Cuba's Virtual Revoluciónista: Yoani Sánchez

by Jen Nedeau

categories: Global Feminism, Government, Media

Published October 21, 2009 @ 12:18PM PT

The latest target of Cuba's totalitarian government is Yoani Sánchez, a 34-year-old Cuban writer, editor and linguistics scholar. Last week, she became the first blogger to win a Maria Moors Cabot Prize given by Columbia University for journalism, but she was unable to be attend the awards ceremony due to the fact that the Cuban government wouldn't let her out of the country.

"We're going to keep trying to get her to come here for a few days. It's very difficult to tell who to talk to about it because the leadership of Cuba is so old, they probably don't even know what a blog is - we don't know where to apply pressure," said Josh Friedman, the Director of the Maria Moors Cabot Prize in an interview with Change.org.

Her two-year-old blog, called Generación Y, is filled with personal observations and social commentary from Havana, Cuba. It is some of the most vivid writing I have read about what is actually happening on the communist controlled island and I think it is really inspiring that a female writer has been able to speak out not only for herself, but an entire country through the use of the social web.

Take a look at this recent post:

"How do you shout on Twitter?" That was one of the first messages I sent to explore the potential to express myself in one hundred and forty characters.

Today I have to ask: How do you sing the anthem mobilized by a people on the net, how do you broadcast this desire for change that I see in every one of the faces around me. Before, it was accomplished with the sound of bugles, galloping horses and some stanzas that summoned the Bayamese* to "die for the fatherland"; but now everything is different.

It occurs to me to use kilobytes, to take advantage of the cutting edge of a word that is also sharp and makes precepts grow more durable than the machete. Travel the net, then, the five points of this blog action, like the call to slaughter against control, authoritarianism and censorship:

• Freedom of opinion
• Freedom of access to the Internet
• Freedom to enter and leave Cuba
• Freedom of association
• Freedom for prisoners of conscience
• Freedom for Cuba

According to the New York Times report,  Sánchez's blog now gets more than 14 million page views a month, and routinely receives thousands of comments. However, most of Sánchez's audience exists outside of Cuba as the government blocks the site from distribution on the island.

In an interview, Sánchez said she sees the Cabot Award as a means to "protect" her from the Cuban governments criticism and that it also "validates the new phenomenon of the alternative Internet blogosphere", which I totally agree with:

The fundamental protection it has given me is because it shines a bright light upon me and upon all those who are utilizing the infrastructure of the Internet to express different opinions and critiques about the Cuban reality. In general, the prize does not give me a total immunity, but it is a kind of protective umbrella that allows me to continue a bit further. I am going to take full advantage of the protection that it gives me, and I am going to try to use this protective umbrella to cover other bloggers that may need it as well.

So far this year we've seen several female journalists captured for trying to disseminate truthful information. From Roxana Saberi to Euna Lee and Laura Ling, it is all to often we see women in the media persecuted for pursuing truth and justice - we can only hope that the Cuban government doesn't go to extremes in order to keep Sánchez from publishing her blog.

The most we can do right now for Sánchez is to raise awareness about her story here in the United States.  Recently, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand voiced her support of  Sánchez and asked the Cuban government to allow her to leave the country in order to receive her award. It is my hope that with added political pressure she can come to the U.S. to claim her award and be able to return to Cuba peacefully in order to continue blogging without threats or interruption from the Cuban government.