Translating Cuba

VOCES 7 VOCEABLE YA EN ABRIL…!, originally uploaded by orlandoluispardolazo.

Voices 7 reloaded and launched for its second semester of life…

March 24 2011

Last Tuesday, March 15th, I went to the Hotel Parque Central, in the heart of Havana. It was my intention, as in previous occasions, and until just a few days ago, to use the Internet, after getting a prepaid card at the rate of a mere 8CUC an hour for a moderately fast connection.

About this point, I’m sure that the more distrustful readers might think “Hey, this blogger is so snobbish! Why doesn’t she go to some other nearby hotels, like the Inglaterra or the Plaza, offering a somewhat cheaper, though extremely slow service?” The reasons are several, but the simplest are self-explanatory: The El Inglaterra hasn’t offered Internet service for months, and the clerk can’t give an explanation; The Plaza does not allow uploading from flash memory, which forces the user to compose while online, which makes it expensive. In both hotels there is an absolute lack of privacy, since the internet service is located only a few centimeters from each other, in spaces extremely small. Finally, neither one of these hotels allows the option to connect via Wi-Fi, which requires the use of their own equipment and keyboards, in a sad technical state, not counting other possible maladies that I prefer not to mention.

Anyway, back to the subject, I went to the protocol desk at the flashy Parque Central, where they usually sold cards, and asked for my ticket for a mere hour of information, to which the young man who “was seeing to providing service”, with his Little Red Riding Hood kind of candor, asked me tenderly if I was a guest (you really have to have a mind as thick as a coconut tree to ask an obvious Cuban national whether she is a guest at a five-star hotel in the capital, no matter how faintly those stars may shine) I smiled, condescendingly, (a lot more than a young man speaking like a trained parrot is needed for my patience to run out) and I asked him when the hotel had stopped making the service available to the public, since I had used it a couple of weeks prior, to which the little shoot responded, unperturbed and all at once, with his little mouthful chuck full of little lies, which had probably been rehearsed a thousand times: “We have very few cards and we have to guarantee the service to our guests, this is the high season and the hotel is full. Guests have been complaining about the lack of cards.” I couldn’t contain my laughter, “Oh, sure, fine! And I still hung around the almost deserted mezzanine in order to appreciate for myself the presumptive “high demand” that was eating up all those cards: obviously the guests don’t appreciate the true value of the quality of the connections at the hotel. On the railing across from me, a security employee (of the hotel?) discretely watched me. Perhaps attributing to me the inclination for begging, he feared that I would fall into the temptation of asking some hotel guest to buy the damned card for me. As if some official restriction could lead me to such a humiliation! Finally, I went somewhere else, was able to connect, send, and download the information I was seeking.

This seemingly insignificant story is testimony to the evident official intention of boycotting the already restricted Internet access to Cubans, and the complicity in it of some recognized hotel companies. I could not swear that the ban on the sale of a card is specifically directed at me: this would be easy to check by just asking another Cuban, unknown to them, to purchase it for me. The trick — no argument here — about the shortage of cards could not be more stupid, because the issue could easily be solved by simply issuing more of them in order to provide better service. Nor should it be a coincidence that the incident took place when the government media is orchestrating a campaign of misinformation and misrepresentation against “certain elements who want to subvert the order through the free flow of information”, a formulation which carries within itself a confession of guilt. It is also part of a strategy as old as it is obsolete, forcing bloggers, independent journalists and other sectors of society to benefit from Internet services, offered free and in solidarity, by some foreign friends: a chance to demonize individuals, governments and countries and feed the old rhetoric of a small country beset by external enemies.

More of the same, but, at a time when dictatorships seem to have every reason to fear the power of technologies of information, and communications at the service of much trampled civil rights.

Translated by Norma Whiting

18 March 2011

Source: Guama
1. A friend in the US said he doesn’t agree with some of the [Communist Party] Guidelines for… 2. He’s declaring cyberwar on you!!!!!!

Today we woke up to the Government’s onslaught against the Rebel Bloggers of the Island, with a two-page article in Granma titled, “Cuba’s Reasons/Special,” and the most special is the cynicism assumed at the highest level which we can’t get used to, when they assert that there “are more than 200 blogs on the Island, administered by professionals from different fields, who confront the slander, distortions, manipulations and lies of the cybermercenaries.” Not one of them could share a personal opinion that goes against the official dictation. An army of robots who think in one direction, and when they dare to step beyond the official line, we witnessed what happened with Eliécer Avila, a student leader at the University of Information Sciences (UCI), and recently another student at the same institution who was expelled for giving an interview to a blog in Spain.

In many cases there are “opportunistic professionals,” like the one who congratulated me for a post where I denounced the misery of Cuban intellectuals who make trips abroad and practically have to beg for food; he mentioned himself as an example and told me of such situations on his travels and then, the same “professional,” at the request of an official, came up with an aggressive response and wrote the exact opposite of what he had said to me that night, in front of witnesses. And yet, in my innocence, I asked a mutual friend what had happened, and with the greatest understanding he explained to me that in “tribute” he would get better work.

The journalist who gave his name to the article, made broad generalizations, confusing it with his own conduct, calling us “mercenaries.” He denies that we are independent, claiming that we act “entirely at the direction of and in the interests of Washington.” He accuses of us being backed by the United States Interest Section, where I have never even visited, nor have I had any relations with any of their officials inside or outside their offices, much less received payment or equipment for any personal interest. And they can corroborate this with their own puppet shows, their so-called national spies, who are nothing more than a part of this media show in bad taste which make a mockery of the supposed Organs of State Security.

I remind the journalist that before opening my blog I was approached by the then President of the Cuban Book Institute (ICL), Iroel Sánchez, so he could give me a cyberspace to anchor my blog, and then he asked me what the theme of the blog would be, and on learning from my own mouth that I planned to bring my point of view about the reality surrounding me, he categorically denied me any such possibility.

The digital daily Cubaencuentro gave me a space for my incursion without asking any questions about it, something I was always grateful for, but such an approach garnered the discontent of the Officials of Culture in Cuba, advised by the Political Police, and as punishment they closed my personal email account paid for monthly to the Ministry of Culture, which I thought not only was my right, but I thought worthy of my intellectual journey.

Then I was disconnected from the cultural institutions of my country. Mysteriously, soon after I was assaulted by do men who warned me: “Don’t become a counterrevolutionary.” And every outrage increased my will to blog, reaffirming my need to communicate my thoughts and ways of seeing events, and in particular focusing on national issues.

As if that wasn’t enough, they started to rain various accusations on my which, suspiciously, were not accompanied by evidence or witnesses to the acts they charged me with, on many occasions the alleged complainants didn’t even appear. It would just be a cop claiming I had raped a woman, threatened a man, hit a child with my car. Later they manipulated people very close to me, detaining for several hours my personal friends who had nothing to do with my incursion into cyberspace, with the intention of interrogating them, wanting to know if I received money from the United States Interest Section, visits from foreigners, etc, all with the greatest cynicism in trying to frighten and asphyxiate me to get me to abandon the plan to continue blogging. I even received a Prosecutor’s inquiry, over a year ago, for which the years in prison for the supposed offenses would have been more than fifty.

I recognize that every attempt to shut me down, stop me from blogging, sets off an opposite reaction. Every effort that they made just reaffirmed for me more the need to show that institutional abuse doesn’t always get its way, and that we are willing to take all the abuse and slander that they hand out. I don’t care about losing the national cultural space I had won, the “friends,” their breaking my bones, not even locking me in jail for the rest of my life. Indeed, I have already lived 44 years in this great prison they have turned our Island into.

I affirm that I am proud to be in this group of young people who say, honestly, what they think, and that I flee from those 200 revengeful “Professionals” who insisted in multiple invitations that I join them. (Today I received a message from Yoani Sánchez and Reinaldo Escobar wishing me luck because last night on television my name appeared among the list of dangerous bloggers.) It all reminds me of movies about the old west.

I’ve written several times for the opportunity to take part in the space “Cubadebate” and at least to be able to post my blog with complete freedom as I have done to date, so that this site will become a true plaza of intelligent and plural debate, to exchange points of view without aggression or disrespect. And to arrive at a national dialog that has been absent as long as I’ve been alive.

But I have to regrettably acknowledge that this would be a sign of democracy which to them, the cyberwarriors, is unknown territory.

March 23 2011

Appearing on television is always an event in the life of an ordinary person. I thought I would be fearful, nervous, anxious. But when I saw my blog header and my photo on “Cuba’s Reasons” I was proud. I think there are many political texts in my blog Octavo Cerco which don’t hesitate to use words like totalitarianism, autocracy and impunity, and there are others where I don’t hesitate to mock Fidel Castro, Raul Castro or others I find disagreeable in the shameless Cuban government. But for some incomprehensible reason they twice showed the interview I did, about his novel Havana Underguater, with Erick J. Moto a Cuban science fiction writer who has repeatedly won national awards. Who can understand State Security?

In Yoani’s case, a detailed mention of each of her awards only served to demonstrate that she doesn’t need financing because her talent is internationally recognized by prestigious institutions. The sum of half a million at the end stunned me because, although I’m not good at arithmetic, it seemed they added a few extra zeros at the end. But if Yoani Sanchez becomes a millionaire with her prizes and continues to use her income to support the development of free access to information, breaking the state monopoly on it, and opening avenues for civil society in Cuba, then they can put three more zeros to the number shown on television.

On the other hand, State Security’s technique of putting attractive names on their blogs and sites so that search engines will find them, while very useful on the Internet, but on Cuban television seen by thousands of citizens have never entered the network of webpages — and contrary to the words of Elaine Diaz, they need to and badly — one wonders if “Changes in Cuba,” “The Unknown Island,” and “The Digital Debate” are these not titles sufficiently controversial to be seen as counterrevolutionary.

24 March 2011

The “younger” (almost 80) of the Castro brothers — and the current president of Cuba — attempts to govern and as if playing with a ball; tossing it from hand to hand drawing a neat arc in the air. I had to get really close to realize that it was not a toy ball that the Cuban leader was tossing, but a steaming hot potato.

Yes! That polygamous tuber we like so much and that helps us eat and which is officially married to McDonald’s, Burger King, etc., “it gets hotter” with every plate that goes missing from the Cuban table, with every child or elderly person, man or simple woman, who don’t eat it for long periods due to indolence, bad management and governmental administration. And this isn’t just a current issue but a recurring phenomenon which has been ongoing for many years and in a general form.

Raúl Castro had to wait for quite a while before “the magician” decided to cede to him the stirrer for the pot where he had already tossed all his ingredients. Even so, we note that the younger of the brothers has assumed the responsibility with dedication and has put out some “good news” to the citizenry which bothers the guru a little, to the point that every once in a while he “reaches out his arm” to try to retrieve the stirrer, which is further from him the older he gets and he speaks, and this is an almost impossible task to bear for someone who already doesn’t enjoy good health.

The old wise man supervises, guides, determines … and gives the impression that he’s given up his post with conditions and reluctantly.

He allows his brother to stir the soup, “but without disturbing it much” because the components “can get hasty,” and that, in his opinion, isn’t good.

Even so, he has cast spells that threaten immobility and repetition of the for-life menu, and the society that worries about “until when?” starts to become desperate while it dreams of a better Cuba.

Evidently there are signals which confuse Cuban society and international opinion a little; and at times it might seem that it’s the historical leader who pushes the buttons on the stove where the sweet future of the homeland is being cooked and hides the recipe book that represents one of his treasures beneath his tracksuit, as if at these heights the recipes for the evidence of the broken Cuban model are interesting to anyone! But the most delicate and regrettable part of the affair — too serious to take as a joke — is at times the publication of his reflective sketches which appear to delegitimize the current leader.

He writes how he favored someone or recommended someone else — all promoted to support his own success — to the higher echelons of power

This makes many Cubans reflect about it: “If this is how he treats his own brother what will be the treatment for the rest of us?” He also flares as a critic and solves with rhetoric the “grave issues of humanity” forgetting how complex these issues are for Cuba.

I believe he should probably employ all that time understanding other topics that could improve the quality of life for the population and envisioning the solutions to the current crisis, and change his targets — at least for a moment — from the United States and those whose governments criticize him or point out the flaws in the Cuban political and social-economical system; something many assimilate as a make-believe exercise to divert focus from national problems which should be at the top of our concerns and on our list of priorities so we can later look after any other issues in the rest of the world.

His experience could be dressed with a more constructive view and more attentive attitude towards the right to help this country and his President brother.

There is another intention behind the disorienting messages around the top Cuban leaders and the presumable quarrel between them: Duality? For quite a while they have been baking a high level little cakes of a “fraternal coup d’état” to distract the world.

A syrupy sweet with expertise to look for solidarity toward the youngest of the Castro brothers, and fundamentally to win some time and security against possible real or imaginary aggressions from the planet Earth judge, who happens, by geographical coincidence and geopolitical chance, to be our neighbor.

But it is a tough pill to swallow and very few seem to enjoy it. All of these distracting maneuvers concern the Cuban citizen because it has been fifty-two years of recurrent tactics that guarantee a stronghold on power for the never-ending dictators.

I believer these treacheries are a part of the strategy of giving compliments and the pleasure of being consigned to posterity as a tough, intransigent stoic, and a long sentence of etceteras that he thinks, of course, will adorn any references to his personality in history textbooks and biographies that will undoubtedly be written around the world.

But as long as high-class rascals win, this society loses. It is a very long process where those in powers have stopped at nothing to remain in charge, leaving a trail of “everything is fair” and “the end justifies the tricks” in their long journey. This attitude has permeated all layers of Cuban society and the responsibility of the governing class in the current crisis of values that is unquestionable and unarguable.

It is not easy then for he who represents the presidency to face a corroded and rusted coffin for which he is also responsible, and for which if he doesn’t have the keys he will have to definitively break the lock to remove all the citizen hopelessness and frustrations, to avoid the violence of disqualification, and to work with boldness and dedication for the happiness of this suffering nation, for the perfecting of a government system that is fair and concerned for the well-being of all citizens rather than just concerned for keeping the privileges and influences of a small group in power.

February 21 2011

A ghost runs around Cuba: the Internet ghost. A month after the arrival of fiber optics from Venezuela to create a much faster information and telecommunications highway — some media outlets are predicting speeds three thousand percent faster — the government seems to be looking for excuses to justify why, once again, it will continue violating our most basic rights, preventing us from freely accessing information from our homes through Internet.

Until recently the government alleged it couldn’t open up Internet to the “entire population” because, as a result of the US Embargo, Cuba was accessing Internet via satellite (Wi-Fi), slowing down connection speeds. This argument has been heavily debated in diverse sectors who, in spite of not being experts, question why the country didn’t expand its contract with satellite providers and installed additional servers to diversify the possibilities and provide and widen the service offering to a larger number of users. Also, if connections are truly that slow, why not give us the possibility, just like foreigners living in the country, to pay for access in spite of its slowness? Why marginalize fellow compatriots?

It seems that the rationale of this elite — mostly “angry” (irritated and tense) — which prevents us from browsing the Web is to continue discriminating and dividing our society with its repeated practice of extortion and influence; and they use the access to the net as one of the perks they usually give grant to their hardcore followers who are employed in key positions or positions of interest for the power elite.

I share the idea of ending the U.S. “blockade” or embargo against Cuba, but I also want to end the mental blockade of those in power, who pretend to be more interested in “breaking the blockade” of independents — who dare to use our freedom of expression with “fists and pens” — and in violating the right to information of the Cuban people. Working so everyone enjoy the technological advances they enjoy and defending the access to these sources of information that is also part of our rights, as it is part of our culture and general knowledge, and enriches, complements, and consolidates the cognitive universe.

Since the announcement that we would be able to access broadband Internet, people on different television shows were optimistic about the possibility of providing the masses with that tool that frees them. They begun to expound on the importance of Internet in culture, as a research tool to find all sorts of information, as a tool for the development and diversification of economic projects, etc.

At the XIV Convention and International Fair of Informatics 2011 hosted this past February in Havana there was evidence of the natural social appetite, but apparently protests in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries have sparked fear in the authoritarian Cuban oligarchy, and again, freedom was sentenced to death by shooting.

This is why it is becoming harder for them to support the argument of the benefits and justice of the Cuban political model, the respect of Cubans’ rights, and find themselves forced to put together television programs with the same old and abused arguments.

If the Internet is a poison, the best antidote against it is democracy, and the best antivirus to detect and discern any malicious code is culture, education, and freedom. Hence, the reiterated public assertion of government leaders stating that Cuba is the most educated and cultivated country in the world is a clear contradiction that no one understands.

If we are so smart, why can’t we access alternative information sources separate from the central state? Education and culture, to be true and not just propaganda, must be divorced from censure. Many of us wonder how can some have so much power and so much fear at the same time.

We know the government erected its flags over the pillars of health and education — both things currently in crisis — in the militarization of society and excessive and efficient (for them) control. It has been an easy feat without political parties, real unions — ones that answer to the needs of workers rather than administrators or the only political party — or an organized civil society looking for real solutions to their problems and capable of organizing and facing its challenges.

It has been a model disloyal to all ethical standards of governability. How easy it was ruling without alternatives to elect, more attractive political agendas to support, or even other points of view to listen to! How angry they must be for not being able to control the Internet they way they controlled the printed press, the radio, and the TV in the 60s! But modernity and technological advances are winning the battle, and every time they repeal any of the civil rights they, they become violators in the eyes of their own fellow countrymen.

There is no need for anyone to point at the facts: they are their own defense lawyers, but also their own prosecutors. The fact of the matter is that, as usual, they need to create the illusion of a plaza under siege to justify to their followers the reasons behind a new act of injustice. It is likely that the purpose is to condemn the Internet to life in prison without right to appeal. I hope I am wrong! but if the Cuban government is attempting to switch that light off, they might get away with it for some time, but I doubt they will be able to keep censorship forever.

March 21 2011

At a gathering last February with young people interested in the political history of Cuba, on my referring to the protest of Thirteen, one of those present threw out the question: Why do these events do not occur today? I reproduce here my response in honor of the 88th anniversary of that memorable event and to share it with readers of el Diario de Cuba.

The event occurred during a tribute of the Cuban Women’s Club for the Uruguayan writer Paulina Luisi, on March 18, 1923 at the Academy of Sciences, and consisted of a group of young people staging an act of civics and national dignity that contains valuable lessons for Cubans today.

Dr. Alfredo Zayas Alfonso, who held the presidency, was the first leader in three decades who was not an officer during the War of Independence. Politician and lawyer, he was popularly known by the nicknames “The Chinaman Zayas,” and “The Stingy One.” After occupying various political responsibilities, he left the job of Vice President of the Republic in 1913, and appointed himself Official Historian of Cuba with a salary of 500 pesos a month. During his presidential term he won — “purely by chance” — the first prize in the National Lottery twice, erected a statue to himself while alive and gave free rein to the game, and so ended his term with a personal fortune of several million pesos.

Parallel to these activities, the first railroads spread across the country, the cities were notable for electric lighting and urban trams, the first journey by air from Havana to Santiago de Cuba was made, and radio burst forth in Cuban homes. Meanwhile political and administrative corruption reached worrying levels. One such example happened to the Old Convent of Santa Clara where, during the inflationary period, known as the “Dance of the Millions,” a private business bought the Catholic Church for less than a million pesos, and then, when the country entered the crisis know as the “Lean Years,” at a time when prices had fallen, Alfredo Zayas bought it for 2.3 million, more than double the initial price paid.

Several members of Zayas’s cabinet objected that the purchase was approved by law, among them the Finance Minister who refused to endorse the deal, forcing the President to replace his signature with that of the Secretary of Justice, Dr. Regüeiferos Erasmus, who had been invited to deliver a speech at the Women’s Club tribute to Paulina Luisi.

At the moment when he was about to begin speaking, 15 youths rose in protest and one of them, the young lawyer and poet Rubén Martínez Villena, apologized to the president and announced the group’s decision to leave the room in protest against the Minister of Justice, who had signed the deal for the purchase of the Convent.

The next day, The Herald published a manifesto known as the Protest of 13, as two of the original 15 participants abstained from signing. The document said they felt honored and pleased to start a movement against the immorality that debased the country and announced hereafter that they would be willing to adopt the same attitude of protest toward any act in which a person was stained by lack of patriotism or citizenship.

The arguments used to answer the question of why such events do not occur now were as follows: First, because parallel to the moral decay of the ruling elite, the civic virtues of citizens, which never disappear entirely, were re-emerging in various social sectors of the country at that time. Second, because the institutionalization of democracy endorsed in the 1901 Constitution — including the separation of public powers, the recognition of freedom of expression, religious freedom, freedom of assembly, association and movement in and out of the country, habeas corpus and the inviolability of the home — allow this type of civic demonstration.

The trade union movement, starting at the time of the Strike of Apprentices in 1902, spread across the country and influenced the passage of several laws favorable to workers. The university students demonstrated in 1921 against granting the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa to General Leonard Wood and Enoch H. Crowder, and in December 1922 the University Students Federation called for autonomy.

After the Protest of the Thirteen, the Cuban Action Falange was created, as were the Retail Group and the Veterans and Patriots Movement. In 1918 the Socialist Group was created in Havana, which led to the founding of the Communist Party in 1925, and the Cuban Junta of National Renovation, in 1923, published the Manifesto to Cubans, to name but a few isolated examples.

The absence of these freedoms and spaces that served as support for citizen expression disappeared. Now, when it’s not about political and administrative corruption but rather a profound structural crisis that affects everything and everyone, attempts to engage in civic conduct are denigrated by the State which possesses a monopoly on the communication media and has a numerous and efficient police apparatus dedicated to repression.

Comparing the scenario that produced the Protest of the Thirteen with the present, one can understand the magnitude of the setback suffered by Cubans in the area of civil and political rights, to the point that the government praises the behavior of the authors of that Protests at the same time they repress anyone who follows their example.

However, as virtues never disappear entirely, the citizenship behaviors are reemerging, Cubans begin to become citizens, a process that needs to be accompanied by educational actions from the existing core of civility, to form a culture of rights as a necessary premise for the participation of Cubans in their own national destiny.

Rubén Martínez Villena 1 was born on December 20, 1899 in Alquízar, Havana province. He obtained his BA in 1916 and the law in 1922. He joined the Communist Party of Cuba in 1927 and died on January 16, 1934 in a sanatorium in Havana.

(Taken from the Diario de Cuba (www.ddcuba.com, el 17 de marzo de 2011)

March 21 2011

In the Arab world new generations have made an appearance, demanding an end to autocratic governments entrenched in power for twenty, thirty, forty and more years, and democratic changes in keeping with the era of globalization and information without borders in which we live. From this side of the Atlantic, some governments are worried about the strongholds of apparent calm under the palm trees.

One symptom of this is the massive campaign just launched, calling on young people to participate in the activities of this April 16th (military parades, youth marches and the beginning of the many-times postponed Sixth Party Congress), because these mobilizations are always organized under strict control, where the workplaces and schools are assigned a number of participants, and meeting that number reflects on their respective administrators and principals (establishing meeting places, arranging transport, assigning places in the demonstration, meet-up points for the return trip, all well controlled through lists and names of the participants).

It’s true that no one puts a real pistol to your head to make you attend, but they utilize subtle pistols, such as: If you do not attend you may have problems at work or school, getting authorization to travel, and so on. We all know that spontaneity is conspicuous by its absence. In addition, for many of the happy fired-up participants their aspiration is to grab a trip abroad where they can stay and lead their lives in a more favorable environment.

This practice is nothing new: it has been utilized over the years by every totalitarian regime, be they of the right or the left. The difference with democratic regimes, is that the approval or disapproval of government management is determined at the ballot box and through the work of the executive, legislative and judicial powers. Here it is necessary from time to time to have an reaffirming event to demonstrate to the world that people support the current status.

If the call, rather than to march saluting the old leaders, were place the youngest people on the platform (reshuffling the generations), it would be a signal that something is changing. I’ve never understood why some leaders don’t have a retirement age, when it is established by law for all citizens. They could, in this way, rest from the arduous sacrifice of so many years dedicated to serving their country.

José Martí, the most intelligent of all Cubans, wrote: “All power, exercised broadly and over a long period of time, degenerates into caste. With caste come the interests, the high positions, the fear of losing them, the intrigues to sustain them.”

It would be appropriate for our leaders to pause at these wise words and review them. It is not with smokescreens but with effective measures that they must respond to the aspirations of citizens, including those of the youngest.

March 21 2011