Cuba: A Census in ‘Sotto Voce’

Cuba: A Census in 'Sotto Voce'
July 16, 2012
Dariela Aquique

HAVANA TIMES — A Census is the official lists of the inhabitants or
citizens of a state, as well as their assets or properties. A rather
unusual census is being carried out in Cuba right now, one in sotto voce
(a hushed voice).

It is one of the wildest things I've heard in recent times (keeping in
mind that wild things are commonplace on our island when it comes to
social issues). This census is seeking to survey the number of people
who have computers and cellphones.

Of course State Security has ordered that this "task" to be carried out
by the neighborhood Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs),
which will employ their usual strategies of gossiping and probing into
the lives of others through seemingly naive questions such as:

"Neighbor…does Jane Blow own a home computer?"

To which the response might be: "Yeah, brother, and her daughter has a
cellphone."

So, as if they don't want those things, they begin making lists or
providing such information through the so-called "appropriate channels"
(what a horrible phrase).

I think it might be easier to establish this control through the files
of Cubacel (the nation's only cellphone service provider), which has the
names of every individual who has ever had a cellphone contract.

Perhaps control over those people with PCs will prove more difficult,
given that most of them have acquired their machines on the black
market. This is because the government supply, in addition to being
woefully inadequate, is extremely expensive – considering the miserable
wages paid in this country.

This type of census — though no official information have been given
about it, and it's shrouded in terms that are almost subterranean — is
a response to the panic being experienced by the government, which feels
that the threat of inevitable collapse is hanging over its head.

The information revolution, cellphones and satellites are out of its
bounds of control. The proliferation of information has shortened
distances and accelerated analytical processes to speeds such that
immediacy has become a key operational factor.

To quote Faisel Iglesias from his article "Por una nueva concepción de
la Sociedad, el Estado y el Derecho cubanos" (For a New Conception of
Cuban Society, the State and Rights), published in the Hispanic cultural
journal Otro Lunes (January 2010), he says:

"A movement known as "new epistemology" or "alternative epistemology"
helped change the idea that until then was held by science and the
mechanisms that shaped it. This transition from one epoch to another is
also linked to a range of social, political and cultural factors that
have helped shape the times: the struggles for civil rights, for the
environment, etc."

This is known by the Cuban leadership, which is why they are so afraid
of technology and its use. This is why an explanation has never been
given about what really happened with the famous fiber-optic cable
linking Cuba to the world via Venezuela.

This is why most Cubans have no access to the Internet. And this is why
they appeal to resources so ignoble as neighborhood gossip to carry out
their underhanded census of those who do and don't own cellphones or PCs

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