Yoani Sanchez Gets a Whack and then some from Machetera

[magbana]

from MACHETERA'S BLOG

HAVANA-TIMES PACAYUNE

Honestly, whenever Machetera reads something new from Yoani Sánchez, the famous "Prizewinning Censored Cuban Blogger," she feels a sort of pity tinged with loathing. Yoani's whole world could fit on the head of a pin, and the revulsion Machetera feels is that for a media that has nothing better to do than celebrate such picayune whining as though it is something extraordinary. She's not alone. One of her compañeros from Tlaxcala, the translation collective, Antonio Antòn Fernandez, wrote a smart reply to Yoani's bitter post about the posters carried by Cubans in their May 1st celebrations. Yoani had complained because they were professionally done - impossible on a Cuban salary! - she sniffed, while speculating that the slogans were dictated and not reflective of the people's true feelings. Like the professionally lettered sign above, Yoani?

Machetera's translation of Antonio's response is followed by her translation of the original post from what some call the Blocked Cuban Blogger. Blocked is a good word for it.

* * *

How shameless, Yoani. I won't say that you lie, only that you see things from the other side of the mirror. A small, distorted, very comfortable side, I might add. Perhaps the same comfort that prevented you from testing whether you'd "been censored in the island," at a time when I could access your blog easily in Cienfuegos or Havana, not to mention now, in Spain.

Fortunately, I was in Cuba for this May 1st celebration, and afterwards I received (or picked up off the ground, hours later) a gift from your compatriots, walking through the streets of Havana: numerous posters made by workers, students, youth. I have them in view now; made from pieces of old packing boxes, or Granmas , repainted or glued, quite simply, also indicating the class, school, or union group where they were made, just like the large cardboard models of TV cameras, tools or computers that were visible during the parade and that I and several internationalist friends saw up close.

Maybe, through some kind of osmosis, the prize they gave you infected you with certain cognitive tics that made you forget that people are - even now - capable of building together, of working together, to achieve just a few shared - and unpaid - moments of joy and justice.


FULL BLOG POST AT:
http://machetera.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/havana-times-picayune/

http://snipurl.com/29247

[Bacchus39]

1. too bad he/she couldn't have told that to Yoani in person in Spain

since the Cuban government wouldn't let her go.

[Billy Burnett]

2. I guess that the Cuban government should drop everything to rush her a passport & visa.

Yoani didn't have a passport. This is what the delay was, but the pro corporate DUsers and media spin this lack of instant bureaucratic response as the Cuban government "denying her a visa".

How long is the wait in the US to get a passport for a first time applicant?
Didn't the bushies privatize the US passport system, and now it's backed up for months?
There are people in the US who can't travel to where they want to or where they're needed because of this backup.
Without a passport, even US citizens can be denied entry into the US - much like an exit AND a reentry 'visa' requirement for US citizens.
Does the US government make a full stop to rush a passport to someone who won a somewhat obscure award (especially if it's an award for criticizing the administration)? Nope.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Glad I read your post, Mika. I had missed hearing about privatising passport processing. Jesus. n/t

[Bacchus39]

4. you mean they denied her an exit visa don't you??

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080507/tc_afp/cubaspaininternetmediaprize

HAVANA (AFP) - Cuban authorities have refused to give a travel visa to a Cuban blogger who was to have flown to Spain to receive a top journalism award, the writer told AFP Tuesday.


"I have canceled tonight's flight" to Madrid, writer Yoani Sanchez, 32, told AFP, after learning that she would not be given authorization to make the trip.

"It's another way to remind us that we are like little children who need to get our parents' permission to leave the house," she said.

The blogger now apparently will not be able to personally receive the prestigious Ortega y Gasset prize given out each year by the Spanish newspaper El Pais, which she was to have been given Wednesday.

Last month, El Pais announced it had awarded the prize to Sanchez, whose blog "Generacion Y" chronicles everyday Cubans' daily woes.

An El Pais official in Madrid told AFP that the island's communist government had been "complicating" Sanchez's exit.

Sanchez has said her request for a travel visa is the "perfect test" to see if Cuba's new President Raul Castro, who succeeded his ailing brother Fidel Castro in February, is serious about opening up the regime.

El Pais praised Sanchez's "vivacious" writing style and "shrewdness" in overcoming hurdles to freedom of expression in Cuba when it announced her prize.

The blog, hosted on a server in Germany, is Cuba's most popular, receiving 1.2 million hits a month.

Since becoming president, Raul Castro has taken modest steps to improve living standards, including allowing Cubans to stay in tourist hotels, take out mobile phone contracts, and buy appliances such as computers, motorbikes and pressure cookers.

[Mika]

5. Before one can get a visa, one needs a passport.

As Billy points out, having a passport is a prerequisite to getting a visa. Just as in most bureaucracies (including Cuba and the US) a passport can take time to get. The anti Cuba factions prefer to commingle these steps as if they are one and the same, just as you do, for propaganda purposes.

The US government has been "complicating" American's travel plans also, by requiring a passport as a de facto reentry visa (so, in essence, a US passport is an exit and an entry visa). Not to mention that Americans are banned from travel to Cuba, and the application and affirmation or denial for a permit to do so can take many many months to for the US Treasury dept to process.


-

[Bacchus39]

6. provide a link saying she didn't have a passport

everyone needs a passport to travel Mika. Not everyone needs an exit visa. regardless of Cuba's refusal to allow her to receive her award in Spain, I'm sure you are with me in congratulating her for courage in writing about life in Cuba and pointing out goverment repression.

p.s. In emergency situations, a passport can be obtained in one day, in the US anyway by going to a pass port office.

[Bacchus39]

7. EXIT visa denied

would someone please explain to our Castrophiles, what the difference between an exit visa and a passport is????

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=26894

06 .05 - Cuba: Blogger Yoani Sanchez denied visa to receive prize in Spain

The Cuban authorities have refused to grant an exit visa to Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, author of the blog “Generacion Y”, who was due to receive the Ortega y Gasset Prize in Spain, awarded to her by the daily El Pais in the “Internet journalism” category, on 4 April 2008. The award ceremony is being held in Madrid tomorrow.

“Raul Castro’s policy of openness has run into its first boundary here. We are astonished by this decision after it was heralded that there would be an easing of movement for Cuban citizens and liberalising of access to different means of communication,” the worldwide press freedom organisation said.

This prize was awarded to Yoani Sanchez “for the advances her work brought to the Web in Cuba in terms of freedom of expression, her acerbic tone, the accuracy of her information and the dynamic way she launched herself on the blogosphere”. Founded by El Pais in 1984, the Ortega y Gasset prize is the Spanish equivalent of the prestigious American Pulitzer prize, awarded for defending freedoms and for journalistic independence