Cuba’s bloggers are as sharp abroad as at home

http://translatingcuba.com/the-dollar-returns-to-rule-our-lives/



14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, Havana, 18 July 2020 – The first time I entered a hard currency store was in long distant 1994. I had to show the three one-dollar bills that a friend had given me, and thus managed to enter the shopping* on the ground floor of the Seville hotel, near the Capitol in Havana. The smell of cleanliness, the air conditioning and the shelves full of products were a hard blow for this Cubanita who, until then, had only known about state-run businesses and the rationed market. Since then it has rained a lot, but it also seems that history moves in circles on this Island.

This week, after the independent press leaked that stores were being prepared sell food and toiletries in foreign currency, many emphatically denied that possibility on the premise that “something like this cannot be.” Curiously, until Miguel Díaz-Canel confirmed, this Thursday afternoon, that the network of businesses managed by Cimex was going to offer food in dollars, euros or other foreign currencies, some clung to the conviction that such a segregationist measure could not be implemented in this country.

Memory is a slippery animal. This is exactly what Fidel Castro did when, in August 1993, he authorized the possession of dollars and fired the starting gun for the appearance of a vast network of state stores where you could pay only in that currency. The time came when those lacking US banknotes looked on – salivating – as others bought cookies, frozen chicken, sausages or soda in a type of store that, soon after, began to introduce the convertible peso (CUC) into its operations.
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http://translatingcuba.com/where-are-arantxa-and-other-useful-fools-now/


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The Youth Labor Army (EJT) market on 17th street, in Havana, these past days. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 19 November 2020 — With a casual tone, under the Havana summer sun, the Spanish political scientist Arantxa Tirado recorded a video last year where she explained the wonders of the Cuban economy, wonders that allowed a person to have three meals a day and even a snack for only 30 euros per month. Now, the same market that served as the setting for her dissertation is practically empty, but the protagonist of that panegyric is missing, not here to film this other side of reality.

At the corner of 17th and K streets, in El Vedado, the market stands have been almost deserted for weeks. Some dismal bananas, stone-hard oranges and ginger are among the few products that have appeared sporadically in the last month in what was one of the best-stocked markets in the Cuban capital, managed by the military through the Youth Labor Army (EJT). The ingredients that Tirado claimed to have stocked up on while on the Island are now found only in our memories and in the brief images of her video.
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And Them? Were They ‘Mercenaries’ Too? – Translating Cuba


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In April 2003 – during the so-called ‘Black Spring’ — 75 opponents were arrested in Cuba, many of them journalists, for allegedly acting “in the interest of a foreign state.” (Archive)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 6 December 2020 — I have several friends who have not slept for days, glued to the phone or having conversations in front of the mirror, with their pillow or in the shower. They are some of the artists who were in front of the Ministry of Culture on November 27 and who now are the target of a smear campaign. Several of their names have been singled out in the official media, and they have been accused of being “mercenaries,” “financed by the Empire,” and “terrorists.”

With the first insults, several of them told me in an incredulous tone “surely it is a mistake.” By the third day, they already knew that it was not confusion, because on television they continued to be associated with acts of vandalism. Then they called me to explain that as soon as the authorities reviewed their biographies more carefully, everything would be fine. After all, they are from the “left,” “from revolutionary parents,” they were “once members of the Union of Young Communists” and the only thing they have done is “love Cuba.”
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Sandokan said:

In June 30, 1961, Fidel Castro, in a speech to the intellectuals and writers, issue this warning , “Within the Revolution, everything. Against the Revolution, nothing.” Meaning that public criticism of Castro’s regime would not be tolerated.

After that, a witch-hunt was unleashed against gay writers and artists; books were censored. The so call “ideological deviations”, like having long hair, wearing blue jeans, listening to the Beatles, having “wrong sexual preferences,” professing any religion, etc., were severely punished. The persecution continuous through the decades, banning on radio and TV broadcasts of artists that have left the country, purging the universities, censorship in the artistic movement from 1980 to 2021. All of this have continuous until today.

Today, those who suffered the attacks and smear campaigns, like their predecessors, reacted angrily. Nothing has change and would not, until the tyrannical regime is kick out of power.

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In Other Times… – Translating Cuba


Luis Robles Elizastigui, detained on December 4 for protesting with a banner on Boulevard San Rafael, in Havana, while citizens on the street tried to come to his rescue. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 22 February 2021 — What are the signs that predict the end of an authoritarian system? What symptoms does a despotic regime show as its decline approaches? These two questions have obsessed me in recent days, in the midst of unprecedented events that have been happening on this Island for weeks. Are they the clear death rattles of a dictatorship or just the rearrangement of a political model that refuses to die?

Protests in front of ministries, officials fighting back with an improvised and defensive discourse, massive solidarity against those stigmatized by official propaganda and an increase in social criticism, which no longer targets only the branches but goes against pillars of the system such as its leaders, its management of history and its management of national resources. Are these the agonies? Has the end already begun?
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In Other Times… – Translating Cuba

Luis Robles Elizastigui, detained on December 4 for protesting with a banner on Boulevard San Rafael, in Havana, while citizens on the street tried to come to his rescue. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 22 February 2021 — What are the signs that predict the end of an authoritarian system? What symptoms does a despotic regime show as its decline approaches? These two questions have obsessed me in recent days, in the midst of unprecedented events that have been happening on this Island for weeks. Are they the clear death rattles of a dictatorship or just the rearrangement of a political model that refuses to die?

Protests in front of ministries, officials fighting back with an improvised and defensive discourse, massive solidarity against those stigmatized by official propaganda and an increase in social criticism, which no longer targets only the branches but goes against pillars of the system such as its leaders, its management of history and its management of national resources. Are these the agonies? Has the end already begun?
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Spontaneity in San Isidro, Imposition in Trillo Park – Translating Cuba


At the collective birthday this Sunday, organized by the San Isidro Movement, the shirtless people of the area, the poor and the most vulnerable attended. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, Havana, 5 April 2021 — They are separated by four months and an abyss. Some arrived at Trillo Park in November summoned by the Cuban government; the others danced this April in the San Isidro neighborhood to the rhythm of songs forbidden in the national media. Some could not even name the streets that border the Central Havana plaza to which they were delivered; the others know every stone in one of the poorest areas of the capital.

Spontaneity is very difficult to fake. The naturalness, if it is not sincere, only appears as a poorly drawn mask. The tángana [brawl] of November 29 was attended by Miguel Díaz-Canel, wearing expensive sports shoes, having just stepped out of an air-conditioned vehicle. At the collective birthday this Sunday, organized by the San Isidro Movement, the shirtless people of the area, the poor and the most vulnerable attended.
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The Most Closely Watched Patient in the World – Translating Cuba


Members of State Security patrol the hospital where Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is admitted. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, Havana, 26 May 2021 — It is easy to spot them: they wear their hair short and closely observe everyone who passes near the Calixto García Hospital in Havana. They are the members of the State Security who patrol the hospital where the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, the most closely watched patient in the world, has been admitted since May 2. Since he was taken to the hospital by State Security, he has only been seen through crude, highly edited videos that the political police themselves disseminate.

Otero Alcántara’s friends insist on speaking directly with him but they have not been allowed to visit him, nor does the artist have access to a telephone to communicate without intermediaries. The days are accumulating and the official version is becoming more and more untenable, according to which, after more than a week on a hunger and thirst strike in protest of the repression, this 33-year-old Havanan arrived at the hospital in perfect condition and with some enviable health indicators.
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Opinion | The New Generation of Cubans Who Won’t Be Silenced - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

By Yoani Sánchez
Ms. Sánchez is a journalist and an activist for freedom of expression in Cuba.

July 19, 2021


Yamil Lage/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

HAVANA — The month of July has borne witness to a number of events that have been turning points in Cuba’s history: Fidel Castro’s assault on the Moncada Barracks in July 1953, which ignited the revolution; the execution of the revolutionary general Arnaldo Ochoa that shocked many Cubans in 1989; and the sinking of a tugboat with dozens of people on board heading for Miami in 1994, in what became the climax of the rafters’ exodus. To these historic July dates, we now add the day when we Cubans took back the streets, our streets.

Sunday, July 11, began like any other summer day on this island: hot, long lines to buy food and uncertainty dominating daily life. Then the first live Facebook videos of protests from the small town of San Antonio de los Baños, southwest of Havana, started appearing on social media. On our phone screens, we watched crowds chanting “freedom,” “we want help” and “we are not afraid,” as well as insults against President Miguel Díaz-Canel. These were new scenes for us, and the excitement was contagious.

Mr. Díaz-Canel and his entourage went to San Antonio de los Baños to re-enact the scene of Fidel Castro arriving to calm the masses at the 1994 protest in Havana known as the “Maleconazo” — until now the only widespread social upheaval that several generations of Cubans had ever seen. But Mr. Díaz-Canel’s game plan did not work.
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Cuba: The Island Flees Inside a Suitcase – Translating Cuba

October 3, 2021 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez


Every day many Cubans make the decision to leave; they get on a plane without looking back. (EFE)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 3 October 2021 — In a drawer I keep a box with photos that I avoid looking at. They are images filled with the faces that have left, hundreds of friends, colleagues and relatives who no longer inhabit this Island. The escape of athletes, artists, rafters or officials accelerates as the country sinks. Right now, we live in times of a resounding crash and constant goodbyes.

The flight of 11 Cuban baseball players during the U23 World Baseball Championship in the Mexican state of Sonora, has been the most recent chapter of this bleeding, but every day many others make the decision to leave, they get on a plane without looking back, go through the jungle or cross the sea. They are expressing with their feet what they dare not say out loud: the system is a failure and the country is unlivable.

The final destination can be anywhere. Yesterday a friend announced that she is going to Iceland, another island that she only knows is “far from Cuba and they are not building socialism.” The neighbor on the corner tore up his Communist Party card and now works for a cleaning crew in Miami; meanwhile a childhood friend is organizing a marriage of convenience to emigrate to Italy.
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This coming November 15 is the day on which several independent organizations have called for a civic march in several Cuban cities. (Archiépelago)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, 6 November 2021 — Yunieski’s mother is going to have to “tie him up in the house” so that he does not go out on the street on November 15, a day in which several independent organizations have called a civic march in different cities of Cuba, the first after the protests of July when thousands of citizens took to the streets demanding freedom.

Yunieski is 35-years-old and lives in Centro Habana, one of the poorest areas of the capital. At least two of his best friends have been in prison for more than three months. They are among the almost 600 people arrested during and after the popular protests on July 11 who are still behind bars or are being prosecuted. The prosecution requests sentences of up to 27 years in prison for some of the protesters.
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14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, Havana, 19 November 2021 — They say that the horse ran alone on the track and reached the finish line first. Locked in their stables and bound with strong chains were the possible adversaries of that contest. The victor could not contain so much arrogance in his body and he celebrated as if his legs — and not his tricks — had carried him. They say it was the 15th of November, a day when the public was prohibited from witnessing the race.

In an interview with the Russian network RT, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez declared last Monday’s call for a Civic March a failure. “The face-to-face reality, the real, true, physical reality in Cuba indicates that nothing happened in the country,” the minister boasted. To drive it home, he told the complacent journalist: “You have been able to move freely, you know perfectly what happened, you experienced it together with the Cubans and you also know what did not happen."
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Dozens of people wait in the Copa Airlines line in Havana to get a ticket to Managua. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, 27 November 2021 — One of my first memories dates from 1980, when I was not yet five. In the Havana tenements where I lived the shouts of several neighbors captured my attention and I looked out into the hallway. A large group was shouting insults at a young man who had decided to emigrate through the port of Mariel. Forever engraved in my memory is that explosion of curse words and livid faces.

Now we are experiencing another stampede, but unlike those years, when the Soviet bear sent substantial resources to Cuba, the official pickets don’t have eggs to throw against the doors of those who want to escape the country, nor paint with which to smear their walls with slogans. Instead, the authorities seem eager for the social pressure cooker to be alleviated and new emigres to be added to the list of those who send remittances to the island.

On this occasion, instead of opting to open a pier for all those who would like to come to look for their family or lifting the closure of the borders so that thousands of precarious rafts could cross the Straits of Florida, as happened in 1994, officialdom has come up with a formula that kills many birds with one stone. Thanks to the complicity of the political ally Daniel Ortega, it was announced this week that Cubans do not need a visa to enter Nicaragua.
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A book of condolences for the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, at the headquarters of the Ladies in White on Neptuno Street, in Havana, in February 2010. (EFE)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, Havana, 23 February 2022 — In times when everything goes very fast and every minute a new topic of debate or conflict arises on the social networks, it is sometimes difficult to imagine that twelve years ago three letters created the first viral hashtag on Twitter that came out of Cuba. Then, the initials of the name of Orlando Zapata Tamayo won the pulse of official censorship, repression and the computer police.

That 23rd of February 2010, when the opponent died, after a long hunger strike in prison, the use of digital platforms was in its infancy on this island. The few of us who used the Bluebird’s platform did so blindly, sending phrases through text-only messages (SMS). We could not see if they were finally published, read the answers given by other Internet users or know the final scope of those characters.

Despite all the obstacles, in a few days we managed to get the outrage over the dissident’s death into the world’s news, parliamentary and civic agendas. Politicians, deputies, artists and priests demanded an official response to the injustice of a man languishing for more than 80 days in a prison, without tasting food, under the cruel gaze of his guards.
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In my opinion, Irish patriots are writing one of the most heroic chapters in human history. They have earned the respect and admiration of the world, and likewise they deserve its support. Ten of them have already died in the most moving gesture of sacrifice, selflessness and courage one could ever imagine.

Humanity should feel ashamed that this terrible crime is committed before its very eyes. These young fighters do not ask for independence nor make impossible demands to put an end to their strike; they ask only for something as simple as the recognition of what they actually are: political prisoners. It is high time for the world community to put an end to this repulsive atrocity through denunciation and pressure!

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Although justice is represented as a blindfolded woman, the professionals who are in charge of imparting it must be governed by transparency.

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, Havana, 23 March 2022 — Official Cuban jurists are upset, very upset. After the sentences, which reach up to 30 years in prison, against hundreds of demonstrators of the protest on July 11 (11J), the names of prosecutors and judges have been spread on social networks. Next to their faces there are denunciations that they used the courts to send a message of terror and, in response to this complaint, the lawyers have responded with various threats.

A statement from the Havana branch of the Union of Cuban Jurists insists that its members are being victims of a “smear campaign.” The text warns that any person who joins these criticisms, even “simply providing the information,” will bear the full weight of the law. It adds that they are willing to exchange the judicial robe and the dais for the rifle and the trench coat. The tone of the document is more reminiscent of war language than legal language.
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