HAPPY AT 90 MILES

image credit: International Society For Human Rights

The necessity of imprisoning one’s people because they are liable to emigrate en masse if given half a chance is nothing but a sad admittance of failure. All societies exercise some level of coercion over their citizens in order to ensure order, but the ultimate proof of tyranny is a closed border. It is a capitulation of faith, replaced by a grim certitude that people must be prevented from voting with their feet.

I came across a piece of East German propaganda that attacks the motivations of those who would want to leave the “worker’s paradise”. It is called “He Who Leaves the German Democratic Republic Joins the Warmongers”. This pamphlet was distributed in 1955. It is sad that so many years later Cubans still suffer under similarly tired slogans and laws.

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Less than 2% of the population in Cuba has access to the internet.

Reporters Without Borders online protest against Internet Censorship

There are real obstacles presented by economic limitations of the potential users and the U.S.embargo (lack of access to fiber optic cables limiting bandwith, although telecommunications technology is not part of the embargo). However, the fact remains that the Cuban government extends its severe censorship to the world wide web, undobtedly fearing its inherent openness.

Go to any bookstore in Cuba and check out the selection: The life of Che, Che’s diaries, Memories of Che, Fidel’s best speeches, The Open Veins of Latin America by Galeano and some works by Chomsky. There are other titles, conspicuously apolitical, but that about sums it up. Now imagine applying that kind of filtering to the internet. It’s hard, but the regime has managed through a couple of ways. Communications Minister Ramiro Valdes recently called the internet “A wild Colt (horse) that can and must be controlled.”

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Intrepid Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez has made an interesting observation about the emblem of the CDRs (Committees for the Defense of the Revolution), featuring a machete wielding Guajiro (peasant).

The guajiros’ hat can be seen as a big eye staring straight at you, which is the main job of these organizations. Practically every urban block in Cuba has a local CDR entrusted with keeping a vigilant eye out for enemies of the revolution among their neighbours. 135,000 CDR units form a vast repressive network in which people’s movements and words are closely documented. Whom you meet with and how often, if you skip the rallies, if you participate in the underground economy, there are many ways to gain the label of being “dangerous” The subjective term “Dangerousness” is defined in the Penal Code as a pre-delictive state in which individuals are seen as prone to act antisocially, against “Socialist Morality” It’s a in practice a legalized way to prosecute someone for their future crimes.

The impression of constant surveillance in an effective way of getting people to police themselves and each other, greatly assisting the State in maintaining control. Neighbours are encouraged to spy on one another and to fill out “Opinion Collection Forms” documenting the political opinions of others on the block. Informants are often rewarded with household appliances and other objects of desire if a denouncement results in prosecution. To prevent people from protecting each other, it is a crime not to report political crimes. Every person has a file assigned to them at the CDR, who passes it on to the police and Ministry of Interior should someone be singled out as “dangerous”

This oppressive system of surveillance invites comparisons to the Stasi in East Germany and Orwell’s Thought Police from “1984.” Thankfully, an insidious wave of disillusionment and political apathy appears to have weakened these organizations somewhat in recent years. In a country where so much is prohibited, from selling a car to associating with foreigners, you’ll have people breaking numerous laws everyday to survive, to get ahead, to maintain some dignity in life. When everyone’s a criminal it becomes harder to point fingers.

Below a video report on the repressive systems at work in Cuba.
Neighbourhood Vigilantes – Cuba

For those of you with sufficient time and interest, World Policy Institute has posted a thorough look of the repressive system in place in Cuba, with lots of documentation.

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As Graphic Novels have slowly moved into the public psyche as a legitimate literary form, it was only a matter of time that such a work earn a place on a sensor’s list as other books have for centuries.

To those who keep insisting that comics are just “funny-books”, disposable, infantile and not worthy of seriousness, should take note that one Mr. Saleh al Derbashy in Egypt does not think so.

Cited as an attorney in the article from The Nation (of Abu Dhabi, UAE) , Mr. al Derbashy must be well connected, because his lawsuit against Egypt’s first Graphic Novel, “METRO”, has resulted in the book’s confiscation by police and the arrest of its author and publisher on the charge of offending public morals. Magdy al Shafee’s book about disaffected young men in Cairo who plot a bank robbery, portrays a society in which poverty, greed and corruption prey on its inhabitants.

The book’s foe, Mr. al Derbashy, unwittingly formulates the strongest praise for the medium heard outside literary circles:

From The Nation:

( …) he acknowledged that he was particularly offended by the emotional potency of comic books – an artistic medium with which he said he is not familiar.
“It’s the first time pictures have been used like this in Egypt,” he said. “This would not attract any attention if it were written in the classical style and without pictures.”
Other Egyptian novels in modern Arabic, Mr al Derbashy said, portray sexual scenes and similar messages. But the stirring format of Metro, he said, renders it “dangerous”.
“You can finish this book in 10 minutes and get the message immediately,” he said. “The caricatures are much more effective in this book” than in classic Egyptian literature.

As in all cases of censorship, a court ruling for it creates millions of censors in people’s heads, silencing voices before they are heard. Here’s hoping Magdy al Shafee prevails in court and inspires other Egyptians to tell graphic stories of their reality without fear of retribution, knowing that the medium is strong enough to make the mighty tremble.

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