In a message dated 7/1/03 9:42:03 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
sdeleve@olemiss.edu writes:
>
> I apologize to my colleagues who don't like a lot of
> political foolishness on the list. I do think that our duty
> as citizens sometimes compels us to discuss things like
> this.
The poster is sadly misinformed on many issues. Defending intellectual
freedom can never be foolishness. And let's count our blessings that we can
freely discuss any issue we like without fear of government reprisals, unlike
the citizens of Cuba.
>
> You're leaving facts out of your argument. a) The
> independent librarians were initially authorized by Castro
> (that was in the part of the Heyer [sic] column that you deleted
> before you posted it to the list.)
This statement is incorrect. Cuba is a country where owning books
critical of the government has been a criminal offense for more than forty years
(except for a few "locked shelves" in major libraries, from which average Cubans
are excluded). The independent librarians' emphasis on the quote from
President Castro ("There are no prohibited books in Cuba...") as the inspiration for
the founding of their movement is decidedly tongue-in-cheek, to put it mildly.
As for excluding part of the Georgie Anne Geyer column, it was done for
the sake of brevity. The link to the full text of the column was included in
the excerpt, and several articles on our website
(www.friendsofcubanlibraries.org) discuss President Castro's now-famous quote as the inspiration for the
creation of Cuba's innovative independent library movement, which offers a model
for other nations where governments, regardless of their ideology, try to
control all sources of information.
> b) The latest round of repression started when US administration
officials started
> encouraging Cubans to sign petitions, & etc., knowing full
> well that Castro's reaction would be a crackdown. Inciting
> people to pursue their liberty is not a bad thing, unless
> the incitor [sic] knows that the incitees will end up in prison,
> and that the incitor [sic] because of diplomatic immunity faces no
> risk whatsoever. Then the incitement is just a cynical
> manipulation of human beings to advance the political agenda
> of the incitor [sic].
The Cuban government tries to portray Cuba as an ideal society, in which
all dissenters are ingrates, mentally ill, traitors or criminals who are
somehow being incited from abroad. The petitition campaign to which you refer -
the Varela Project - is a Cuban initiative to demand democratic reforms. At
last count, approximately 30,000 brave Cuban citizens have dared to publicly sign
their names to this petition. They are being supported by human rights
activists and diplomats from many nations, including the U.S. We should be pleased
when the U.S. government opposes human rights violations, wherever they occur.
>
> We were recently led into war via the tactics of inventing
> and exaggerating facts which supported the decision,
> covering up and distorting facts which didn't support the
> decision, and personally attacking anyone who disagreed.
> I'm sorry, but your tactics on this issue seem very similar.
Again, let's be thankful we live in a society where we are free to
discuss, criticize and protest anything we like, unlike Cuba, where the people live
in constant fear of having their conversations overheard by informers, the
mass media are censored, and where the Internet is banned (except for a few
people considered "trustworthy" by the regime). In fact, Cuba has been named by
Reporters Sans Frontieres as among the world's twenty worst "Enemies of the
Internet."
>
> I have no problem helping Cuban colleagues whether
> "professional" or not) - advancing someone's personal
> political agenda is another matter.
>
The defense of universal human rights should be above mere politics. And
who is more "professional," librarians without a degree who endure
persecution for defending intellectual freedom, or librarians with a degree who do
nothing to defend intellectual freedom? The answer is clear to anyone who respects
the exercise of intellectual freedom as a universal human right.
Sincerely,
The Friends of Cuban Libraries
(WWW.FRIENDSOFCUBANLIBRARIES.ORG)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 14 2007 - 20:44:42 PST