Digital Underground Smuggles Rare Protest Video Out Of Cuba
6 March 2008, 6:20 PM. By Cindy Casares
A rare video of students publicly protesting to the Cuban Parliamentary President at the University of Cuba has made it off the island and into the hands of western media. The information was captured and transmitted by an underground movement of cyber-rebels who are using technological devices such memory sticks, camera phones, and hole-and-corner internet hookups to publicize the government’s limitations on its people. The insurgents are speaking out against bans on travel, lack of access to communication tools like Google, and the extremely low pay that handcuffs its citizens to the island. In the video after the jump, student council representatives Alejandro Hernandez and Eliecer Avila (who are both hot, btw) pose a series of challenges to President of Cuban Parliamentary Ricardo Alarcon.
In the video, Eliecer Avila, a Cuban student representative, questions the low salaries of the workers, in his home town. Remarking that people have to work two days to afford a toothbrush, he challenges, “What if I want to raise enough money to go to Bolivia to visit where El Che [Guevara] lived?”
Good one!
“That could take an entire life of saving,” he continues. “30,000 Cuban pesos is 1,000 dollars. That could take a whole life to save working the fields.”
Or just a few thousand Che t-shirts at an indie music festival, güey. We know a guy who can ship them to you cheap from Taiwan.
President of Cuban Parliamentary Ricardo Alarcon, sounding kind of like your grandfather convincing you to mow the lawn, attempts to quell to the students complaints by explaining that if everyone traveled, there would be no air space.
Cyber-Rebels in Cuba Defy State’s Limits [New York Times]
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Digital Underground was my fav hip hop group growing…do the humpty dance…cmon do me baby…do humpty hump watch me do the humpty hump….
old times
oh yeah, good for those maquis cubans…viva la revolucion…
I am in tears. So proud of those young people and so shocked by that old man’s argument. Come mierda.
Li-Ber-TAD! Li-Ber-Tad!
@carrie_in_TN: Ha! Come mierda indeed! The boys are couching their argument on Jose Marti and El Che, seminal figures in Cuban History, and old man Alarcon’s retort is “I’m rich, from a better family than you, and even I don’t get to travel/never been to the Tropicana in my youth/don’t get paid a lot of money, etc” (prbs a lie, but whatevs)…Class warfare at its best, what a hypocrite…
p.s. he said “donde cayó el Che” not “donde vivió el Che”
Not to be “that guy” but isn’t this like a month old?
@Marco: Does it make it any less newsworthy?
Poor schmucks. Thank goodness I live in a country that still believes in trickle-down economics. Yay! You know, these boys have inspired me to travel to Bolivia, just because I can. Also . . . re: Marco’s and Daniel’s comments, it may be less newsworthy when you consider the short attention span of the average American.