"The reason for this email is to denounce before national and international public opinion that I was the victim of repression by the communist regime of Cuba for exercising journalism committed to the letter and spirit of the thought of the Apostle José Martí." — Carlos Serpa Maceira, Cuban journalist.
Except for maybe the decaying dictator Fidel Castro, his baby brother Raúl and a murderer named Ché, no one gets more scorn from the right wing of the Cuban blogosphere than the American media. More than 50 years after Herbert Mathews got it wrong about the Castros, and after too-many-to-count sins of commission and omission by his successors, there is little trust by many bloggers in what my colleagues in the MSM are reporting during this very pivotal moment in Cuba's history.
It can be understood and even justified as a byproduct of their otherwise conservative politics, embittered by an antipathy inherited from parents and/or grandparents forced to leave their homes. The anger has been passed on and translated into an electronic version of shooting the messenger. Unfortunately, from CNN to the Miami Herald to the Associated Press, too often it is a target-rich environment.
However, that anger is also a big waste of time.
It would be more productive to spend less time blathering about stories and journalists that get it wrong, and more time researching and reporting the real stories of what is happening in Cuba today. (Similarly, a lot of bloggers dismiss Barack Obama as a socialist Manchurian candidate just because they disagree with his proposals about Cuba, even though I suspect many of them haven't actually studied what he has said and proposed.)
Sometimes it is necessary to refute the MSM, as they can go a long way shaping public misperception about Cuba. But the best way to do that is not with generic bashing of the "left-wing, Castro-loving media," but with the truth.
Spend less time getting mad at the fools, and more time standing up for the truth and those — like the Cuban independent journalist Carlos Serpa Maceira — who put at risk what little liberty they enjoy to rise above their own anger and disappointment to build a better world.
I wonder how many of my fellow Cuban bloggers know who Carlos Serpa is, but I confess I may have missed the mentions while reading for the umpteenth time a screed about the MSM or how Barack Obama will betray America. I suspect more know Serpa than they let on, unsure of whether they can trust a journalist or blogger able seemingly to defy the dictatorship in the open like Serpa does.
Or maybe they're just giving in to their bash-the-media instincts, even against someone who adheres so passionately to the journalistic precept of speaking truth to power.
Maybe I am not a fair judge of this, as advocacy for Cuba's independent journalists is a focus of this blog. You can NEVER write too much about these courageous men and women.
Their very safety depends on it.
Serpa is one of the better-connected members of the Cuban dissident press, a prolific contributor to Miscelaneas de Cuba, the online world's best outlet for work by Cuba's independent journalists. But that wasn't enough to protect him this week from Raúl Castro's secret police. Castro's agents early Friday morning grabbed Serpa out of his home in Havana and took him to a local police station.
There he was presented with an official document accusing him of "provocative and mercenary acts" on behalf of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. Specifically, the document stated Serpa was guilty of a "counter-revolutionary provocation" for his coverage of how Cuban police blocked a rally to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in China. It also cited his recent appearance on Radio Martí.
Serpa said he refused to sign the document, even after the officers threaten to send him to his home province of the Isle of Youth Isle of Pines, since he does not have official permission to be in Havana.
Serpa, a veteran of such tactics by the police, was not fazed by the harassment.
"I confirm that I will continue my work," Serpa wrote in an e-mail. "A journalist cannot remain silent about human rights violations that happen in Cuba. I am alerting organizations that defend freedom of the press and human rights, and people with a good faith commitment to liberty and democracy in Cuba of these repressive acts, which could end with imprisonment.
"They want to silence my voice."
If only some Serpa is reaching out to, would silence theirs so they could hear him and re-tell his stories, instead of worrying so much about journalists not as good as him.
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