Yoani on Honduras
"Right now in Honduras a whole nation can wrap itself in the prickly coat of the soldiers or be mesmerized by the “triumphal” return—á la Chavez—of one who has been deposed by force. In this dilemma, the citizens rarely come out well."
For the record: 1. no soldiers have positions of power in Honduras, all are obediently in their barracks and painstakingly subservient to civilian rule. 2. Zelaya was "deposed by force" in the same way John Dillinger "was deposed by force"--for violating the laws of his nation as defined by that nation's (civilian) Supreme Court--laws drafted by a representative legislature, via a fully democratic process.
Yoani Sanchez, btw, also backed Obama for U.S. Pres and supports the lifting of the "U.S. embargo" and any restrictions on "remittances."
Now she's employing Marifela-esque and Julia Sweig-esque language regarding Hugo Chavez' main Drug-trafficking crony, Mel Zelaya.
What's more important for the Castro regime? Money from the U.S. (credit, remittances)? Money from Chavez?(accompanied by a facade of allowing 'dissidents" who seem to concur with the regimes' most vital goals) ......
or.......?...just wonderin.....?
You're not the only one just wonderin.
If Yoani lived in the U.S. I would imagine she'd be a liberal.
Since she lives in Communist Cuba, she is seen as a "Conservative".
Shit or get off the pot. People with that mindset seem to want it both ways. She rightfully and courageously flails away at that broken-down system she lives in, but can't seem to separate herself from those that would create it elsewhere. Tough to understand the logic...
Mojito, actually the opposite. Remember, everything in a communist country is backwards. In their system, you are a conservative if you want to maintain the status quo stalinist system . The liberals in their system want to change it.
The citizens of Honduras will come out well if they mantain vigiliant and strong in adhering to their constitution, which is what governed the ouster of the socialist dictator, Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales...
No military officers are in power, they are subordinate to Pres Roberto Micheletti, there is a Supreme Court which just even voted to grant Xiomara Castro de Zelaya the right to cross the Nicaraguan border, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal and a functioning congress, with protest and media rights.
Sooner or later, Yoani would post something like this. Despite her schooling (or perhaps because of it) and her experiences abroad, she doesn't have enough sound philosphical underpinnings to discern that what happens in Honduras is different from a coup or a police state. While I've always lauded and admired her tenacity and guts in her fight for free speech, and enjoy reading her prose, I'm not blind to the fact that she grew up and was educated in a communist system and, as such, can't fine tune her political ideas so that they are consistent; we read this opinion - and others she has formulated in the past - and realize she doesn't understand the issues and their ramifications in a historical context. But then again, look at the sources that have fed her background info.
Also don't forget that she escaped Cuba and then went back to live there. + She resides in one of the nicer high rises in Havana, which in some of the youtube clips looks like a descent loft.
I'm not sure she lives like the bottom of Cuban society.
Humberto,you are on the right track..!!!!
saludos
Yoani doesn't know what she's talking about. It's typical, actually; Cubans in the island tend to adopt parts of the worldview of their ruler by mental osmosis--whatever they don't examine closely, they accept carelessly.
That's another tragedy of the Cuban situation. Until you leave, and spend a few years away from the propaganda, you don't usually realize how indoctrinated you were.
Cuba is castle of lies, on top of a mountain of malicious myths, resting on an island of falsehoods. Decent people rarely realize the magnitude of the deception.
Cigar Mike;
You are using 'conservative' in a different sense than Mr. Mojito. There should be no argument there.
Well, as I've said before... She's never fooled me for a second. She's refused to participate in anything that's initiated by other bloggers because she loves to be the protagonist AT ALL TIMES. Sorry! In my book, if you want the Communist system in Cuba to fail, you can't always be the leader. I don't trust her.
I would like to know... Does Yoani have a regular job? Does her husband? What do they do for a living? How can they afford to pay such a nice apartment, electricity etc.? All the dissidents I know of, have been forbidden to work in Cuba, Many have lost their homes. Because of their situation Cuban Exile organizations have to help them financially.
I have the same problem with Yoani that I have with Oswaldo Paya. Why is it that neither one ever gets arrested? Why is it that they can walk freely all over Havana without being beaten or harassed as others do?
Many people don't know that Yoani and her husband left Cuba several years ago. They lived in Europe but decided to go back to Cuba after two years. Why? It's anybody's guess. I want to know how were they able to get such a nice place to live after their return from exile?
Curiouser and curiouser.
If Fidel/Raul were truly as Machiavellian as I think they were ... they would create their own opposition - which would allow them to control the veracity of it.
firefly, all very good preguntas. I don't want to cast doubt, but you make some good points. I also agree with Gigi's points. She is a product of that system and it shows - to what real depth?... remains to be seen. I have become very disillusioned with the prospect of Cuba becoming free anytime soon, as I feel (and see more evidence everyday) that too many Cubans have been indoctrinated ('decomissioned' I suppose) in such a way as to give up all hope that the mafia in La Habanna is nothing but invincible. The Castros (and their mafia accomplices in/out of Cuba) have done one of the most remarkable jobs in history in subjugating/destroying multiple generations of its citizens. Unless there is a 'storming of the Bastille' in Cuba, we will not see any changes anytime soon.
La Conchita,
Their indoctrination runs so deep that once they reach U.S. soil and become citizens they register as Democrats "because historical Cuban-Americans are always Republicans." These resent arrivals have become used to living in a "Nanny Estate" and having the government take care of everything.
There's not much to add, really. This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened with her, and it's by no means just her. She just happens to attract to more attention. No, the prospects for a free AND healthy Cuba are not exactly bright or especially encouraging.
Of course Yoani is a product in some sense of the communist system she was born in and grew up under, just as we are products of ours.
Some people say that she doesn't know what she is talking about ... yet most of the people here are just looking in and stamping their own uninformed beliefs, and their own biases from their upbringing in a capitalist state, on what is or is not happening in Cuba (or in Honduras for that matter).
Has ANY country in the world yet recognized the new government in Honduras? Last time I checked, even Israel has refused to do so. I guess that means that Netanyahu and Chavez are soul mates.
Something doesnt add up. firefly you make a good point. Why is it that she isint in prison , but Dr. Biscet and Darsi Ferrer are?
As I said, curiouser and curiouser.
Hopefully we will find out why she is treated different.
degan,
Whether any country has or has not recognized the Honduran government is essentially a moot point. The absolute majority of the Honduran people have and that is all that matters.
As for Yoani's comment on same, she's entitled to her opinion just like everyone else is. And we are entitled to criticize same just like everyone else is.
But let's - for the sake of argument - do a little hypothetical.
What Cuban wouldnt want Raul and company to be arrested, tossed into an airplane, and shipped of to venezuela or Angola or what not?
She's not in prison because of the international press she has received. That publicity is a protection of sorts. She just won another journalism prize at Columbia University. She is too well-known. But remember, her blog is blocked in Cuba.
Degan,
It appears to me that you've created a moral equivalency between that wretched tyranny and our own free society - that's friggin sick!
Some food for though...
I see Gigi's point, and it has a lot of validity. But I also disgress into the generalization. I am more or less the same age than Yoani, we actually went to the same HS (la Lenin) and at some point we should have walked into each other in la Colina while she studied her career and I was in Law School, getting my degree through the distance education program. (Maybe I am just the nerd of the generation
I was born and raised under the same communist regimen she was and was living in there until a few years ago. And I don't have the same political views she have, although we agree on a lot of things, such as the right to free speech and much more.
The point here is what Ruy Diaz said: only when you have been quite a few years out of the gulag and you have embarked yourself into self-education about life, liberty and democracy you are able to see how much damage the regimen created in our brains, and then you start the process of opening your eyes to different political positions and you learn to identify yourself with one or the other.
Trust me, a lifetime of brainwashing can not be undone by living two years in Sweden. I lived in Netherlands before I came here and only after +/- three years in the US I started to understand the political arena; and I am still learning.
Someone mentioned ealier that if she would have been here she would have been a liberal and I agree. She is part of what back in Cuba we call intellectuals, and their philosiphies are more or less the same, no matter where they live. Look at the political stand of most intellectuals here and in Europe and you'll get an idea.
There is a bizarre dynamic going on in Cuba now, specially with the younger generations, the churches, and the artists, including writers and intellectuals. I'll refrain from ellaborate on that due to personal reasons, but sooner than later I'll write about it. I don't know is that is good or bad, but there are a lot of people in Cuba that think more or less like Yoani, that think that Obama is the savior of the world, that bought into the Miami's Mafia crap and that when you talk to them, they talk to you and behave like if they knew better than you about the US realities, althogh they have never travel farther than Camaguey.
That being said, I also share the doubts. Because there are no coincidences with the regimen. Why she and Paya are walking free and not the other? I don't know. Maybe because their dissidence have something to do with the Stokolm syndrome? Who knows. I don't meant to discredit her since Yoani is putting out to thr world the reality of Cuba in a way that nobody else is doing, but it is a fact that there are many unanswered questions in the air.
In partial defense of Yoani: 1. She is misinformed by what she reads in Cuba. Should we be surprised about that? Miriam Celaya of SinEvasión fell into the same trap, but her blog is less crowded than Yoani's and she responded to comments saying in the future she would be more careful in evaluating what information she gets from Cuban sources. 2. Yoani may not be a Babalu style conservative, but that is her right, no?. 3. She is not in jail because by now putting her in jail is too "expensive" for the Cuban government. The same holds for Payá. But it is true that many Cubans her age are more influenced than they realize by the ideology they have beeen fed.
Also, why haven't The Ladies in White been incarcerated?
"Whether any country has or has not recognized the Honduran government is essentially a moot point. The absolute majority of the Honduran people have and that is all that matters."
Well, have they really? The reports I've seen have been mixed, to say the least.
Again, deganmiles,
Have you seen the photos of those who are supposed to be supporters of the other side? The one that sides with Chavez and company. They have covered faces and Che posters and look like all good communists ought to look. The streets were filled with real Hondurans when I saw the pictures of the side that ousted the president who was breaking their laws.
What reports are you reading and where are you reading them?
Ah, yes, intellectuals. The intellectuals in pre-Castro Cuba pretty much all were pro-Castro and did their part to get him in power, which means they were not only useless but harmful. After it was too late, they played the "I was deceived" or "I was betrayed" card. They certainly were deceived and betrayed, but where was their supposedly superior intellect? What the hell good were they? Calling them deluded wankers is being rather kind.
Ay, asombra, you hit it on the nail... that is exactly what my Mom always says when she tells me stories about those years in pre-castro Cuba, when she was a teenager and was not lucky enough (or wasn't in the path anyway) to leave as early and many of those did.
Cubanita,
I would like to ask you a question based on the perspective that you left Cuba not too long ago and understand the situation in Cuba. Can you tell me why many Cubans (have died) and are willing to risk their lives to leave Cuba as opposed to risking their lives to fight in Cuba - considering how desperate the situation in Cuba has been since the 90's (and no more Soviet forces there).