Yoani Sánchez and the censors of utopia

Two versions of the freedom to dream

By Enrique Ubieta Gómez

From Cubarte

I don’t know how to begin these reflections. I have just seen the premiere of “Nevertheless, it moves (…from Silvio Rodríguez)” a play performed by the La Colmenita troupe for teenagers and young people at the theater Orden Tercera del Convento de San Francisco in Old Havana. I know that it’s not time to write yet, that emotions must quieten. But I’ll share some impressions with you, because later I wish to speak about another show, not artistic at all, that I witnessed a few hours before the theatrical piece.

La Colmenita’s play refers directly to Galileo. It does so explicitly in the title and in some dialogue, and in a way refers to the work by Bertold Brecht that deals with the tragic ending of that extraordinary scientist. I remember that book affectionately; I read it avidly in my school years, something odd, because I used to despise obligatory lectures, and I enjoyed the stage version (by the Teatro Estudio, I think) many years ago.

But this is a different interpretation of the old dilemma; whether to save oneself from a punishment, from incomprehension or torture and death, as in the case of Galileo, in defense not of the truth but of faith, dreams, fantasy. To save oneself from the utopia of finding, building other possible worlds.

There will always be inquisitorial tribunals to decree in the name of God – or, paradoxically, of science or freedom – what the limits must be for fantasy, justice or knowledge. There will always be men and women with mutilated souls who grow alarmed at the “mad” dreams of their contemporaries, not because they mistrust the veracity or the fairness of those cosmic raptures but because of a simpler and more conventional reason: because they need to preserve the “normalcy” of their lives.

Cremata’s work relies on the music (and the lyrics) of Silvio Rodríguez. It couldn’t have a better handle. Returning home, I thought that fantasy, dreams, faith in mankind, faith in the possibility of the impossible, are the distinctive features of revolutionaries. Revolutions are produced when the dams that contain dreams break down, when hopes overflow. That’s why conservative spirits feel uncomfortable, become exhausted by the eternal navigation through uncharted seas in search of utopias.

And I recalled the spectacle that I witnessed that afternoon during the by-now-habitual debates sponsored by the magazine Temas. The topic this time was to be the Internet.

I arrived a bit late, after the panel of experts had begun its presentation. I suddenly found myself behind the building’s outer fence, next to a group of young and not-so-young people, among whom I saw the same old cyber-politicians, carrying movie and still cameras, who, like me, had been unable to enter.

Among those trying to push their way in I saw some Colombian students who handed us copies of a rustic and combative magazine. Like all university students, they seemed a bit crazy, and it is evident that they dream of transforming the world. That’s the reason why the magazine deals with international topics (the right of the Palestine people to the land and peace, for example; the hunger of poor people) and domestic issues (the repression of Colombia’s capitalist state.)

I then assumed that it was a good time to hand out some copies of La Calle del Medio, which I carried in my backpack. I almost went home, but finally they allowed most of the latecomers to enter.

Many cyber-politicians walked in with me. They dress like the Colombian university students, with that studied insouciance that combines hippy airs and intellectual poses, all in designer clothes. They look like French students from the 1960s. But there’s something strange. Yoss spoke on their behalf and described them as ordinary Cubans you see on the street. A nice, fashionable phrase. Yet, they carry with them sophisticated video and still cameras and satellite cell phones. They post personal blogs on the Internet.

They are young people graduated from Cuban universities who are tired of so much sacrifice. They want us to stop dreaming. Although they seem to come from the 1960s, they act more like French kids of the 1990s. They don’t write on the walls “we are realists, let us do the impossible.” They are not realists, they are pragmatics. Their rebelliousness consists in repudiating, in cursing rebelliousness.

They are rebels who, oddly, are sponsored by the system that fears rebelliousness the most. They look like “daddy’s little children,” no matter what the real origin of each. They are adoptive children of a faraway, solvent daddy who puts them on display and rewards as examples to be imitated. They want to be “normal” people. Normal people in the wealthy sectors of any other society, of course. Not normal in the slums of Rio, the hillsides of Caracas or the streets of the Bronx. They dress like 1960s revolutionaries and think like 1990s neoconservatives. They love Coca-Cola and fast food.

Someone whispered to me: “Look at Yoani in disguise.” Standing on a corner was Yoani Sánchez, wearing an ugly, dyed-blond wig, and a tight black dress. The cameras of her collaborators and probably the pen of some foreign correspondent will record the scene. While everyone laughed at her wig, the reporters will say that she went unnoticed.

But that detail is more significant. Replacing her habitual dress as a simple girl, that disguise better suited her hopes for comfortable leisure. Someone said that she had dressed as a German woman, and perhaps the comparison is more accurate in its ideological sense than its physical appearance.

Yoani’s real disguise is her daily appearance. When she was called by name and surname to speak, the media show reached a paroxysm. Standing before the microphone, she removed her wig with a farcical flourish, presumably to expose her identity. What did it matter what she said later? The traditional academic forum became the stage for a counter-revolutionary media show, the space for a sterile cyber-blabber. It was a third-rate show, but a show, nevertheless.

There are bureaucrats who are inquisitorial because they have no wings with which to fly. They can be easily recognized. They do harm, but you know they exist because in a human society there are all kinds of people and you can sort them out. These young “rebels” live in disguise, however. They are post-modern inquisitors. They talk against all dogmas, against those who cut off other people’s dreams, so they may eliminate Imagination, Hope, Faith.

They unashamedly display the dreams that are allowed: a house, a car, a good lifestyle. When they say that the Revolution restricts them, they don’t refer to a nonexistent desire to fly away; they mean that the Revolution does not allow them to do what they want to do: to make a lot of money, to have fun at private parties. They mean that the Revolution harasses them and urges them to fly away.

Yesterday afternoon, I did not understand it well, although I sensed it. But Cremata’s children made it clear to me, through the laughter, the tears and Silvio’s songs. The young people at the forum – and some older, elegant, sophisticated folks with them – constitute an obscure and unnoticed tribunal that, in the name of dreams, condemns the act of dreaming. In the name of Freedom, they want us to return to a period when dreams did not go beyond the space of a house.

Yesterday was the inaugural day of the Havana Theater Festival. Almost by chance, two visions of the future faced each other, like art and farce: the vision that appeals to the freedom of spirit and the vision that does not transcend the limits of the body.