Thursday, May 14, 2009

The not so world wide web

Unfortunately, Raul Castro is once again taking away more freedom (if that is possible) from the Cuban people. The already limited access to the internet has been scaled back even further. They can now no longer buy "internet time" at the hotels. It is only for the tourists. And our President wants to open communication with this kind of government? I'm all for helping the Cuban people but I think the way to do it is to make more people aware of the life (or lack there of) that people have there.
A few days ago she posted this on her blog:
I have gone a couple of days without connecting to the Internet, because a new complication has appeared in the road of alternative bloggers. Several hotels in the country demand, in order to connect to the web, that you prove a life in a place outside the Cuban archipelago. The desk clerks tell me—even though they are just as native as I am—that that blue card will not allow me to dive into the vast World Wide Web. “It’s a decision that comes from above,” a woman says to me, as if a decision of this type could be taken at a level other than the offices of the government.
I see it will be hard to change myself into a foreigner overnight. So the only thing left is to protest against such a ban and to make public the existence of a new apartheid. I will have to go back in the guise of a tourist, although this time I will have to learn a language as complicated as Hungarian to fool those who sell the access cards. Maybe I can prowl around the hotels, ready to ask the foreigners to buy—for me—this forbidden entrance key, this safe conduct I need “to not be Cuban.”

Her and her husband went to see for themselves if they could get on the internet. If you click on the link there is a video on Yoani's blog that will explain way better than I can what I am talking about. It is the second post.

2 comments:

J-Dub said...

What is so amazing to me is that the people of Cuba have been putting up with this type of government for decades! I am surprised that there has not been a coup or assassination yet.

How much longer are these people, or other government for that matter, going to allow this?

Summer said...

That is insane...So glad you brought this to my attention. To be completely closed off from the world without the internet these days is like living in the dark ages. How sad...