Oops
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008
by Will Cade
As my favorite Primus song goes, “Paranoia is a disease unto itself. And may I add that the person standing next to you may not be who they appear to be.” If you read my last blog, “La Bloguera,” I owe you an apology: My paranoia got the best of me.
Originally, I couldn’t find Yoani Sanchez’s blog, Generation Y, so I assumed that the Cuban Government had not only restricted her from coming to Spain to receive the Ortega and Gasset Award for Digital Journalism, but it had taken her website offline as well. After some serious, journalistic investigation, I discovered that I had actually typed in the wrong website. Ha… yea… my bad.
But I’ve found her blog today, and after reading a bit, I can see why Raul Castro doesn’t want this woman leaving the country: she reveals the inadequacies of the Cuban government with a sense of humor gentle enough to make you smile yet poignant enough to make you protest. Her honesty is literally transparent, being that she posted a digital copy of her Cuban ID card - identification number, thumb-print, and all.
Sanchez didn’t set out to become an activist blogger. At first she aspired to be a Spanish linguist. After a few years in the academic world, though, she grew tired of the abstract and ineffective (like so many that came before her) and decided to pursue technology. She became an I.T. specialist and eventually was reborn as La Bloguera, merging her areas of expertise in the most logical and effective way.
Her current profession is paying off. She is blogging in Spanish, English, and German about life under the Cuban Dictatorship, and her Spanish blogs are receiving up to 5,000 comments each, with her most recent recieving over 2,000 in under two days. She can still get the word out, even if she herself cannot.
If you’re hesitant to read her blog, expecting it to be filled with communist horror stories, fear not: Her writing style is more playful than philosophical. I once heard that a writer’s style is the candy coating that let’s you swallow the theme. It’s safe to say that after reading Yoani Sanchez, I’ve been popping back Genearation Y like a handful of skittles.