The famous Cuban bloggers

By Jesús Arboleya Cervera

The Cuban bloggers are the world’s most famous. I refer to the “dissidents,” of course, because the first idea that they try to convey is that there are no others.

The reason for such fame should not be sought in the quality of their sites, their literary talent, or cultural baggage. Not even in the chance that they may be particularly savvy political analysts or in the sagacity of their criticism of the Cuban government.

The truth is that whatever they write is not interesting. The information they transmit is not the news. The news is they themselves and the objective is to make us believe that they constitute a faithful reflection of Cuban society today.

One would have to be very naive not to realize that behind the fabulous awards they receive and the attention they get are the hands of powerful political interests. All you need to do is look at the U.S. government budget and you’ll have an idea of how much the Cuban dissident bloggers are worth and who bankrolls them.

Seen in terms of history, that phenomenon reflects the inability of the Cuban counter-revolution to generate movements with a broad popular spectrum. From the hoped-for “generalized revolts” promoted by Kennedy to justifyU.S. military intervention we have come to the “lone bloggers” installed in the virtual space, because they have no other.

The Internet has meant a tremendous step forward for communication among people, but it still hasn’t consolidated as a decisive space in the shaping of public opinion. Like the sea, it’s useful for transportation, but we run the risk of drowning if we don’t travel in the right vessel.

For the shaping of public opinion, other mass media continue to be fundamental, such as the press, radio, the cinema and particularly television.

It is a logic that works like a funnel, where the important thing is not to control the entire flow of nourishment (which is why the Internet can be relatively free) but to control what emerges from the narrow end, which is what impacts society the most.

So it is that, while millions of people flood the Internet with their opinions, even though we barely know of their existence, three of four Cuban dissidents become a media phenomenon thanks to the big transnational information networks, ready to turn into renowned spokesmen people whose pronouncements matter not at all.

The stage setting is important for the fabrication of news and that’s where the specialized agencies and other organizations of social control are involved. But that wouldn’t have the current impact if it weren’t because of the ability of these informative media to “build realities,” which places us in a particularly sensitive terrain of today’s political struggle.

Weakened in other fields, U.S. hegemony is still very solid in the area of cultural influence and the control of the international information media, so the problem is not limited to the possibility of expressing oneself but to the ability to listen and be listened to.

While that asymmetry of resources exists, freedom of information is a myth and its emphatic defense becomes a trap to make us function under the system of domination.

Evidently we have to defend ourselves, but how? Any answer seems to contribute to the celebrity that needs to be avoided. A refutation validates these people. If we ignore them, we confirm them. If we repress them, we empower them, and if they’re not repressed they’re empowered just as well.

Placed in this context, it would seem that only the cultural development of a well-informed individual is an antidote to the venom of bloggerized propaganda.

Jesús Arboleya Cervera is a writer and professor of history.