Special Report
Cuba’s Cyber Revolutionary
Yoani Sánchez’s heroic blogging is helping to bring real change to Cuba.
In America, 2009 has thus far been dominated by discussions about how best to alleviate a recession that began just over a year ago. But in communist Cuba, 2009 has been dominated by the commemoration of a revolution that helped induce 50 years of economic depression and instability.
But after half a century of broken promises of justice and prosperity, there is a new revolution stirring in Cuba. Not a revolution marked by murder and repression of human rights and waged with guns and explosives. It is, rather, a revolution of ideas and information undertaken with flash drives, digital cameras, memory cards and other technologies that are giving voice to a new generation of Cubans.
Perhaps most prominent among Cuba’s new cyber revolutionaries is Yoani Sánchez, who writes an influential blog called Generaciòn Y.
During a December trip to Cuba, one of this column’s authors, Jordan Allott, spoke with Yoani about how her writing is helping to bring change to Cuba.
Though Yoani sometimes interjects politics into her writing, she focuses mainly on the frustrations of daily life in Cuba. “I don’t have a list of themes to write about,” Yoani says. “I’m not a journalist. I am a citizen who is writing about what is happening in my life. I only write about things that I experience personally, whether it is Fidel Castro or the potatoes at the supermarket.”
As it happens, Yoani’s personal experiences reveal a lot about political realities in Cuba. Which is why, she says, “The process of making Generación Y wasn’t easy. There’s a personal cost and a family cost, but I don’t want to play the victim. I’m responsible. I prefer not to be constantly looking over my shoulder, even if I know they are watching.”
The “they” to which Yoani refers are the Cuban authorities, who monitor her blog and make it virtually inaccessible to those on the island. Yoani is regularly threatened with jail time. But she continues to write, because, she says, it “allows me to say…what is forbidden to me in my public action.”
Yoani was recently hauled into a police station and read the following script: “We want to warn you that you have transgressed all the limits of tolerance with your rapprochement and contacts with counter-revolutionary elements. This totally disqualifies you for dialogue with Cuban authorities.”
Though “disqualifie[d]” from dialogue with the Cuban government, Yoani is engaged in a rich dialogue with millions outside Cuba who are sympathetic to the plight of a citizenry held hostage. Yoani’s simple blog has been so influential (Generación Y receives about 2 million hits a month) that she was recently named by Time magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people.
Because access to the Internet is severely restricted in Cuba, Yoani goes through a lot to get her dispatches out to the world, e-mailing them to friends across the globe who translate and post her writing on her blog. Yoani is often forced to pose as a tourist to get into cafes or Western hotelsto access the Internet.
Traveling in Cuba, one is struck by the sense of hopelessness among Cuba’s youth. Thousands study computer programming at Cuba’s University of Information Sciences, and increased Internet access means more young Cubans are catching a glimpse of what life is like in free nations across the globe.
Yoani says, “Most young people’s eyes are looking to the outside, because they see that they cannot make change in their country. They only see the status quo. Most young people desire to take a plane to Miami or Europe and in 10 hours change their lives completely. They know they cannot realize their dreams here.”
But Cuba needs young Cubans like Yoani who are willing to stay and work for freedom from within.
When Jordan spoke with Yoani in Havana in early December, they met at the prestigious foreigner-only National Hotel, which was hosting the Latin American Film Festival the same weekend. This made for an interesting scene. Numerous Western journalists were present for the film festival and to laud Che, a sympathetic biopic about the life of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the Castro lieutenant, mass murderer and cult hero to leftwing radicals. Meanwhile, a short distance away, Jordan met with Yoani to discuss what she and other democracy advocates are doing to help tear down the legacy of Che, Fidel, and a government that keeps its people in bondage.
Yoani remains hopeful and believes “change will come not through government agencies but through the citizens and the spread of information and exchange with the outside world.” The Western media can assist with this exchange or turn a blind eye. Either way, with Yoani and a new generation of cyber revolutionaries casting the bright light of reality on the failed Castro regime, the truth will no longer be easy to ignore.
About the Author
Daniel Allott is a writer in Washington, D.C.
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Rocco| 2.5.09 @ 7:04AM
Now here is a truly courageous young woman, not the kind of bullshit courage people here talk up, but real courage to face a totalitarian state. Buena suerte en sus esfuerzos, querida Yoani, y que Dios bendiga.....
Pingback| 2.5.09 @ 12:12PM
http://www.penultimosdias.com/2009/02/05/13784/ links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Alan Brooks| 2.5.09 @ 1:41PM
tech is fine.
but religion--decent religion-- is what is needed in Cuba.
religion without science is lame;
but science without religion is blind.
ddc| 2.5.09 @ 4:47PM
As shown by the ridiculous creationist arguments, science is blinded by religion.
Alan Brooks| 2.5.09 @ 5:52PM
you will someday know how cold and heartless biotech is going to make the world.
it is going to happen.
you don't agree now, but you will later.
lori| 2.5.09 @ 6:29PM
kudos to Yoani, and ditto Rocco Dios le bendiga en sus esfuerzos, vaya con Dios Yoani
Eon Flux| 2.5.09 @ 6:33PM
Sample of Yoani's writting, today February 05,2009
Lo mismo ocurre con el documento oficial -sobre los derechos humanos- que se presenta hoy en el Consejo de Derechos Humanos. Resumen ficcional de lo que tenemos, leyenda en tinte rosa y glosario triunfalista que se aleja –años luz- de lo que vivimos. Obra de diestros literatos, debe leerse así, como un texto novelado de ciertos autores que evitan escribir la bitácora, real, del naufragio.
The same applies to the official document on human rights, which is presented today at the Human Rights Council. Fictional summary of what we have, a rose colored legend and triumphant glossary
that move away - light-years- from how we live. This work of skilled writers, and should be read as a noveled text by some authors that avoid writing the blog, real, from the wreck.
Lesly Daguerre| 2.5.09 @ 10:28PM
If Cuba has been unstable for the past 50 years for goodness sake I plead stupidity for I will never know the meaning of the world stability. I have seen coup- d'états throughout Latin America, in Western Europe namely Spain, Greece and Portugal, political assassinations in the United States, Mexico, Italy, Sweden. No one has yet to associate political instability with these countries. In Cuba on the other hand, I had not heard even a riot taking place in the last 50 years and this news paper has the gull, the audacity to call it unstable. The next excuse I expect to hear is the lack of democracy. Freedom of expression in some quarters means the right to talk ridiculous nonsense.
Todd| 2.5.09 @ 10:39PM
You are right to plead stupidity Lesly because you are very, very stupid. Cuba is a dictatorship to the extreme but I guess you can call that stable because anyone who dares to dissent is thrown in jail to rot or shot. Are you one of those idiots that wears Che t-shirts celebrating the brutal thug murderer? You are a pathetic excuse for a human being, why don't you go express your opinion to Cuban's in Florida and see what happens. You would get your ass kicked in about 2 seconds.
Lesly Daguerre| 2.3.10 @ 12:52PM
We are in agreement I am a very stupid indivual and a pathetic excuse for a human and if ever I show up in Miami and express my opinion democratically-leaning intellectual like you are will kick my ass. The question is now how different are you from the barbudos in the island who cannot stomach the idea that people have different opinion?
Alan Brooks| 2.5.09 @ 11:08PM
Stalin ran a stable government for 24 years. no one ever complained about his administration, not for long anyway-- they were never heard to complain again.
Todd| 2.5.09 @ 11:50PM
Where do people like Lesley come from Alan? It is hard to believe anyone could be so unbelievably stupid, no doubt a product of our public city education system.
Lesly| 2.3.10 @ 1:14PM
In fact you are dead wrong. I have never been in a public school.
Osamas Pajamas | 2.6.09 @ 12:30AM
The stinking Russian and Iranian imperialists are back on the island of Cuba, big-time, and they'll help to suppress any kind of revolution.
Joseph Santin| 2.6.09 @ 2:07AM
Hey, Lesly, before you go on demonstrating your brainwashed ignorance for everyone to see. Take this into account: Cuba has the second highest prison population in the world behind communist China. That explains the lack of instability as you put it. There are CDRs branches (Committes for Defense of the Revolution) or snitches in every block. These people report any "suspicious"; that is anti-government activities to the repressive government agencies. That would account for the lack of instability, as you put it.
Jeremiah| 2.6.09 @ 8:10PM
Lesly, this Yoani lady, she wouln't even spit on your face because it would be too nice.
You would make every Cuban puke.
Jeremiah| 2.6.09 @ 8:14PM
Right on Joe! And Cuba is also the second exporter of human organs (stolen on political prisoners, dead or alive) after commie China.
Ever wondered about the root causes of stability?
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