A couple of years ago I went to the DHL office in Miramar to send some family videos to friends in Spain. The clerk looked at me as if I were trying to send a molecule of oxygen to another galaxy. Without even touching the Mini DV cassette, she told me that the Havana branch only accepted VHS. I thought it was a question of size, but the explanation she gave was even more surprising, "It's just that our machines to view the content only read the large cassettes." When I tried to insist, the woman suspected that instead of the smiling face of my son, I wanted to send "enemy propaganda" abroad.
Frustrated, I returned home -- where I have never received a piece of regular mail -- and some time passed before I again had need of the services of this German company. Faced with the impossibility of traveling to Chile to present my book, Cuba Libre, a few days ago the publisher sent me ten copies, in a single package marked "express." Neither my numerous telephone calls to the office at the corner of 1st and Calle 26, nor my physical presence there, managed to make them deliver what is mine. "Your package has been confiscated," they told me this morning, even though in reality they should have been more honest and confessed, "Your package has been stolen." Although these are the same texts that, without descending into verbal violence, have been published on the web for three years, the customs censors have handled it as if it were a manual about how to make Molotov cocktails.
Now, when headlines around the world are announcing the end of the Google's collusion with Chinese censorship, foreign companies located in Cuba continue to obey ideological filters imposed by the government. With its airs of efficiency, its tradition of immediacy, and its phrases such as, "We keep an eye on your package," DHL has agreed to apply a political filter to its customers. To refuse to do so would earn them expulsion from the country with the consequent economic losses, and so they ignore the sanctity of the mail and look the other way when someone demands what belongs to them. The red and yellow colors of their corporate identity never seemed to strident to me. Looking at them today I feel that instead of speed and efficiency they represent a warning: "Not even with us is your correspondence safe!"
Image: http://media.photobucket.com/
Yoani's blog, Generation Y, can be read here in English translation.
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When I got my first passport, I had to read a very long list of organizations and swear that I had nothing to do with them. If I lied or were associated with them, I would NOT be allowed to leave the USA. The most famous scientist of his generation, Linus Pauling was NOT allowed to leave the US because of his politics. Cuba is again, only doing what the US has done. To get a passport back in the early part of the 20th century, you had to ask for a passport in order to leave the country. You also had to state the reason you were travelling, who you would meet, and what you business was. If the US government did not like you or your answers, you were not allowed to leave. When you returned, all of your belongings were inspected and any objectionable literature was confiscated. If they did not like what you brought back, you would be thrown in jail.
Thousands of Latin Americans and Americans marched together with Cubans…… THE WORLD IS CONDEMNING CASTROFASCISM!!!!!!!…… IT IS A FACT!!!!!!
You get to learn a basic principle of dictatorship…… people need to be kept at the border of starving in a surviving situation, if the people gets all its needs covered it will automatically start to think about politics….. Politic-thinking people is no good for dictatorships health……… that’s why dictatorships need to create poverty…… that’s why embargo or no embargo will not mean nothing positive for Cuban people!!!
I've had many political arguments with Cubans. I've seen urban farms that are marvels of organization and intensification... 4 lbs of produce per square foot. I've watched artists create magic with the most basic of tools. I've talked to medical students from Africa who arrive in Cuba to take medical training (doctors are Cuba's number one export) free of charge. They become well trained doctors and they take those skills back to Africa. As of last year, almost 300 Africans had graduated from Cuban medical universities.
Cuba is so rich in spirit even if it's poor in the things we seem to value but the embargo is very much in evidence and if you did a bit of research, you'd know that.
84% of Cuba's agricultural land is in gov. hands and produces nothing, zero, NADA...... the other 16% is in particular hands and those particulars producers are responsible for 15% of the food Cubans eats, the other 85% is bought in USA.
Those foreign medicine students you saw there are part of the propaganda program and Cubans doctors are sent to serve out Cuba as modern
It is easy to see the regimen today in power is a fascist one.
Many leftist believed during a long time castro was a socialist but the reality brough them to the ground after finding the regimen is a fascist one.
Trade with the U.S. is going to do what trade and travel with the EU and the rest of the world hasn't accomplished.
Exactly what is so special about U.S. trade that is going to change anything?
How tragic your postcard story is, tragic..wow. Next time call your mom.