Latin America
Related: About this forumThe curious case of Yoani Sanchez
http://progreso-weekly.com/ini/index.php/home/in-the-united-states/3839-the-curious-case-of-yoani-sanchez
Yoani Sanchez long-awaited arrival to the United States has been heralded as a victory for the opposition in Cuba and an example of how citizen journalists, armed with social media, can bring about democratic change in authoritarian societies. However, a closer look at the circumstances of her international journey and the difference of the receptions she has had so far in the United States and the rest of the world generates far more questions than it does answers.
Yoanis meteoric rise as award-wining blogger has drawn as much suspicion as it has admiration. Her blog, Generación Y, has been championed by some members of the Cuban exile community and by certain opportunistic academic and journalistic circles because of her constant criticism of the Cuban government and its control over freedom of expression and assembly. Her confrontational discourse and blunt condemnation of Cubas official line is red meat for a great part of the exile community while her call for freedom of expression is an easy bandwagon for liberals to jump onto. However, not all of the historic exile community is in favor of her statements. The most recalcitrant faction has strenuously disapproved of the comments she has made from the beginning of her journey.
An historical understanding of Cubas reality in general, and its current and past relationship with the United States in particular, has led several intellectuals, journalists, and common citizens to question her motives and her resources. Hardly ever before has somebody with so little experience and output garnered so many international accolades so fast. The fact that so many of these awards come from countries that have actively pursued policies of usurping Cuban sovereignty only adds to the intrigue of Yoanis legitimacy.
Salim Lamrani published 40 questions for Yoani Sanchez on her World Tour in Opera Mundi on February 19th and many of them are exactly the type of queries that one must ask if one is to understand how Yoani could create so much of an international presence from a country that she repeatedly claims has such limited access to the internet. Here are some of the questions posed by Lamrani:
more at link: http://progreso-weekly.com/ini/index.php/home/in-the-united-states/3839-the-curious-case-of-yoani-sanchez
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)I was curious a few weeks back with regard who was paying for this jaunt :
"a tour of 12 countries in South America, Europe and North America. She expects to return to Cuba when her tour ends after nearly three months."
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/09/3276747/cubans-evade-censorship-by-exchanging.html#storylink=cpy
ocpagu
(1,954 posts)She's on a world tour to bash the Cuban govenment and the Castro brothers, an expensive one, after which she'll return to Cuba for the second time - since she lived in Switzerland for a period. She also didn't had any problems returning from Switzerland and she alleged to be doing it for financial reasons, even though she sees Cuba as hell on Earth. She also looks like some kind of special citizen, enjoying privileges very few in Cuba have, and even the embargo doesn't seem to affect her. She's politically and diplomatically well connected, to the point of getting an interview with Obama and several prizes in a short period of time. And, she was even put on a list of "most influent" people by Time. She not only writes whatever she wants about Cuba as she gets her posts translated to several languages and also writes columns for newspapers in South America and Europe.
And... we're supposed to think she's an oppressed martyr of a tyrannic regime?
Judi Lynn
(160,630 posts)Just as a Cuban tribute from Cuba's great warrior/poet, Jose Marti:
I Cultivate the White Rose by Jose Marti.
Cultivo Una Rosa Blanca
por José Martí
Cultivo una rosa blanca
en junio como enero
para el amigo sincero
que me da su mano franca.
Y para el cruel que me arranca
el corazón con que vivo,
cardo ni ortiga cultivo;
rosa blanca.
Cultivo Una Rosa Blanca
por José Martí (Cuban Poet,1891)
Cultivo una rosa blanca
en junio como enero
para el amigo sincero
que me da su mano franca.
Y para el cruel que me arranca
el corazón con que vivo,
cardo ni ortiga cultivo;
cultivo la rosa blanca.
I cultivate a white rose
In June as in January
For the sincere friend
who shakes my hand frankly.
And for the cruel person
Who would want to break my heart,
I cultivate, neither thistles nor thorns,
I cultivate a white rose.
( translated by Mario Enrique Rios Muniz Pinot )
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-cultivate-the-white-rose-by-jose-marti/
[center]
From Lawrence, Kansas:
Lawrence artist Stan Herd stands in front of Rosa Blanca, a
landscape he is creating in Havana, Cuba, that depicts a white
rose. Herd returned to Lawrence this week after spending five
days in Cuba working on the rose. He will return in December
to Havana to complete the project.
Photo by Special to the Journal-World
Lawrence crop artist Stan Herd and associates made two trips to Cuba
to complete Herd's latest work, Rosa Blanca. The work was dedicated
Saturday in Havana's Parque Metropolitano.
Lawrence Artist Stan Herd has returned to Kansas after the dedication
of his latest work, Rosa Blanca. Schoolchildren surrounded Herd on
Saturday during the dedication ceremony. About 125 young students
from three Havana schools attended the ceremony.
[/center]
Jose Marti Wiki:
~snip~
By the end of 1889, Marti had changed his "sympathetic attitude" towards the United States. This was due to the U.S. wanting to expand their territories into Latin America. By this time, Marti was getting ready to prepare a campaign that would liberate Cuba. However, this campaign was in danger as talks "re-surfaced in the United States as to whether that country should purchase Cuba from the Spanish government in order to turn the Island into a U.S. protectorate".[60]
Marti argued that "any attempt to sell his patria as if it were some negotiable merchandise, and of course, without taking into account the wishes of people, was completely unacceptable - particularly when the prospective purchaser was the United States".[60]
Once it was apparent that the United States were actually going to purchase Cuba and intended to U.S. Americanize it, Marti "spoke out loudly and bravely against such action, stating the opinion of many Cubans on the United States of America.[60]
Marti became distressed as he knew that in order for him to gain independence for Cuba not only did he have to defeat the Spanish, but also had to keep the U.S. Americans out.[61]
[center]
Monument of Martí in West
New York, NJ. Translated, it
reads "The Motherland is an
altar, not a stepping stone".[/center]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Mart%C3%AD[/center]
FREEDOM HERO:
JOSE MARTI
by Antonio Mendoza
~snip~
A fervent believer in Cuban independence, Martí was against the often proposed annexation of Cuba to the U.S. Martí's own beliefs reflected the dysfunctional love-hate relationship between Cuba and its "monstrous" northern neighbor. As a thinker, he was enamoured with the American love of freedom and its image as the land of opportunity. But the reality of Washington's own imperial designs on Cuba made him think of the United States as the "turbulent and brutal North." In an unfinished letter to a friend found after his death, he spoke of risking his life to stop the U.S. taking control of Cuba.
"I have lived inside the monster and know its entrails."
Though Cuba's greatest freedom hero, Martí was also one of the great turn-of-the-century intellectuals of Latin America. The scope of his written work is staggering: he was an accomplished poet, a revolutionary philosopher, a professor, a publisher, a journalist and a political theorist. The heart of his writings always embraced the concepts of freedom, liberty and democracy. His vast experience and education enabled him to move comfortably in the most diverse fields, which is what makes his writing so rich and timeless.
"Just as he who gives his life to serve a great idea is admirable, he who avails himself of a great idea to serve his personal hopes of glory and power is abominable, even if he too risks his life. To give one's life is a right only when one gives it unselfishly."
More than one hundred years after his death, with the Cuban people separated by two countries and two ideologies, both the communist and exile communities have called upon Martí as a symbol for their divergent causes. Fidel Castro has called him a revolutionary hero and has emphasized that his writings state that Cuba will never be truly free without economic, racial and sexual equality. While Havana's airport is called the José Martí International Airport and the Plaza de la Revolución is anchored by a giant obelisk in the middle called the Martí Monument, in Miami, the right-wing exile community and the U.S. government have created a TV and radio station to broadcast anti-Castro propaganda to Cuba called TV and Radio Martí.
More:
http://www.myhero.com/go/hero.asp?hero=j_marti
flamingdem
(39,324 posts)I am interested in that time period and how Marti felt about the US position at the time.
Yoani had a chance to support and end to the embargo but as soon as La Loba and the rest met her note that her tune changed and now it's about pre-conditions. She's all about herself and indeed she has a following outside of Cuba, but I've never heard Cubans discussing her as a serious political figure.
Judi Lynn
(160,630 posts)It hasn't really taken her long to work her way into the limelight. Of course, she's had help!
Catherina
(35,568 posts)The Marketing of Yoani Sánchez: Translation as invention
...
As one might have expected, Bloomberg and Reuters dutifully shaded their reports on the recent visit to Cuba of Brazils President Dilma Rousseff with mentions of the Yoani Sánchez Twitter campaign to pressure Rousseff to intercede on Sánchezs behalf and persuade the Cuban government to grant her an exit visa to attend a propaganda event in Brazil.
Thats not so surprising. Sánchez is an egomaniac, for sure, insisting that anyone should care in the first place, when her compatriots Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez OConnor have been denied entry visas by the United States for more than a decade to visit their husbands (Rene Gonzalez Sehwerert and Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, two of the Cuban Five), unjustly imprisoned in the U.S. but if all she has to do is tweet and the press come running, judging the tweet as equal in value to Rousseffs criticisms of the U.S. gulag at Guantánamo...
...
The interesting thing about this particular tweet however, was the way that the English language press went above and beyond simple translation and repetition, entering the realm of treacherous pure invention. Its hard to tell where the invention originated though, since both Bloomberg and Reuters used the same mistranslation nearly word for word.
Matthew Bristow and Cris Valerio, reporting for Bloomberg, wrote it this way:
...
Jeff Franks, for Reuters, wrote:
A compelling image, for sure. A young blindfolded woman, harassed by barking men. Compelling, except for the fact that such a photo doesnt actually exist.
An accurate translation might have been:
...
And here is the photo. No blindfolded Dilma. Two men in military uniforms shielding their faces from the camera with their hands.
...
http://en.cubadebate.cu/news/2012/02/06/marketing-yoani-sanchez-translation-as-invention/