Cuban Bloggers: The Next Revolution

PajamasMedia ^ | 5/10/08 | Henry Gomez

[Dawnsblood]

Yoani Sánchez was a student at the University of Havana when she did the unthinkable and wrote a thesis about dictatorships in Latin American literature. It wasn’t a direct criticism of Fidel Castro, but it was too close for comfort in a country where there’s so much that’s officially unthinkable.

Ms. Sánchez eventually fled Cuba for Switzerland in 2002, with her son and husband soon joining her. Then she once again did the unthinkable and in 2004 moved back to Cuba when her husband couldn’t find employment in Europe. It’s not unheard of for people to return to Cuba to live, after having lived abroad, but it is exceptionally rare. Yet as it pertains to doing unthinkable things, Yoani Sánchez was just getting warmed up. In April 2007 she started a blog about real life in Cuba and incredibly she began posting with her real name and her photograph.

Her experiences outside of Cuba have, no doubt, shaped Yoani’s opinions about life on the island, opinions that she shares with her readers several times a week.

A few months before Yoani blogged her first post, Cuba’s communications czar, Ramiro Valdés, told an audience “the wild colt of the new technologies could and must be controlled.”

But such pronouncements by Cuba’s totalitarian leadership did not deter Yoani Sánchez. Today she is arguably the most well-known critic of the Castro regime, with well over 1 million visitors to her blog, Generación Y, each month.

[doc1019]

Wet foot, dry foot … blog foot? ;-)

[The Great RJ]

In the Castro brother’s police state, you can be sure that every word she writes is scrutinized before publication. The very fact that she is allowed Internet access in Cuba means she is cooperating with the authorities.