Fernando Ravsberg

Last week, Juventud Rebelde newspaper published a story that denounced the bureaucratic hurdles that journalists had to jump over just to be able to do a simple report about the Coppelia ice-cream parlor, a true icon in Havana.

Sending thousands of teenagers to teach the illiterate how to read and write was the first stone laid in the foundations of the largest industry created by the Cuban Revolution, Education. However, for more than two decades now, the foundations of this industry have been weakening.

It’s better not to crash your car in Cuba but, if you do have an accident, let it at least be with a private citizen because if you crash into a State company vehicle, you’ll have to go to the Provincial Court in Havana and then…

Third world countries, Cuba included, are like poor families that need to have their priorities straight so that they can wisely distribute their small budgets. They can’t have everything and sometimes an Olympic medal costs more than its weight in gold to get a hold of.

The campaign is becoming a bit too extreme. The vice-president of the Cuban Journalists Association, Aixa Hevia, proposes, in not a very subtle way, that the Cuban government throw me out of the country because my journalism makes “decent” Cuban citizens feel uncomfortable.

Those who punish journalists for publishing the truth promote lies, shams and double standards. They’ve taken away the Cuban people’s right to access true information, which makes it easy to manipulate them.

Even today, many Cubans still define themselves as fidelistas in spite of political stagnation which is representative of so many years in power and so many economic mistakes such as the sugar harvest in 1970, declining cattle and agricultural production, nationalizing small businesses, non-payment of outstanding external debt or instituting two currencies.

In politics, there are many kinds of extremists, but the most despicable are those who go looking to earn merit, applying the orders that come from above with the utmost rigor. It doesn’t matter what the cost is at the expense of the population as long as they are able to climb the ladder to a better position.

The problem facing Cuban journalism goes far beyond censorship, it delves into a concept that makes the press a tool for politics and the journalists into ideological soldiers affiliated with one side or the other.