In April 2007, Yoani Sanchez decided to integrate the world of the opposition in Cuba and founded his blog Generation Y. Oblivious to the magnanimity of the authorities towards her when he returned to Cuba in 2004, thus becomes an outspoken critic of the government of Havana. His criticisms are bitter, slightly tinted, one-way. Presents an apocalyptic view of the Cuban reality and accuses the authorities of being responsible for all ills. Never evokes a single moment, the unique geopolitical where is Cuba since 1959. There are hundreds of blogs in Cuba. Several of them reported some aberrations in an incisive way of Cuban society. But the approach is much more nuanced and less partisan information. But the western media has chosen the Manichean blog Sánchez.27
According
blogger in Cuba, "ha [n] wrecked the process, the system, expectations, hopes. [Is a] Shipwreck [total] ", before concluding with this lapidary metaphor:" the ship has sunk. " For her, it is clear that Cuba has to change direction and government: we need "to change the helmsman and crew" 28 in order to develop "Sui generis capitalism" .29
Sanchez is a clever person who has understood perfectly that he could prosper quickly with this type of discourse valued by the Western press. Has negotiated a tacit agreement with the transnational communication and information. But that the Western media give the status of "independent blogger" and possess a media space, it is imperative to speak out against the system and the government and demand a radical change, specifically the return to private enterprise capitalism, and not content to denounce some aberrations in the system.
How to corroborate the assertion of collusion between Sanchez and the media powers? In light of the facts. Just weeks after the birth of his blog, the Western press launched a special promotional campaign by presenting as the blogger who dared to challenge the regime and the limitations to freedom of expression. Again, the Western media are not afraid of its own contradictions. On the one hand, do not stop repeating that it is absolutely impossible for any Cuban to have a heterodox discourse on the island, which is prohibited from issuing any criticism on the government or even away from the official line on pain of prison. On the other hand, praised the ingenuity of Yoani Sanchez, whose main activity is castigating government policies, with a freedom of tone that would be the envy of opponents around the world, without the disturb the
autoridades.30
Thus, in just one year of existence, while there are dozens of older posts and no less interesting than Sanchez, Cuban blogger won the Award of Newspapers Ortega y Gasset, worth 15,000 euros, on April 4, 2008, awarded by the English newspaper El Pais. Usually, this prestigious award is given to journalists or writers who have a long literary career. This is the first time a person with the profile of the obtiene.31 Sánchez Similarly, Cuban blogger was selected from the 100 most influential people by Time magazine (2008), along with George W. Bush, Hu Jintao and the Dalai Lama.32 His blog was included in the list of top 25 blogs in the world by CNN and Time magazine (2008) and also won the English award Bitacoras.com and The Bob's (2008 ) .33 On November 30, 2008, the English newspaper El Pais included it in its list of 100 most influential Hispanic personalities of the year (list which features neither Fidel Castro or Raul Castro) 34 Foreign Policy magazine did better in December 2008, by including it among the 10 most important intellectual año.35 Mexican magazine did Gato Pardo same in 2008.36 The prestigious U.S. university of Columbia have awarded the Maria Moors Cabot.37 And the list is larga.38
However, Yoani Sánchez, as candidly acknowledges: "Next to ninety-nine has made me famous magazine Time in its list of influential people of 2008. To me, that I have never gone on stage, or to a forum and my own neighbors do not know if "Yoani" is written with "h" intermediate or final "s". (...) Now I just vain enough to imagine that the other entries will be asking 'Who is this unknown Cuban blogger who joins us? ".39 Unwittingly Sanchez made Time magazine in front of a huge contradiction: How can a blogger unknown to their neighbors may be included among the 100 most influential people in the world? Here, it is undeniable that the magazine favored political and ideological criteria to integrate Sánchez, which casts a shadow over the credibility of the classification. This also applies to other distinctions.
living conditions Yoani Sánchez
Nth contradiction. The Western press, when reporting the words of Sanchez keeps repeating that Cubans do not have Internet access, without explaining how the blogger can write daily in his blog from Cuba. Great was the surprise of the 200 international journalists accredited to the International Tourism Fair in Cuba, that Wednesday May 6, 2009, when they spotted a Yoani Sánchez quietly in the hall of the more luxurious touring the island, the Hotel Nacional , entering the Internet, when the price of connection is prohibitive even for a tourist extranjero.40
Two questions inevitably arise: How can Yoani Sánchez connect to the Internet in Cuba when the Western press keeps saying no access to it ? Where does the money that allows for a lifestyle that any Cuban can afford when it officially has no source of income?
In 2009, the Department of U.S. Treasury ordered the closure of more than eighty websites related to Cuba to promote trade and thus violated the legislation on economic sanctions. Interestingly, the site of Yoani Sánchez was not closed when it proposes the purchase of his book in Italian, also through Paypal, a system that no Cubans living in Cuba can be used because of economic sanctions (prohibiting, among other E-commerce). Similarly, Sanchez has a copyright for his blog "© 2009 Generation Y - All Rights Reserved. No other Cuban blogger can do the same for the embargo laws. What explains this unique? 41
Other questions also need an answer. Who is behind the site of Sanchez desdecuba.net whose server is hosted in Germany by Cronos AG Regensburg (which also hosts Web sites far right), and registered under the name of Josef Biechele? Also finds that Sanchez made your domain registration by the U.S. company GoDady, whose main characteristic is anonymity. The Pentagon also used to register sites with all the necessary discretion. How Yoani Sanchez, a Cuban blogger living in Cuba, you can register your site with a U.S. company when the economic sanctions legislation formally prohibits it? 42
Moreover, the site Yoani Sánchez Generation Y is extremely sophisticated, with entries for Facebook and Twitter. It also receives 14 million visits per month and is the only one available in no less than ... 18 languages \u200b\u200b(English, French, English, Italian, German, Portuguese, Russian, Slovenian, Polish, Chinese, Japanese, Lithuanian, Czech, Bulgarian, Dutch, Finnish, Hungarian, Korean, Greek). Anywhere else in the world, including los de las más importantes instituciones internacionales como por ejemplo las Naciones Unidas, el Banco Mundial, el Fondo Monetario Internacional, la OCDE o la Unión Europea, dispone de tantas versiones lingüísticas. Ni el sitio del Departamento de Estado de Estados Unidos ni el de la CIA disponen de semejante variedad.43
Otro aspecto sorprendente. El sitio que aloja el blog de Sánchez dispone de un ancho de banda que es ¡60 veces superior al que dispone Cuba para todos sus usuarios de Internet! Otras preguntas surgen inevitablemente al respecto: ¿quién administra esas páginas en 18 idiomas? ¿Quién paga a los administradores? ¿Cuánto? ¿Quién paga a los traductores que trabajan a diario Sanchez's site? How much? Furthermore, the management of a flow of more than 14 million visitors monthly costs prohibitively expensive. Who pays for that? 44
Yoani Sanchez is perfectly right to speak freely and to give virulent criticism of the authorities of Havana does not hesitate to do so, on actual daily problems in Cuba. Can not be criticized for it. Instead, he commits a serious intellectual imposture when presented as a mere blogger, saying its sole purpose is to exercise his duty of honest citizens.
His meticulous cruelty to systematically obscure the reality, to evoke only the aspects negative decontextualise the problems, methodically ignore the geopolitical environment in which Cuba finds itself, particularly in its relationship with the United States and the relentless imposition of economic sanctions that affect the lives of all Cubans, resorting to lies as was easily verified in the case of the alleged "aggression", tend to discredit it. Its role is primarily to woo a certain audience resolutely opposed to the Cuban revolutionary process and do not represent faithfully the Cuban reality in its complexity. Another
only: U.S. President Barack Obama responded to an interview Yoani Sánchez. So while the U.S. sinks cada vez más en una crisis económica sin precedentes, que la batalla a favor de la reforma del sistema sanitario se vuelve cada vez más difícil, que los temas afgano e iraquí son cada vez más calientes, a pesar de la agenda sumamente cargada de la presidencia, el tema extremadamente sensible de las siete bases militares estadounidenses instaladas en Colombia que suscitan la reprobación continental, el golpe de Estados en Honduras en el cual Washington está gravemente implicado, y los cientos de solicitudes de entrevistas de los medios de prensa más importantes del mundo en espera, Barack Obama dejó todo eso de lado para responder a las preguntas de la bloguera cubana.45
En su entrevista, en ningún momento Sanchez called for an end to economic sanctions that affect all sectors of Cuban society starting with the most vulnerable (women, children and elderly), which is the main obstacle to the development of the country and which are rejected by the vast majority of international community (187 countries in the UN vote in October 2009) as anachronistic, cruel and inefficient. On the contrary, takes exactly the rhetoric from Washington about "political propaganda tells us that we live in a besieged city, a David versus Goliath and the" greedy enemy is about to pounce on us. " Economic sanctions calling them as mere "trade restrictions" are "so clumsy and outdated" 46, not because they have dramatic consequences for the Cuban population, but because they are "used as justification both for the collapse in productivity and to punish those who think different "47 This is exactly the same arguments evoked by ... the United States representative at the United Nations in October 2009 to justify the continued state of siege that Washington imposed on Cuba since 1960, without explaining why 187 countries world are provided every year for 18 years to what she describes as "political propaganda" .48
In light of these elements, it is impossible to Yoani Sánchez is a mere blogger complained of the difficulties of a system. Powerful interests are hiding behind the smokescreen that is Generation Y, which represents a formidable weapon in the media war has United States against Cuba. Yoani Sanchez has clearly understood that obedience to the powerful are rewarded handsomely (over $ 100,000 in total) .49 You have chosen to integrate trade of dissent and live happy days in Cuba.
