Meditations on the twists and turns of a poll

From
Havana                                                                          Read Spanish Version

Meditations
on the twists and turns of a poll

By
Manuel Alberto Ramy

Every
day, I read different Cuban and foreign newspapers on the Internet.
The Spanish daily El País is one paper I read, not only
because of its coverage of soccer, which I love, but also because it
reflects diverse opinions that interest me.

On
Friday the 25th, at 9:33 a.m., as I looked at its Page One, I saw one
of those polls that, although they lack scientific value, are
conducted by almost all the media. It’s a way to take the pulse of
interesting subjects. This one dealt with today’s Cuba and asked: "Do
you think that Cuba is going through some liberalization under Raúl
Castro?"

At
that hour of the morning, 66 percent of the 8,515 respondents had
voted YES; 34 percent had voted NO.

The
people who participate in that type of survey in any part of the
world are people with motivation and some degree of information (or
disinformation), depending on their sources of news, which generally
match the medium that poses the questions.

As
it happens, El País is not complacent with the government in
Havana. In essence, it links changes in Cuba to a political aperture
and raises the bar as it does so. However, it works with greater
intelligence than that shown by other media, many of them in the
United States. Its economic and political militancy is clear, but it
does not prevent it from practicing a calculated and technical
balance. And it is precisely the "balance," I repeat,
calculated and technical, that El Nuevo Herald of Miami cannot
replicate.

El
Nuevo is as definitely militant as Granma, the official newspaper of
the Communist Party of Cuba, with the difference that the latter says
clearly what it is. In other words, Granma does not deceive the
reader. El Nuevo does so in practice through the uniformity of its
content, except for the content of some of its blogs. Those blogs
could become editorial policy in years to come.

Secondly,
if El Nuevo opened itself to a balanced presentation, the results
would send it in a direction unpalatable to the interests it
currently represents. It would fail to achieve its objective of
homogenizing thoughts and attitudes "for the liberation of the
island," and would lose its material support, which is not the
same as the first objective but comes out the same.

In
Miami, the consumers of information and opinion have changed
significantly, so much so that they have some of the federal
Congresspeople on the brink of the abyss. Why do you think that
today, a few months from the Congressional elections, House Bill 671
is about to pass the Florida Legislature?

In
connection with this Florida bill, explained last week by Francisco
Aruca in an interview with Álvaro Fernández, editor of
Progreso Weekly/Semanal, I went to Terminal 2 of the Havana airport
to poll travelers arriving from the United States.

My
initial question was, "Do you know what HB-671 is?" The
general response was NO. I insisted, with additional prompting:
"Could it be a new product to save fuel consumption in your
car?" "Is it a rejuvenating pharmaceutical product?"
Nobody knew.

I
was tempted to explain that it is a bill introduced by state
representative David Rivera, whose objective is political, looking
toward the November election, and whose consequences would be paid by
Cuban families in Florida and here. I could have said that it is a
formal instrument to gradually eliminate the travel agencies that
facilitate contact with the island. But I abstained, because it was
not the right time to say it — and it was not consistent with my
role as interviewer.

I
wonder: if the public were clearly told about the content of that
bill and its consequences, what would happen? The basic problem is
not the agencies, because they are already under federal supervision
from the U.S. Treasury Department, the entity in charge of such
affairs.

Why
isn’t a serious analysis made about the subject? The simple answer is
that when you pull the thread you untangle the skein, the real
motives, the twists and turns, and by doing so you would reveal the
fact that the agencies and airlines — which act legally and can be,
and are, investigated by the Treasury Department — are just a decoy.
The actual targets are you, the traveler, and the family reunions. If
this were explained calmly and objectively, with pros and cons, then
it would be worthwhile to imitate El País by conducting a poll
with that question.

To
a degree, the instrument is aimed at the Congressional elections next
November. The forecast is not good for the trio composed of the
Díaz-Balart brothers and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Their opponents
in the Democratic Party, who support a lifting of the restrictions on
family travel and cash remittances, could unseat at least one of
them, maybe all three.

If
we take into account the changes that have happened in the current
composition of Cuban emigration, where contact with the family and
support for it are the top priority, we can understand why people
wrap themselves in the flag of the alleged "liberation of Cuba"
as an argument of social compulsion.

Finally,
some questions for the reader to ponder. Why, if the Treasury
Department has already inspected, monitored and controlled travel
agencies and airlines, does someone introduce HB-671 in the Florida
legislature? Did people in the highest circles of government give the
dirty work to "those little Cubans" to deflect the blame
for the barbarity they wanted to commit?

The
situation reminds me of Pontius Pilate: those people wash their hands
by handing over the decision to others who are willing to crucify
human beings and our most precious possessions: our families, friends
and the nation we carry in our hearts.

Manuel
Alberto Ramy is Havana bureau chief of Radio Progreso Alternativa and
editor of Progreso Semanal, the Spanish-language version of Progreso
Weekly.