Columnist-in-Chief vs The Blogger Mom

By Manuel Ballagas.

Last week’s brutal assault by the Cuban secret police on Yoani Sánchez and one of her fellow bloggers in a busy Havana corner sent a strong shockwave over the global online community and made the front page of many newspapers in Europe and on this side of the ocean.

Sánchez and her companion were shoved into a car by plainclothes government agents, then beaten and verbally assaulted for about half an hour. Sánchez appeared later in a CNN report with a swollen eye and walking in crutches. “It was a Sicilian-style kidnapping,” she told a foreign correspondent.

The attack was particularly vicious and outlandish, even by Cuba’s dismal human rights standards. It has already elicited a strong protest by Human Rights Watch and the US State Department, and may even derail the Cuban government’s recent efforts to improve relations with the Obama Administration and the European Union. It just doesn’t make sense.

But what if it does?

To be sure, Sánchez had become bolder lately, by challenging the policies and officials that prevent her from traveling abroad and attending public events at home, then posting the videos of these peculiar face-offs on her blog Generación Y. Yet none of this, including the sharp social commentaries she posts in her web page, would justify the violence and the scandal.

That said, it may be that Sánchez has unknowingly committed the most serious crime one can imagine in Cuba –overshadowing Fidel Castro. Is this possible? Could a 34-year-old mom armed only with a laptop and a flash drive, cast even the semblance of a shadow over one of the most charismatic world leaders and statesmen of our time?

Indeed, over the years, even staunch fidelistas such as Frank País, Camilo Cienfuegos and Che Guevara have been sacrificed on the altar of Castro’s cult of personality. They have been conveniently killed in combat, or have quietly “disappeared” when their popularity reached certain heights reserved only for the Cuban dictator.

But these were all political leaders and revolutionaries in their own right. One can understand the magnitude of the challenge they meant for Castro, as well as the reasons for their demise. They all lived by the gun, just like the Comandante himself. Sánchez hardly fits this dangerous profile. So what gives?

Things have changed dramatically since the 83-year-old Castro became ill and relinquished his job as chief of state in 2006. These days, he is no longer the island’s “Máximo Líder” but simply “Comrade Fidel”. And under this much modest title, he has become a writer –and quite a busy one at that. With a team of researchers and translators at his beck and call, he has penned about 300 columns –or “reflections”- covering a wide range of topics, from climate change and Latin America, to the intricacies of US domestic policies.

Sounds impressive. But for all his troubles –and those of his aides- Castro has failed so far to attain as a writer the same stature he once enjoyed as a statesman. For someone whose speeches used to make the headlines of the world’s most important newspapers, the “reflections” of his golden years have drawn scarce attention beyond the Cuban official media and a handful of sympathetic venues abroad. They have not been collected yet in book form –even in Cuba- or been the object of any special world-wide recognition. So it seems Castro’s writing hobby is not paying off too well.

In comparison, Sánchez’s work has enjoyed quite a measure of success. Her blog –effectively blocked to those who surf the web inside Cuba- boasts a healthy 14 million visitors a month. For her efforts, she has both the Maria Moors Cabot and the José Ortega y Gasset journalism awards under her belt. Collections of her postings have been published in Italy and Brazil. And just last year, Time magazine included her in its list of the 100 most influential people in the world –a list, one might add, that Castro definitely didn’t make.

Decades ago, the Cuban dictator would have simply dismissed Sánchez’s works as “trash”. Being now engaged in literary pursuits of his own, however, Castro can no longer afford to ignore his rivals altogether, especially when the freewheeling worldwide web prevents him from silencing her. So last year, shortly after Sánchez was denied permission to travel to Madrid in the wake of the prestigious Ortega y Gasset Award, “Comrade Fidel” felt compelled to do the hitherto unthinkable: he quoted her at length in one of his columns!

“There are young Cubans who think this way,” Castro concluded somberly at the time. “Special envoys who weaken Cuba internally, whose journalistic work recalls the neo-colonial press of the old Spanish metropolis, which today awards these efforts.”

So is this a case of literary jealousy and revenge? The Columnist-in-Chief vs The Blogger Mom? Or just more of the same repression?

In any event, considering Castro’s frail ego and last week’s senseless assault, full scale reprisals against Sánchez and other Cuban bloggers are to be expected. The stage is apparently set for a new wave of crackdowns and arrests, similar to the one that took place six years ago.

The political costs of such move, however, will probably be higher this time around. With the island sunk in a deep economic crisis, its liquidity washed-up and its agriculture in shambles, Raúl Castro cannot afford a replay of the Dark Srping of 2003, when dozens of independent journalists were sent to jail and Cuba became an international pariah. The price is too high, just to help his brother save face.

Manuel Ballagas is a media consultant.

Please visit these related articles:

A Manifesto in support of Yoani Sanchez

La SIP denuncia la notable falta de libertad de expresión en Hispanoamérica

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