Aside from my little brother Gareth, Yoani Sanchez is one of the bravest people I know. She is a young Cuban blogger who writes about the perversities of life in the Castro brothers personal island fiefdom. I've emailed with Yoani a couple of times and I make sure to read her blog every few days. On Friday Raul Castro's secret police, the DGI, grabbed her on the street, pulling her hair and beating her until she got into their car. She was taken to a police station and there, according to CNN, the agents "warned her that her writings had gone too far" and threatened her. Yoani has been intimidated several times in the past but this is the first time she has been beaten by Castro's bullies. She is out of police custody now but badly shaken....
Late last year Yoani was named one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time magazine and last month the Cuban government banned her from traveling to New York to receive an international journalism award. (Only high ranking Communist officials are allowed to travel outside of Cuba). The DGI frequently attempts to block Yoani's blog, but most of the time you can read it here: Generacion Y.
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I'm really upset about what happened to Yoani but there's a wider problem too. Cuba, I feel, gets far too easy a ride in media circles. Pro Cuban stories frequently appear on the BBC and CNN talking about the wonderful music scene in Havana, Cuban beach holidays, and how "Cubans are more ready to meet the challenges of recession because of their policy of recycling junk." These are puff pieces without a hint of serious reporting. I've been to Cuba many times and take it from me Cuba is not a tropical paradise with a benign dictatorship, happy go lucky cops and great gleaming hospitals. Cuba is a clumsy, thuggish, police state and Havana is a town filled with teen prostitutes, pimps and "sex tourists". There is no freedom of travel or speech in Cuba and the Communist Party and the Secret Police run the island with unsubtle brutality. I think it's very hard to get this truth across because most journalists are broadly sympathetic to Cuba regarding it as a plucky little island holding up a defiant middle finger to big bad Uncle Sam on the other side of the Florida Strait. A particular offender in my eyes is The Huffington Post who published a fawning interview between Sean Penn and Raul Castro late last year and just a couple of weeks ago ran an impassioned "editorial" from Alec Baldwin demanding an end to the ban on US citizens travelling to Cuba. (US citizens, of course, are not banned from travelling to Cuba, they just aren't allowed to spend money there, but try telling that to Mr Baldwin or Huffington Post readers and you'll get disbelieving howls.)
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The embargo is a whole other issue and I'd like to see an end to it too because the Castro brothers use it as an excuse for their disastrous economic incompetence and gross mismanagement. Even if the brothers were geniuses (which they are not) no two people should run any country for fifty years. If you really hated living under George Bush for 8 years, imagine how Cubans feel living under Raul and Fidel for 50.
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I've emailed Yoani to see if she's ok, but the best thing we can all do is email our local Cuban embassy or consulate to let them know that the whole world will be watching how they treat her and other dissidents. This is the email address of the Cuban Embassy in London: embacuba@cubaldn.com and they can be called here: 0207 240-2488
45 comments:
The Cuban regime only continues to exist because of the embargo and the ham-fisted actions of the US government.
Cuba is not the only brutal Latin American country. I think that if US commercial interests had been held in check and if the US government had not felt it needed to support the United Fruit Company (among others), the political environment throughout Latin America would be vastly different now.
Thank you, Adrian. I have her blog up on my blog roll, but haven't been checking it as much lately as I should. And it's just been laziness on my part, because her blog posts are always interesting. Unfortunately, many of her blog commenters are not--unlike your fan club here.
I agree with your analysis of the liberal left and Cuba. I don't think that Cuba is a current hot button for the left in Santa Cruz, but if I took an informal poll, there would be more of the left on Castro's side than against it. Or at least I think that's the case.
I have to say that I really don't understand the left's tolerance of dictators. After the long, long apologetics for Lenin and Stalin, you'd think there would have been some collective learning going on. It seems that when someone declares him or herself dictator of a country that should be enough of a clue (Hugo Chavez, I'm looking at you.) But apparently the idea of a benevolent dictator is still a fantasy of many otherwise mature minds...
Anyway, I'll check out Yoani's latest couple of installments--the kidnapping seems to have been mentioned in the last one, and I'll post a bit about it too. And yes, I'll email the Cuban Embassy as well. Hope others here will too.
Anon
I agree with you about the embargo. It serves no function, hurts Cuba, hurts America and helps the Castro brothers. Absolutely pointless. Biggest disappointment of the Obama regime for me was going along with its renewal. It seems to me (and I'll admit that I'm no expert on this and not the biggest believer in conspiracy theories) that the only people who benefit are the US sugar companies.
Seana
Its horrifying isnt it? If they're so afraid of her they can't be very sure of themselves can they?
I wouldnt call Chavez a dictator. He's actually won two elections. The brothers Castro haven't held one election in fifty years. Not one. Fidel promised one in 1960 but I suppose these things take time to get organised.
I think we could probably have a long debate about Chavez, but for once I won't go off on a tangent, because I think it would be good if we all just stayed focussed on Yoani.
It surprised me, though it was completely understandable, that her first thought was for her son and how he would perceive all this. There is the violence of it, but also the element of shame involved, which knowing you are on the right side of history unfortunately does nothing to prevent.
Seana
Shame is a big part of the Cuban experience because for anyone to survive they have to go to the black market and deal with criminals and of course that means they too are criminals.
I'm always stunned by the glossy travel mag pieces on Cuba one finds all the time - to me Havana didn't feel like an exotic travel destination so much as Nazi Occupied Paris or East Berlin circa 1988.
It seems like the cognitive dissonance is only going to get worse before it gets better.
Havana is a very different experience than the rest of the country. There is always a "nastiness" there ... always a hustle. I suspect it would be similar in Santiago de Cuba but I can't really say as I haven't been there.
I've spent most of my time in Cuba in and around Holguin and - for the most part - people just get on with their lives. I actually believe that life is marginally better than it was in that area under Batista/United Fruit Company.
(an interesting novel "Telex from Cuba", by Rachel Kushner describes eastern Cuba before the revolution).
The Castro brothers are a product of US policy. If you've spent any time in the other Carribean nations (as I have), it becomes a little more difficult to say that it's worse in Cuba. The problems are different and the oppression is different, but I can't honestly see a big difference between the political repression of Cuba and the abject poverty of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Or the crime of Jamaica. Or the have/have not nations of Martinique, St. Lucia and Grenada.
Seana
I just hope we dont get Tehran style bloodshed.
Anon
Well I've been to Santiago too (that train journey is not for the faint hearted I can tell you) and I had the same vibe there. Worse in some ways because of the heady historical tropes playing out every day.
I take your point about Jamaica and the Dominican. I'll admit that I was quite alarmed during most of my time in Jamaica. I felt that violence was never very far away however the difference is that neither Jamaica or the DR is a prison. Cubans are not allowed to travel abroad whereas Jamaicans, Dominicans and Haitians can. They may not have the money to do so but they if can cobble together the cash they can. Even if Cuba were the best run island in the world (which it isnt) for Cubans it still would be a prison island.
So they'll be coming for you next then? Or is it OK when you feature a Castro in your novel?
Miss Witch
Like all bullies they seek safety in numbers and are only secure on their home patch. I should be safe in Australia. Although probably not from sharks, bush fires and those scary boxing kangaroos.
Or possums.
It's probably unwise to compare different forms of suffering, especially from a position of ease like mine. Still, I think the psychology of a place where the secret police could just pull you into a car and take you away would be an added pressure.
I think the difference from our own perspective is that everyone can be pretty candid about the haves and have nots in other poor Latin American countries. But there does seem to be a sort of lip service that must be paid to the accomplisments of Cuba's revolution, all of which may be true, but are pretty much irrelevant to the facts of political repression.
I do think the U.S. has played it's own very obtuse role in all this, and thinking about friends who have gone to Cuba or brought supplies to Cuba or whatever, it is really more a sense of not wanting to be part of the U.S. embargo than it was some grand allegiance to Castro. I think that Americans visting China in the seventies and even eighties were in a somewhat similar position of not wanting to be blocked from knowing a people just because of their nations' position. Of course, such encounters can be beautiful and hopelessly naive and everything in between.
The difference between Cuba and other Caribbean nations is that the guns are facing inward in Cuba. You can leave any of the other nations at any time without government interference or retribution.
It seems to be convenient and easy to blame the US for every problem on the planet. Sorry, but to me that's become a lazy, tired, and simplistic answer for every ill in the world and it completely removes any responsibility or accountability from people like Castro. (Was it the fault of the US government that Castro rounded up all homosexuals after the revolution and stuck them in prison? This is NOT a good guy looking out for the best interests of the people.)
Thanks for the information, Adrian. I'll be contacting the embassy.
Holden - Sorry to be lazy, tired and simplistic but perhaps if you actually visited the place rather than watch Fox News for your information, you might be able to offer some insight.
I agree that the Cuban regime is brutal and oppressive, but the US can be pretty brutal too and you can shove your head in the sand all you want but you still won't escape this fact.
Nobody wants to blame the US for anything.
Holden - Sorry to be lazy, tired and simplistic but perhaps if you actually visited the place rather than watch Fox News for your information, you might be able to offer some insight.
I agree that the Cuban regime is brutal and oppressive, but the US can be pretty brutal too and you can shove your head in the sand all you want but you still won't escape this fact.
Nobody wants to blame the US for anything.
Seana
The thing I noticed about Cubans is how cosmopolitan they are. They're really knowledgable about the world - not letting them travel anywhere is like keeping a songbird in a cage.
Holden
It's easy blaming the US for everything. The Chomskys and Robert Fisks of the world blame America for every single problem on the planet; but if you want real comedy you should live in the Arab world for a while. I spent a couple of months in Egypt and the press was hilarious:
Traffic is bad in Cairo - Israel is to blame. The dust storms are worse than last year - Israel is to blame. Inflation is through the roof - Israel is to blame. Egypt have a crap football team - Israel is to blame. Etc. etc.
Anon
There's plenty of criticism of America everywhere in the world. It's the default position on the BBC, YouTube, the British press etc. And Noam Chomsky's books are best sellers and in print on every country on Earth.
Cuba, however, gets such an easy ride in the international media. When Sean Penn went there his whole piece reminded me of that bit in The Gulag Archipelago where Sartre is in Moscow talking about how great the Soviet system is and behind him, fifty yards away on the street, dissidents were being bundled into a black maria by the KGB - taken away either to be shot or shipped to a Siberian hell hole.
It's true ... lots of people want to blame the US for stuff .... but blaming the US wasn't really my point. I do think US commercial interests created the atmosphere that allowed Castro to come to power.
You're right about the cosmopolitan nature of many Cuban citizens and it is unfortunate that they cannot easily travel. Ironically, most of the Cubans I know still wish to live in Cuba but they do wish to travel.
Anon
I wouldnt mind living there myself once the Castro bros die. There's a mountainous area west of Santiago, which is what I imagine California was like in the 1890's - rugged, wild, very beautiful.
Whoa. I don't think that the fact that someone thinks that the U.S. takes the brunt of the world's criticism makes them automatically someone who gets all their insights from Fox News. The U.S. is a big and easy target. Although I personally think it's due for its fair share of criticism and then some and that some of this needs to be responded to, I don't actually think it's responsible for all the world's woes. But saying that someone gets all their info from Fox News is kind of a low blow, as usually it implies that they are singularly ill-informed.
I will admit right out front that though I am not singularly ill-informed, I am generally ill-informed nevertheless, but getting attacked for it is not something that I personally would feel dignified a response. Nor would it induce me to correct the errors of my ways.
Seana
You cant really get any news from Fox News though can you? Everytime I tune in its just pudgy, elderly white dudes crying and yelling about stuff. I mean its kind of entertaining in a road accident sort of way but even so, it's not my cup of tea. If I wanted to see grown men cry I'd rather watch Dog The Bounty Hunter.
Still waiting to read "50 Grand" (I've read all the others). I didn't finish "Bloomsday Dead" until a month or so ago and I like to have a gap between books from the same author. I am looking forward to it as I like your sense of irony.
I do think we have a different perspective on Cuba, though. I see a certain level of hopefulness, resorcefulness and intelligence there that just doesn't exist in many of the other Caribbean nations. A friend of mine describes that she would only have sugar with water to eat after the Russian economy collapsed. She carried on and got through it and now seems relatively happy with the way her life is going. I don't see much hope at all in Jamaica or the DR.
I do think you'd enjoy "Telex from Cuba".
Anon
I'd differentiate Jamaica and the Dominican. To me Jamaica was a scary place that I wouldnt want to go back to. But the Dominican has a different vibe. I liked it there and I'm optimistic about its future. Dominicans are pretty resourceful too and they've got an environmental consciousness which is utterly lacking in Haiti just next door. If I had a choice of being a random Dominican or a random Cuban I'd pick a random Dominican any day. (At least until post Castro) And if I ever got sick of the place I could be in Washington Heights before the sun set.
I haven't ever actually watched Fox News. This is not exactly a purist stance, it's just that I am fairly new to cable and don't know where everything is on the dial. I see all this stuff refracted through MSNBC, and though of course I'm a fan of Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, I know that they have their own rhetoric. I think it's on a higher level than Glenn Beck's and Rush Limbaugh's but I also think much gets lost about what people really think and maybe even more importantly feel in the polarization. It's always worth thinking about what fears the right --and the left-- are speaking to.
I was in East Berlin in 1988 and my parents feared for my safety because I'd sent them a postcard from there saying something smart alecky like, "Gee isn't this postcard great? I didn't even have to trouble myself by picking it out - it was chosen for me."
I knew that, generally, Germans didn't seem to appreciate sarcasm, so I probably would not garner much attention.
I have not paid a lot of attention to Cuba, because I have found the knee-jerk reaction / auto-republicanism of Cubans and Cuban Americans to be off putting. Which is unfair and knewe-jerky of me : the ones who made it are in a different situations than the ones who remain in Cuba. And what do I know never having lived in Florida anyway?
As for the Chomsky references can I just point out that law 'n order has been the hallmark of many chest thumping Republicans as the end all and be all of public policy in the US? And that perhaps someone pointing out, tirelessly and perhaps tirefully (I mean, what if the man wants to go out and play the occasional game of tennis but feels he can't because the US news bots shirk their duties) that the US is breaking its own laws or laws it's a signatory to and is not held to account?
There is a new writer who's taking up the Chomsky beat, in the form of Glenn Greenwald on salon.com. I'm guessing his tennis game is falling by the wayside.
But that is another boat of Cubans entirely.
It is good to laugh at the lunacy of the Chomskys and Fisks and the slightly biased view of the Egyptian press. But I expect Liverpool FC are having a double crap season because they are owned by Americans and have an Israeli player, Yossi Benayoun. But there are people in the UK who believe and spout this stuff and a lot work in the media.
We hear a lot about the superb Cuban health service but I don't see people in small boats traveling through shark infested waters from Florida to Havana to get treatment. Many liberals and apologists for left wing dictators are too young to remember Hungary 1956 or Prague 1968.
Well, we did see Michael Moore do it, but I suppose we better not get started on that subject all over again.
It's easy blaming the US for everything. The Chomskys and Robert Fisks of the world blame America for every single problem on the planet;
With lots of reasons, and Caribbean history - Haiti and the Dominican Republic, for instance -is a prime example.
Both countries have had incredibly bloody dictatorships, at various times with very ambiguous involvement of the USA, (including field intervention in order to pick the more convenient candidates) , and nowhere near the mediatic exposure given to Cuba.
Did Haitian or Dominicans who escaped these dictatorships gain automatic citizenship in the US as it is granted to those who arrive from Cuba? Did the liberal or nonliberal media speak of Trujillo or Balaguer as much as of Castro? Has anyone checked the superb Health Service for those living with Hiv/Aids in the Dominican Republic who cannot afford private hospitals?
If I had a choice of being a random Dominican or a random Cuban I'd pick a random Dominican any day.
Suit yourself. A random selection, starting from the community activist
recently killed by the police. I realize his story is in all blogs and translated everywhere around the world, but I have to start from the more popular cases, right?
Abducted community activist may be dead
Haitian migrants collectively expelled from the Dominican Republic after being rounded up at a meeting on labour rights organized by a migrants’ association
Unlawful killing, death threats
Abduction and assault, death threats
human right defender under threat
illegal forced eviction of 45 families, based on forged documents and carried by police, soldiers and "privateers"
attacks against migrant workers and migrant right's activists
migrants and ethnic Haitians in the DR
Death threats for hiv activist (because aids scares tourists)
Hiv/Aids related human rights violations
death threats against those who fight for the rights of plantation workers (the priest in question had to flee the country) .
police fire on trade unionists
killings by security forces
Sheiler
I dont have a problem with Noam saying what he wants to say. Thom Yorke says he's his favourite writer, but I've never liked theories that pick one big target as an explanation for everything.
I like Rach Maddow too. Rhodes scholar no less. Shame we cant get MSNBC.
Uriah
Liverpool are in big trouble though arent they? I know people have said this in the past but I think we could be looking at a long term decline of Liverpool FC.
Moore went to Cuba and of course stayed in the National Hotel, where I might add, ordinary Cubans are not allowed to go. Its the whitest place in Cuba.
Marco
I could give you 10 articles about Italy or Northern Ireland, but life is very different in a democracy, even a very poor democracy than a dictatorship. YOu dont like the Dominican? Fly to New York. You dont like Italy, drive to any other country in the EU. You dont like Cuba? Sorry mate shut up or go to the gulag.
Cuba's treatment of gays and lesbians incidentally is among the worst in the world. You should read Before Night Falls (but avoid the movie).
I'm sure the ethnic Haitians who are routinely threatened, killed and or deported to Haiti regardless of their Dominican nationality can take much solace with the fact that they could escape illegally into the US, where they'd be greeted with open arms by immigration officers (unless they do not die by the hundreds like it happened to those that tried to flee Haiti after the 2004 Aristide removal).
Or the poor women with hiv-aids who cannot afford health care and are fired from their work, because aids is negative for tourism and must be swept under the carpet, must see abandoning the D.R. a real possibility.
While the human rights activists and journalists killed in scores, often by elements of the security forces, in the Dominican Republic are probably grateful that they live in a democracy, and therefore are killed in complete indifference, and not in a dictatorship constantly under scrutiny, where they would be harassed and repressed under the eye of the world, but very rarely actually risk their life in recent years.
Cuba's treatment of gays and lesbians WAS among the worst in the world. It is not anymore. Jamaica's treatment of gays and lesbians still IS among the worst in the world, however.
When the R.D. was a dictatorship - 30,000 killed in a matter of days by Trujillo - did the US enforce an embargo? was there some sort of pressure? Was there much discussion at all?
but life is very different in a democracy, even a very poor democracy than a dictatorship
Even in a democracy with death squads?
The "articles" I gave you are actually Amnesty International actions in the last few years, and no, you couldn't find the same range of problems in Italy or today's Northern Ireland.
I'm afraid your experience of the R.D. is very similar to that of the liberals you mock for only visiting tourist approved sites.
I don't want to make comparisons, but let's be honest - the only reason Cuba is widely talked about in the Usa is because of its communist history and the Cuban lobby, and the polarized reactions that arise from that. Plenty of dictatorships in Latin America and the Caribbean have been largely ignored, and in many cases actively supported behind the scenes.
And of course what I mean is not to dismiss the plight of Cubans, but rather encourage people to send letters and e-mails for all cases, including those less likely to be publicized, for example subscribing to Amnesty International appeals feed for information.
Marco
The DR is by no means perfect but I found it much more pleasant than either Cuba or Jamaica. No climate of fear that I could detect and I think I'm pretty good at detecting climates of fear.
I wouldnt be too sure about the harassment of gays being over in Cuba. In Havana in broad daylight I saw the cops hassling a lot of gay boys and by hassling I mean slapping them on the face, asking for their papers, etc.
Haiti is a whole other issue, but like I said if you're a Dominican and hate the DR you can catch any of a dozen flights to New York anytime you want and they're pretty cheap. If you're a Cuban you not only cannot leave Cuba but you have to get permission to move to a different province.
You're quite wrong about the left ignorning the dictatorships of Latin America and their American sponsors - you should read The Nation, Mother Jones etc. etc. Its very well documented.
I dont get your wider point. I mean what do you want me to do? Do a blog every day about every country's human rights abuses in the world? That's not what this blog is about. The fact is I know Yoani and I know Cuba and the fact that other countries have problems is neither here nor there. This was a post about Cuba. And I'm right about this. The perception of Cuba among the left in Europe and N America is utterly at odds with reality and neither you nor anyone else is going to stop me talking about it or making me dilute my views by comparing Cuba with other countries and their problems. Cuba is a racist, homophobic, police state and an utter economic disaster area and I'm sorry if you cant accept that but there's nothing I can do to convince you.
I wouldnt be too sure about the harassment of gays being over in Cuba.
This kind of harassment is not officially endorsed anymore. There have been positive portrayals of homosexuality in Tv, Mariela Castro has opened a centre for Sex Education, sex reassignment surgery is practiced free of charge, there have been discussions of a law for civil partnerships. Acts of homophobic violence are committed frequently by the police everywhere in South America, from Jamaica to Brazil.
Haiti is a whole other issue, but like I said if you're a Dominican and hate the DR you can catch any of a dozen flights
No it's not.I was talking ethnic Haitians in the D.R. 500,000 - 1,000,000 people who in the vast majority are treated little better than slaves. Seen a lot of happy black people? Have you been in the plantations? The inner cities? The border areas with Haiti? If you're a rich Dominican you can leave for the Usa. If you work as a slave in the bateyes, fat lot of good the cheap flights.
You're quite wrong about the left ignorning the dictatorships of Latin America and their American sponsors - you should read The Nation, Mother Jones etc.
So? does the right ignore Cuba? And again, are Haiti or the D.R. discussed as much as Cuba, from whichever direction? There's been a coup in Haiti in 2004. Did it make the news? For how long?
nor anyone else is going to stop me talking about it or making me dilute my views by comparing Cuba with other countries and their problems.
My larger point is that the human right violations in Cuba are much more discussed than in other countries. I'm not asking you to stop or trying you to convince of anything. I'm just saying that, if you talk of human right violations in Cuba, you find many people who are interested, be it to confirm,deny or discuss, and a lot of people are exposed to these contrasting viewpoints. If you talk of violations in other countries, noone is interested - and there's close to no spillover in the public consciousness.
Marco
Did you ever read John Rawls? He's got this idea in A Theory of Justice called the Original Position, where you imagine everyone in a veil of ignorance about who they'll be in a society (rich/poor, gay/straight etc.) and these disembodied selves get together to design a society from first principles; Rawls thinks they'll design a culture which maximises fairness and that people under this veil of ignorance would roughly come up with something like Scandanavian style social democracy. I dont know about that but I do like the thought experiment of the veil of ignorance and the original position and after experiencing Cuba first hand and the Dominican first hand I'd be a random Dominican over a random Cuban any day of the week. Both places have their problems but Cuba is a good bit further away from this Maximin society of the Original Position. I know that you can understand poverty and suffering but I dont know if you can fully appreciate what life is like in a tyranny - its just so degrading, terrifying and awful for everyone, on a daily basis, from top to bottom. The currency of Cuba is shame and fear. Believe me I'd rather risk being the bottom of the heap in the DR than even a high ranking Communist Party official in the Castro Brothers' dreadful tin pot Republic.
And look if you dont believe me about the love for Cuba and the Castro brothers in the US among the American left you should read comment threads under Alec Baldwin's or Sean Penn's pieces in The Huffington Post. Nothing but love love love for El Jefe and his rotten crew.
Oy vey. Isn't there a term for this? The tyranny of small differences or something like that? You guys are actually on the same side, for the most part. It's really just a question of emphasis. And I don't mean to imply that the discussion isn't interesting, my brainiac and fact equipped friends. It's just that I worry that the argument sometimes becomes more important than the issue itself.
Please feel free to band together and heap invective on me. I don't mind and it would be in a good cause.
Meanwhile, I did want to mention that if anyone wants to send a protest about what happened to Yoani, do consider sending it to cuba@un.int, which is where I notice that most of the Amnesty International posts are sent. No guarantees that it makes a whit of difference, but Yoani is worth the effort.
a random Dominican over a random Cuban any day of the week.
A random privileged Dominican. I highly doubt you'd like to work as a slave, be killed, evicted illegally without notice, have no form of health service whatsoever. But if you can dismiss these as small problems affecting only a minority of people because you haven't seen them in your tour, which I doubt went much into the hinterland, or into the sugar workers towns, there's not much I have to say.
I have campaigned for human rights in the Caribbean for more then a decade and there's a definite difference between the attention given to Cuba and that to any other country in the Caribbean. Yoani's posts are translated into Internazionale, a weekly leftish magazine (which also publishes Chomsky). Regardless, Cuba has partizans, both on the left and on the right, but it is widely discussed. Other countries, not nearly as much.
Marco
Well I may have an advantage over you in the fact that I've actually been to both places we're talking about and talked to Cubans and Dominicans about their lot unfiltered by any media source. Its possible that that might help a little.
Tour? What tour?
I'm not sure that you've understood Rawls's concept (or my explanation of Rawls's account) of the Original Position.
I'm not sure YOU understand Rawls' concept. What's closer to the Original Position, a society which is uniformly bad or a relatively better off one where close to 10% of the population has no right at all? It's still a lot of people, even if the others choose to ignore them. For all the misery, black market and whathaveyou, in Cuba you don't have situations were people work until they drop and are dismissed and even left to die when they injure themselves.
How many black ethnic haitians have you talked to? Were they happy? Have you been in the slums, the bateyes, the poorest zones outside the tourist destinations?
I actually have been to the R.D.
I actually have talked with a lot of Dominicans.
I actually have a good friend, a black woman (a shade a bit darker than what's considered OK in the Dominican Republic), who tried to organize workers and immigrant right groups and had to flee the country under death threats.
Her vision of the country is a wee bit less rosy-colored.
I actually know missionaries that, same as above.
But you know, whatever.
Don't know if anyone is still reading down here, but I'm curious what anyone thinks about Yoani's questions to Obama and his answers.
Basically, I'm simple enough that I think it's cool that she wrote them and that he answered intelligently, if guardedly. I wonder if she was satisfied by them, though.
Seana
I'd be surprised if the DGI beat her up again any time soon now so thats good. They're a total bunch of cowards who can see the way the water's flowing. Who's more likely to be here in four of five years Obama or Raul Castro?
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