This is how Cuba’s foremost blogger, Yoani Sanchez, recently answered a question about the U.S. embargo on Cuba:

I believe that these economic restrictions − an “embargoâ€Â to some and a “blockadeâ€Â to others − represent a blunder in American policy toward Cuba. Far from suffocating the ruling class of the Island, these trade restrictions create material difficulties for the population and feed the radicalization of the ideological discourse inside Cuba. The embargo has been an argument to justify the unproductive and inefficient state-run economy, including the total ruin of various sectors. Worse than that, it has been used to support the maxim, “in a country under siege, dissent is treason,â€Â which contributes to the lack of freedoms for my fellow citizens. In its nearly 50 years, the “blockadeâ€Â has done nothing to limit the material arsenal of our authorities, not one of them has ceased to enjoy their privileges. An example is the issue of Internet access. They have always blamed the restrictions on Internet access on the fact that the United States has not allowed Cuba to connect to its underwater cable. The victims of these restrictions are ordinary Cubans; we have had to postpone our enjoyment of the World Wide Web, while the police, the censors and the official media seize the few kilobytes of access available to the whole country. When Barack Obama authorized American telecommunications companies to negotiate with their Cuban counterparts, this alibi for limiting the use of the Internet fell apart. Unfortunately, the government of Raul Castro has ignored his proposal and we continue to be the “Island of the Disconnected.â€Â But on this issue, at least, it is obvious to all that the responsibility does not rest entirely on external forces, but also on internal political will.

Yoani’s answer is as superb a condemnation of U.S. Cuba policy as I have read anywhere. It is eloquent, precise and, best of all, from a Cuban living in Cuba and not in Miami. And it doesn’t let the Cuban regime off the hook either.

But I want to concentrate on one small part of her superb statementâ€â€the “Island of the Disconnected.â€Â
Islands make haunting metaphors, even sometimes sublime ones. I think immediately of John Donne’s meditation “No man is an island…â€Â, or Hemingway’s “Islands in the Streamâ€Â (later the title of a Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers song that was petty good). Yoani’s concept of “disconnectednessâ€Â seems highly relevant to islands as well, echoing Donne’s elegant protest that humans are not disconnected from other humans.
Physically, as an island, Cuba has no choice about a certain amount of disconnection; but as a country of more than eleven million souls, it must find ways to connect. It has done that with Europe, Latin America, Asia, indeed all of the world. Except for el coloso del norte, the giant of the north, us.

With us, its connections are tenuous, tortured, heavily codified, off-and-on, and always extremely limited. This is principally because of men such as the now-deceased Jessie Helms, the still-alive Dan Burton, and a host of minor wannabes of both genders named Lincoln, Mario, Ileana, Debbie, et al. These latter are of course all Cuban-Americans who pay or draw big bucks to maintain Cuba’s disconnectedness.
For let’s face it squarely: on the one hand, a very small percentage of Americans cares stronglyâ€â€for some reason I find unfathomableâ€â€about the embargo on Cuba. So strongly that they are willing to pony up money by the barrel loads.
On the other hand, the vast majority of Americans are too concerned about jobs, failing banks, disappearing pensions, and a miserable economy to have anything left for Cuba, or if they do have anything left, they do not feel strongly enough to pony up any real money.
So, the tiny group of Americans with the money bribes the rest of their congressional colleagues to keep the embargo in place, while the great majority of Americans has other, more pressing concerns and doesn’t want to be bothered.
This is today’s post-Cold War stark reality. It is the reason for Cuba’s disconnection from the great power 90 miles to its north.
Oh yes, even post-Cold War the tiny group of Americans with the money conjures up national security bogeymenâ€â€like John Bolton’s accusations of Cuba’s having a biological weapons program. Or Cuban spies in our midst (about all those spies are doing is trying to keep some hardcore members of the tiny group from perpetrating terrorists acts on Cuban soil or in Cuban airspace). Or they use words such as the ones Bush and Cheney used about Iraq: freedom, democracy, libertyâ€â€all the while they labor away to ensure that China, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other less-than-free states are treated well. Like Cheney and Bush, most of them really don’t give a hang for the concepts they pretend to treasure.
And these conjured things do not change the stark reality one iota.
But Yoani Sanchez could. If we gave her about a million helpers per year, she could.
If America’s peopleâ€â€the best diplomats for freedom on earthâ€â€were allowed to travel freely to Cuba, Yoani Sanchez would be unstoppable.
Perhaps that’s the true reason why the hardcore tiny group of Cuban-Americans with money doesn’t want to give up. If the eleven million souls of Cuba became connected with the 300 million souls of America, the tiny little group would have no power left.
Yoani, we’re coming.