Seeds of Change - Loudspeakers for Cuban Voices (Pt. 2)

This post marks the fourth entry for the current Roots of Hope blog theme: Seeds of Change. To read previous entries, see What comes next: study abroad and youth-led change in Cuba and How Cell Phones Can Shake a Nation.

A brief introduction:

For the purpose of the Seeds of Change theme on our blog, we wanted to tell our readers about the power of translating blogs. As many of you know, for Cuba's blogging community, the people who translate their blogs represent the opportunity to reach a broader audience, maximize their impact, and BE HEARD. As an example, Mary Jo Porter - who acts as translator for Yoani Sanchez - describes the effect of her work in an interview we featured earlier this month. What we found as we set out to feature blog translating in an entry, was that the greatest testament came from Cuban bloggers themselves. And so, we will be featuring their answers and comments over the next weeks.

To follow up Regina Coyula's response, here is a message from Orlando Luis Pardo:

The word of independent Cuban bloggers is like a light that is true, but very fragile. Before the totalitarian power of the official media, every effort is small to boost this alternative current within today's Cuba. To translate to other languages, to make accessible to other audiences of the world these independent looks into the Absolute State, is a gesture of solidarity of incalculable human and historic worth.

The volunteer translators can hardly feel the emotion that they provoke in each author with each one of the posts they help disseminate. Never have the critical voices within the island counted with such a citizen platform of world support. Never have we felt so accompanied in the midst of the most uncivil solitude(socialipsysm: what I like to call this sub-existential situation after half a century of a Revolution that is "irreversible" even by our Constitution).

We can only give you back our love vocalized in the most elementary of words: Thank you…Or even better, of course, because we already are even without knowing each other: Thank you, brothers...

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La palabra de los bloggers independientes cubanos es como una luz verdadera, pero muy frágil. Ante el poder totalitario de los medios oficiales, todo esfuerzo es poco para potenciar esta corriente alternativa dentro de la Cuba de hoy. Traducir a otros idiomas, hacer accesible a otras audiencias del mundo estas miradas independientes al
Estado Absoluto, es un gesto solidario de incalculable valor humano e histórico. Los traductores voluntarios difícilmente puedan sentir la emoción que provocan en cada autor con cada uno de sus posts que ayudan a difundir. Nunca las voces críticas dentro de la Isla contaron con tal plataforma ciudadana de apoyo mundial. Nunca nos sentimos tan acompañados en medio de la más incivil soledad social (socialipsismo:
me gusta llamar a esta situación sub-existencial tras medio siglo de Revolución "irreversible" hasta por nuestra Constitución). Sólo podemos devolverles nuestro cariño vocalizado en la más elemental de las palabras: Gracias... O mejor, por supuesto, porque ya lo somos incluso sin conocernos: Gracias, hermanos...