Around the World in 80 Days for Cuba's Most Famous Dissident Blogger

Around the World in 80 Days for Cuba's Most Famous Dissident Blogger
By LUISITA LOPEZ TORREGROSA

WASHINGTON — Yoani Sanchez, Cuba's most famous dissident blogger,
arrived in Brazil looking like a '60s hippie, her hair falling below her
waist, her dark ankle-length skirt floating under a summery flower-child
top. It was the first stop on Ms. Sanchez's 80-day tour of South
America, Europe and the United States.

For the past few years, she's been a darling of both liberals and
conservatives outside Cuba, a 37-year-old phenomenon, a fierce
anti-Castro leader, a whip-smart intellectual and canny self-promoter.
Her much awaited tour, her first trip outside Cuba in five years, comes
with some of the fanfare reserved for major world figures.

I write the Cuban revolution's double-edged legacy when it comes to
women's rights in my latest Female Factor column.

Ms. Sanchez, named by Time magazine one of the world's 100 most
influential people in 2008 and a recipient of Columbia University's
Maria Moors Cabot prize in 2009, is quite possibly the most famous
living Cuban not named Castro.

The creator and instigator of the Generation Y blog – named after her
first initial or after the Russian-influenced generation whose names
start with a Y – Ms. Sanchez made a splashy landing in Brazil to the
chants of fans and the shouts of opponents. Placards and banners accused
her of complicity with the United States and betrayal of her country.
Later, in Salvador, her second destination in Brazil, she had to evade
demonstrators, but she seemed to enjoy the attention.

"At the arrival many friends were welcoming me and other people yelling
insults. I wish it would be the same in Cuba. Long live freedom!" she
exclaimed on Twitter.

Her elation needs little explanation. She has spent years risking her
freedom at home while giving the world descriptions of the reality of
daily life under the Castro regime. She has defied the authorities by
sneaking her Generation Y blog out of Havana via stealth visits to
Internet-equipped hotels where she manages to email her blogs to friends
outside the country who then post them online. (The blog is said to be
available in 17 languages.)

Now free, at least while she's abroad — and perhaps protected by her own
fame — after defying authorities and facing arrest, beatings and
kidnapping in Cuba, she's letting it all out with a vengeance.

Speaking about the protests against her in Brazil, she wrote: "I have
experienced several acts of repudiation up close, whether as victim,
observer, or journalist, never — I should clarify — as a victimizer. But
last night was unprecedented for me. The picketing of the extremists…was
something more than the sum of unconditional supporters of the Cuban
government…They shouted, interrupted, and at one point became violent,
and occasionally launched a chorus of slogans that even in Cuba are no
longer said."

She went on, singing a hymn to herself, saying, "Their necks swelled, I
cracked a smile. They attacked me personally; I brought the discussion
back to Cuba which will always be more important than this humble
servant. They wanted to lynch me; I talked. They were responding to
orders; I am a free soul."

Within 24 hours of President Raul Castro's announcement on Feb. 24 that
he would step down after his term ends in 2018 — and his subsequent
designation of Miguel Diaz-Canel as first vice president and most likely
successor — Ms. Sanchez was tearing up any illusions anyone could have
about any loosening of the reins in Cuba.

"Diaz-Canel possesses characteristics that undoubtedly influenced his
appointment," she wrote in her blog for The Huffington Post. "A man who
shines very little, from whom we cannot recall a single phrase of his
monotonous speeches, someone who projects absolute fidelity, a good
physical presence and a dose of youth (52), so needed by Raul Castro to
show that his government is generationally renewing itself." She
cautioned that, given the fate of previous aspirants to the Castro seat,
Mr. Diaz-Canel "awaits an uncertain journey fraught with booby-traps."

The journey Ms. Sanchez is on has its own perils. How free is she? What
will happen when she returns to Cuba? Will she return? It's easy to see
a scenario in which she settles in a European country, or even in the
United States, living in freedom and surrounded by honors, comforts and
money from speaking tours, blogs and books, and her family would
probably be allowed to join her.

She married at age 18, in 1993, and had a son two years later. In 2002,
she left Cuba and emigrated to Switzerland alone, but was later joined
by her husband, Ricardo Escobar, and their son. They returned to the
island in 2004, citing "family reasons."

She could pull up stakes again. But now it's different. Living as an
exile, even a famous exile, she could lose the edge that sets her work
apart. The mystery, what remains after so much publicity, would fade
fast, and she would lose the aura of a prophet speaking truth in her own
land.

http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/05/around-the-world-in-80-days-for-cubas-most-famous-dissident-blogger/