Where is Cuba moving under Little Brother?

Where is Cuba moving under Little Brother?
Posted by admin on 2008/4/20 8:00:00 (93 reads)
By Roger Hernandez

In an easterly direction. Decisions made by the Cuban government in
recent weeks suggest there is truth to the speculation that Raul Castro
is simpatico toward China's brand of Market-Leninism.

Slowly, quietly (don't want to wake up Big Brother), the Cuban
government has lifted some of the more ridiculous economic restrictions
beloved by Fidel. At the same time, it continues to crack down on free
expression, although in a more subtle way than when Fidel ran things.

New policies regarding technology encapsulate what's going on.
In March, the regime authorized the sale of electronic equipment like
small kitchen appliances and computers.

Yes, it is true: Up until the decree, it was illegal to just go out and
buy a toaster. If that old Sunbeam in your family since 1956 broke down,
you ate cold Cuban bread until assigned a replacement toaster. Ah, the
march of freedom.

Of course, a toaster is just a toaster. A computer, though, is a
dangerous thing. Like Information Minister Ramiro Valdes famously put it
last year, the Internet is "the wild colt of new technologies that has
to be tamed."

Not to worry about runaway horses. The change in policy was leaked to
Reuters and the Mexican news agency Notimex, but has yet to be mentioned
in Cuba's state-run media. Besides, few Cubans can afford to buy a
computer -- which the stores they are permitted to shop in don't have on
the shelves anyway.

Oh, well. Being able to buy a computer without worrying about legalities
is progress of a sort. It's the "Market" part of Market-Leninism.

The "Leninism" part comes in what you can do with it.

A 2006 report by Reporters Without Borders called Cuba "one of the
world's most backward countries as regards Internet usage," with "less
than 2 percent of the population online." Cuba's government, said the
report, "has more or less banned private Internet connections.

Internet policy has not changed since the report was issued. Still,
those scary wild, wild horses are dragging tech-savvy Cubans away from
the grasp of the Interior Ministry. People who manage to get online
download files to flash drives, which then circulate among friends and
friends of friends. Yoani Sanchez updates her blog by sneaking into
hotel cyber cafes, verboten to Cubans, pretending she is a tourist. You
can read her in Spanish at www.desdecuba.com/generaciony, and English at

www.desdecuba.com/generationy.

In the "Black Spring" of five years ago, 75 independent writers and
librarians were imprisoned for terms of more than 20 years. Some were
found guilty of having "published counter-revolutionary writings on an
Internet Web page."

It's a threat that hangs over Yoani Sanchez and other brave Cuban
bloggers. Will creeping Sinoization mean they get blocked instead of
thrown in jail?

Roger Hernandez is a syndicated columnist and writer-in-residence at New
Jersey Institute of Technology. His latest book is "Cubans in America"
(Kensington).

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