What is happening in Iran and its dissemination through the Internet is a lesson for Cuban bloggers. The authoritarians of the court also must be taking note of what great dangers result from--in these events--Twitter, Facebook, and mobile phones. Seeing those young Iranians use all the technology to denounce the injustice, I notice everything that we lack to support those who maintain blogs from the island. The acid test of our incipient virtual community has not yet arrived, but maybe it will surprise us tomorrow... with the aggravation of low connectivity.
In our blogger meetings, which we hold every week, we watched a small video about the Iranian cybernauts. I watched it again today in lieu of the images of the demonstrations that our official television refuses to show. I haven't contemplated the faces painted green, nor heard any announcer speak of the seven dead, but with this brief animated short I can imagine everything. I visualize an entire generation weary of old structures that it wants to change, a people--like me--who has ceased to believe in enlightened leaders who lead us like cattle. In the midst of all this, to our satisfaction, are the bytes and screens modifying the form of protest.
On days like this I greatly regret not being able to be online; I feel like I'm choking having to wait to hear all the news. If there's still time for me to extend my solidarity to the Iranian bloggers, then here is a post to tell them: "Today it's you, tomorrow it could well be us."
I am all for freedom for the Cubans, and I despise Castro, but the Cubans left there have been dumbed down by 50 years of Fidel.
It's a hopeless situation there unless the exiles are allowed to go back and help rebuild that mess.
Maybe it's time for America to look at the number of reprehensible dictators your country supports. Saddam was one of your American backed dictators by the way!
You're presenting the Cuban people with a false choice between Batista, a brutal dictator, and Castro, another brutal dictator.
They're both SOB's in my book.
I'm all for a change in US-Cuba policy, but the fact is that the United States is already Cuba's fifth largest commercial partner. When you include humanitarian aid, we're their first.
Again, we need to change US-Cuba policy, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking Cuba's problems are a result of our pseudo-embargo. They're self-inflicted.
They like to think that because it is their chosen ideology or a dictator they like to admire (from thousands of miles away) that everybody must love being enslaved under it and who cares if they don't.
There were many who supported Ceausescu, talking about how it was a wonderful Romania was because he was communist, when the people overthrew him they all pretended never to have heard of the place. Same people who said the Soviet union was heaven, Yugoslavia was heaven, Cuba is still heaven to them.
I hope all goes well for the bloggers in Cuba, I'm excited for the Iranians, I hope their revolution succeeds and inspires every oppressed people to rise up.
Regarding the trade embargo, it is abhorrent, I agree that causes many problems. That does not justify the government controlling speech and imprisoning dissenters. Which was my point.
The Cuban people haven't had an election in fifty years. The Iranians just had one last week.
The Iranian regime's censoring of Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites isn't just a temporary, week-long reaction from the Cuban regime to news it doesn't like; it is its modus operandi.