Danger Zone
My last date with Elena might have been just that - my last. It’s not my fault; she brought up the subject - Cuba of course. She had to start talking about that blog, Generation Y, which is all the rave now among this country’s Cuba-bashers. It’s all about the suffering of the people and the brutality of the government.
Unfortunately for Elena (or maybe for me, or maybe for the possibility of “us”) I had some “ammo” because the blogger had stirred up attention last month with a story about being briefly “kidnapped” and beaten by Cuban security agents. I’d been doing my “homework.” The worst part is the “showdown” took place at a get-together at Jerry and Amanda’s place (he’s my union buddy who first set me up with Elena, their neighbor). If we had been on our own I could have kept the discussion contained to “differing interpretations of reality.”
But there was jerk there who thought he knew it all, who was sure that Yoani Sanchez, the blogger, was on the cutting edge of a movement poised to bring down Raul Castro and return Cuba to the capitalist fold. Here’s what I laid on him:
Sanchez, born in 1975, graduated in 2000 with a degree in philology. Left Cuba with her son for Switzerland in 2002, on a 90-day tourist visa. Did not return after 90 days but stayed, working a series of jobs, doing translation work for various publishing houses, and giving Spanish classes. Petitioned the Cuban embassy in 2004 for permission to return to Cuba, citing “family reasons.” Permission granted.
First question: Why didn’t she ask for political asylum? Second question: If, as she states in her blog that she had left her homeland because of “economic suffocation,” did she bring herself and her son, for whom she now despairs of his future, back to Cuba?
So far, not a very unusual story. Lots of Cubans leave Cuba, like lots of Latin Americans leave their countries. But lots of Cubans go back (even from here, about ten percent annually). Living and working in a foreign country can be hard, especially without the proper papers, then there’s the language barrier, prejudice, etc. But Cubans know that despite hardships, in Cuba they will have a house, food, education and medical care, all free (or very close to it), and personal security, as the crime index there is infinitely small compared to the rest of Latin America.
But Sanchez got her blog going and now she’s the darling of the economic embargo crowd. And her personal crime index has supposedly risen. She says that on Nov. 7th agents of Cuban government security “threw me into a car…I took a paper one them carried and put it in my mouth. I was beaten to make me give back the document.” They also grabbed her husband, Orlando, and had him in a “karate hold.” “They hit me on the kidneys and the head so that I would give back the paper….They threw us in the street….A woman came up: ‘What happened?’ ‘A kidnapping,’ I responded.” (www.desdecuba.com/generaciony)
When she hosted a press conference in her home three days later, the BBC correspondent asked, where are the bruises and other marks left by the beating? They had disappeared, she said, except for the ones on her buttocks, which, “lamentablemente, I can’t show. CNN and AFP also reported the lack of injuries. No witnesses have surfaced. For some unexplained reason, Sanchez did not post photos of her injured self at the time of the alleged beating.
Come to think of it, despite all her talk about suffering in Cuba, on her blog I’ve never seen a photo of a child begging in the street, or the body of a “disappeared” person, discovered in an alley, showing signs of torture and a bullet hole in the back of the head.
Sanchez and her husband are unemployed, yet the home we see in blog photos seems spacious, comfortable, and attractively decorated. She’s clearly getting by on more than the minimum standards of Cuba’s egalitarian system. She says she gets her extra income by giving Spanish lessons to tourists. Funny, I thought tourists went to sunny tropical spots like Cuba to lie on the beach, not to study a foreign language. I wonder if her “students” stop by the US Interests Section for some “financial aid” before showing up for class.
Generation Y is a pretty sophisticated website. It gets 14 million hits a month, and appears in 18 languages; the US Department of State’s website gets a tenth of the hits, and appears in only six languages - which is why the people at State (and the CIA love people like Yoani Sanchez). I don’t know a lot about the internet but I know I could not run a blog like this one without a lot of help - which costs a lot of money.
Think what you want about Cuba. But don’t think Yoani Sanchez is just another blogger. And don’t believe for a minute her tales of injustice.
So, I explained all this, as calmly as possibly while the idiot kept interrupting me, without ever raising my voice, not even once, I swear! Elena was strangely quiet during most of the discussion. She didn’t bring it up afterward. I didn’t get another invite to the house. I should probably call her up.
Unfortunately for Elena (or maybe for me, or maybe for the possibility of “us”) I had some “ammo” because the blogger had stirred up attention last month with a story about being briefly “kidnapped” and beaten by Cuban security agents. I’d been doing my “homework.” The worst part is the “showdown” took place at a get-together at Jerry and Amanda’s place (he’s my union buddy who first set me up with Elena, their neighbor). If we had been on our own I could have kept the discussion contained to “differing interpretations of reality.”
But there was jerk there who thought he knew it all, who was sure that Yoani Sanchez, the blogger, was on the cutting edge of a movement poised to bring down Raul Castro and return Cuba to the capitalist fold. Here’s what I laid on him:
Sanchez, born in 1975, graduated in 2000 with a degree in philology. Left Cuba with her son for Switzerland in 2002, on a 90-day tourist visa. Did not return after 90 days but stayed, working a series of jobs, doing translation work for various publishing houses, and giving Spanish classes. Petitioned the Cuban embassy in 2004 for permission to return to Cuba, citing “family reasons.” Permission granted.
First question: Why didn’t she ask for political asylum? Second question: If, as she states in her blog that she had left her homeland because of “economic suffocation,” did she bring herself and her son, for whom she now despairs of his future, back to Cuba?
So far, not a very unusual story. Lots of Cubans leave Cuba, like lots of Latin Americans leave their countries. But lots of Cubans go back (even from here, about ten percent annually). Living and working in a foreign country can be hard, especially without the proper papers, then there’s the language barrier, prejudice, etc. But Cubans know that despite hardships, in Cuba they will have a house, food, education and medical care, all free (or very close to it), and personal security, as the crime index there is infinitely small compared to the rest of Latin America.
But Sanchez got her blog going and now she’s the darling of the economic embargo crowd. And her personal crime index has supposedly risen. She says that on Nov. 7th agents of Cuban government security “threw me into a car…I took a paper one them carried and put it in my mouth. I was beaten to make me give back the document.” They also grabbed her husband, Orlando, and had him in a “karate hold.” “They hit me on the kidneys and the head so that I would give back the paper….They threw us in the street….A woman came up: ‘What happened?’ ‘A kidnapping,’ I responded.” (www.desdecuba.com/generaciony)
When she hosted a press conference in her home three days later, the BBC correspondent asked, where are the bruises and other marks left by the beating? They had disappeared, she said, except for the ones on her buttocks, which, “lamentablemente, I can’t show. CNN and AFP also reported the lack of injuries. No witnesses have surfaced. For some unexplained reason, Sanchez did not post photos of her injured self at the time of the alleged beating.
Come to think of it, despite all her talk about suffering in Cuba, on her blog I’ve never seen a photo of a child begging in the street, or the body of a “disappeared” person, discovered in an alley, showing signs of torture and a bullet hole in the back of the head.
Sanchez and her husband are unemployed, yet the home we see in blog photos seems spacious, comfortable, and attractively decorated. She’s clearly getting by on more than the minimum standards of Cuba’s egalitarian system. She says she gets her extra income by giving Spanish lessons to tourists. Funny, I thought tourists went to sunny tropical spots like Cuba to lie on the beach, not to study a foreign language. I wonder if her “students” stop by the US Interests Section for some “financial aid” before showing up for class.
Generation Y is a pretty sophisticated website. It gets 14 million hits a month, and appears in 18 languages; the US Department of State’s website gets a tenth of the hits, and appears in only six languages - which is why the people at State (and the CIA love people like Yoani Sanchez). I don’t know a lot about the internet but I know I could not run a blog like this one without a lot of help - which costs a lot of money.
Think what you want about Cuba. But don’t think Yoani Sanchez is just another blogger. And don’t believe for a minute her tales of injustice.
So, I explained all this, as calmly as possibly while the idiot kept interrupting me, without ever raising my voice, not even once, I swear! Elena was strangely quiet during most of the discussion. She didn’t bring it up afterward. I didn’t get another invite to the house. I should probably call her up.