To End Censorship

/ 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, If the mid-seventies I had thought
to tell Minerva Salado, then my chief editor at Cuba International
magazine, that in some forty years she would write a book titled
"Censorship of the Press in the Cuban Revolution," I would have caused
enormous problems for myself, only surpassed by that if I had predicted
to her my current status as an "unofficial" journalist.

Unveiling the framework of obscenities and subtleties that was woven
into the early years of the process called the Cuban Revolution in order
to implement strict censorship on the media is a very complex task; what
scholars would call "a multidisciplinary task." Minerva knows this, as a
writer, journalist and poet, so in the introduction she warns that her
efforts "will have to address the documentary research, personal
experience and memory of several generations of journalists and media."

The theme of this testimonial essay is the magazine Cuba International,
a medium that was designed to export a saccharine image of the country,
similar to other publications produced by all the members of the
so-called socialist camp.

To put makeup on the reality a team was formed where the reporters
wanted to be writers and the photographers artists, and it was precisely
in this situation that the contradiction arose between the militancy
that was intended and the quality demanded.

It will be very easy to rebut what is stated in this book, both from the
trenches of those who will call it a betrayal, probably paid for by the
empire, as well as by those who, from the opposite extreme, will read it
as a justification of the censorship imposed on the Cuban press. But
those who are looking for good arguments, irrefutable data and
convincing explanations will be grateful for its publication under the
imprint of Verbum Publishing in Madrid.

The book needed after this one is the one where someone tries to
demonstrate that in this last half century there has been no censorship
of the Cuban media, or where they at least try to justify it as a
necessary "loving gag." I already know that it will not be Minerva
Salado who will write that one.

Source: To End Censorship / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar – Translating
Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/to-end-censorship-14ymedio-reinaldo-escobar/