To be a reporter in Cuba is something like trying to be a tightrope artist balancing on a loose rope in an old traveling circus. To begin with, when one is an independent reporter, in addition to the string of insults that—generously and without rationing—are hurled at us by those in the government and State media, add the precarious conditions under which we undertake our work.
The first and greatest difficulty is that since independent journalism is prohibited by the Castro brothers, we have no access to reliable statistics and numbers. Frequently, by not having truthful data, I have to abandon some article or report that I am writing because I lack information.
One major obstacle, when I want to make a note or get a story, is that the people I consult, because of that irrational fear that has paralyzed Cuban society for 50 years, beg me not to identify them or their occupation.
It is nerve wracking. In that world that borders on the surreal, independent Cuban journalists undertake their work in the 21st century. Living for half a century in a closed society, where criticism and discrepancies are synonymous with personal enmity, has without a doubt tainted human relationships.
The misunderstandings come from all sides. Some proud intellectuals, who hold their heads high, distance themselves from the State information apparatus; they comment quietly among their friends that the lack of professionalism of some independent journalists can be seen in the stories they write and in their lack of objectivity by not including in their writing the opinions of independent thinkers. They are in the habit of judging harshly the role of the opposition and the blogging movement on the island. OK.
Recently, I wrote, for the digital page “El Mundo/America,” a chronicle titled “The ‘Other’ Yoanis” about four women I know who blog, because one way or another, most Cuban bloggers who began to write after 2007, whether they are official or not, look sideways at Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez’s blog. Either to attack or praise it.
Without a doubt, if we don’t believe all that string of nonsense that government propaganda wants us to buy, we have to admit that Sanchez is the anchor and star of the Cuban blogosphere. One hundred million hits per year provoke admiration in some and jealousy and envy in others.
Writing on the island is a highly risky job, even if on any given night they don’t riddle you with bullets as you enter your house, as happens in Colombia or Mexico. And for that same reason, because there is no bloodshed, some intellectuals and leftist politicos think that the Castros are not so bad. There is no blood, that is true. But the regime promises us many years of prison for writing our own thoughts.
In Cuba not only the government is intolerant. So are the opposition, independent journalists and bloggers. Some are as intransigent as the State officials.
So, to the point. I was telling you that recently I wrote a story about four women who blog: Claudia Cadelo, Laritza Diversent, Lia Villares, and Miriam Celaya. After a few days I find out that two of them, Miriam Celaya and Lia Villares, alarmed by my bad handling of information, issued separate denials. A good signal.
I recognize that Celaya has reasons. I made mistakes on dates and conferred a political position—to be in favor of the market economy—that she personally hadn’t told me. I apologized to her.
Villares, the other blogger, is in disagreement over a nuance. I wrote that her father is an alcoholic, a conclusion I came to from the 4-page profile she composed on her blog, where a couple of times she lets us know that her father has lost control by drinking more than he should. She was upset with my appraisal.
The point is not that she may have upset me. A journalist is not an amanuensis, and I don’t write to please anybody. What really worries me is how sensitive we are at times when we offer our opinions. Even when these are favorable.
We honest journalists commit mistakes. A lot. But I am not married to any party, ideology, or movement. I have a free hand to write what I think about any person, be his name Fidel Castro or a known dissident.
If my pen does not shake when I pass judgment on a government that considers it a crime to disagree with the Party line, I am not about to give in to persons with whom I agree, even if at times they show an intolerant face.
Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. After all is said and done, I am a journalist, not a mouthpiece.
