18 Oct Generación Y

A few months ago, a friend and I spent a week in Cuba—not the usual Canadian stay in a beachside resort, but a week spent tramping the streets of Havana seeking out baseball games, opera, and the wonderful music that is the island nation’s rightful trademark.

We enjoyed the music and the weather, but the overwhelming impression was depressing: grinding poverty, decayed buildings, and the leaden air of a police state.

Last week, Yoani Sánchez, a 34-year-old Cuban writer, editor, and linguistics scholar, won the Columbia University’s Maria Moors Cabot Prize for journalism that advances inter-American understanding. Cuban authorities exercise tight control over Internet access, but Sánchez somehow manages to write a critical blog, Generación Y (also available in an English version), cataloging with wit and grace the spirit-crushing quality of life under totalitarianism.

The Cuban government refused Sánchez’s request for permission to travel to New York for the award ceremony, but she managed to post a YouTube video of her acceptance speech.  She also recounted her conversation with the functionary who denied her request for an exit visa. Moneyquote:

Clerk: At this time you cannot travel.

Yoani: Why don’t you want me to put one foot on a plane? What are you afraid of? What can this 110 pound person do? Create a tsunami? Why then won’t you let me leave the country?

Clerk: I already told you…

Yoani: You are being ridiculous. But no, I don’t want to repeat. You are making a travesty of life. This institution, that you represent, this permission to leave, some day this is going to end. My grandchildren are not going to live under these conditions. When I tell them the story of how the institutions of my country violated my rights, my right to travel, they’re not going to believe me. What will you tell your children? That you dedicated yourself to violating the rights of Cubans? Is that what you’ll say? Because really, I feel sorry for you for what you are going to have to tell your children in the future.