Yoani Sanchez Warns of Her Possible Impending Arrest (Translation)

   

Yoani Sanchez

I do not think I need to put much of an introduction up here, but the treasured Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, this year's winner of the Ortega y Gasset prize for digital journalism, has posted an entry at her Generación Y blog warning that she has been threatened with action by the Castro regime.

I simply will post the translation:


5-16-2008

Complaint-Plea-Confession
Written by Yoani Sanchez in Generación Y

They are warning me that "my case" is lying on the table in some office.  A file full of evidence of offenses committed, a bulky dossier of illegalities that I have accumulated in these years.  Neighbors insinuate that I disguise myself with sunglasses and disconnect the phone when I wish to speak of something in private.  Little, very little -- they are making clear to me -- can now be done so that they do not knock on my door very early one morning.

In expectation of this, I want to point out that I do not keep weapons under the bed.  Nevertheless, I have committed a systematic and heinous crime:  I thought myself free.  Nor do I have a concrete plan to change things, but in me complaining has replaced triumphalism and -- definitely -- that is punishable.  I could never slap anyone, but I refused to accept my systematic smacking "I am civil."  This last thing is reprehensible to an extreme degree.  On top of that, and despite not having pilfered anything belonging to others, I have wanted to "steal" -- on repeated occasions -- what I believed belonged to me:  an island, its dreams, its legacies.

They do not trust me anymore; I am not entirely innocent.  I have brought a mountain of misdeeds upon myself:  I systematically purchased on the black market, I commented in a low voice -- and in critical terms -- about those who govern us, I have given nicknames to politicians and I have shared in pessimism.  Above all, I committed the heinous offense of believing in a future without "them" and in a version of history different from what I was taught.  I repeated the slogans without conviction, I washed the dirty rags in sight of all and -- a huge transgression -- I joined together words and phrases without permission.

I declare -- and I assume the punishment that comes to me -- I was not able to survive and comply with all applicable laws at the same time.

Yoani Sanchez