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Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Strange "Estrangement" of the Foreign Press in Cuba / Miriam Celaya

Strange "Estrangement" of the Foreign Press in Cuba / Miriam Celaya
Miriam Celaya, Translator: Norma Whiting

An article by a foreign news agency recently reported on the Internet,
"Cuban Dissidents at a Crossroads"by Paul Haven and Andrea Rodríguez of
the Associated Press, suffers from, at least, two of the most common and
serious limitations of accredited journalism in Cuba: contempt for the
nationals of this Island and an almost total disregard for the history
and idiosyncrasies of the country about which they aim to "inform".

Without a doubt, politically-connected jobs and those who hold those
jobs enjoy fertile ground in certain press agencies, which explains how
Cuba has become a haven for some who, without much effort and without
risk of getting a mild slap on the wrist when they get too close to
tolerance limits set by the authorities, rush to "analyze" a stage that
they have barely glimpsed. It seems that, to be a reporter for "the
Cuban reality," all a foreign journalist needs is a good camera, a bag
with a corresponding water bottle, a couple of pairs of shorts and some
cotton shirts to better withstand the heat, a dirty pair of sandals for
smudging their heels while walking on the smelly and dusty streets of
our battered Havana — because, in addition, they don't usually venture
out to explore the deep and provincial Cuba, the one that suffers even
more than this oblivion capital — and, finally, to report to their
agencies, through Internet connections. I imagine that Cuban
journalistic assignments must be comparable to winning the lottery for
such press professionals. After all, they will always have an
opportunity to later publish a quite different Cuban reality to the one
they reported while on assignment here, thus they can reap additional
financial benefits while cleaning up their journalistic dignity with
this exercise of retroactive ethics.

Only thus could the following statement be explained: "When 'Ladies in
White' were established as a protest for the imprisonment of activists
and journalists in Cuba in 2003, the mission of this group of women was
simple: to attain freedom for their loved ones". And the subtlety lies
is in the details and the way in which ideas are placed, because the
mission of the Ladies in the beginning was, indeed, the release of their
relatives, but because it is a struggle waged almost single-handedly and
in a dictatorship, such a task could not be as "simple" as all that. In
fact, the evolution of seven years' experience led to a deepening in the
awareness of that civic movement and expanded its horizons, raising the
levels of its demands.

Another trendy suggestion points to the march of the Ladies in White as
a kind of Sunday entertainment, since they move "in a quiet suburb of
Havana", as if they levitate over the city without going through Centro
Habana neighborhoods or others in the capital or in the provinces, which
may not be as mild as the patrician Miramar neighborhoods. In such
marches, they are not attacked by ordinary people, but it is a rare
occasion when they are not harassed by the pack of hounds recruited by
the political police ("pro-official" groups, the referenced journalists
call them, instead of defining them as what they are: government
employees). In fact, the attacks against the Ladies are taking place
more and more often, and the violence of the henchmen's harassment is
becoming more pronounced.

Another element that the Ladies in White and their cause base their
rationale on is the persistence of the well-known "gag law" that put 75
independent journalists and many other dissidents behind bars. The mere
existence of this provision in the country's legal body legitimizes
repression, abolishes freedom of expression, and allows for possible
future arrests for the same or similar causes, that is, expressing ideas
not in line or contrary to the stipulations of the regime. The coherence
of the Ladies in White lies precisely in understanding that fixing the
effect is not enough, but eliminating the causes that precipitate it is
essential in order to prevent its recurrence.

Some other inaccuracies, if we must call them that, emerge in the
oblique analysis of reference, as inferred from a sentence as naive as
it is harmful, considering the release of prisoners a fact that "left
the Ladies in White without a cause" and placed "the dissident
community" at "a crossroads and challenged with redefining itself and
gaining the support of a society that has never seemed particularly
receptive or even aware of its message". It would seem that these
blundering journalists overlook the fact that this society's only source
of information about dissidents and opposition proposals is what's
offered by the media, an absolute state monopoly dedicated to
systematically demonizing and slandering any alternative proposal, that
the government employs all available resources — in particular the
repressive forces — to maintain a fence that prevents communication
between the dissidents and society, and that civil society which was
just beginning to gain strength in the Republic was demolished starting
in the early years of the 1959 revolution, and five decades of mute
terror has sown in ordinary Cubans either silence or the sham of phony
loyalty to the government as elemental survival strategies.

In fact, the "informal poll" conducted by the AP on 30 Cubans "consulted
at random", resulting in five (16.6%) being able to identify Laura
Pollan, nine (30%) Guillermo Fariñas, three (10%) the blogger Yoani
Sánchez could, in fact, be considered an achievement. These results are
quite flattering for the dissidence, taking into account conditions in
Cuba. Just two years ago, the corollaries of such a survey would have
yielded much lower figures, virtually nil.

Cuban dissidence is truly small and fragmented, as befits a country in
which, conversely, the dictatorship is huge and monolithic. But again,
the mistake of making woeful comparisons is made, because civic
resistance here is not comparable in any way, nor does it have any
intention to "emulate" the upheavals that took place in the Arab world.
Comparing Cuban social reality, not just with the Arab world, but
irrationally — for its addition — with those of countries like Great
Britain, Spain or Greece, can only be classified as a childish fantasy
or a perversion. The aberration is further strengthened when seasoned
journalists dab the olive-green autocracy with rosewater.

"And though political freedom may be lacking in a country that was ruled
by one or another of the Castro brothers for over 50 years, the
government left the (dissident) movement partially without argument when
it allowed for greater economic opportunities in recent months, and when
it promised more reforms soon". (Parenthesis added by this author).
Viewed in this way, the growing discontent, the many expressions of
protest, and the demands for rights that are taking place across the
Island in increasing waves, and despite beatings, rallies and arrests
suffered by protesters, would seem the mere nonsense of occasional
rioters and that this country should have enough with a handful of
kiosk-type, pint-sized reforms.

What these foreign reporters don't explain how to justify that the
resistance has been gaining strength precisely in recent months, when we
Cubans have "greater economic opportunities" thanks to the called-for
and misnamed "reforms" of General R. Castro, which, rather than
transforming the country's socioeconomic plight, have become the latest
government defense parapet against public opinion, and a kind of safety
valve, despite their shortcomings, in the presence of raising pressure
in Cuba and the irreversibility of the general crisis, barely a
precarious rein to brake the inevitable end of "the model".

And here is more evidence of a trick of the subconscious of those who,
without knowing us, often look at us with condescension and qualify us
disdainfully, because, while European grumblers are known as "outraged"
and can afford the luxury of marching in the thousands, despite all the
imperfections of democracy, they have the rights that even foreign
journalists don't question, and the opportunity to elect who their
leaders will be; there isn't much for us, the Cuban outraged, to do.
But, in perspective and adapting each situation, the Cuban dissident
movement would be comparable and even superior to the protests that are
taking place in the free world, for theirs is a universe that has access
to information and social networks, with unions, civic organizations,
rights and freedoms, all the choices that are denied to us.

It is true that the "traditional" Cuban opposition has lacked in
consistency, sound strategies and connection to society as a whole. The
root of the evil lies in, among many other causes, civic orphanhood of a
nation that was never known for being responsible and where politics is
always a subject "for others" to see to. But, at their inception,
European transitions have never been characterized by having brandished
great political plans that hailed multitudes, or by the abundance of
leaders who were of great importance or of large-scale social impact,
and none of this ever deterred the changes that took place.

Obviously, some observers hope in vain for an impossible miracle to
happen in Cuba, while certain accredited journalists seem to be
expecting that nothing really takes place that would threaten the
tropical affair of a journalism that is bland, irresponsible and without
ethical commitments.

Translated by Norma Whiting

September 30 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=12025

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