One by one, Cuban artists and intellectuals in Havana did something unprecedented this week: They stood before the government and criticized a particularly harsh era of censorship -- out loud and in the open.
Perhaps even more surprising than the conference held Tuesday to discuss a dark period of Cuban cultural oppression was what happened outside: a protest by those shut out of the invitation-only event. Also out loud and in the open.
''I don't know how important it can be, but what's true is that I have never seen anything like that in Cuba,'' Cuban writer Ena Lucía Portela told The Miami Herald in an e-mail. ``It was rudimentary, passionate, incoherent, but it was the closest thing to freedom of expression I have seen in this country in my entire life.''
In a move that Cuba experts say signals a significant shift in Cuban domestic policy, the government led by interim President Raúl Castro appears to be cracking open the door to debate. After Castro publicly asserted he was open to discussion, and later convened a committee to study flaws of socialism, experts say there has been a clear changing of the guard in Cuba, one that allows at least controlled discussion.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/cuba/16612667.htm
Any significant changes within societies are gradual and build strength among the different sectors of that community. Change won't come from the outside.
The dissident movement gains ground, but they become hampered when linked to the US.
Cuba's change will be an indigenous one, not connected to the US or other nations, but another Cuban revolution, to undue the past one.
Americans should free themselves from a failed US policy, so that they can be welcomed into Cuba without the suspicion of US hegemony on their back.
Posted by: Mambi Watch | February 05, 2007 at 03:04 PM
The obvious question is "How serious is the Cuban government about allowing debate (or dissent) and how much of it will it permit?" Was this peculiar conference a manipulated sop to the intelligentsia (old and young) or a sincere effort to build bridges? The older intellectuals were there to tell about their experiences and to ask the government not to bring back the bad old days. The young people were there to learn about those bad old days, but many of them didn't even get to enter the conference room. The whole thing was by invitation only. Is it too cynical to assume that the invitation-only nature of the meeting was a way to (1) exclude the undesirables and (2) water down the impact of the conference? Not being a Cuban myself and having never lived in Cuba, I can only wonder. Perhaps some of the readers of this blog who went through the Gray Quinquennium "in the flesh," so to speak, can help me analyze this situation better.
Posted by: eduardo paz | February 05, 2007 at 06:35 PM
Wow!!! 60 minutes of semi-free expression in 25,228,800 minutes of tyranny.
Posted by: Manuel A. Tellechea | February 05, 2007 at 11:58 PM
Agreed Manuel. But the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.
Posted by: usambcuba | February 07, 2007 at 05:52 PM
staged,rehearsed,
but if it gives an opening to challenge the status quo take it!!!!!!!!
Posted by: roberto e | February 08, 2007 at 07:33 PM
and of course#$#^(& che and the horse he rode in on
Posted by: roberto e | February 08, 2007 at 07:34 PM
Roberto e:
Remember Che's horse is a victim as well as the whole Cuban people.
Posted by: Manuel A. Tellechea | February 09, 2007 at 12:16 PM