Translating Cuba

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Here is an excellent review of Yoani’s book in its Spanish version, which is not exactly like the English book, as the English book includes material through December 2010.

The arrival in Cuba on Monday of the former U.S. president Jimmy Carter “to have meetings with President Raul Castro and other leaders” has triggered a series of speculations ranging from the case of Alan Gross to the opening of breaches in the blockade-embargo.

But the oddest thing, in my view, is that this visit comes after a group of programs designed specifically to discredit and demonize meetings between opponents and personalities from Cuban civil society with American diplomats and citizens have been aired on national television .

Personally, I think it’s a good thing that Carter will talk with Raul Castro and be received in his office, what I can’t understand is: who has given Carter a certificate of good behavior that disassociates him from USAID, the State Department, the CIA and other demons?

Why can one sit and talk with a person who was of the commander-in-chief of all the armies of the Empire, while an ordinary common citizen can’t have a cup of coffee with a simple official from the U.S. Interest Section or with a representative of some American NGO?

28 March 2011

For Roberto Peralo:

Traditional media have had to modify their budgets with the advent of blogs. Now any citizen, from a blog and more recently from Twitter, can offer primary news in real time and the traditional newspapers must refer to the primary source of such news. Blogs have given a voice to people who never wrote or dreamed of writing in a paper newspaper. They serve to denounce the lack of guarantees for journalists after the coup d’etat in Honduras, and serve to expose the lie that the unofficial bloggers are paid by the Empire.

The possibility of having a voice on the Internet allows the presentation of information on any country, any phenomenon. Before what was known about Cuba was what was published in the Cuban press or in some dispatch from a foreign correspondent. Now, in any latitude, open you PC and you have access to formal and informal information; for and against. Your education and abilities depend on how you interpret this avalanche of information, and our ethics, what use you put it to.

Calling anyone who wants change in Cuba an annexationist — meaning they want Cuba annexed to the United States — has been a tactic designed to alienate popular sympathy toward anyone who thinks differently, though it’s possible that there is a party or a annexationist current that I don’t know about, but I know the term is used in reference to people who have nothing to do with annexationists.

The quote from Political Affairs of 1981 is outdated, at that time the profound impact that having access to information through the still new internet was not envisioned, much less the existence of social networks. And one thing was true then and is true now. Read, find and inform yourself about what is of interest that happens around you. A lot of people, including nationals, pass on newspapers to look at bulletin boards or sports.

One example is a man named Miles. The ABC’s of serious journalist require you to verify information that doesn’t come from a reliable source, and even in the latter case, if it is very sensitive information, you should try to verify by all means. That is a discredit to the source and very serious for a journalist.

It’s a stereotypical journalism burden from one side or the other. I invite you to discover the stereotypes of the national press.

I could subscribe to the last paragraph of the work, I would like to write for Cubans without the disgust of seeing myself demonized for my opinions. And I will end with a joke. In reference to a book published by Duke University, it talked about the four media that influence the thinking of Americans. In Cuba it has been simplified and there is only one.

March 27 2011

Translator’s note: La Joven Cuba is a website of students at the University of Matanzas and Regina has begun to engage them in conversation through their forum. She also posts her comments there, here.

My greetings to all forum members. Late as usual. Collegial leadership in the government has not existed. Fidel, a man of great physical and intellectual capacity, has been the decision maker on issues as dissimilar and unrelated as the functions of a head of state and the selection of school uniforms, the construction of housing and the cross breeding of cows. The oldest among us remember these and other matters which his intervention, not that of specialists, determined the paths that would be followed.

There is a famous anecdote about the Minister of Sugar warning him in advance of the impossibility of completing a ten million ton sugar harvest, which resulted in his replacement. Fidel has been so pervasive a force that his leaving the political stage will imply a change in the national live.

I speak of the future, because although at the beginning of his illness he delegated his functions to several people, with his recuperation, and despite they fact that his Reflections do now address national problems, internally he must continue deciding on topics that interest him.

His brother does not exercise such power of decision and ascendancy over the masses (which is better). For my part, I am very concerned about what will happen in Cuba; the people for the most part largely complied with Fidel’s will because of his personal charisma, and allowed him to drive them where he would, in Cuba we have had Fidelism as a cult of personality accentuated with the years.

Whatever happens, it will be different. In that sense, I don’t know how the Party Congress will be handled, although it was clarified that the only topic on the agenda will be the economy, and in practice, almost all the measures proposed in the Party Guidelines have already been implemented.

For the forum member Josep Calvet: The Chinese emigrated to Cuba in the first half of the last century, keeping their traditions very alive and, in almost all cities where they settled, having their own neighborhood with their businesses, theaters, etc. There was the newspaper you mention (Wah-man-sion-po). It was very depressing walking through the Chinese neighborhood and all its facilities, until 20 years ago with the help of the Embassy, of families overseas, and the Office of the Historian, the Chinese neighborhood was revitalized, and with it, the Chinese newspaper, a curiosity, because it has been many years since Chinese have emigrated here from China.

March 25 2011

Translator’s note: La Joven Cuba is a website of students at the University of Matanzas and Regina has begun to engage them in conversation through their forum. She also posts her comments there, here.

JJ – Zenaida Gonzalez Cuétara is a Cuban worker, proud of her origin. She was of those people who, on a not too hot day in 1980, decided to take refuge in guarded premises of the Embassy of Peru.

ZG – I lived at O’Reilly and Aguiar, Centro Habana, until April 5, 1980 when I entered the Embassy of Peru. That day changed my life.

JJ – The Cuban government has repeated over the years that people who entered the embassy of Peru, were all criminals. Is that true, or is it infamy?

ZG – During the terrible ordeal I was 24 and a member of the Union of Young Communists. I worked in the town of Regla in a state enterprise exporting shrimp and lobster. That’s not a crime.

It is true that the situation became chaotic without taking into account the needs of human beings themselves, but all sorts of people in Havana came to the Embassy of Peru, most from upright and educated homes. Look, really, we were not criminals but victims of robbery, outrage, and many violations not only of Cuban officials, but also of some Peruvians who crashed the ambassador’s car to extort money from the Cuban victims of blackmail in exchange for a little sugar, and victims of threats to deprive us of our gold chains. Thus we came to Peru, and the campaign here was destructive.

JJ – That’s just what I want. So that the agreements between both governments were not kept; and remember that many people in Miami and elsewhere in the United States, seem to forget that the Mariel boatlift depended on the sad events of the Embassy of Peru and of those Cubans who, like you now live stranded in Lima.

ZG — That’s right, Mr Almeida, this was terrible here. We’ve gone through everything, fortunately the years have managed to erase much of what happened. I sell Peruvian candy here on the street, I have a 17-year-old son ready for college. That’s what I can do, it has dignity.

JJ — And tell me Zenaida, how Cubans like you, who in 1980 took refuge in the embassy of Peru, how do you live.

ZG — There’s everything. The majority live from working, some live on drugs. I live quite far from that, I have to work. But I invite you to come to Peru, to visit everyone. Everyone, the few who remain. Some left from here, others have died of old age, illness or overdoses… It’s been 32 years, there has been a lot of despair.

JJ — I accept the invitation. I think drugs are simply the result, has anyone been offered a job?

ZG — Never, sir. The UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) has purchased several lots on the outskirts of the city, well away. There we built little houses. But nobody has ever given us work.

JJ — Has the Cuban Embassy or its officials ever done something for you?

ZG — No, never. When a Cuban passport must be renewed, there they are to collect. That’s their greatest aid, to charge you. The last place you would go to seek help is the embassy.

JJ — I know well, but I want to stress – for those who think so – if ever the government of Cuba, in one of its highly publicized humanitarian gestures, has been concerned for you.

ZG — For us? Never.

JJ — For a working person it’s impossible to pay the consular fee, what it costs is highway robbery. But would you not you like to return to your country and show it to your child?

ZG — Sure, sir, of course. I have 15 brothers and sisters in Cuba, isn’t that reason enough to go to my country? I would love to forget spending 32 years missing my family. Hopefully some day it will be within my power to teach my son about his family, his culture, his country. But it’s hard, Sir, every day is very hard. I’m a street vendor, I sell on the streets of Lima, porridge and rice pudding.

JJ — Now I have to ask the question of sixty-four thousand dollar question. Why did you leave Cuba?

ZG – To look for a better future, another alternative for my life… Could you tell me why you, considering everything, decided to leave Cuba?

JJ — I left my country to be reunited with my family, to receive medical treatment that does not exist in my country, because a profoundly dictatorial system bored me, because I’m not one of those who can practice hypocrisy as a way of life. I was not looking for a future, I was looking for a present, because mind was crap.

Thank you Zenaida, it has been a pleasure talking with you.

March 22 2011

In our little room, he told us that morning about the time he had spent in the USSR. He’d only been in Havana a few hours, after an Aeroflot plane had brought him back from his long sojourn in the land of Gorbachev. The gothic letters on his diploma showed he’d graduated from the university in some kind of engineering my childish mind couldn’t understand. It was the first time I’d heard about the Juraguá nuclear reactor, which was built in Cienfuegos in 1983. The recent arrival’s voice described an enormous VVER 440 reactor located in central Cuba as if it were a live dragon breathing its whiffs on us. Hundreds of young people, trained in research centers nearly 6,000 miles from home, would work there as atomic scientists. Millions and millions of rubles arriving from the Kremlin helped to construct what would be the pinnacle of our “tropical socialism,” the fundamental pillar of our energy independence.

Later I learned that this young enthusiast never worked as a nuclear engineer. The Soviet Union was dismembered just as the first of two planned reactors was 97% complete. Grass covered a good part of the site, and exposure to the elements broke down everything from pieces of the core, to the steam generators, the cooling pumps and the isolation valves. Juraguá became a new ruin, a monument to the delusions of grandeur left us by Soviet imperialism.

With his graying temples, while cutting metals in his new career as a lathe operator, the one-time expert told me now, “It was lucky we didn’t start it up.” According to what he and his colleagues had calculated, the chances of an nuclear accident at Juraguá were 15% more than at any other nuclear plant in the world. “We would have ended up with the island cut in half,” he said dramatically. I imagined a piece of the nation here and another over there, while a stubbornly smoking hole changed our national geography.

Now that the plant in Fukushima is spreading its residues, and with them fear, I can’t but rejoice that the Cienfuegos reactor has not awakened, that under the concrete sarcophagus a nuclear reaction hasn’t started. Thinking about all that has happened, all of our current problems seem small to us, insignificant trifles compared to the horrifying spread of radioactivity.

26 March 2011

Peaceful citizens were shown on the TV program “Cuba’s Reasons” being accused of receiving money from the U.S. government. The program was seen by, let’s say, 6 million national viewers. These citizens then call out the government for lying and manipulating, and thirty million internet users, to pick a figure, learn of that complaint. The apparent discrepancy is not important: the six million are not included in the thirty; the discrediting, without any right to respond in the national media, of a handful of people who are trying to create a space for civil society, will be new information for the common citizen, for whom the program was designed.

What do I do with my opinions in this country? I could do what I was doing before opening Bad Handwriting: talk about them in my living room. It would be more comfortable, my next-door neighbors would greet me naturally, I wouldn’t have lost any friends, and my siblings and other relatives wouldn’t have to be careful to avoid the uncomfortable detail that I have a rebellious blog. This is a process of adaptation and often painful.

But I already decided to offer a discordant note, if I joke with those in the pay of the Empire and with the CIA missions, I trespassed a border that the citizen to whom the message of a program like Cyberwar is directed has not trespassed, that is believing in the right to express one’s opinions. This government’s objective is met within the country, and justifies the criticisms of international public opinion.

Spoken of as a triumph, in the program, were the more than 200 blogs of press workers and university students. In today’s world, having a blog is common and free. Many of these blogs exist as a kind of “trickle down,” thus their contents lack freshness and are simply an extension of the official press. Many of them are signed with a pseudonym and maintain an anonymity that would be inexplicable in alternative blogs. But if the unofficial bloggers are branded as mercenaries for using cards paid for in hard currency to connect to the internet, how does it look that in a country with such low connectivity the official bloggers use their working hours and State connection (also in hard currency, and paid for by “Liborio” — that is the Cuban equivalent of “Uncle Sam”) to maintain their personal spaces on the web?

One of those interviewed on the program quoted Fidel: Don’t believe what I say, read. Encapsulating one of the motives that led me to open my blog, wanting access to the internet. I don’t like anyone to decide what I should read, what I should believe.

March 23 2011

Migdalia Estévez and her husband, Ramon Suarez, were waiting for “Cuba’s Reasons,” the TV series aired on Mondays on the island. They understood what subversion is, the media war, and the imperialist maneuvers. But they still don’t understand the government’s bitter struggle against cable TV or satellite dishes.

“The Cuban television programming is boring, at least with the cable I’m entertained and I spend less time missing my loved ones,” said the lady of 64 years. Thanks to the efforts of her two children living in the United States, the couple spends their leisure time watching foreign programs.

In February, inspectors from the Ministry of Information and Communications, raided Párraga where Migdalia lives, looking for antennas. She was taking a nap when she heard a noise in the ceiling. She got up, startled. When she opened the door, a man asked: “Where is it?” and without waiting for an answer, entered the house.

He searched the room. In one of the rooms he got down on the floor and looked under the bed until, under the TV covered with a cloth they found the equipment. The old woman was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, unable to speak. When she came to herself again they had imposed a fine of 10,000 pesos

Hours later, her husband came home and found her crying, “They took me by surprise, I thought they were robbers and almost died of fright,” and she handed him the paper with the fine.

Ramon Suarez, Migdalia’s husband, went all around the city in search of the officials who almost gave his wife a heart attack. He found the place in Zanja Street. They told him he should submit a letter in writing, but they wouldn’t give him the names of the people who had violated his home.

On the “Cuba’s Reasons” series, Suarez recognized the employee who talked to him after he requested an interview to complain about the boldness of his subordinates. In the report, the man had talked about satellite connection equipment from the United States coming into the country.

“I remember his name, Carlos Martinez, he is the director of National Radio Company,” he said as he read the resolutions 98 and 99 of that ministry, issued in 1995.

A friend had given him the legal rules on antennas. “He said that such bans were in effect from the mid 90’s, but the fines for citizens are 1,000 pesos. On me they imposed a ten-thousand peso fine,” said the man.

They go after the antennas but they don’t explain the reasons for raiding a dwelling and much less why people cheat,” says Migdalia. If the law says the fine is one amount, why do they impose another? How do they think we’re going to pay 10,000 pesos with the 460 pesos we receive as retirees?” she asked.

The program “Cuba’s Reasons” let Migdalia and Ramon know why the government fears the antennas that capture satellite signals. However, they do not understand the reasons for Carlos Martinez, a state official concealing his subordinates, tolerating those who violate the rights of Cubans, and also defrauding them.

March 23 2011

Recargas instantáneas 2X de celulares en Cuba…!, originally uploaded by orlandoluispardolazo.

www.ezetop.com is the most reliable Internet site to recharge Cuban cellphones, instantly and confidentially for this isolated Island. Right now they have having a two-for-one promotion…!

Thanks to @ll web friends who can have helped me keep my cellphone working — (+53) 53340187– so I can Tweet live and direct from Havana mon amour. One day, after the cyberwar, if there are days left after the cyberwar, I will pay you back at a cafe on the Malecon.cu.

March 24 2011

Translator’s note: The bloggers’ cellphone numbers are under the link in the header: Direct Help to Cuban Bloggers