Translating Cuba

The Cuban writer Jorge Alberto Aguiar Diaz (JAAD) pointed him out to me. Humbert Arenal had just awarded my book (Collage Karaoke) in the “Pinos Nuevos” Contest in the year zero, or 2000. JAAD said to me, “Go and introduce yourself. This old guy is the last witness of another era.”

In fact he looked like a very old man, emaciated, with his slightly Anglo elegance and certain hints of a lord. A man with style, in the amorphous central courtyard of the Cuban Book Institute.

I approached him. We talked. I went to his apartment in the building at Infanta and Manglar several times. He was always friendly with a late beginner, as I was, praising my “conditions to narrate.” Later we were even jurors together on another literary contest (his opinions were too gentrified at that point in his life: he detested dirty realism for extra-literary reasons that he considered literary). Everything was accelerated. Everything consumed in the course of a year. Then I wrote my story, “Requiem for Humberto Arenal,” which gained a Mention in the “La Gaceta de Cuba” contest (December 2001), but which was never published at my request.

I went and gave it to Humberto Arenal as soon as my “Mention” was announced. And that was the end.

I received threatening calls from him and from the then husband of his daughter. My story was offensive shit. It insulted him. I made fun of his age. I ridiculed him in his relationship with the dead. I picked on his sexuality. Tears filled my eyes (I was on the public telephone at the bodega at 21st and H in El Vedado, I’ll never forget it). I felt sorry for him and me, for Cuba that we would fall out over, for not being able to take the game to the limit in a text where I used his name as a bridge between the living and the dead, characterizing not only his domestic scene but our entire literary city, cenotaph of unburied corpses and unburied secrets. I think his family influenced him in that crazy reading.

The son-in-law’s call was the saddest: he only threatened me physically and then with denigrating me publicly on a program he hosted on national television.The permanent dengue epidemic that swarmed in Havana prevented him, or at least dissuaded him.

I couldn’t ask for forgiveness from any of them. I hung up. Despite my promise to never go public, Humberto Arenal took my story to the Ethics Committee at the Cuban Writers and Artists Union (UNEAC), though by then I no longer belonged to UNEAC. I don’t know the outcome, but apparently it was favorable to me. Then came his National Literature Prize and I was secretly happy for him. In one sense he didn’t deserve it. But he deserved it in many others.

Since then I have dedicated myself to reading Humberto Arenal (he published a lot in the last decade). I even found a copy of the prince he called “the first novel published in the Revolution”: The Sun Overhead. He had great stories, enough to be immortalized in our context. But his long-winded texts are without exception very very very weak, someone had to stop him (Reinaldo Arenas in “The Color of Summer” leaves that task in the hands of Virgilio Piñera). I will not opine on other areas of his creation. Like all intellectuals who did not cause a rupture, his correctness no longer calls me (I’m not his reader, obviously, as he was no reader of “Requiem for Humberto Arenal“).

How sad.

Other chances and characters wove our following missed encounters, where we always diplomatically avoided each other. We never crossed another word, as if we were political polar opposites instead of writers.

How sad, maestro.

My face has changed so much that perhaps he did not recognize me. Humberto Arenal also looked more radiant at times. I see him vital and alert always giving me encouragement, especially when they started, soon enough, scavengers rumors about this or that disease.

I will fulfill my own promise never to publish my story of 2001 “Requiem for Humberto Arenal“. I know that the Cuban exile retains a copy (the exile as cause and consequence of all things), and I respect even this posthumous vocation of two Cubans did not get sane School Our ways to create or interpret anything.

Farewell, then, Humberto Arenal. Too much time is no longer left to anyone. The final places of my apocalyptic story have turned now to realism. We stay in a bleak homeland. Nothing comforts us. Your generation, not just writers but of rulers, is not going to leave even a hint of a country to breathe afterwards.

Farewell, then, Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

January 27 2012

Dagoberto Valdes speaking on the 4th anniversary of the magazine.

Dear friends of Convivencia:

The time God gives us to do good works and grow in humanity passes quickly. We are already celebrating the fourth anniversary of the digital magazine Convivencia.

The presence of all of you here and the multiple and diverse collaborators that have written for the magazine in these twelve months, show that a magazine does not stand alone, nor only through the members of its editorial staff. The magazine is created and maintained by its collaborators who put their names and thoughts at the service of the present and future of Cuba, and in consideration of all who want to read, learn to think, disagree, suggest, propose and work.

This year of 2012 has been a year of tests, maturation and growth.The three things that have contributed the magazine being more well-known, more read, and more sought after.

Tests such as the harassment, accusations and pressures of every kind, direct and indirect, that serve to strengthen our spirits, purify our intentions and sharpen our good will and our methods of working. The early Christians, persecuted by the decadent Roman Empire, used to say with simplicity that it was given to them to suffer: Per crucem ad lucem: Through the cross to the light.

All this produces maturation of people and works. Maturation that means: the ability not to let ourselves be manipulated from one side or another; to be faithful to our purpose and to our identity as a project of Cuban thought; to exercise citizen sovereignty and freedom of expression, in an ethical way, respectfully and proactively, putting our love for Cuba, the welfare of Cubans, above everything.

There are no better fertilizers of growth than these movements of the human spirit: through the cross to the light; and of this personal and community maturation. This is the secret of the growth of Convivencia. There is no doubt that the attacks of the Media of Communication officials have contributed to helping us learn and mature.

We give thanks to God for the solidarity, understanding, respect and affection that thousands of people and many institutions, within and outside of Cuba, have offered us. This has made our name, Convivencia, be one more experience of living and sharing for a large number of Cuban men and women who look with hope on the future of Cuba.

The magazine Convivencia lives for them.

Thank you very much.

January 26 2012

I’ll never forget when the news came from Radio Marti that we Cubans had a Cardinal. My mother, excited, let me know, and from her tearful eyes came her illusions about the Catholic Church, that had just added to its conclave a high church official. From her hopeless simplicity, my mother intended to convey to me that, hierarchically speaking, “a cardinal is more than Fidel,” as she decreed. I remember that I shook my head yes; I didn’t want to spoil her illusions.

Of course we know what a cardinal means, but those who should have believed it didn’t. ”President” Fidel Castro and his supporters ultimately never finished the work of mowing down the church of the Cuban people. That unfinished task has always been his frustration.

In my humble person Pope John Paul II had one of the faithful who most admired him. My love for him became worship. In addition to being the Holy Father, he was a born political leader. And I will always keep the thrill I felt when he greeted me, an unimportant bystander, when he expressed love from his motorcade.

I will always remember his visit with gratitude. But if I had been his advisor, I would have suggested that he not turn up in a Cuba without freedom, without progress and without the most basic respect for human rights: Freedom of Expression. Many Cubans placed their hopes in his visit, thinking they would gain significant social achievements, political freedoms, and even that it augured multiparty elections.

It’s healthy to remember the years of “politicking” that keep the Castro brothers in power, and needless to say, they wouldn’t accept any visit, not even of Jesus Christ in person, if it jeopardized their power. I always knew that with objective clarity.

After the Pope left, we still have hope, even if we have empty hands, because after all we keep them in our pockets, there’s no point in showing how empty they are.

What we Cubans have to achieve won’t come from anyone’s visit, nor from the “peace concert”, although it had good intentions, nor from the “U.S. blockade.” It will come the day we demand what belongs to us by our own right. Then, after participatory democracy wins and Cubans have the right to choose freely and consistently what they want for themselves, we will welcome the current Pope, and also, spiritually, we will receive the Vicar of God, now in heaven, Father John Paul II, the simple man and scholar who was Wojtyla.

But we know that the road to paradise is paved with good intentions, and so is the one that leads to freedom on the island of Cuba.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

Translated by Regina Anavy

January 26 2012

I am still laughing about the first glance at my digital library, in which I have been able to succeed in capturing known authors from many years ago.  To have some of the books saved moves me, including one of the poems, by Carlos Alberto Montaner, a pair of passages from speeches from conferences, by Michel Foucault, novels of Milan Kundera.  It seems absurd and makes me smile to find them beside Madame Bavastky, and a History of the Magi by Elphas Levi, that populate my dreams or being a musician during my teenage years.

But I have my limits like everyone and I also can’t tolerate finding passages from Hitler, and I got rid of them, I root them out with fury as if I can banish them from history, and in the same way, in the same way, those of Eduardo Galeano, that I am pleased to see disappear when I empty the trash.

Translated by: BW

January 17 2012

Tracey Eaton, a Florida-based journalist, has been traveling to Cuba for a long time, and more recently has been undertaking a series of interviews with Cubans ranging all across the ideological spectrum. He has now begun the work of subtitling these videos in English.

Here are links to Tracey’s blogs/sites: Along the Malecon; Cuba Money Project; Videos on Cuba Money Project; Video Transcripts; Along the Malecon News Updates.

A new and beautiful restaurant in Nuevo Vedado, located on 35th street between La Torre and 24th Street.  One Day, its owner, a native of India, like the Genoan Admiral, discovered this little island and stayed, enchanted by her, came from over there to meet and fall in love with a beautiful creole woman.

Once married, the couple decided to travel and settle in London. The marriage didn’t last very long. Then he decided to return to the island and, again, felt struck by lightning for the love of another native.

Now the new couple decided to open an Indian restaurant, in one of the beautiful houses of this neighborhood. The decorating, elegant and totally of the style of the country of origin of the owner, has a mysterious air and coziness.  As I am very curious and I like this gastronomic trend, I visited them with exploratory objectives. I asked for the menu and could confirm a great variety of plates, with a lamb base, beef, shrimp, and pork.  The curry, its essential ingredient, almonds, and exotic spices are the stars in all of the offerings.

The prices, a little high for our pocketbook, but understanding they can’t be cheaper, due to everything they include in their dried fruit confection, something excessively expensive in our country.  I think that for the diplomatic corps and business owners, in a very nice place and suitable for meeting for a nice working lunch or dinner, or simply to enjoy it with their respective family and friends.  Something new and different.  This undoubtedly gives color and attractiveness to the neighborhood, creates new employment and generates for others many services, that allows so many other people to better their economic status.

Now what it really needs is not to take one step backwards, on the contrary, continue giving free rein to new modalities of private business, demonstrating success and the energy of a small private business, that is, definitively, what is working best in our beloved planet.

As soon as my pocketbook permits or some visitor from far away invites me, I will select this place, to be able to speak to you with knowledge about the source of the quality of their culinary offerings.

 Translated by: BW

January 25 2012

Yaremis Flores

Orisel, her father, annoyed, opens the door and is surprised to see the Sector Chief, with a document in his hands authorizing him to search their home.  Scarcely giving an opportunity to verify the paper, two other officers enter, hunting like hungry wolves after prey.

“But what are you looking for” Orisel asks.

“Something of illicit origin,” replies the officer in charge.

It turns out that, with a frightening superficiality, Orisel has been classified by his Sector Chief in the categories of “offender,” “suspect,” and “dangerous.” Although it seems like a scene from a novel, sequences like this happen often, constituting a clear violation of the constitutional guarantee of the inviolability of the home.

That afternoon, the police seized little Paula’s money-box, as well as a computer, for not having the certificate of ownership.

As regulated in the Criminal Procedure Act, the object of a search warrant must be specific, and not just the usual boilerplate “possession of illegally obtained goods.” Moreover, the mere fact of possessing an object without having its title certificate does not constitute a crime.

The authorities bear the burden of proving that the item in question is of illicit origin, such as the result of another crime, burglary for instance. Otherwise it is presumed that the possessor is the lawful owner.

January 25 2012

Many times I have raised my dissatisfaction with the journalism being done in Cuba. Due to its eminently official character, it passes through the beaten path weighed down by all the government, censoring itself and accepting censorship as normal, since everything you write, show or say, should be directed to the unconditional defense of the imposed model.

Here information is not sought for publication, but simply to be received on high in order to be published. When a critical material on a topic, it is not due to the personal initiative of a journalist or any media outlet, but responds to instructions of the apparatus of political control, to what they consider beneficial in that specific time, for external reasons or internal. This is the reason for some critical areas, which have appeared in recent times in different mass media.

This, which is a truism though it has not, perhaps unwittingly, been unveiled by one of the most notorious official hacks, in an interview he recently conducted. This journalist, shamelessly, raises absurdities such as: First of all, to be a journalist is to be a revolutionary. If you are not a revolutionary you can not be a journalist. My thesis is: everything that harms the revolution, I don’t do, not publicly. What benefits the revolution is what I publish. I do not think that the journalist must be objective and independent. The word censorship doesn’t exist in my work, I censor myself. I believe that, as one example, is sufficient.

I don’t question his unconditional fidelity to the model and its creators. Nor his elevated fanaticism, nor his narrow conception of the meaning of the term revolutionary. I understand that every person is free to think and act as he deems appropriate, within the social canons: that is the tolerance to which we aspire and defend. I do question, that these dogmatic concepts try to slide as a standard for others to follow, and that these atrocities are published in one newspaper for youth, in which should prevail fresh thinking, new, refreshing. If these are the counsels that this hack has young people, despite saying that respects them, God have mercy on us.

These approaches, too regularly repeated, demonstrate the need to maintain other spaces truly objective and independent, to analyze our situation and make coherent proposals, without dogmatism or ties to fanaticism of any kind, which contribute to solving the problems that affect us all.

December 1 2011

Tracey Eaton, a Florida-based journalist, has been traveling to Cuba for a long time, and more recently has been undertaking a series of interviews with Cubans ranging all across the ideological spectrum. He has now begun the work of subtitling these videos in English.

Here are links to Tracey’s blogs/sites: Along the Malecon; Cuba Money Project; Videos on Cuba Money Project; Video Transcripts; Along the Malecon News Updates.

Photo courtesy of Felix Reyes

It’s almost like a premonition, but backwards. After ascending a few steps over the heads of the citizens, those who’ve been dismissed by the regime have to walk down the small mountain they though they had climbed. One step forward, and three steps back, or to the side. It’s like a dance, but it’s as if they’re drunk, disoriented, without that compass of lies, consisting of a uniform, an ID card with red letters which read ‘PNR’ (National Revolutionary Police) and a Soviet-style Makarov pistol. They suffer from a haunting scarcity.

The chief of the PNR Unit in San German, located in the province of Holguin, the 1st Lieutenant Manual Gonzalez Sera was dismissed from his position “because of his incompatible attitude with the processes of the police bodies”, according to local sources. The currently dismissed police chief had accusations from citizens, alleging violence. Though there is still no (and I dare say, will be no) official release, the former officer was subjected to a home search where they occupied numerous of his garments, which presumably were traced back to a relationship he was having with a Cuban-Canadian citizen, a grave crime within the Cuban military code which prohibits relationships between its officials and foreigners.

Within the past year, two chiefs of the police unit have been dismissed in San German. The other, former captain Vladimir Aldana Rodriguez, is serving a sentence in a provincial penitentiary system, just like the local officers Alexander La O and Herson Ramirez. Another three have been dismissed or have been laid off for different motives, all related to police corruption and serious violations in the carrying out of their duties to watch over and maintain citizen’s tranquility.

During the middle of 2011, various sources confirmed the news of the arrest of Lieutenant Luis Quesada, a Penal Instructor from State Security in an infernal unit located in the Pedernales neighborhood, on the outskirts of the city of Holguin. Quesada had bragged to me once when I was detained that he was the one who tore down the door of dissident Cari Caballero’s home so that his olive green troops could search the house. We still don’t know if he has been sanctioned for the crime of raping minors and of lechery.

In the prison known as ‘Cuba Si’, situated on the path to San German, a Lieutenant Colonel from Military Counterintelligence (CIM) whose last name is Monje is serving jail time for the crime of corruption and abusing his power. It seems like a cleansing of their social ditches. Based on the amount of cases there have been reported from various provinces in the country, many suggest that it is just a governmental prance.

But one doesn’t have to imagine it, there are those who wash their face while their hands are full of blood.

Translated by Raul G.

25 January 2012

Much has been spoken about on our media about racism and it continues. Really, on my beloved planet, I have never experienced extreme cases of this social phenomenon.  Since my childhood, I was accustomed to my house being visited by black, white, and Chinese people, all gathering with our family.  I had very beloved little black friends and an adopted grandmother of this color.  She was a large woman, wide, and with a full-moon smile, who we called Grandma Mercedes.  They taught us from an early age to love and respect her.  When she arrived, my brother and I hung around her neck, competing for her first kisses.  My little friends, seeing me so white and blond, were very surprised, but they couldn’t figure out the mystery of these advancedgenetics.  She was, until her death, the best friend of our family.

There was discrimination, it’s true, but, in general, not on the part of people, rather it was an official matter, but not rooted in the human feeling.  It includes, also on the part of the black people who produced this same contradiction but in the inverse, because in their clubs and societies, white people were not admitted.  I have a friend that suffered these divisions in her own experience. Her father, an elegant black chauffeur of a well-known magnate, married a Spanish woman.  Then my friend couldn’t frequent the clubs for her race, since in those days they didn’t allow her mother to enter because she was white, in a time when good girls were always accompanied by their parents.  Also, she couldn’t go to places for whites-only.  Anyway, this seemed like a thing from the very distant past.

The year 1959 arrived and, by decree, they threw out all of these restrictions, but only by decree.  Now, by citing three examples, more exist, I demonstrate the flip side of the coin:

In the year, 1963, when the elect Lucero of the Havana Carnival came out, between the finalists there wasn’t a single black woman, or even a mulata.  The revolutionary panel of judges noticed this mistake and took out a beautiful white girl and in her place brought up to the podium a beautiful mulata, but with a strong juvenile acne that made her face ugly, precisely for which she was ruled out.

On the other hand, it is well-known, that when our country prepared the possible cosmonauts to fly in the soviet spacecrafts, they selected two candidates: one black and one white.  To be honest, people who were involved at that time told us, in this mission, the second candidate was better prepared and met more of the criteria, but the official choice leaned toward the first candidate. Everyone knows the end of this story.

But, many years have passed, we are in the 21st century, and last week, the son of my friend, was just discriminated against by a teacher from his school, due to his pearly-white skin. There was a municipal-level competition, and the teacher, in the face of uncertainty about whether one of proposed candidates would fail, named a third, the needy kid, a genius, one of those that departed from the norm.  Now then, the day arrived, the three were introduced, accompanied by their respective mothers in front of the teacher that waited in the old Havana Institute, the place where they were to meet.  As no student missed the appointment, she preferred to select the little black child so as not be questioned, leaving the other child surprised and frustrated. I don’t need to tell you, rightly, what my friend told the teacher. Tell me if I am mistaken that this isn’t any more than reverse racism.

Translated by: BW

January 18 2012

Armando wants to be an immigrant with swing. “God willing, in December I am traveling to Valencia, where I have relatives. I’m immersing myself in slang. I’ve seen tons of shows. And I use words like flipado, mola, mogollón, qué fuerte, tío, or vale” he says in a Spanish imitating that of the Spanish Consulate in Havana.

Since 2007, when the socialist government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero passed the Historical Memory, and within the so-called Law of Grandchildren, tens of thousands of Cubans all along the green alligator have embraced it.

Since it was put into force on December 29, 2008, the grandchildren of Spaniards may opt for dual citizenship. That day, the Consulate ran out of the 80,000 forms available.

Three years later the tide hasn’t receded. The deadline was extended until December 27, 2011. More than 165,000 applications were initially made, but the figure was reduced to over 140,000, of which some 60,000 Cubans, on meeting the requirements, have obtained Spanish citizenship.

Let’s visit the Consulate. Located on the corner Zulueta Street Jail, Old Havana, on the side of the bay. From early in the morning, groups of people are queuing up to be among the first when it opens.

Some come from afar. Antonio lives in Buey Arriba, in Granma province, 750 kilometers from the capital. He arrived 14 hours ago. With his backpack and a plastic bottle of tap water, soccer and baseball chat, with those who sleep in the line of the grandchildren of Spanish nationals residing in Cuba.

“My grandparents were from Zaragoza. I have cousins there. It has taken me some time to have the papers ready. My goal is to visit Spain, get a temporary job and return to Cuba. I do not want to emigrate, permanently,” said Antonio.

Let’s visit the Consulate. Located on the corner Zulueta Street Jail, Old Havana, on the side of the bay. From early in the morning, groups of people are queuing up to be among the first when it opens.

Some come from afar. Antonio lives in Buey Arriba, in Granma province, 750 kilometers from the capital. He arrived 14 hours ago. With his backpack and a plastic bottle of tap water, soccer and baseball chat, with those who sleep in the line of the grandchildren of Spanish nationals residing in Cuba.

“My grandparents were from Zaragoza. I have cousins there. It has taken me some time to have the papers ready. My goal is to visit Spain, get a temporary job and return to Cuba. I do not want to emigrate, permanently,” said Antonio.

The hours pass quickly for three young people sitting on a park bench opposite the former Presidential Palace, now the Museum of the Revolution. Ileana,A Lorenzo and Julian, chat about music and celebrity while passing a bottle of rum. They have become friends after seeing each other’s faces in several lines of foreign consulates.

Lorenzo and Julian met outside the Canadian Embassy. Two years ago, Lorenzo was looking for work. He heard a rumor that Canada needed strong young guys to cut down gigantic trees in inhospitable areas.

“I was the man. I looked for a long time for a way out of Cuba without having to throw myself into the sea. But in the end, or everything is a lie, or they ask for a number of documents you don’t possess. I met Julian there who was in the same. We were often at the U.S. consulate, as we have third-degree blood relatives in America. We got the bat (our visas denied). It was there that we became close with Ileana, who was also trying,” says Lorenzo.

Ileana is an authentic Galician granddaughter. “I would rather travel to the U.S., where I have family, because things aren’t so great in Spain. The crisis and unemployment, you know.”

To qualify for the visa you must demonstrate convincingly that you are the grandchild of a Spaniard. Those who do not, leaving consulate fuming.

Raudel is one of them. “My mother did not believe that this black girl had a Spanish grandfather. My story is incredible, but true. It turns out that my grandfather made my mother with a black woman in an extramarital affair, typical of certain ’Galicians’ settled in Cuba. Then my mother, a mulatto, married a black man. A stuck up consulate official can not understand the intricacies and love stories of many Spanish residents in Cuba.”

Orlando is white, but also leaves angry. “How ungrateful are these Spanish. We opened the door to their emigration in the last century when the situation in Spain was critical. Now they have an economic crisis and they want to commit suicide. What would they say if they lived in a country in perpetual crisis like Cuba. However, they shut the door in our face. “

If you want to hear stories about grandchildren or relatives of Spanish descent, pass along Zulueta Street. There’s everything there. From people like Armando who speaks like a Spaniard. Up to black Raudel, who swears he is the grandson of a Galician.

There are also the desperate. Those to whom all legal exit doors are closed. And they do crazy things. They are then a snack for sharks in the Florida Straits. Or die of hypothermia in the landing gear of an airplane. Like Adonis.

September 7 2011