MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

The “morbid obsession” of Cuban censors to protect their perks

Jose Alejandro Rodriguez published the piece while censors were celebrating their day or is it a new healthy exercise of criticism?

An article published Sunday in the official Cuban daily Juventud Rebelde criticizes the “morbid obsession” and “paranoia” of some officials for censuring information and rejecting criticism by other officials in an attempt to maintain the image of the Castro ruled island or their own positions.

“The morbid obsession with protecting ‘the image’ of the country, the ministry, the company or the territory ... on occasion is paranoia about the fate of your position, your post and a few other trifles,” the article said.

The author of the piece, Jose Alejandro Rodriguez, says that it “is due to a widespread confusion that not just a few (people) have, perhaps without any bad intention: the problems (of the country, the ministry, the company or the territory) must not be discussed publicly, because they devalue the real conquests of the Revolution”.

“The most pernicious is that we confuse reality with wishes and, clinging to the noble paradigms of our society, we do not discover where, when and with what intensity the daily reality contradicts them. That could be the worst service to the Revolution,” adds the article.

“For a long time, there was much resistance in accepting that in our society the larvae of corruption were incubating. That was a bad word, as if it condemned us” said Rodriguez, who writes a daily column in that newspaper about the complaints of the public.

“Some have come to perceive the healthy exercise of criticism ... as an admission of weakness; like giving weapons to the enemy,” he continued.

“What it's certain is that the most dangerous missile we can offer to those who would like to dismantle a work of 50 years is silence, pretence, double standards, conformity, the deactivation of intransigence in the face of the evils that are incubating and developing before our eyes,” Rodriguez said.

What makes so extraordinary the article is that the state controls all media outlets in Cuba.

In related news Rogelio Polanco editor of Juventud Rebelde was designated as the new ambassador to Venezuela. The position was occupied during 15 years by sociologist Germán Sánchez.

As editor of one of the two state-run nationwide newspapers Polanco “has accomplished important missions linked to Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution” over the past five years, according to the statement published in the Cuban official newspaper Granma.

The political career of the new ambassador began with the Union of Young Communists (UJC), where he was a member of the National Bureau (1994-1998) and of its National Committee (1994-97).

Polanco is a member of the Cuban National Assembly and appears frequently in TV program “Mesa Redonda” (Round Table).