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FROM
CUBA
One
to go; the politics of free expression in
Cuba
SANTA CLARA, Cuba, December 16 (www.cubanet.org)
- Cubans sometimes find very imaginative
ways to circumvent their government's restrictions
on freedom of expression.
Take for instance the fans' cheers at last
Sunday's baseball game at the Sandino stadium
in Santa Clara; they were ostensibly about
the game, but they were really about saying
in public what cannot be said in public.
Not in Cuba, anyway.
The game was between the local Santa Clara
team and visiting Sancti Spíritus,
the time was just after news of Saddam Hussein's
capture had spread through the city. A group
of youthful fans set up a standing cheer:
every time the local team made an out, they
would cheer "one less."
Towards the end of the game, the youths
changed the refrain to "three to go,"
then "two to go," and finally,
"one to go, and that's the most important
one."
Presumably, they were cheering the home
team. But after the game, I approached some
of them, and one frankly explained: "Well,
Man, one is Bin Laden, the other is Mullah
Omar, and the most important one, you can
guess; I'm only going to give you a running
start. He has supported all terrorist groups
in Latin American and the ETA [Basque separatists],
he has sent many to the firing wall, has
been blaming the Americans for everything
for 45 years, and he has you eating dirt
through the ration book."
The news of Saddam's capture in Baghdad
had been spreading through the city since
morning, although the official National
TV broadcast did not carry it until the
afternoon, and then buried it behind a segment
on the Iraqi resistance. The news itself
was given vaguely, as a "report of
the presumed capture of Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein" and then an editorial comment
saying the news could be speculation on
the part of the American command for electoral
purposes.
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