Internet Access for the Nouveaux Riche and Dissidents

Cuba: Internet Access for the Nouveaux Riche and Dissidents
June 6, 2013
Pedro Campos

HAVANA TIMES — With a great song and dance, the Cuban government
haughtily announced the broadening of Internet access on the island by
opening 118 cybercafés across the country and lowering web navigation
rates to 4.50 CUC (or US $ 5.20) an hour. It has also, clearly declared
that there are no plans of taking Internet services to Cuban homes for
the time being.

Since the matter has already been addressed by a number of analysts and
journalists, I will limit myself to commenting on some elements that
seem to me of considerable importance.

The measure does, undeniably, expand the Internet services hitherto
available in Cuba and lowers navigation rates. It is also true, as a
friend of mine says that you have to start somewhere. It is another
small, very small step taken by Cuba's current administration, which has
gradually, and unhurriedly, been eliminating the absurd regulations and
restrictions that had been imposed on the Cuban people in the name of
"socialism and the struggle against imperialism."

We have to acknowledge that Raul Castro has worked to dismantle,
partially or totally, some of the absurd regulations set up when his
brother was at the helm, at a time when he was second-in-command.

But the most significant prohibitions and restrictions of the rights of
Cuban citizens, on freedom of expression and association, on free and
democratic elections and on the possibility of entering into free
associations in the production sector are still to be eliminated, as are
the absurd monopolies over the economy, politics, the press and other
sectors which the Cuban State maintains.

The fact is that such barbarities have been carried out in the name of
"socialism" and that any tiny thing done by Raul Castro's government
might strike us as a great gesture of liberalization.

It would be quite deluded, however, to think that this measure will
spell any concrete benefits for the vast majority of the population, as
the average Cuban will never be able to afford 4.50 CUC (US $ 5.20) for
an hour of Internet use, not when their average salary is a measly 20
dollars a month.

No, the measures implemented by the state capitalist government, which
is more interested in securing revenues than in eliminating restrictions
imposed on the population, will chiefly benefit those who can afford the
high prices established by the government's monopolistic apparatus, such
as the nouveaux riche spawned by State corruption and the exploitation
of salaried workers in the city and countryside, and those who receive
remittances from relatives or friends abroad.

As most of the other timid government measures implemented, this one
will benefit only a small percentage and, in political terms, the people
who will ultimately be better off will be precisely those who have
always been able to access the Internet from hotels.

What we see here is a very concrete illustration of what many already
acknowledge: that the extremes become confused and help one another.
For, who stand to benefit the most from this expansion of Internet
services on the island?

In addition to the nouveaux riche, no one other than the dissidents who
receive aid from abroad to advance their political programs, in Cuba and
elsewhere.

We may thus categorically affirm that the state capitalist government of
Cuba has broadened access to the Internet for the nouveaux riche and,
yes, for the dissidents. It seems that the dissidents did manage to get
something out of their recent tours after all.

A contradiction? No. Since filling the State's coffers with money is
what matters, building mansions, yacht wharfs or golf fields for North
American millionaires, or facilitating access to the Internet by the
dissidents it combats so furiously, is all the same to the government.

Of course, what is most disquieting is not the fact dissidents will have
less restricted access to the Internet – one would want everyone to have
this privilege – but, rather, the corrupt and corrupting nature of the
state centered model, of its duplicity, that this measure evinces.

It transformed the U.S. blockade and imperialist aggression into a
justification for the economic disaster it brought about and for its
total control over the country's political life. It turned emigration
into a source of revenues (remittances, trips, tourism, high processing
fees for immigration applications). Now, it seems that the Cuban State
also wants the millions that the NED destines to financing internal
dissidents to end up in the government's coffers.

This is, for the time being, what State pragmatism has led to.

Renowned Cuban journalist Reynaldo Taladrid suggests that, in order to
find the paths tread by Miami's reactionary ultra-Right, one need only
follow "the money trail." If we were to follow this trail today, we
might soon run into a rather unpleasant surprise…

Neither the workers, nor the common Cuban, nor the socialist and
democratic Left, will see any benefits from this "liberalization." We
demand and will continue to demand unrestricted Internet access in Cuba,
at rates everyone can afford.
—–
Pedro Campos: pedrocampos313@yahoo.es

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=94248