After the storm, may also come the storm, the hurricane, the tornado. A few days ago, we thought the punishment would be concentrated between Monday and Wednesday of last week, that it would last only as long as Benedict XVI was on Cuban soil. We lived those intense days between prayers and screams, with full plazas and packed dungeons. Our mobile phones, instead of bringing us communications, were turned into little boxes of silence, useless gadgets. Only when the pope's plane took off did they begin the releases from the cells and reconnect some of the mobile phones that had been "out of service." It seemed that by Saturday or Sunday, the exhaustion of the forces of repression would give us a break.
However, every authoritarian father knows that after the punishment, the child chooses total submission or greater disobedience. In some parts of Eastern Cuba there have been street protests against the arrests of activists and this has triggered a subsequent wave of the police deciding to "teach them a lesson." Yesterday a group of officials and agents from State Security raided the home of the opponent Jose Daniel Ferrer and took him, his wife and other colleagues. The also took possession of any object they considered destabilizing: books, magazine, photos, computers. None of the witnesses recall having been shown a search-and-seizure warrant, much less any document with the reasons for the arrests.
The despotic patriarch knows when he should clench his fist, when kneeling on rice, whips across the back, and shutting in the dark are no longer working. He is confident that the increasing severity of the corrective will make the nonconforming offspring see reason, but in reality it just makes his rebellion grow. Even those who have never dared to oppose the government, feel that these punishments -- ever more frequent -- generate sympathy for the attacked, not the attacker. Witnessing the repression thus accelerates the process of complicity among citizens against totalitarianism. Every beating they give to one, can awaken another who is pretending to sleep peacefully at his side. Together, they have the chance to find a window to escape the confinement or, instead, to come closer to the moment when they will throw Dad out of the house.
Yoani's blog, Generation Y, can be read here in English translation.
Translating Cuba is a compilation blog with Yoani and other Cuban bloggers in English.
Yoani's new book in English, Havana Real, can be ordered here.
Follow Yoani Sanchez on Twitter: www.twitter.com/yoanifromcuba
Yoani Sanchez: The Pope in Cuba: The Wind, the Sheep and the Shepherd
Anya Landau French: Judging Cuba's Cardinal Ortega and Pope Benedict's Trip to the Island
Luis Perez-Simon: Forgive Me Father for I Have Sinned: On Ideology and Governance in Cuba
Blake Fleetwood: Cuba Today: Can the Pope Turn Two Wrongs Into a Right?
Care to discuss the Catholic Church's current situation? Where hundreds of thousands of youths were sexually molested by priests, with the full backing and support of the current pope?
Also, if Cuba is so "totalitarian" — for not being dominated by American corporations, apparently — why is Yoani Sanchez allowed to run her propaganda with the blessing of the very US government that still thinks it owns the Cuban people? Where is the "totalitarianism"? She's obviously not interested in the reality of global politics, despises the popular movements of Latin America (see her writing on Chile and her lack of writing on Colombia). She runs PR for regime change in Cuba. Maybe she should move to Detroit and tell us more about the glories of the Free Market®.
Sánchez really should grow up, and, if she must criticise, perhaps a comprehensive examination of the reasons for such actions would be appropriate rather than wallowing in immature high school rhetoric.
The article talks of the repression (not the Church) after Pope’s visit….. this repression:
43 persons have been incarcerated after Pope’s visit only in Santiago de Cuba, reported the Spanish news agency EFE.
Cuban Human Rights Commission denounced that at least 25 persons were incarcerated in the rest of the country in the last days, among them Jose Daniel Ferrer and the Lady in White Belkis Castillo. Extremely violence was used in each case.
Sonia Garro, a Lady in White and member of Afro-Cuban Foundation, was jailed in Havana’s women prison, informed Cubanet. Afro-Cuban Foundation stated they are pacific freedom fighters but not masochists however they will reply each beat received of police or paramilitary.
At least 400 people were incarcerated or abducted during Pope’s visit to hinder them to participate in the masses.
20 freedom fighters were jailed with extremely violence in Palma Soriano streets while protesting for incarceration of a couple of comrades.
As an example, in Egypt, after last year's revolution, religious fanatics took over power and nobody in Egypt is happy about it.
After John Paul II supported democratic changes in Eastern and Central Europe, democracy arrived in form of splited apart countries, corruption, drugs and prostitution not to mention genocide in Balkan countries.
Why Cuban exiles in Miami and Yoani want Pope's involvement in Cuban internal politics is beyond my comprehension.
HAVANA – A Cuban opposition group reported Tuesday that at least 25 dissidents were arrested during a “wave of repression” in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba.
According to a communique released in Havana by the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, the political police and “other repressive forces of the regime” arrested peaceful opposition members, sometimes with “violence,” in the municipalities of Palma Soriano, Palmarito de Cauto and Santiago de Cuba.
Among those in custody are former “Group of 75” political prisoner Jose Daniel Ferrer and his wife Belkis Cantillo, leader of the Santiago chapter of the Ladies in White group, the note from commission spokesman Elizardo Sanchez said.
As a member of the Group of 75, Ferrer was freed on parole in March 2011 and was among the 12 members of the group that refused to accept exile in Spain as a condition for getting out of prison.
In recent months Ferrer has been detained briefly and released without charges several times.
CLICK LINK FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE!
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=487361&CategoryId=14510
The leader of the Ladies in White Berta Soler, who is also their spokesman on Tuesday April 3, from Havana, called upon "the organizations defending human rights, democratic governments and public opinion, to take urgent action stop the brutality of the Cuban regime against pro-democracy activists. "
"About two dozen peaceful opponents, including former prisoner of conscience José Daniel Ferrer and the representative of our group in the east, Belkis Cantillo, were arrested (Monday April 2), by the political and normal police force in the province of Santiago de Cuba, specifically in the towns of Palma Soriano, Palmarito de Cauto and the provincial capital Santiago de Cuba, "said Soler. "The homes of several activists were raided, looted and damaged by the repressive forces."
"In recent months Raul Castro's regime has increased the threats and arbitrary detention against us and against all those fighting for our country to establish a democratic government. The security agents of the state are trying to intimidate us by warning women that will be carried high prison sentences, "she added.
"We call for an international solidarity by the leaders of all countries to condemn the savagery of a regime that in its last throes beaten, harasses and imprisons without mercy defenseless women and defenders of human rights and democracy," concluded Soler.
http://www.solidaridadcuba.org/media/noticias/berta-soler-pide-apoyo-a-la-comunidad-internacional-ante-brutalidad-del-regimen-cubano/
Perhaps repressive governments bring out the best in people in spite of themselves.