"Tell Yoani to Shut Up"

Orlando Luis Pardo and Yoani Sanchez in Havana, 4 days after they were kidnapped and beaten by plain clothes security agents.

Yoani's shirt says, "Don't hit me, I'm just a blogger"
Photo: Fotos Desde Cuba

Note: This prose-poem guest column was written by Orlando Luis Pardo who was kidnapped and beaten together with me on the evening of November 6.

I never told her to shut up
by Orlando Luis Pardo
Havana, Cuba

Look at my neck.
It was nothing.
A belt of red spots from too much force by a teenage officer and a case of my bad coagulation.

Look at my neck in the jpg.
According to how you interpret it, it is insulting or interesting to tell.
In the beginning there was no Verbum, only Barbariem. Non-verbal violence pulse.

After today, walking in the Vedado neighbohood will be an extreme experience.
The Avenue of the Presidents will refer, now, to a post-princely prison.

Within seconds, Yoani and I had our arms twisted in a car imported from our Stepmother Country: China 
My head against the car's carpet, and Yoani with her feet in the air.
 I couldn't see her, identifying her only because she would not be quiet.


In seconds, I heard her scream with the vehemence of a being who is the freest person on the planet.


She had a Cuban man's knee nailed against her chest, and still she rebuked him.


From that energy I borrowed the strength to revive a bit my own voice.


They told me to tell Yoani to be quiet.
 That phrase, pronounced by three unknowns in the name of the Cuban State, sums up the obsolescence and obscenity of this country.


"Tell Yoani to shut up."
"Tell Yoani to shut up."
"Tell Yoani to shut up."

Despotically, they deposited us in a corner that I confused with the patio of a barracks.
 I was dizzy.
 I felt disgusted, I wanted to vomit. 
I could not move my neck.


I embraced Yoani (which I'd never done before).
 She began to sob. 
The greatest woman in Cuba seemed like a tiny girl of zero years.
 Because Yoani is that: the future of Cuba crystallized in a fragile and irrepressible body. 
I kissed her head. Her hair, pulled with such hate, smelled like freedom. 


Once. 
Twice. 
Ten. Uncountable times I kissed her ageless head.


But I never told her to shut up.

But I never told her to shut up.

But I never told her to shut up.

Orlando's neck Friday evening just after the kidnapping.

Orlando Luis Pardo's blog, Boring Home Utopics, won the prize for the Best Photography Blog in the recent Virtual Island blog contest.

 

Follow Yoani Sanchez on Twitter: www.twitter.com/yoanisanchez

Comments

[Balzac]

I want the details on this case.

[Ira7]

1) Go read her original blog on the incident.

2) Go read how the Castro regime responded --because they basically didn't, trying to make it invisible.

If you're insinuating this was orchestrated, that's gonna be a really tough sell, considering her talents and the Cuban issues she's exposed with them. This is one special lady with only beauty and love in her heart--not an opportunistic politician trying to make hay of a fake incident.

[VirginiaJeff]

Thank you for posting this, Yoani.

"I heard her scream with the vehemence of a being who is the freest person on the planet."

I love that line. It reminded me of an anecdote in one of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's books. He describes a woman who was being abucted by the secret police. Normally, he wrote, citizens who were grabbed went along quietly, like sheep. But this woman screamed loudly and fought back. The spooks, unnerved by her reaction, let her go and drove away quickly.

[Balzac]

Were they kidnapped at gun-point? How many kidnappers? I couldn't get the details because it was written as a love poem rather than an objective report.....

[Balzac]

Were they kidnapped at gun-point? How many kidnappers? I couldn't get the details because it was written as a love poem rather than an objective report...

[Balzac]

Were they kidnapped at gun-point? How many kidnappers? I couldn't get the details because it was written as a love poem rather than an objective report.

[Notrepublicrat]

This is very powerful stuff.

But, it's the kind of thing we almost only see on conservative web sites.

I wonder why that is the case. Why have human rights disappeared from the Democrat's agenda, leaving the field to the Republicans and their war-as-human-rights philosophy?

Why do so many so-called liberals support Cuba and Venezuela? I can understand being depressed at the state of US foreign policy, but to jump from that depression to respecting even worse abusers simply because they are opposed to the US seems juvenile, to me.

[HeavyDuty]

Someone gets mugged on the streets of Havana and all of the sudden it is used as a justification for US foreign policy.
Under the US led coup in Honduras, 168 people have been MURDERED in the last 4 months and not a single line has been printed in the US paid for press.
The US sponsored narcogovernment of Colombia has been murdering peasants, journalists, union activists and the political opposition for the last 50 years and somehow they are more 'democratic' than the government of Venezuela where not a SINGLE person has ever been abused by security forces.
Medical equipment necessary for the treatment of children in Cuba is denied by the US government and yet, some people are stupid enough to believe US government propaganda.
I wonder what Ms. Sanchez's position is on these issues. Will she ever blog about it ?

[OldSchoolLiberal]

To critique human rights honestly as it exists around the world would force a re-evaluation of basic multicultural proofs, and simple paradigm of us bad them good.

[lrubemp]

No, it's not. This is the standard sensational accusation, with highly questionable "evidence", that has been served up by anti-Cuba exiles for decades now. Nothing is corroborated, no independent witness is consulted, we are expected only to accept what the accusers say is true.

It also highlights the shallow and gossipy character of these self-styled "dissidents". What, exactly, does Yoani, a comfortable, well-financed woman from Europe, want in Cuba? She never says. She only rants on about imagined abuses without saying a word about what she's for.

One however, can assume she thinks the glories of US capitalism -- with its brutal private health system, mass incarceration of poor and working class folks, environmental destruction, decaying educational system, chronic and long-term unemployment, endemic and reactionary violence, a dumbed-down and pornographic mass culture, all maintained by a capitalist dictatorship dressed up as "democracy," are things Cubans should aspire to.

If so, she has good reason to keep us all in the dark.

[VirginiaJeff]

Weak, Iru.

[Notrepublicrat]

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that the author is lying?

I hadn't thought of that. Could be. We are often lied to by the MSM - the propaganda arm of the government.

I agree with your comments on the US, but I'm not sure how they relate to Yoani's claims.

[Nicholas Roy]

No good deed goes unpunished unfortunately. Their violence vindicates your every word.

[nolabels]

I am sorry for your pain but I thank you for sharing.

[martinfrosa]

Michael Moore - you got some 'splaining to do!

[bajed]

Where is Sean Penn and Alec Baldwin when you need him?