Source of Censorship / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado
Source of Censorship / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado, Translator: Unstated
For years, many Cubans have commented that the Department of Revolutionary Orientation was the 'educator and corrector' womb that gave birth to the communications broadcast in the Cuban media, and of the rumors convenient to the State, which spread like wildfire in the voice of the people.
I don't know if they will re-name the entity in time, but the procedure for disclosing certain information to the population of the archipelago continues the same. In my country, the newspaper Granma, official organ of the Cuban Communist Party, is the official bulletin of the "leaked news"and invisible and opportune annotations, which govern the rest of the newspapers and printed news, radio or television.
That is, other publications within Cuba repeat, like media mirrors, that which is reported by the newspaper from the single-party official censor. The prime time news on Cuban television, at the usual hour of 8:00 pm, reads what appeared in the newspaper that day, the reflections of the "Comandante en Jefe" — when there are any, regardless of their length — along with the remaining "news" reports of the six TV channels, with some new and irrelevant communications and reports of minor interest.
They criticize, as a rule, the problems facing capitalist societies — they never speak of their achievements — and with triumphalist manipulation ignore the basic problems we face. Are they talking about the same country? Why should there be such incongruity?
The state tutelage on the uninformative — and disinformative — Cuban television leave us with the sense that despite the many problems that confront us, "we are winning." It's certain that although corruption abounds and inability and indolence is enthroned in society, almost nothing — other than the army — works as it should and that we have a country in ruins, those who won are the clan in power, who appropriated the country and have remained in power for over half a century.
However, Cuba has lost and for a long time now its balance sheet is in the red. It's no good trying to entertain us with epic stories of guerrillas and unmet promises, because for a long time ordinary Cubans feel ourselves "surrounded and out of bullets" in the face of the injustice and helplessness.
Like one of Aesop's fables, we are numb waiting for the "enemy fox" who never comes, the New Man, perfect democracy and the model society that never was and never will be.
Get back, caguairán*!
*Translator's note: Caguairán is a nickname for Fidel; it is a Cuban tree with extremely hard wood.
May 18 2012
Cuban Solidarity Plus
Cuban Solidarity Plus Helle Dale May 18, 2012 at 10:48 am
Cuban Solidarity Day should make us renew efforts to extend a little more freedom to the Cuban population, which is still effectively imprisoned under their creaky Communist autocracy.
May 20 marks the 110th year of Cuba's independence, of which 53 long years have been spent under the Castro brothers' dictatorship. Public events such as The Heritage Foundation's program Friday, May 18, will demonstrate that the Cuban people are not forgotten.
As important as this is, there are other, more concrete measures that can and should be taken as well. One critically important step is introducing the communications revolution to Cuba.
The Internet, mobile phones, and social media are fast changing the way the rest of the world shares information. Today, Latin America accounts for 8 percent of the world's Internet usage, with 25 million daily users in Mexico alone. Over 80 percent of these users access social media for communication. Regionally, Cuba presents a unique case.
The Castro regime is expert at controlling communication internally and externally. According to Freedom House, Cuba is the only country in the Americas that consistently makes the list of the Worst of the Worst: The World's Most Repressive Societies for widespread abuses of political rights and civil liberties, including control of digital communication. In Cuba, only the privileged few have access to the Internet, and they are heavily monitored. All other Cuban users are limited to the Cuban "intranet," which was created with Chinese technology.
Still, small cracks in the Castro regime's censorship of communication are appearing and should be exploited. Since the accession of Raul Castro in 2008, ordinary Cubans have been able to own cell phones if they have the dollars to pay for them. Though there are over 1 million cell phones in Cuba today, the catch is that calls are prohibitively expensive, particularly international calls. Sending a tweet from a mobile phone can cost more than many Cubans earn in a day.
Yet mobile technology offers a way forward. In March of this year, dissidents with video-capable cell phones were able to smuggle out images from one of Cuba's most notorious prisons. This kind of activity has shaken other hard-line autocracies—Iran comes to mind—and led to uprisings all over the Middle East.
As recommended by Heritage's Ray Walser, various actions are open to the U.S. government. We can help Cubans acquire mobile phones and expand access to computers at the U.S. Interest Section in Havana. We should also explore satellite Internet coverage of Cuba, similar to that which cover rural areas of the U.S. Not only do Cubans deserve U.S. solidarity; they deserve our help as well.
Cuba, Crying Out Against the Fear / Angel Santiesteban
Cuba, Crying Out Against the Fear / Angel Santiesteban Angel Santiesteban, Translator: Unstated
Recently various events have stolen our time of creation. On the fifth anniversary of the blog Generation Y, a pioneer space that shouts to the world about the rights of Cubans, the gift from the government has been the imprisonment of the attorney Wilfredo Vallín Almeida, president of the Cuban Law Association (AJC).
It was Yoani Sanchez herself who alerted me to the tragedy. I was overcome by rage. It was an attempt to cut off the independent process of those who are trying to represent the law beyond the fees, limits and censorship of the administrators of the Law in Cuba and who, according to the attorney Vallín himself, are the first to violate the provisions of the laws they themselves have passed.
In more than 50 years of totalitarianism, never has anyone said to the government officials, Legal Code in hand, that they are all infringing on the rights of Cuban citizens.
Tranquility and light for the unprotected
I told Yoani we couldn't sit on our hands. She told me we would meet at his house to make a decision. I assured her I would be there in half an hour. It was inconceivable to me to imagine Attorney Wilfredo Vallín detained, being interrogated by the peons without decency, thugs who follow orders without the intervention of their conscience. My anger was building, becoming more explosive every second.
Personally, I am very grateful to the Association over which he presides. The offices are in his own house; they opened to the doors to me there when I felt myself without legal rights, they would protect me. When I confirmed that the State was on my back and its henchmen beat me in the street. Without protection I went to his house charged with a series of crimes that would total 54 years in prison. Then they brought me shade, peace, and a light at the end of the tunnel that opened like heaven itself. They scared away the darkness. And began to prepare me to break all the lies that they were plotting against me.
When I knocked on the door of the lawyer Vallín, to the delight of all, it was he who opened the door. He told us what happened and how outrageous it was that he was arrested and handcuffed in front of his wife and neighbors. Then at the police station, a young and incompetent officer assured him tat he was there because of his relationships with counterrevolutionary people, and he mentioned Yoani Sanchez and Dagoberto Valdes.
Vallín responded that his home was open to everyone who needed legal advice, and among those were the wives of officers "like you," he said, arbitrarily imprisoned, "and the law is for everyone," Vallín assured him. An example of the constant violations was what they had committed against he himself, because he was arrested without a warrant to justify such an actions.
An absurd arrest
The truth was, happily, Vallín was released, and what could have been the first public protest to demand the release of this Cuban was avoided, or they might have preyed on us all and we would have joined Vallín. When we left there were still State Security agents around his home. I tried to photograph them and two hid, another appeared in the photo trying to hide himself.
At night we met at Yoani's house to celebrate the anniversary of her blog. We also spoke about the contribution, days earlier, of Vallín at the Estado de SATS project, where he explained the flagrant violations committed during the visit of Pope Benedict XVI, and gave examples, reading from the Legal Code. For example, the State had imposed a state of emergency on the country without informing its citizens. We are sure that his participation in that event was the trigger for the absurd attempt to frighten him with an arrest.
However, the deep fear instilled in us since birth, living through all the injustices that the governments of the Castro brothers have sowed in us, are being overcome with the cry for freedom and justice.
Angel Santiesteban Prats
May 10 2012
Journalism group cites censorship in 10 countries
Posted on Wednesday, 05.02.12
Journalism group cites censorship in 10 countries The Associated Press
NEW YORK — A journalists' group says that the Horn of Africa nation Eritrea leads the world in imposing censorship on the media, followed closely by North Korea, Syria and Iran.
The Committee to Protect Journalists says in a report released Wednesday that 10 countries suppress news coverage by barring international media, putting "dictatorial controls" on domestic media, and imposing other restrictions.
Rounding out the 10 worst censors are Equatorial Guinea, Uzbekistan, Burma which also is known as Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Belarus.
The committee, a nonprofit organization based in New York, works to safeguard press freedom worldwide.
Many of the countries on this year's list also were on the committee's last list, published in 2006.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/02/2778672/journalism-group-cites-censorship.html
In Cuba, young people long for a way to access Facebook
Posted on Tuesday, 04.24.12
In Cuba, young people long for a way to access FacebookBy Franco OrdonezMcClatchy Newspapers
PINAR DEL RIO, Cuba — The 24-year-old volunteer shows off the seven computers sitting on wooden desks under a painting of Saint Juan Bosco in a small, 6- by 10-foot cement room at the back of the church.
Adalberto Malagon has taken several classes here. He learned how to write book reports on Word and crop photos using Photoshop. But what he really wants to learn is how to surf the Web.
Like many young Cubans, Rojas is frustrated that he can't access Facebook and Google like his peers around the world.
"We're ready," he said. "We have so much culture and education in Cuba. There are many Third World countries with much less culture and education than Cuba that have had the Internet for many years."
That may not come for years. Cuba, with its authoritarian communist government in control of the Web, has the lowest Internet-penetration rate in the Western Hemisphere, with just 16 percent of its population online. Even earthquake ravaged Haiti, the hemisphere's poorest country, has a higher percentage of its people on the Internet.
In Cuba, only government officials and foreigners can set up the Internet in their homes, and the vast majority of Cubans can't afford the fees charged at tourist hotels, where an hour of Internet equals about a quarter of the average Cuban's monthly salary.
"Think about it," said David Gonzalez, 20, who sometimes sneaks onto the Internet at the hotel where his mother works. "For $5 an hour, it's not worth it."
Since taking over the presidency from his ailing brother Fidel, Raul Castro has moved to liberalize the country's economy. He's slowly introducing modern technology. In 2008, islanders first received the right to have private cellphones.
But the government has been more cautious with the World Wide Web. An undersea fiber-optic cable now connecting Cuba and Venezuela will increase the country's bandwidth, but service has yet to begin.
The Cuban government is concerned about the online potential for dissent and social mobilization, according to experts such as William LeoGrande, a Latin America specialist and dean of the American University School of Public Affairs in Washington.
The government feels confident that it has control of the traditional dissident community, LeoGrande said, but it's less familiar with the techniques of a new crop of younger dissidents who've been inspired by the revolutionaries who used social media to start anti-government movements across North Africa and the Middle East.
The most famous Cuban blogger using social media to foment dissent is Yoani Sanchez, who publishes "Generation Y," which is translated into 16 languages. She sends out regular tweets about activism and her life on the island using text messaging from her cellphone. She has nearly 250,000 Twitter followers. She posts regularly each day.
"It's possible that I don't get there, that I don't have enough health or life, please tell the youth of the future that their irreverence is welcome," she recently wrote on Twitter.
Opponents call her a fraud and an agent in the United States' political and economic war against Cuba.
The greatest challenge bloggers like Sanchez face isn't censorship, but getting online. Despite the restrictions, she and others bloggers are finding new ways to broadcast their reporting, by saving posts onto flash drives and sharing them to friends with access to the Internet.
In 2007, Ramiro Valdes, then the interior minister, called the Internet "one of the mechanisms of global extermination," but he added that it was necessary for continued economic development.
"This concern is exactly why Alan Gross is sitting in prison," LeoGrande said.
Gross, an American from suburban Washington, was arrested and accused of being a spy two years ago for bringing satellite phones, laptops and Blackberry cellphones onto the island. Gross worked under the umbrella of a pro-democracy project of the State Department's U.S. Agency for International Development. He said he was bringing the equipment to the island's Jewish community, but he was accused of trying to subvert the government.
The island does have a limited intranet service that is more widely available. Cubans can surf local sites and open email accounts.
Yaremis Guerra, 18, takes classes twice a week at the Youth Computer Club near her home outside Havana, where she looks up music sites and exchanges emails with cousins in Texas.
"I get lost in that world," Guerra said.
Jakeline Diaz, 25, has access to email through work at a local hospital near Pinar del Rio. But she really longs to get on Facebook. A colleague recently returned from a medical mission in Angola, where she had access to the Web and created a Facebook page.
"She has a lot of friends," Diaz said. "She puts up photos. I'd love to have friends from around the world."
On a recent afternoon, Gonzalez was walking with two friends through Old Havana to watch a televised soccer match that he'd learned about on the Internet at his mother's hotel. Since traveling outside the country isn't an option, the Internet is the best way to learn about the outside world, he said. If you asked every young person, he said, they'd tell you their first or second desire is to be able to have more access to the Web.
"No one has the Internet," he said. "Not the young people. Not the old people. Really the only people who have the Internet are the people with power."
email: fordonez@mcclatchydc.com; Twitter: @francoordonez
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/23/v-fullstory/2765624/in-cuba-young-people-long-for.html
Another Pope, Another Cuba, Another Church / Mario Barroso
Another Pope, Another Cuba, Another Church / Mario BarrosoMario Barroso, Translator: Unstated
The scenario is different. The visitor also.
When the Polish Pope, John Paul II, Karol Wojtyla, visited Cuba in 1998 he found Monsignor Pedro Claro Meurice Estiu as archbishop in Santiago de Cuba, and in him, the loudest Cuban voice rose among those who had such a possibility. The Pope's "Let Cuba open itself to the world and the world open itself to Cuba," was greeted at least by "the lion of the East" as the most read description of Cuba as it could be: that of a people who "need to learn to demystify the false messianism" of "a growing number of Cubans who have confused the country with a party, the nation with the historical process we have experienced in recent decades, and culture with an ideology'; a people that "lives here and lives in the diaspora"; and the Cuban who "suffers, lives and waits here and suffers, lives and waits there."
When that traveling Pope of "Be not afraid" visited Cuba, he also found a towering prophetic voice within the Catholic publications which by then had grown to twenty-two acute publications, the brave Vitral, of the Catholic Center for Civic and Religious of the diocese of Pinar del Rio, led by that other great Christian who is still here Dagoberto Valdés. Dagoberto declared after the papal pilgrimage that the Pope who visited us was not any pope but "the Polish Pope who knows Nazism, communism and capitalism in his own flesh," and then concluded that after the visit Pope's "Cuba must cross the threshold and move on."
But when the new German Pope, Benedict XVI, arrives in Santiago de Cuba he will not find any lion to receive him. He will be welcomed primarily by pastors who did little to save some peaceful women from the frenetic mobs who will be sent by the regime to receive the Bishop of Rome, hiding in the same t-shirts as the faithful. Pastors who surely boast of having achieved the release, in 2012, if 52 prisoners from that group of 75 of the Black Spring of 2003, and others, and with such arrogance usurp the true merit of the martyrdom of Orlando Zapata Tamayo; the challenge of women armed only with gladioli, to whom the Sovereign of the Vatican probably not even reply to their request for a meeting; and the fasting of Mr. Guillermo Fariñas who thus won the Sakharov Prize 2010 of the European Parliament.
Pastors who were actually used by the regime to get them out of one of their greatest quagmires after the visit of John Paul II. Negotiations with which the regime thought it might eliminate the common position toward Cuba of the European Union, before its rampages, but marred by the murder of Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia, who put paid to the approaches of the Cardinal Jaime Ortega, realized at that exact moment on behalf of the regime, as their messenger to Europe.
When Benedict passes through Havana to celebrate Mass and meet with those who ignored the words of his predecessor, he still will not hear the prophetic voice of Vitral, and not because the regime itself has exercised its rage directly, but because by the works and grace of one of its own pastors the church distributed the opium that the regime needs to numb the people. As Castro's victory over the most authentic of Cuban Christians, the bishop of Pinar del Rio, was responsible for clouding Easter forever on Sunday April 8, 2007, with the announcement of the cessation of the magazine at its 78th edition.
As heir of several centuries of Baptist thought, I profess the universal priesthood of believers and take communion with whomever upholds the lordship of Christ, whom anyone can access without human intermediaries, as a corollary of belief. Being part of this radical people in the history of the faith makes me disagree on the so-called infallibility of the Pope, no matter who holds the position.
For believing this, hundreds of thousands of faith of my ancestors lost their lives in the fires stirred by the Pope of their day. From this point of view, and consistent with the principle of congregational government held by our free and autonomous churches, which greatly influenced the origin of modern democracies, we find the monarchy of the Vatican, which concentrates full legislative, executive and judicial in hands of one man, to be the best example of totalitarianism. But if I set aside my strong values and simply take the position of thousands of Catholics, they, too, expect very little from the visit of this Pope in particular.
In September 2000, Joseph Ratzinger, who was not yet Pope, but who was the cardinal leading the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the current version of the bloody Inquisition, endorsed the Declaration Dominus Iesus, which turned back almost all advances made by the progressive Second Vatican Council. I believe that the appointment of this cardinal to the pontificate was a huge step backward for the Holy See. The adverse reactions from that time should not be forgotten; it suffices to mention, just in the religious sphere, starting from within Catholicism, the renowned Swiss theologian Hans Küng; to Setri Nyomi, general secretary of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches; George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the Anglican Church, to Tom Best, member of Team Faith and the World Council of Churches; to Anfred Koch, representing the German Lutherans, and a multitude of plural voices of evangelical leaders belonging to churches without hierarchy, like me.
If we stick only to the words of the famous Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff, a frequently quoted by the Cuban media, but not recently, the discourse of Ratzinger is not only specific to Romanism, but to all contemporary totalitarianism. Many dissidents voices have expectations of this visit, but the regime has made clear in its editorials that Pope Benedict XVI is their guest, and of course, also a guest of the church, a church paradoxically more committed to the system since the visit of John Paul II, as evidenced by the gap left by Meurice, and censorship of Vitral. It is the Cuban government who undoubtedly most awaits the visit of the Head of State, and there is reason to believe that it will be disappointed; after all, Hitler also hoped for the visit of Pius XII and he was not disappointed.
March 15 2012
A 2nd Colloquium on Reggaeton and Problematic Social Situations in Cuba / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo
A 2nd Colloquium on Reggaeton and Problematic Social Situations in Cuba / Orlando Luis Pardo LazoOrlando Luis Pardo Lazo, Translator: William Fitzhugh
In real time, it's illegible but the Cuban press has come to be very creative if it is read with a five year lag time, "chabacaneria"[2], luxury, lechery, lamentation, vice, consumption of toxicity, banality, corny-ness, trinket shops, flamboyant attires, cheesy bargains, and an ecetera half ethical and half ethnical. The self-titled "Cuban Youth Daily"put forward its best effort in the beginning to frame the coordinated condemnations of reggaeton, even if a bit late, with the flow of time and money, and has attempted several baby steps towards tolerance.
Why would the Cuban intellectual have to think or at least give some weight to reggaeton? Why isn't it reggaeton that intrudes on the theory chorus of the cultural realm? To think is to possess. We want to put all phenomenon in the civil waistline of power. We can't stand to be stuck outside the the flow of sense that, for its part, is a source of capital. We know that we can legitimize or stigmatize a genre of music that, while the more it goes along with a big mouth and sticks to people, the more voiceless and vulnerable it seems facing the Institution that is always a bit inquisitorial. for the moment we fool along (we make ourselves the fools). It's still early to be passing judgement and maybe it was our turn before for a good piece of cake.
Reggaeton as a form of linguistic violence has always captivated me as a distortion of the Cuban norm (unconscious Cabrera infantilisms or translated captions something like the movie La Naranja Mecánica[The Mechanical Orange]). Any break-out or emptying of the language fascinates me, even when it closes upon itself and doesn't blow up in the face of the social consensus.
In terms of textual terrorism, the territorial reggaeton slang in truth promised much more than it produced, but in Cuba this inefficacy far from being a sin, at these heights already, should be a constitutional preamble. We don't come to any libertarian limits. We cross the line, yes, but only from a heavy conservatism, never out of fashion. Cuba as commodity.
The strange family sagas of the first texts that I have a poor memory of, with their twisted Oedipus-isms and certain common, criminal-esque places, soon were dissolving in the friendly media of the caricature. The themes ended before being completely explored, even before turning out to be interesting for our most restless intellectuality (worthy oxymoron).
There remain then the eternal twitches of Cubanity, the alpha macho uprooted or predatory, the mean and voracious girl, the consuming at an open bar (the CUC [3] as the measure of all things, the almighty buck as the only real event to be remembered in anniversaries) complete forgetting of those who died needlessly, hedonism before historicism, a certain "sexual promiscuity" and a lot of "moral relativism" (that still generates panic in the chorus line of our insular churches), and all the other aesthetics that pass for icons, brand name clothing, tattoos, glitzy jewelry, luxury cars, purebred pets, the mass orgy as a substitute for the organization of the masses, in the end, a final assault on all those delicate distractions that the ideological elite hid for decades by the frugal instinct of self-conservation.
When it's allowed (with some possible exceptions) to be aired in official media, reggaeton pays homage to the popularity they charge for it under the table [4]; and pardon me those of you present here from the left, this bad metaphor, the announcers and radio producers, among other new actors of the Cuban post-socialism of the 21st century). The Quinquenio de Oro of this class does not stain its fingers with the ink of the "best pens of the Republic" as have been called its songwriters a bit in the style of "the best minds of my generation" of Allen Ginsburg, howled a lot but seldom criticized. More like attendance records and prohibitive prices for their spectacular spectacles not like the cock fighting rings but like vaudeville. No-one loses. Not even those who lose their heads only to lose their clothes in public in a corporal climax of the corporate show (there was even someone who involved their skin in the first comandante-esque tattoo in five discursive decades of the Revolution).
Precisely then, after the first putative death of Fidel, it was the Cuban state that began to find itself outside the game, victimized budgetarily, reggaeton-icized by an emerging industry much better than its functionaries. Tickets were running somewhere between the corrupt and the legal, between the clandestine disc burners and the video clips of national television (contaminating the increasingly professional artists and technicians) between the Makumba and Miami (it's only an example) and the power doesn't know how to boycott this short cut direct to the future, no, to the extreme future.
The little dogs, who knows if from the political police (it's only another example), gave a hand to the ministerial marionettes. Here or there in every six months there rises some brilliant conference that rebukes reggaeton in the sacred name of the little people, that fascist totalitarian defect of the disguised demagogue of pedagogy. When the Premier of Culture himself appeared on the Mesa Redonda[5] of Cubavision Internacional(which is our de facto Parliament before the world) a fake head was chosen and it was so simple to deconstruct the remains of a slang that was barely mumbling genital syllables.
Case closed, comical circus , semantical of semen cyclical: chabacaneria,luxury, lust, lamentable, vice consumption of toxics, banality, corny, trinket shop, flamboyant attire, cheesy bargains (put on the hot underwear-uty, take down the wild par-uty, spit all-uty out the mouth-uty because the dictator-uty is here to order you to stop-uty [6]).
To the new class of non-consumers of Reggaeton, you're within your right to defend the status quo of your governancead infinitum. For lack of rash intellectual attempts, the transition in Cuba could have well been able to slip into the background of the neighborhoodof the last tam-tam[7]. A lesson is necessary in order to expose the lack of solidarity of the trade (not even a single collection of signatures against the censorship) and the shunning by steps of its most successful leaders .
Now in the second stage of the rhetorical recruiting of Reggaeton as state lever, for sure a mutual pact in terms of taxes and resolutions against the delinquency of debt and infractions, ethical codes and sanctions including even for reasons of grammar, symbolic management salaries and permits in passports in order to allow departure from and return to the country with money, more so the customary community signboards, clearly, and perhaps these colloquiums or lectures where, to legitimize or stigmatize this idiot son of the post-modernity that, meanwhile the more lap dancing, bumping and grinding gets more promiscuity to the people, the more mute and defenseless it leaves us in the face of our own inquisition that's always a bit institutional. We fool around for the moment (we make ourselves the fools ). It's never too late to pass sentence and I believe it will be our turn before that nice slice of cake.
Translator's notes:
[1] The word "bayu" in Cuban Spanish means a wild, orgiastic party. Adding a syllable to the end of that word enables reggaeton to rhyme the word bayu-ti with "dictadura" (dictatorship)which has the same syllable added to it to make dicatu-ti
[2] "Chabacaneria": crass , loud , mannerisms of the street including vulgar sexual talk.
[3] Cuba has two currencies. There is the traditional CUP (Cuban peso, also known as "moneda nacional" or national money), and then there is the coveted CUC – Cuban Convertible Peso, thevalue of which is tied 1:1 to the American dollar. CUC enables the holder to purchase goods at government stores that sell goods from overseas, quality foods, luxury items in addition to anything that CUP can buy as well as purchasing or selling such items between private parties.
[4] the expression "under the table" in English is rendered as "by the left" in Spanish which is why the writer apologizes for the use of the metaphor.
[5] Mesa Redonda or Round Table is a nightly show on Cuban television where prominent academics and members of the government discuss matters of national and international importance.
[6] A satirical change of lyrics from a reggaeton song by Osmani Garcia about the joys of oral sex. The song can be heard at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIsCs4g3maM.
[7] Drum circle or a drum of African origins.
Translated by: William Fitzhugh
February 25 2012
Chilean Student Leader Camila Vallejo Returns to Cuba
Chilean Student Leader Camila Vallejo Returns to CubaApril 5, 2012Armando Chaguaceda
HAVANA TIMES, April 4 — The charismatic Chilean student-protest leader Camila Vallejo traveled to Cuba to participate in the events marking the anniversary of the island's Young Communist League. This young woman is a case — rare in these times — that combines intelligence, perseverance and social commitment.
To these must be added her being the face (an entrancingly beautiful one, like that of an actress) of the most creative, combative and respected post-Pinochet social mobilization in Chile, one in which students are demanding the right to education.
In the prelude to her most recent visit in Cuba, Camilla made some statements that were picked up by several web forums.
Alarm was raised concerning her remark comparing repression in Cuba and Chile, where — without denying its existence here on the island — the young Chilean recalled the violent means in which her fellow demonstrators have been attacked during social protest actions in her country. This doesn't mean that she is unaware of the violent acts committed by agents of the Cuban government; it merely speaks of her real and personal experience and knowledge.
Here, perhaps one might might add to Camilla's assessment by saying that the substantial difference between the two contexts and populations is the existence in her country of a public sphere — the media, laws and institutions — in which people can express their dissent against official policy without censorship or the suppression (though there is indeed repression) of the right to protest.
Likewise, the Chilean citizenry — despite the anesthetic effect of the military dictatorship and neoliberal consumerism — is in a qualitatively superior position for dealing with fear and in their capacity for mobilization as compared to the Cuban population.
What few critics recognize in Camila's words is that — unlike many "friends of Cuba" who visit us — she didn't keep her critical opinions to herself. As true friends do, Camilla said:
"With these words, I don't wish to conceal the legitimate discontent felt by certain sectors of Cuban society with regard to its political and social system. We were able to hear criticisms about these during our visit to the island" (referring to a previous visit in 2009).
And to make clear the absence of mimicry or dogma in the fight that she helps lead, she concluded:
"Cuba is not a perfect society and Chile does not have to follow its path. Chileans must develop their own path to overcoming inequality." Although the progressive sectors of that country value the Cuban experience, she recalled, "We have aimed to place Chile on a path of broad social and political convergence within a multiparty system."
Therefore I don't think that this experienced student leader is either an accomplice of repression or naively uninformed. She speaks from the position of a new generation and with a new political vision, the same one that has led her — overcoming the admiration held by many of the world's leftists for caudillos or the fierce xenophobia that exists in her own country — to prefer coca-growing leader Evo Morales over the brash former soldier Hugo Chavez.
Hers is a generation that has the challenge of overcoming the neo-liberal legacy of dictatorship while advocating education as a public good and right in the face of justifications issuing from all of Chile's established political parties – including the Socialists.
We can perhaps assist Camila by giving testimonies about the experiences here, that — without denying her claims — could provide her with new arguments for better seeing "the other Cuba."
We can point to what doesn't reside in the lush foreign-guest facilities at El Laguito or in organized visits to model schools with diligent pioneers. We could show her experiences where the idolatry of the market and order are advancing while the emblematic social programs of the revolution are being cut back in an agenda similar to that of the military coup leaders and their US-trained advisers from the Chicago School.
We can testify to experiences in which average people are seeing their living standards fall without these citizens having mechanisms for expressing their concerns or raising protests. Where college students who tried, in the past decade, to discuss the thinking of Che Guevara, or to organize a protest march against the war in Iraq or who resisted the imposition of spurious leaders over their student organizations were punished for thinking and acting with their own minds and hearts.
We could point to where those who today discuss the experiences of the Chilean students or the Spanish "Outraged" are monitored by police agencies and defamed with impunity as "members of the services of enemy intelligence."
All these testimonies exist and their central figures certainly have much to tell this courageous leader and her brave companions. This is not to turn her visit into a "wailing wall," but to give a contribution to the pluralistic and fresh vision — concerning Cuba and the world — that is being forged by a new generation of social activists.
This is because you don't pour new wine into old wineskins and because the birth of this new radical and democratic, anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian politics is the best tribute that can be made to the heroic legacy of those who died in La Moneda that fateful day in September 1973. The youth, despite everything, are living up to that legacy.
Cuba, An Island of Euphemisms
Cuba, An Island of EuphemismsMarch 30, 2012Dariela Aquique
People who were the "maggots," "worms," "traitors" and "scum" are now called "community members" or "Cuban-Americans" or "those living outside of Cuba."
HAVANA TIMES, March 30 — Euphemisms (which are of course words and expressions used for replacing other ones that are considered bad sounding, distasteful or inappropriate), are commonly used in Cuba, especially by those seeking to avoid "annoying interpretations."
An annoying interpretation, in turn, can be a word that describes a possible reprimand from a superior, boss or colleague who thinks your term is inappropriate. Let me give you some examples:
The words "maid," "housekeeper," "servant" and "service employee" disappeared from the national lexicon as they were considered bourgeois expressions, and all vestiges of the bourgeoisie needed to be eliminated from the lives of Cubans.
With the passage of time and the incontrovertible existence of class differences in the country, these types of words have reappeared among those who need to pay other people for domestic services and those who need to get paid for those services.
The circumstances have returned, but with new designations. Now these people are called "the woman who does the cleaning" or "the man who runs errands"; or — more amicably — they might be referred to as "the person who helps us at home," thus creating some degree of ambiguity. One might even get the impression that this person is not bound by money in providing this "aid or assistance."
People who were the "maggots," "worms," "traitors" and "scum" of the mass exoduses (from the port at Camarioca in 1960 and Mariel in 1980), after certain social and political conjunctures began to be referred to using gentler terms like "community members" or "Cuban-Americans" or "those living outside of Cuba."
This is why it's not at all uncommon for people who are "fired" or "laid off" to be described as having experienced "employment reorganization." Likewise "evictions" become the "distrainment of real property."
And anyone who provides information about other people to the police or to the Ministry of the Interior — rather than being labeled as "informants," "snitches" or chivatos — they are described as "auxiliaries" or "civilian collaborators."
A "prostitute" is now called a jinetera (escort), and theft (on a large scale by certain officials) has been dubbed "the mismanagement of resources."
But there are some terms that are completely exempt from the possibility of receiving any softer kinder euphemisms. These include "independent journalist" or "blogger," which are smeared with words like "cyber-dissident" or even "mercenary" in the worst cases.
In other words, euphemisms are employed to a degree directly proportional to the level of the commitment they have for the implantation or ordering by the system, in accordance with the period and the context.
These are the reasons my writings are never published in official media. Don't imagine, my friends, that the cause of this is "censorship" or a lack of "freedom of expression" its that I'm very apt to use amplified phraseology and opinions that are "exaggerated," "distorted," "imprudent" or "inconsistent" with our reality.
Please, I'm not asking for anyone to describe me as being "sardonic" with this. I'm only being "funny."
Censorship Catholicommunist in Cuba / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo
Censorship Catholicommunist in Cuba / Orlando Luis Pardo LazoOrlando Luis Pardo Lazo, Translator: Unstated
Why Not Awakening?
– An article about the censorship of the documentary about Escuadrón Patriota(Patriot Squadron) –
Every February, the Chaplin Cinema opens its doors to the Young Filmmakers Exhibition organized by the Cuban Institute of Art and Cinematographic Industry (ICAIC). The Exhibition is presented as the only and therefore the best chance for the youngest filmmakers to show their work.
Organized under the guidelines that govern the ICAIC, and being that this is a center that, despite enjoying some autonomy, meets the state interests, the Exhibition retains the right whether to accept films according to its policies, which do not serve the interests of the filmmakers. So it can be said that it decides based more on political correctness, than on the quality of the work as artistic and critical means of expression.
It is evident that under this right of selection is hidden censorship and exclusion from the system, which the documentary Awakening, directed by Ricardo Figueredo Oliva and Anthony Bubaire did not escape this time.
The topic is Raudel Collazo, best known for Escuadron Patriota (Patriot Squadron), who, in the lyrics of his now-censored songs, takes on with strong and direct speech core issues that attack Cuban society, such as racism, fear and segregation. Which brings us back to the show last year when the documentary Revolution, which explores the history of Los Aldeanos (The Villagers), Cuban hip hop's most successful group on and off the island in recent years, was also censored, only this time as opposed to that, all parties did not reach consensus.
The freedom of creation and exhibition is still a conquest to be reached in Cuban audiovisual media, and institutions rusted away by time and their policies, which are obsolete in the current context, look like old dinosaurs today. More than ever, Cuban cinema lives today among the hundreds of filmmakers such as Anthony Bubaire and Ricardo Figueredo who strive to assault and present reality with all its nuances.
It is necessary that the ICAIC, an institution that has championed art as a fundamental premise, echo the needs for which Cuban society is avid: the completion of an art that is more than their reality, a cinema that shows them to be more than they are and what can be, and that for once leaves behind those politics that are maintained only in cinema tied to the remnants of a past that only endeavors to reveal the reality of two colors: red and green.
Mely Acosta
TAKEN FROM: FACEBOOK OF RICARDO FIGUEREDO
March 25 2012
US panel on religious freedom reports Cuban violations
Posted on Thursday, 03.22.12
US panel on religious freedom reports Cuban violations
Arrests, controls and surveillance of religious leaders in Cuba were detailed in a report Wednesday from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.By Juan O. Tamayojtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
A week before Pope Benedict XVI visits Cuba, a U.S. government panel on religious freedom has alleged "serious" violations on the island, including arrests of pastors and "pressure to prohibit democracy and human rights activists" from church activities.
The violations also include government "interference in church affairs" and controls on "religious belief and practices through surveillance and legal restrictions," said the annual report by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
"Serious religious freedom violations continue in Cuba despite some improvements," noted the report, issued Wednesday, which also listed a number of arrests and pressures on individual religious leaders, all of them Protestant pastors.
The panel also kept Cuba on its "Watch List," along with Afghanistan, Belarus, India, Indonesia, Laos, Russia, Somalia and Venezuela. Another list of 16 even more worrisome "Countries of Particular Concern" includes nations, like Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Among the improvements, it listed "the relations between the Catholic Church and Cuban government … although the government maintains strict oversight of, and restrictions on, church activities." It also noted that Cardinal Jaime Ortega played a role in the process of releasing more than 120 political prisoners in 2010-2011.
Other improvements included the greater freedom for churches to discuss politically sensitive issues and more government permissions to celebrate mass in prisons, carry out humanitarian work and access the state' media monopoly, the report added.
"Things are not improving as much for the Protestant communities, especially the evangelicals, because the government seems to have some distrust there," Commission Chairman Leonard Leo told El Nuevo Herald.
The panel describes itself as a bipartisan part of the U.S. government whose nine members, representing many religions, are appointed by the White House and Congress leaders to assess religious freedom around the world and make policy recommendations. Established in 1998, it is based in Washington.
Its latest report came on the eve of Benedict's three-day visit to Cuba, which has sparked hopes for reconciliation among all Cubans, and complaints that he does not plan to meet with government opponents. The visit starts Monday.
The 2012 latest report devoted three of its 331 page to detailing its concerns on Cuba, where the communist government, officially atheist from 1962 to 1992, has recently warmed up relations with the Catholic Church and Ortega.
During 2011, the report noted, "religious leaders throughout Cuba reported increased government surveillance, interference in internal affairs and pressure to prohibit democracy and human rights activists from participating in their churches' activities."
"The Cuban government largely controls religious denominations through government-authorized surveillance and harassment, and at times detentions, of religious leaders and through its implementation of legal restrictions," it added.
Churches are required to meet "an invasive registration procedure" at the Justice Ministry, it added, and only those registered can legally receive foreign visitors, import religious materials and apply for permission to travel abroad for religious purposes.
"Local Communist Party officials must approve all religious activities" and the government limits religious activities through construction permits, access to the mass media and approvals for publications, according to the report.
Authorities also control churches by "limiting the entry of foreign religious workers; denying Internet access to religious organizations; denying religious literature … to persons in prison; denying permission to hold processions or events outside religious buildings; and discriminating on the basis of religion in the area of employment."
"Government-supported mobs continued to block members of the Ladies in White from attending Sunday mass outside of Havana," the panel noted.
Among the religious leaders arrested were "dozens" of members of the unregistered Apostolic Reformation, the report added, which attracted pastors from churches in the Cuban Council of Churches, the government-approved umbrella for Protestants.
Baptist pastor and human rights activist Mario Felix Lleonart Barroso was detained several times in 2011 and government pressures forced Baptist pastor Homero Carbonell and Methodist pastor Yordi Toranzo to leave their posts, it added.
"Catholic and Protestant church authorities apparently do not look well on clerics who challenge the established regulations, and in some cases have transferred priests and pastors to other parishes," said Marcos Antonio Ramos, a church historian and retired Miami Baptist pastor.
Apostolic Reformation pastor Gude Pérez was released from jail in April after serving one-third of a six-year sentence for illicit economic activity and falsification of documents, the report noted. The U.S. government granted him asylum, but Cuban officials refuse to allow him to leave the island.
Pastor Robert Rodriguez, who had been under house arrest since 2008, was found not guilty of "offensive behavior" — his denomination's withdrawal from the Council of Churches.
Other improvements in 2011, the report noted, included fewer reports of confiscations, fines or evictions from "house churches" — private homes used as temples — and increased opportunities to stage public processions and receive aid from abroad.
Among its recommendations for U.S. policies, the panel noted that Washington should push Cuba to end its violations of freedom of religion "prior to considering resuming full diplomatic relations."
It also endorsed the U.S. Agency for International Development's pro-democracy programs in Cuba, outlawed by the Cuban government as designed to topple the communist system.
Washington should "use appropriated funds to advance Internet freedom and protect Cuban activists from harassment and arrests by supporting the development of new technologies … to counter censorship," the panel noted.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/22/v-fullstory/2706535/us-panel-on-religious-freedom.html
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