Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Breaking the chains - Generacion Y

Via Harry's Place: At Generacion Y, Yoani Sanchez describes a visit to the offices of the Cuban interior ministry for questioning about an upcoming meeting of Cuban bloggers. She encapsulates the message she was given by interior ministry officials like this:

We want to warn you that you have transgressed all the limits of tolerance with your rapprochement and contacts with counter-revolutionary elements. This totally disqualifies you for dialog with Cuban authorities.

The activities planned for the coming days cannot be carried out.

We, for our part, will take all measures, make the relevant denunciations and take the necessary actions. This activity, in this moment in the life of the Nation, recuperating from two hurricanes, will not be allowed.

Generacion Y is remarkable for candidly reflecting daily life in Raul Castro's Cuba - a land that in some respects is uncertainly turning to the West, but where the government is still locked in most of the totalitarian reflexes of the past, and where ordinary people are still held hostage in conditions of state-imposed poverty and information control. The blog - published both in English and in Spanish - provides a much-needed antidote to the false revolutionary romanticism of Cuban government supporters like the American actor Sean Penn. For a critical dissection of the attitudes and sentiments of the latter, see this post by Marc Cooper.

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