Pushing the Boundaries of Free Speech in Cuba

Pushing the Boundaries of Free Speech in Cuba
By ERNESTO LONDOÑO MARCH 7, 2016

In the past, when a Cuban athlete vanished during a sporting event
abroad, news about the defection would spread by word of mouth back
home. There would be no official acknowledgment or mention in the
state-run press.

Not so with the recent defection of star baseball players and brothers
Yulieski Gourriel and Lourdes Gourriel Jr. — an episode that illustrates
how citizens in the most repressive country in the hemisphere are
increasingly pushing the boundaries of free speech.

The Communist Party's newspaper, Granma, published a brief article on
Feb. 8 criticizing the brothers for "surrendering to the mercenaries" of
for-profit professional baseball. Then, something remarkable happened.
Regional newspapers, which are also state-run, published pieces that
provided a detailed account of the escape and dared to lament the dismal
state of the country's revered baseball league.

"Cuban baseball has reached a point where the only things that create a
stir are defections, brawls and abrupt resignations," a writer charged
in an opinion article published late last month in the newspaper Vanguardia.

It was not an isolated case. Since the United States started normalizing
relations with Havana in late 2014, Cubans have begun to debate
once-taboo subjects and criticize their government more boldly.

American critics of the Obama administration's rapprochement with Cuba
have called the shift in policy a failure by focusing on how rigid the
socialist government has remained. They're missing something important:
The new relationship has done much to diminish the culture of fear and
obedience the state has long used to control its citizens. For years,
those who criticized the government paid a high price and were branded
as traitors, but today Cubans from a broader cross-section of society
are speaking out with less fear.

A youth group led by bloggers recently began a round of town hall
meetings at universities around the country to debate the political
future of an island that has been ruled by two autocratic brothers since
1959 and the continuing exodus of young people. Harold Cárdenas, one of
the leaders of the group, known as Young Cuba, recently lamented the
lack of political enthusiasm among his contemporaries. "Has Cuban youth
become apolitical?" he wrote in a post. "Or is it that the current
alternatives are unappealing?
Continue reading the main story
Sign Up for the Opinion Today Newsletter

That is a veiled but sharp criticism of Cuba's graying and increasingly
unseen leaders by Mr. Cárdenas, who has close ties to the progressive
wing of the government. Taking that sort of euphemistic shot at the
state in Cuba is not so unusual, but some Cubans have gone even further.

Last October, the state-run newspaper Tribuna published an article that
mockingly made allusions to the extravagant trips Antonio Castro, the
son of former President Fidel Castro, took to Turkey and the United
States. Last year, gay rights advocates demanded in an article published
in a blog on Cuba's state-run blog platform that the current president
apologize for the abusive treatment of gay men during the early years of
the Cuban revolution.

The government's only response was to censor the blog post, which
nonetheless was shared widely.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/07/opinion/pushing-the-boundaries-of-free-speech-in-cuba.html?_r=0