United in Diversity / Fernando Damaso

Photo: Rebeca

The Cuban crisis is advancing inexorably towards its climax for reasons that are economic, political and social as well as genetic. With each passing day the situation for most citizens — shortages, price rises, low salaries and pensions, lack of opportunity — becomes even more complicated. The “update of the model,” now codified into law, neither casts sufficient light on the tunnel’s darkness nor provides real solutions to the multiplicity of problems.

Faced with this impending reality, people from a variety of opposition camps have come together to discuss what might be the best way to achieve this necessary transition. Some feel the best way is through dialog with the government in order to achieve a greater degree of openness, which might be expanded over time. Others reject any sort of dialog in favor of direct public pressure. Still others are looking for a middle ground that might satisfy both parties and avoid violence. There might be other approaches as well. To say which is best poses a great risk, one I feel we need not take since doing so would only add fuel to the debate’s fire and complicate the current contradictions.

Perhaps it would be more convenient and intelligent to try to determine a set of demands to present to the authorities which are premised on bringing about real change. If there is a desire to seriously resolve the nation’s issues, there must be a basic shared platform on which all factions can agree in order to begin to take firm and effective steps forward.

Therefore, it is clear that the different factions must be recognized as negotiating partners, something that up till now has not happened due to the intransigence of the authorities, who consider themselves to be the country and the nation’sonly trustees, imbuing it with their ideology. Only when faced with a united opposition — one united in diversity, not in unanimity; one without fractures — will the government feel tempted to have a dialog without worrying about losing what little credibility it has left with certain sectors of the population.

The level of opposition is not reflected in the figures for election turnout or in the numbers of people who show up for mass demonstrations, which are simply by-products of an entrenched double standard, but rather in the silent voice of the majority of outraged citizens as it filters through our cities and towns. Experience over many years has shown that a fragmented opposition garners no attention.

The last approach of the government with highest leadership of the Cuban Catholic church, as the only interlocutor accepted for some very immediate problems demonstrates this. All of the initiatives should be well received and not just criticized, despite their limited reach, because they can serve to enlarge the spectrum of participation, demanding that the spaces be open to all equally. Nobody, by his own decision, should proclaim himself representative of all the citizens of the nation and pretend to be the only voice to listen to, rather it would be more intelligent to make oneself a bridge or a collection point for different views.

To aspire to a truly democratic country, the road to the transition should also be profoundly democratic. If it is not, we risk the danger of repeating the costly errors of the past, and in losing ourselves once again in the entanglement of the autocracy, intolerance and exclusion, something that none of the opposing viewpoints want, much less so, the majority of Cubans both within the country and beyond.

Translated by: Stephen Clark, Alex Vizcarra, Norman Valenzuela, and Carlos Maristany

September 26 2012

Two Letters: Two Positions / Fernando Dámaso

Recently I read two letters that caught my attention. The first, written by Rafael Hernández, a pro-government political scientist based in Cuba, under the title “Letter to a young man who leaves,” trying to undo this massive trend, arguing the supposed benefits of the existing system in the country, offering them as some splendid options faced with a cruel world, ruthless and full of injustice, as is the capitalist. In aid of this he waves (it couldn’t be otherwise) the worn flags and slogans of a failed experiment on the path to extinction, in which most Cubans no longer believe,that left only ruins and misery and a divided nation, physically (the older men here and the younger scattered all around the world) and emotionally (with divided families by absurd hatreds).

The second one, written by the young Iván López Monreal, based in Bulgaria, under the title “Letter from a young man who left,” respectfully with solid arguments dismantles one by one the ones used by the government official. Without unnecessary offenses,in a measured tone, the young Cuban exposes his contradictory feelings before leaving, and how leaving the country was a logical course given the impossibility of realizing a healthy life project; the sorrow faced with the failure of his parents who had believed and devoted their best efforts to the experiment, and his actual situation: free and master of his fate.

It would be suitable that many citizens may have free access to those two documents, in which two different visions: one static and stuck in the past, and one in movement with his feet in the present, address in a civilized manner, in a controversial dialog, rich in contributions that show about the reasons of both sides.

After reading both letters, it appears as a logical conclusion that the present socialism, still updated, has nothing more, neither material nor spiritual, to offer to the Cuban people than repeating to the point of boredom the rhetoric of the so-called glorious past, with conveniently manipulated facts and figures in the name of a noisy patriotism, far from the true patriotism based on the love and respect for the land where one comes to life, and but for so many absurdities, where one should spend it and also in the end have some rest.

Archive photo

Translated by @Hachhe

September 2 2012

Complicated Pathways / Fernando Damaso

Photo: Rebeca

A citizen decides to solve the housing problem of his daughter and grandchildren by deeding her the roof of his house so she can build on top of it. He begins by submitting an application to the Ministry of Housing, but they first require a report from the city architect and a permit from Physical Planning. He has made attempts to do this, but he has been waiting for the document from the architect for a month, and more than six months for the one from Physical Planning. Thus far nothing has happened.

In spite of having delivered the products they were contracted to provide, the workers of an agricultural production cooperative do not receive money owed to them since 2009 from a farm belonging to the same cooperative. All their demands for payment are unsuccessful.

Another citizen, who was a victim of a flood caused by a storm in 1996, is given a house in 2002. Ten years later, in spite of having completed all the applications, he still has not been able to obtain title to his property.

A third citizen goes to Immigration to submit an application They require that she first present an original birth certificate. She can only request one at a time from the Civil Registry Office, and must wait fifteen days for delivery. When she goes back with the original certificate, they tell her they do not accept copies.

These accounts are not fictional. They are actual cases selected at random. The questions that arise are: Have they crippled the legal application process for citizens, and why is obtaining a document so burdensome? Where is the so-called rationalization of these services?

The governmental bureaucracy exists in all state agencies. They provide fertile ground for it to take root and grow. This is not the case in private, service-oriented businesses because, in a competitive world, this would lead to bankruptcy. Instead, administrative staffs are small and function efficiently. On the other hand, under socialism—with its massive and inefficient administrations—this adverse phenomenon finds its fullest expression. This is understandable. Since everything belongs to the state, these are the”power centers” that give it a feeling of importance. In spite of the laws, regulations, directives and resolutions drafted by the nation’s top leaders to combat it, the bureaucracy continuesusing its weaponryto resist efforts to displace it. What would become of it if this were to happen?

The only effective way to confront it is to reduce the number of agencies from which it operates, simplifying the application process to essentials and eliminating unnecessary paperwork. It is also vital to abandon the obsolete and absurd politics of control, which in fact control absolutely nothing and hinder everything. Until this happens, the bureaucracy will continue demanding respect while citizens pay the price in lost time and money, as well as in mistreatment and added aggravation.

August 30 2012

Too Many Experiments — Part 1 / Fernando Dámaso

Photo Peter Deel

Those who read what was published in the official press, on the recently concluded Ninth Regular Session of the Seventh Legislature of the National Assembly of People’s Power (the name gets it done), may have noticed that the most word used is “experiment“: it approved a policy to create experimental cooperatives in non-agricultural activities; it authorized the application of leasing to food service establishments that employ up to five workers (which is already being experimented with in barber shops, beauty salons, shoe repairs and other places); it selected a group of business organizations to undertake experiments aimed at providing them autonomy; and addressed… experimental policies for the commercialization of agricultural products in the provinces of Havana, Artemisa and Mayabeque; experimental formulas for the production of food; continued the experiment in the provinces of Artemis and Mayabeque to delineate functions between the assembly and provincial councils and municipal administration.

To deny the importance of experimentation before applying it in some generalized form, would be a mistake. However, we can not spend our lives experimenting. If someone suggested these experiments were a government about to come to power, without experience, perhaps one could concede a vote of confidence, but not for the same government to experiment for more than fifty-three years (most of which failed) and, for the sake of them sacrifice almost four generations of Cuba.

A country is not a laboratory or a research center to test formulas that are supposed to solve long-term national problems.Too much time has been lost in experiments, which, incidentally, have always been applied widely throughout the country since the inception of this government, with devastating effects.

There is no need to invent warm water, without using experience and known formulas, which have been proven over the years and which still demonstrate their effectiveness. We have Brazil, Chile, India, South Korea, Japan, South Africa, China, Vietnam, Russia and most of the countries that were part of the former socialist camp, as examples.

We must not forget either that fifty years ago most Latin American countries were more backward than Cuba, and today it is the opposite: the foremost in leading economic indicators and even in some social indicators. To bet yet again on the so-called socialist economy (failed everywhere) and the socialist enterprise (also failed), is to insist on backing a losing horse.

Many meetings could be organized, hundreds of speeches delivered and dozens of experiments performed, and until our authorities leave behind their ancestral atavism, more ideological than rational, there will be no solution to the crisis, no solution to existing problems, nor will the country go down the right path towards progress and satisfaction of the always growing needs of its citizens.

July 26 2012

Pastors For What? / Fernando Dámaso

The caravans for Cuba, which are organized annually by the so-called Pastors for Peace, force one to think. In the one held this year (the 22nd), which already crossed the border between Canada and the United States, they orchestrated the usual media show with allegorical posters to the blockade (in reality an embargo) and the five heroes (in reality spies), arms raised with closed fists, combat songs and the overworked Cuban flag on their vehicles. The next border to cross — after visiting 80 North American cities on their tour, picking up unused articles — will be between the United States and Mexico, in the state of Texas, where they will repeat the show.

It seems these Pastors are more committed to propaganda than to humanitarian help for Cuba: in the end, in order to bring a few knick-knacks to Cuba, they are guaranteed, on top of the media involvement, a tourist run throughout the North American territory, a stroll through Mexico, a free trip to Cuba with all expenses paid, the welcoming by governmental organizations and coverage by the official press. What else could one ask for such a small investment?

“Aid” buses on J Street in El Vedado

If the first articles they expect to transfer to Cuba were collected in Canada (medical supplies, bicycles and wheelchairs), why not ship them directly from that country? Why face the customs transactions (surely they must be a lot less bothersome as well as cheaper, than those of Cuban customs with any simple traveler), having to employ vehicles and spend on gas and food, traveling with them throughout the North American territory? Perhaps with those savings they could have added a few more articles. It appears that the spectaclewas planned with a show at the beginning, on the Canadian border, and another at the end, on the Mexican border.

It is worthy of note, for those who are not aware, that these shipments are not made to Cuba but to the Cuban government — which would seem to be the same thing, but isn’t — which distributes them through their organizations and institutions or other affiliates, according to its specific interests. No nongovernmental agency, which doesn’t respond to its political interests, is taken into account, independently of the needs of its members: 22 times it has been repeated, so it is not a coincidence.

When committing to peace, one tries to facilitate dialogue and tolerance between the parties in conflict. During more than twenty years, these Pastors have defended their positions and have repeated the arguments and followed the orders of the Cuban government. They have never worried about the situation of any political prisoner, nor of their mothers, wives and children, and much less so, have they ever heard the opinion of those who think differently — who are as Cuban as the rest. With that lack of neutrality, it is not possible to expect one to believe that they are committed to peace.

This use of the name of Cuba for everything, when in reality the right thing to say would be Cuban government, is something that is already bothersome to many citizens. As we all know, the government does not represent nor does it substitute for all of us eleven million Cubans who live on the island, and much less, the more than two million who reside outside of it. If the Pastors, or any other organization, should want to support the government, let them do so (they are fully in their rights to do so), but let them not hide behind the name of Cuba, and much less so behind the Cubans: they should assume their decision, with all of its present and future implications. It is true that not everyone involved is like that, nor is everyone like that involved; however, without intentions of offending anyone: it seems that God created them all, and the Devil brought them together.

Translated by: Maria Montoto

July 14 2012

Winning to Win / Fernando Dámaso

Photo Juventud Rebelde

It’s no secret to anyone that Cuban baseball, regardless of the odd triumph, has been in crisis for some time. Exposing the story of the majors, showing that professionals are playing against amateurs, the successive defeats against teams playing in equal conditions, have got the specialists and managers on the run, looking for magic formulas to resolve the situation. At some point there is the impression that, in the end, they will have to set aside the syndrome of champions at all cost, more political-ideological than sporting, and bet on the massive practice from the base, facilitating the emergence and practice of new talents, which would fill out the teams of the national series as well as the Cuban team in international competitions.

The games against the team from Nicaragua and the college students from the US demonstrate that nothing has changed. We went to Nicaragua to win and not to give a chance to our new players to get started; in contrast, this was, intelligently, what the Nicaraguan mentor wanted and did in every game with his inexperienced players.

The Cuban mentor chose to go for the victory with the best players from the national series that recently ended, without taking into consideration their physical exhaustion after the intense national series, and left the beginners on the bench as if they had traveled as spectators.

They used the same formula with the US team, after having lost the first and last games and having suffered throughout the second and third games to the last Out. Defeating the Americans (3 vs. 2) turned out to be again a political-ideological problem, having nothing to do with baseball.

Some questions emerge from this last game (Cuba vs. US), which was settled as a mutual training, not as a championship. If the visiting team was formed by college students from different universities (between the ages of 17 and 21), why wasn’t the Cuban team formed by college students from several universities as well? Why was the Professional Team of Cuba brought to this game? Isn’t this happening because baseball teams do not exist in our universities, and the sport is not practiced in an organized way?

Until we restore the practice of sports (not only for baseball) from the bottom up, with organized teams in schools and in the workplace, as it used to be before 1959, where the talented athletes emerge and naturally climb up the ladder, from lower to higher levels receiving the attention and training from specialists, our trumpeted massive character will continue to be a myth, and our teams, genetically manufactured in schools for sports or in high performance centers, ill with champions syndrome, will continue to be more distant every day from the award podiums.

Translated by Chabeli

July 11 2012

The Two Wings of a Bird / Fernando Dámaso

Archive Photo

From time to time, when a Puerto Rican pro-independent visits Cuba, they will bring up in the corresponding discourses, that image by the Puerto Rican poetess Lola Rodriguez the two wings of a bird and the approach of Jose Marti, the first fight for the independence of Cuba and later for that of Puerto Rico, valid in the 19th century when both territories were Spanish colonies, but subsequently obsolete with the development of historical events, where Cuba obtained its independence and Puerto Rico became an “Associated Free State” of the United States (or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, its official name in English).

In the 19th century, apart from its solidarity content, the Martian approach also had an eminently practical objective: to get the Puerto Rican residents in the Union, principally en Key West and Tampa (who were numerous) to help the Cuban cause economically with the commitment of doing the same for them once Cuban independence was achieved. Since then it has rained here a lot.

Today this approach, if one tried to put it into practice, would be considered an interference in internal matters by another state and would receive little support from international agencies. It is logical, no one has the right to decide about a foreign country.

According to the information I have (here these data are not published), Puerto Ricans mostly are in agreement with their status with the United States: in the last referendum held on the topic, some 48% (close to three thousand pro-independents, who voted at the last minute to prevent the country from becoming part of the United States as its 52nd state) were in agreement with keeping the current status of Associated Free State, 48% voted to join the US as a state and only 4% voted for independence. To summarize: 96% agree with the status (in one form or another) and only 4% do not. When they have taken later surveys among the population, 90% are in agreement with the current status and only 10% are not.

The reasons are understandable: the country has never had dictators, nor fratricidal fights, having enjoyed for decades a tranquil social climate and economic development. Besides keeping its flag, anthem and language (Spanish is mostly spoken but also English), its customs, culture, etc., and sharing also those of North America, they possess the same rights as North Americans because they have had US nationality since 1917, including the passport; they can live on the island or in any state of the Union, enjoying a first class health and education system, as well as Social Security.

That’s why, when some clueless person presents in the United Nations the topic of the decolonization of Puerto Rico, many look surprised and ask: How to decolonize someone who does not want to be decolonized, because they do not feel that way? Absurdities of some countries’ foreign policy, where ideology prevails instead of reason. Puerto Ricans of all political stripes have demonstrated that, respecting each other,people can live in peace and successfully develop a country achieving well-being for the majority without social upheavals or violent acts. They make a good example to follow. In November this year they will realize a new referendum to determine democratically what political relationship with the United States their inhabitants wish. Let’s await the results!

Translated by mlk

July 8 2012

Plaza Under Siege / Fernando Dámaso

Photo: Rebeca

Our government media is constantly repeating political slogans of various kinds, obsolete, recycled and new. The one that says “Cuba is a plaza under siege” seems to be one of the most prominent right now. I agree with it: Cuba is a plaza under siege by dogmatism, inability, schematism, intolerance, incoherence, lack of moral values, hopelessness, irresponsibility, fear voluntarism and other negative phenomena. The siege has been much longer than that of Troy, sung by Homer in the Iliad, and how terrible is it that it is not under siege by any external force, but rather by an internal one. This is the great paradox.

Every so often a group of economists and statisticians committed to the model, in support of the slogan, dedicate a part of their precious time (which they seem to have in abundance), to quantifying the economic losses and other things that the embargo (which they call the blockade) by the U.S. government has caused Cuba.

The figures they publish are astronomical: billions of dollars. In them they include all the vents of a half century, from natural phenomenon (hurricanes, rains, droughts, tornadoes, etc.), and the health calamities (epidemics and pandemics), as well as the economic ones (harvests and other failed plans), as well as the problems in transport, electrical generation, social services, access to the Internet and more.

The embargo has become a giant tub where they wash all their dirty laundry, avoiding historical responsibility. These figures, which deceive and confuse only those who enjoy living deceived and confused, also set off great hilarity, given their childish and primitive conception.

They are palpable proof that the totalitarian models always try to find someone responsible for their missteps or, as we say in good Cuban: a blackbird to bear the blame (that is, a scapegoat), though in this case it is an eagle.

I once thought that the updating of the model would include abandoning this absurd practice, but it seems I was wrong: it is an important part of the model and they can’t do away with it for fear of discovering themselves to be completely naked.

July 5 2012

Granma Newspaper Gets Excited About Moringa

From Yoani’s Twitter translated into English
Granma, the official newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party (and so the official newspaper of Cuba), follows Fidel’s lead and gets all excited about the Moringa tree’s ability to supply Cubans with “an inexhaustible supply of milk, eggs and meat.” (Photo from “twitpic” posted by Yoani)

In case you missed it:

Yoani’s recent blog post about Fidel’s “Moringa Reflection.”

Fernando Dámaso’s recent blog post also about Fidel’s Reflections.

A Colonial House / Fernando Dámaso

Archive Photo

In the city of Trinidad in central Cuba, in a beautiful colonial house, carefully renovated, located on Royal Street (renamed by someone “Jesús Menéndez”), there is a true safe-deposit box of the national cultural heritage. The spacious house, built in a U-shape, with a central courtyard bounded at the end by a high stone wall and flanked on both sides by numerous rooms, shelters furniture and brass beds from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but more interesting still are the dozens of religious images of all shapes, sizes, styles, and materials–properly restored or in process–that it holds.

Its owner, a Cuban concerned about losing them to predation by nationals and foreigners who would turn them into ready cash, was given the noble task of rescuing them from private homes caught in the societal whirlpool, and from churches destroyed or abandoned in the territory, by arranging to buy them (often paying more than what had been offered by prospective buyers) from those who owned or kept them, for the sole purpose of preventing them from being taken out of the country, legally or illegally, so that Cuba would not lose this precious treasure. To achieve this, he has used some of the proceeds from the sale of his works of art, since we are talking about an internationally renowned painter, who lives outside the country, and who, quietly, as advocated by José Martí, has done and does more for the national culture than many who appear daily in the mass media touting their defense of the national identity.

Take the house back in time to the colonial period and you will find rooms full of pictures, placed in the most diverse spaces, both at floor level on the walls or hanging from the ceiling, as well as finding them anywhere (living room, dining room, bathroom, hallways), many life-size, forming part of the family of the artist who resides there, giving them protection and maintenance.

This cultural wealth — accumulated over the years, restored, maintained with dedication and care, and saved from destruction — waits for the coming days of the re-founding of the nation, to return to the old churches then rebuilt, or to new ones, or to become part of the foundation of a religious museum or institution.

June 18 2012

The Real "Achievements" / Fernando Dámaso

Photo: Rebeca

More than half a century ago, when the model was implanted in our country, its later promotion was achieved on a base of present sacrifices (all former governments had been very bad) and a luminous future (the new government would be very good). Sooner rather than later, the horizon of promised happiness and well-being for which to aim, started getting further until, between speeches and new promises, like kites when their string is cut, it flew away in the wind.

Today, if there really are any, few are those who truly believe in it, the majority of citizens weary of surviving (by whatever means!) in the present, forgetful of the future. Since this is a dangerous situation, the authorities unable to offer material incentives, have opted to offer moral ones. Therefore, in speeches and the media, are repeated ad nauseam, as primary achievements of the model: maintaining independence, sovereignty and national identity, to create an internationalist sentiment among citizens, having elevated patriotism and strengthened the ability of resistance in the face of adversities. In support of this new promotion, paradigms are created, inflating pre-fabricated heroes, as if they were aerostatic balloons, and placing them in the national firmament, as examples to be followed by present and future generations.

If we weigh objectively the achievements of this model in this more than half a century, we should not leave out, among others: the destruction of agriculture and stockbreeding, the dismantling of urban, highway and railway transportation systems, the constant shortage of food and general use products, the power black-outs, the double currency, the double moral standards, the deficient citizen education, the increase in domestic and social violence, the deterioration of housing, the disorganization of commercial networks, the disappearance of industries, the censure, the repression of difference, the prohibition of free travel, etcetera.

These achievements are due, not to the existence of the embargo, but to the incapacity of the model of preserving that which was attained in fifty-six years of the Republic, to develop it and make the country move forward, resolving the problems still in existence, the main reason for the struggle and sacrifices of the majority of the Cuban people.

The path chosen (making tabula rasa of all that came before and building over its ruins the new society) failed spectacularly. It constituted a mistake and a costly historical error, of which, until now, no one has taken responsibility, trying with silence to make believe they never existed.

It is a shame that in the various biographical books, anecdotes, memoirs and interviews published, only the so-called heroic events are described, there exists not a single line dedicated to these achievements, nor the reasons that motivated them, which could be interesting to present and future generations, with the objective of never again repeating them.

Translated by: Maria Montoto

June 15 2012

Urban Planning Crimes: Who Started Them? / Fernando Dámaso

Photos by Rebeca

It is right and necessary to fight against urban planning and other crimes, and to try to create a bit of order in society after so many years of barbarities. It seems as if the attention is focused on citizens who built precarious garages in the common areas of multifamily buildings, closed open spaces making them private, put bars in front of the elevator doors on each floor of tall buildings, added water tanks to each apartment, erected barriers to transit sites in shopping streets, transformed facades in their own bad taste, added absurd buildings, converted terraces and porches into rooms, etc. All of this is reprehensible and unacceptable, even if it was done in response to vital needs (e.g. lack of space in the home of a growing family, lack of access to other roomier ones, not being provided garages in new building, impunity of the criminals), or the lack of government solutions (all private ownership was prohibited), rather than for being irresponsible.

However, it is noted that it was precisely the constituted authorities, and some of their closest collaborators, who started these illegal practices, raising high walls (some up to four meters) in their new assigned homes (sometimes even with surveillance cameras) and shutting down streets and gardens around them; occupying entire buildings and even the surrounding homes, including streets, gardens and other spaces; pharaonic buildings constructed without respecting the existence of streets; fencing and enclosing the gardens and parking of government buildings in Civic Square, closing doors and original entrances, hampering, or even not allowing citizens’ free access to them. This epidemic spread like the invasive marabou weed, and involved agencies, institutions and companies, which were turned into veritable fortresses, with barriers and prohibitions and, sometimes, even with loopholes. Maybe someone alleges that it was all for protection against the eternal enemy, but as always, we went too far, far surpassing the sense of limits.

Given this reality, which is easily checked by visiting our cities and towns, the civic psyche reacts naturally: if the authorities do not respect the urban planning regulations, why should the people respect them? In this battle against urban planning crimes, are the officials’ crimes also taken into account or will the affected only be ordinary citizens? If the chain, as has happened many times, is broken by the weakest links and doesn’t touch the strongest, the battle is lost from the start. To succeed, we must lead by example. Besides, it is good to combat wrongdoing, but we must create  the material conditions to prevent these crimes from being repeated: If the  solutions to citizens’ real problems are not created (living space, new housing, protection of property and other), it will be like plowing the sea.

Translated by Rafael Gómez

June 9 2012

Simple Human Beings / Fernando Dámaso

Archive photo

Chauvinism has been an evil that has always accompanied us, exacerbated in the last 50 years, with the objective of making us forget our small, medium and large problems, on altars of resolving those of humanity, as the different and chosen people that we are. This aims to explain and validate our direct or indirect participation in dozens of countries, as much in times of war as of peace, at the cost of human lives and material resources.

Nevertheless, if we review our history, in spite of being rich in facts and important people — like any other country — this strange self-valuation has not contributed much. Not because of caprice did Spain place on its shield its famous phrase: The always loyal Island of Cuba, without forgetting that we were one of the last colonies to free ourselves, when all the rest had already managed it.

Our first armed uprising against Spain was organized and directed by a Venezuelan, General Narciso Lopez, on disembarking in Cardenas in 1850, with the majority participation of foreigners, principally North Americans, and only five Cubans. No inhabitant of the place swelled his forces, and he had to re-embark, pursued by the Spaniards.

On his second landing, by Pinar del Rio, 10% were Cuban, but the Hungarian General Johann Pragay and North American Colonel William Crittenden formed an important part of it. It failed, being captured by a Cuban patrol in the service of the Spaniards, and the majority were executed.

In 1868, in the uprising of Yara, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes commanded; Maximo Gomez and Luis Marcano, both Dominicans,participated, Marcano was second in command (substituted for Bartolome Maso). Afterward they were joined by General Modesto Diaz, also Dominican. The post of Chief General of the Liberating Army, on producing the division of powers in the year 1869, was occupied by the Cuban General Manuel de Quesada, who had fought in the Mexican war against the French, but afterward the North American General Thomas Jordan arrested him for a short time — in the Ten Year War, and General Maximo Gomez — during all of the War of Independence.

In these suppressed wars the brigadier Henry Reeve, North American, and General Carlos Roloff, Polish, stood out in addition to some other lesser known foreigners. In more recent times, an important role in insurrectionist triumph belonged to commander Ernesto Guevara, Argentinian.

As can be appreciated, although I have only referred to the military and have not made reference to medicine, education, architecture, the arts, etc., on many occasions we have needed foreigners for the achievement of our goals. This does not diminish the role of the Cubans, but it puts us in our just place, without nationalist outbursts of any kind.

Neither is the cowardice well founded that some attribute to us in recent times for not being capable of fighting for an exit from the profound economic, political and social crisis that overwhelmed us more than half a century ago. Without a doubt fear exists in society, but it is an induced fear that has deformed a great part of the population, making it accept and even be complicit in a bad government, forgetting their most elemental duties as citizens.

Ultimately, like everyone, we have lights and shadows, good things and bad things. We are neither different nor chosen, but simple human beings.

Translated by mlk

May 15 2012

Neighborhood Churches / Fernando Dámaso

Giral street, in the El Moro development in the Mantilla district, was the only asphalt street, extending from Calzada de Managua to Avenida de Dolores in Lawton. In its first stretches, it crossed the dirt roads outlining the development area, then continued between the different ranches, so abundant in the area, that supply fresh milk to the nearby Lucero Creamery and provide meat to the slaughterhouse. Electrical lines and the aqueduct end and give way to oil lamps, kerosene lamps, and artesian wells. Nights that were previously full of shadows have become luminous.

On this street two blocks from the Calzada, one finds a small church constructed in wooden mortise and tenon, with a gabled roof of French tilesand a large front patio-garden crossed by a concrete sidewalk leading from the street to the church doors. It was here where we children from the district attended catechism dressed in our best clothes each Saturday afternoon. When it was over, the priest, a young, happy man, hosted a children’s party with sweets, candies, chocolates, cookies, and drinks that lasted until about six in the afternoon. This was the hook to attract us and ensure we abandon our games and pranks. However strange it may seem, we only went to this church on Saturdays.

Mass on Sundays was destined for the stone church, larger and brighter, which was found – and I think it can still be found – on the Calzada, in front of the old Route 4 bus stop. Perhaps because it was more distant and outside the district, it represented an outing that continued with a snack in the bus stop cafeteria and ended by dropping in on friends that lived in the area. Sunday mornings were practically dedicated to these occupations and Sunday afternoons were reserved for the cinema or going to some fun park or circus, depending on the season when they were set up on some development land or close by.

On the corner by my house,a Baptist church was constructedat the end of the 40’s (it had a large nave with high brick walls and a gabled zinc roofwith many large windows) but we never went there: most of our neighbors were Catholic, even if they did not really practice; others were spiritualists, but with Catholic roots as well.

On their respective feast days, processions left from both Catholic churches, accompanied by most people, adults as well as children, intoning religious canticles. Some quarreled over the honor of being able to carry the images on their shoulders, much as they did over carrying the lit candles and banners. The apotheosis occurred on the day of Caridad de El Cobre: it constituted the greatest, most well-attended and eye-catching procession. It ran through practically all the main streets in the neighborhood before returning to the church. Holy Week and Christmas were also important, full of different activities, from handing out the palm fronds, blessed in the first week, up to the beautiful nativities in the second.

These were the churches I remember from the Mantilla district, and around them, among laughs and games, some fights and first loves, the first approaches to Catholicism were developed outside the family house.

Archive photos.

Translated by: M. Ouellette

April 5 2012

A National Pandemic / Fernando Dámaso

In any journey you make in our cities and towns, if you’re approaching the so-called “third age,” you will be impressed by the large number of gates and fences around houses, factories and shops. Whether you like it or not, you will remember the old days, when all the spaces were open and were cared for and respected. Then, you could walk through any neighborhood and, except for some of the mansions of Vedado and Miramar, all had easy access, if there were low perimeter fences they were fully integrated into the architectural design, and in the fifties, not even that: simple spaces of grass called “Japanese lawns,” adjoined the sidewalks.

Industries were the same, with gardens and well-kept green areas all around (outstanding examples: La Tropical, La Polar and the La Cotorra with its magnificent gardens). Businesses with many doors, all working, with access from different streets (the Ten Cents, Sears, El Encanto, Fin de Siglo, Ultra, La Época, La Filosofía, La Casa de lo Tres Centavos, etc.). Also cinemas and theaters, cafes and restaurants and even hotels, with the Havana Hilton accessible through the L, 23rd, M, and 25th streets, to name a single case. The principle, assumed by all, was to facilitate free movement and access (the old Manzana de Gomez is a precursor example), and to make people feel the same freedom as when they went for a walk or to a park. Nor did the stores have guards checking bags, and improperly digging through things you already paid for in the box which were, therefore, your absolute property.

Those were the days when the gallons of milk, bread and the newspaper were left by the respective dealers, in the doors and windows overlooking sidewalks and streets, and no one touched them or drank them, and at the doors of the houses chairs could be left out day and night, unchained.

The change has been brutal: Most homes have fencing, including the doors, windows, porches, terraces, gardens and patios, and even air conditioners and gas tanks. The same has happened with the buildings, industries and businesses. In buildings, in addition to the lattice of the main gates, there are apartment gratings and even collective garages turned into multiple cells, one for each car.

In stores, no matter your destination, it has reached extremes of madness. Walking a few days ago in deteriorated and propped up Central Havana, particularly on Neptune between Prado and Galiano, I noticed that doors and windows of shops still standing in this once-important shopping street, have bars. The same punishment has been suffered by the so-called Rapidos — the State cafes that are supposed to be open and accessible. A negative example is at Zapata and 26th Street in Nuevo Vedado: not satisfied to put a grate on the little space selling food and hygiene products, they’ve also put a grate over the entire cafe, closing the access from 26th, and leaving just a tiny entrance on Zapata. To drink a soft drink or a beer there, in convertible money of course, is like going into a sad cell in the famous Combinado del Este prison.

Deserving of special mention are doors in general: the profusion of them in movie theaters, stores, hotels, restaurants, cafes, etc. (sometimes four and even six), have been cut to only one, sometimes two, that actually function, closing all others, forcing citizens to come and go in single file like cattle to the slaughter, under the watchful eye of the guard on duty.

What went wrong? How is it possible that before, as the official propaganda never tires of driving the point home, we were poorly educated, illiterate, rude and dying of hunger, but we didn’t need bars or fences or closed-off access or guards (about 10% of the labor force is made up of them)? Why now, when also according to official propaganda, we are well-educated, literate, and the most cultured and educated people living in the best place in the world, are we trapped in individual and collective prisons, and we have to submit to humiliating searches when we leave a store? It seems that gold is not all that shines in the vineyard of the Lord.

November 25 2011