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(CLACI), Miami Dade College); La Madriguera
de Miami; and the Cuban Research Institute and
Green Library at Florida International University.
Sánder Álvarez examined precisely the subject of
the Cuban State’s monopoly and strict control of
information and new technologies in “Facing the
Challenge of New Technologies in Cuba: The Social and Cultural Price of Technological Monopoly.” In his critical analysis of the government’s
demagoguery in the way its ‘official’ experts deal
with the subject, Álvarez offers evidence of how
those in power, “now devoid of convincing arguments or reasoning—attempts to hold on to its
power and is successful, in great measure, by controlling information. This permits it to carry out
its policies through manipulation, concealment,
flagrant lies and self-interested silences.”
The digital divide situates Cuba among the
world’s most technologically backward countries; one can also assume that Cuban blacks are
the least favored in this reality. The author also
talks about all the independent alternatives Cubans have come up with to break this information
monopoly, an impediment that has not managed
to destroy Cubans’ desire to find new sources of
information, despite the repressive policies
against them and lack of resources with which to
find new forms of technological support.
Eleanor Calvo Cárdenas’ article “Cuban Youth
Face the Challenges of Their Era” focused on exposing the concrete problems that affect this important population group. It is subjected to an indoctrinating educational system whose goal it is
to eliminate young people’s creative participation
in all areas of social life and keep them from doing anything beyond just accepting the impossibility of changing the current system as the only
plausible solution to the problems affecting the

country—despite this position’s totally ludicrous
nature.
Repressive policies are applied to all who refuse
to be intimidated and seek new horizons with
which to realize their dreams and necessary social
integration. The government has imposed a climate of despair and frustration; its social consequences can put at risk not only the future of
Cuba’s young people, but also that of the nation
as a whole.
Fortunately, the number of young people who are
openly challenging the risks and cost of their contestatory attitude is growing more and more.
Guillermo Ordóñez Lizama’s work “Socio-Existential Crisis in Cuba” continues right along those
lines. It deals with society as a whole and all its
political, social, economic and cultural inequalities and aberrations, as well as their costly effects,
particularly in the black community. It is the
Afro-descendant population that has to deal with
its historical disadvantages, but that it is also subjected to a demagogical, emancipatory rhetoric,
and lacks a political will that instead of helping
make this better makes it worse.
Dr. Jorge Duany’s presentation of “Talking
About Race in Cuba” offered the possibility of
analyzing this problem from a historical perspective, starting with how the intellectual and governmental elite sees it, and explaining the real
consequences of how the State has handled it in
recent years. Of course, this is the very same State
that upon establishing itself announced its intention to rid the country of racism and discrimination. The inconsistency of the State’s rhetoric,
whose desire it was to win popular support while
not offering real measures to deal with the problem is evident in how the situation for blacks and
mestizos has worsened in every sense.

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