba. Hugs to all, Eva-Miriam
And Telesur Says So
At first glance, it would seem that the Telesur TV channel — now live in Cuba — is the same as any other news program on national television. On Telesur, as in the regular channels in Cuba, the U.S. government is the great villain, enemy of peace and prosperity of the people, and equally villain are its allies, the government of Israel and the ever-evil “western powers.”
On Telesur, broadcast reports also indicate that the good-natured and just FARC vigilantes have the government of Juan Manuel Santos up against the ropes. He has been forced to sit at the negotiating table, while Bashar Al Assad is the paradigm of kindness for the Syrian people and the hope of Arab countries against Western domination.
Telesur shows how the hairy ear of the interventionist US imperialism hides behind all the conflicts of the world, with provocations against North Korea –- which for that reason has been forced to use the threat of nuclear war — or with its peculiar way of recruiting mercenaries to overthrow democratically elected governments around the world, mainly in Latin America.
Thus, for example, it could almost be said that there is no opposition in Venezuela, though in the recent elections it won almost half the electorate votes, but a fascist clique spurred from Washington, some of them Venezuelan congressional representatives, who had the audacity to “incite violence” when they were deprived of their right to speak and protest against it, the result of which was a brawl in which — curiously — those same “traitors” were the ones seriously injured by the violence of the ruling bloc.
All very simple, as in the old Western B-movies, the world is divided into good-just-because and bad-to-the-end.
This last weekend Telesur broadcast a report from China, where its correspondent in that country presented as a true gender advance that now Chinese women with larger incomes can have two children instead of the only child that the strict birth control stipulates. That is, couples with lower incomes than that officially established will not benefit from this change. Without a doubt, establishing social differences according to income is something that has become common in systems called “socialist.”
But Telesur is not exactly like Cuban TV, as some claim, because since, at the end of the day, it is a channel that broadcasts to the entire region, where the press is not the exclusive monopoly of governments, it is required to transmit images and events that occur daily in the world, and we know that images speak louder than words.
It doesn’t matter if figures and information are manipulated, the fact is that, for the first time, Cubans have seen and heard Barack Obama’s complete swearing-in speech of the oath of office, and we have also taken part onscreen in free and direct elections held legitimately in “sister countries,” such as Ecuador, Paraguay and even in Venezuela itself, complete with electoral campaigns, opposition, international observers, returns, complaints and all the ingredients of a democratic recipe that we have been denied for generations in our country.
In some twisted way, Telesur is a small chink in the boarded window of Castro’s totalitarianism. When there are contrasts, some light is cast. That is why so many Cubans watch some Telesur areas incredulous and in awe, such as a show called “Atomun” which, by detailing the latest technological advances that occur in the world, has the rare virtue of placing the natives of this island face to face with our enormous lack of computer technology and our appalling isolation compared to other XXI century societies which, paradoxically, have not had the advantages of half a century of “revolution.”
Whether they like it or not, Telesur reports to us from disinformation. And it appears that no one can say they are trying to deceive us. Their intentions to confuse are openly declared, even from their own presentation slogan: “Telesur, our North is the South.” And I say let whoever wants to be confused be confused.
Translated by Norma Whiting
10 May 2013
