Yoani in Wonderland

The visit of Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez to Brazil took on a much larger dimension than it should have – but which, of course, would have occurred anyway due to the political and ideological use that sectors of the major national press would make of her image and ideas, even without the facts that contributed to increasing her public exposure.

The events that increased Yoani's exposure are the protests against her presence in our country, nothing that doesn't happen in many other countries when they receive visits from so-called "important" people.

However, the Cuban leader is not one of those US presidents or powerful international bankers who remain inaccessible to dialogue, leaving those who disagree with them with the sole alternative of protesting.

It cannot be ignored, however, that the outcry against someone who, whether funded by foreign powers or corporations or not, is simply a blogger expressing her ideas, was surely excessive.

Yoani must be everything they say she is. She does, in fact, maintain relations with the U.S. State Department, fabricates – until proven otherwise – physical assaults she claims to have suffered at the hands of her country's government, and receives enormous sums from foreign political groups to accuse a "dictatorship" that allows her to travel the world denouncing it...

However, the opposing protesters naively chose her field to fight on. Yoani bases her international success on the victim role she forged, that of a young woman with a sweet appearance and immense courage to confront a cruel dictatorship.

Nothing could be more convenient than showing up, alone or with one or two others, being insulted by seemingly angry people in a group.

Yoani must be very happy. The videos already recorded about what they did to her in terms of moral embarrassment – ​​and, what's worse, only with slogans instead of arguments – will certainly serve her well in other opportunities.

Below is one of those moments when her critics had the opportunity to make her answer questions and wasted it, allowing her a perfunctory and falsely democratic speech.

The blogger's discourse in response to this type of action against her was reinforced. She said that she prefers the cheers of democracy to the silence of a dictatorship that provided her with the means to study, to graduate, to acquire culture, to even live abroad, to welcome her back, and, in the end, to also allow her to now go out into the world accusing her country.

The Cuban visitor, by the way, has been praising our country a lot, saying that she wishes Cuba were the same. After all, here, in Yoani's Wonderland, there is freedom of speech, new cars, and fast internet.

Unfortunately, in a few days the young woman will leave Brazil without seeing another side of it, which, if presented to her along with a question about whether there is a similar situation in the "dictatorship" she denounces, would certainly make her reflect that perhaps this country is not so much better than hers and, in many aspects, that it may even be worse.

In recent days, the worn-out Cold War debate about Cuba has been pointing out how it's better to live here than there because we have fast internet, new cars, shopping malls full of all kinds of expensive trinkets that many, today – and only today – can afford to buy, but that a huge part of this population doesn't even know what they are.

A less superficial view of our consumer society, as opposed to the "socialist hell" that Yoani speaks of, is therefore necessary.

I wonder if it wouldn't have been better if the protesters against her had respectfully proposed a public debate instead of making her listen to their long speeches, slogans, and insults while, with a serene, democratic smile and an air of "They don't know what they're saying," she listened to it all.

They could, for example, have shown a sequence of images of our "wonderland" and asked Yoani if ​​the social misfortunes she would see exist in Cuba, and if fast internet and new cars compensate for the legions of children on the streets using drugs and prostituting themselves, a public health system that robs the people of their dignity, an education system that educates no one, and all this under an ongoing civil war, with the same death toll as any declared war.

Below are some images of the situation produced by capitalism that Yoani wants to see in her country and which, for sure, would produce similar scenes in a short time if it were implemented there. Then perhaps she would reflect that, to avoid this hell in her country, the lack of supply of superfluous consumer goods is a small price to pay.