Category: Yoani Sanchez

He raised his hand at the meeting. The director had told them “don’t hold back,” so he took advantage of the chance to say what he’d remained silent about for months. He started with the very low wages paid to public health workers. Then he talked about the dirty bathrooms, the water shortages, that the only sterilizer was broken, the leaks all over the hospital. He continued with the heat in the waiting room packed with patients and the lack of surgical instruments. He finished up with the exclamation, “it’s more than anyone can stand,” which plunged the room into a heavy and uncomfortable silence.

At the end someone approached him to say that his criticism hadn’t been constructive but merely a catharsis. So he didn’t speak again at any other meeting.

Behind the argument of looking for opportune and uplifting criticisms, hide those who in reality do not want any kind of criticism. For them, being proactive means bowing and preceding every statement with a flattering phrase. One should never, according to these encouragers of applause — question the system, much less the inefficiencies that don’t allow it to function. Being “constructive” amounts to not calling to account the current leaders of the political process, much less questioning the ideological model. One also needs to show a blind faith that everything will be resolved with “wise leadership” at the highest levels.

If someone deviates from the script of tolerated criticism, the disqualifiers will rain down upon them. Chip on the shoulder, whiner, crybaby… will be the first insults, although later it’ll move on to the already hackneyed “CIA agent,” “counterrevolutionary” or “enemy of the nation.” Their observations will never find the opportune moment, because they don’t include submission or self-blame.

Criticism doesn’t need a name. It doesn’t need to be classified as “constructive” or “destructive,” but it should be delivered with total rigor, regardless. Like rubbing medicine on a festering sore, criticism hurts, it makes you cry, it’s torture… but it cures.

5 March 2014

They say no one learns a lesson through someone else’s head, that we repeat the mistakes of others and stumble, over and over, on the same stone. Skeptics assure us that people forget, close their eyes to the past and commit identical mistakes. Venezuela, however, has begun to disprove that inevitability. Amid a reality marked by insecurity, shortages and inflation, Venezuelans are trying to amend a mistake that has lasted too long.

Taken over by Cuban intelligence, monitored from the Plaza of the Revolution in Havana, and ruled by a man who incites violence against those who are different, this South American nation now finds itself facing the most important dilemma of its contemporary history. Totalitarianism or democracy, those are the options. What is being decided in its streets is not only Nicolás Maduro’s permanence in power, but the very existence of an axis of authoritarianism and personal ambition that spans all of Latin America. A system that disguises itself with empty words in the style of “socialism of the 21st century,” “a revolution of the humble,” “the dreams of Simon Bolívar” and “the new left,” whose fundamental characteristics are its leaders’ lust for power, economic inefficiency, and the curtailing of freedoms.

But Venezuelan students have given Chavismo a dose of its own medicine. Young people and college students have been the driving force of the protests this time. Which proves that Miraflores has lost the most rebellious and dynamic part of society. Although the headlines in the government controlled press speak of conspiracies fomented from abroad, it’s enough to look at the images of the police and the armed commandos beating the protestors to understand where the violence comes from.

Venezuela is going through difficult times, like all awakenings. The oligarchs in red will not give up power voluntarily and Raul Castro will not let them so easily snatch away the goose that lays the golden egg. But at least we already know that Venezuelans will not walk the same road they imposed on us in Cuba. Meekness, fear, complicity, and escape as the only way out… those have been our mistakes. Venezuela doesn’t want to repeat them, it can’t repeat them.

2 March 2014

Miguel has earned a lot of money this week. He managed to sell almost one hundred pirated copies of the Cuban movie Conduct. Although the film is showing in several of the country’s theaters, many prefer to see it at home among friends and family. The story of a boy nicknamed Chala and his teacher Carmela is causing a furor and leading to long lines outside the premiere cinemas. It’s been decades since any national production has been so popular or provoked so many opinions.

Why is the latest creation of director Ernesto Daranas becoming such a social phenomenon? The answer transcends artistic questions to delve into the depth of his dreams. While it is clearly told with excellent cinematography and superb acting, its the realism of the script that is the greatest achievement of this film. The movie generates an immediate rapport with the audience, reflecting their own lives as if reflected in a mirror.

In the dark theaters, facing the screen, the spectators applaud, scream and cry. The moments of greatest emotion from the house seats coincide with the politically most critical speeches. “No more years than those who govern us,” answers the teacher Carmela when they want her to retire because she’s spent too much time in the teaching profession; an ovation of support runs through the theater at that instant. The semi-darkness exacerbates the audacity and complicity.

The “Conduct phenomenon” is explained by its ability to reflect the existence of many Cubans. But it goes far beyond a simple realistic portrait, to become an x-ray that lays bare the bones. A Cuba where there is hardly any moral framework left for a child in this environment light-years away from the ideal claimed by the official media. Barely twelve, Chala supports his alcoholic mother with what he earns from illegal dog fights, inhabiting a harsh unjust city, impoverished to the point of tears.

It’s not the first time Cuban cinema has shown the tough side of reality. The film Strawberry and Chocolate (1993) paved the way for social criticism, particularly with regards the discrimination against homosexuals and artistic censorship. The cost of its daring was high, because it had to wait twenty years to be shown on national TV. Alice in Wonderland (1991) faced a worse fate, with the political police filling the theaters where it was projected, and party militants screaming insults at the screen. Conduct has arrived in at different juncture.

The spread of new technologies has allowed many filmmakers to find ways to make their projects. Critical, acerbic and rebellious scripts have seen the light in the last five years because they have no need for the approval and resources from the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC ). This proliferation of shorts, documentaries, and independent films has been a very favorable situation for Ernesto Daranas’ filmstrip. The censors know that it’s not worth the trouble to veto such a movie on the State circuits. It would run through the illegal networks like wildfire.

A brief conversation outside the Yara cinema exposed the controversy this story unleashed. “There are a lot of people who live better than Chala, that’s true, but there are others who live much worse,” said a man in his sixties. A young woman responded that she wondered if the director ”exaggerated the squalor of the situations shown.” Another girl joined the debate to say, “You say this because you live in Miramar, where these things don’t happen.
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On Tuesday night, the ruling party journalist Randy Alonso also joined the line to see the movie in the final showing of the day. Behind him giggles and comments were heard — “So what’s he doing here?” — given that his face is associated with uncritical journalism, a sycophant of power. Once inside the theater, those who sat near him did not see him join the chorus of shouts of support. With every minute that passed, he seemed to sink more deeply into his seat, not wanting to be noticed. What he was seeing on the screen was the exact opposite of what he explains on his boring Roundtable show.

So it is that Conduct was able to gather in the same room the fabricators of the myth and those burdened by it. After the projector is turned off, the doors open and the viewers exit to reality similar to the script, but one where they can no longer express themselves under the protection of the shadows. Chala waits for them on every corner.

21 February 2014

Among the most precious possessions of my childhood was a collection of science fiction books. Those pages filled long hours of my life, allowing me to know other worlds and to escape — at will — the flat reality. My sister liked the tales of far off planets, space ships and extraterrestrial civilizations. I preferred the possible fantasies, that left me with the feeling that at any moment something could happen: Time travel, genetics-manipulating scientists and creatures rescued from yesterday were my favorites.

From the pens of Karel Čapek, Isaac Asimov, Daína Chaviano, Stanislaw Lem and Oscar Hurtado, my adolescence was a time enlivened with robots, humanoids, fairies, flying saucers, and remote galaxies. Several compilations of the genre had been published in those years, in editions with yellowed pages and cramped typography. On our bookshelf there was a place of honor for The Martian Chronicles, Quick Freeze and The Call of Cthulhu, the great stories of Ray Bradbury and the novel The Space Merchants. Those books for us were like doors to another dimension.

The 23rd Havana International Bookf Fair has brought a selection of science fiction authors. On the Cuban side José Miguel Sánchez (Yoss) stands out, while the foreign author of greatest note is the Russian Serguei Lukianenko. Absent, however, are the great titles of the last decade in a genre that keeps evolving and attracting readers. The reason for such a failure is the lack of many local publishers’ economic capacity to buy the copyrights from foreign writers. There is also a certain underestimation of the genre, which has failed to find a place in the annual plans of what is printed and promoted.

20 February 2014

When the days are cloudy Havana Bay takes on a strange, gray tint. When viewed from the Fortress of San Carlos de la Cabaña, the city looks like a faded postcard. Yesterday morning the public opening of the International Book Fair perfectly coincided with a winter’s day. So the colorful posters announcing the titles and the authors to be honored flapped in a chill February breeze. A brisk reading many appreciated.

Among the main attractions of this Fair is the site itself. The esplanade of a colonial military fort and its rounded galleries gives a vintage touch to the literary event. Parents take take the opportunity to bring their children to frolic among the old cannons and the walls of stone. The gastronomic offerings, the sale of handicrafts, and other associated choices, come to play a bigger role than the books.

This twenty-third edition of the fair confirms the deteriorating trend in Cuban publishing. Although the official media announced two million copies and some 400 invited guests, the decline of our main cultural event is obvious. The reasons for this loss of brightness range from the purely commercial to the ideological. Such that the Fair, approaching its quarter century, is aging and urgently in need of a reevaluation.

A celebration of books and reading where too much is missing. The long list of what is censored for political considerations, among which are numerous Cuban exiles. Missing names like Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Reinaldo Arenas, Jesus Jesús Díaz, Daína Chaviano or Abilio Estévez. The silence also extends to writers of other nationalities like the Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa. Ideology still stands as the main criterion when sending out invitations.

The limited economic capacity to acquire copyrights from living international figures still writing impoverishes our publishing. There is a marked tendency to publish the classics over and over, which clearly are must-reads, but shouldn’t constitute the only option. Many shelves in this Book Fair seem to come from the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, rather than from today.

The scarcity of contemporary titles is especially dramatic in the children’s options. Every year the youngest readers can choose only local authors, or names such as Emilio Salgari, Jules Verne and the Brothers Grimm. The greatest hits of the fantastic literature for children and teens in the last decades, have not been present on the national circuit. Harry Potter was never issued by a Cuban publisher.

A book fair should be a site to make contacts, close deals, get to know new authors who will be published later. This function of serving as a meeting point doesn’t exist at the Havana Book Fair. It lost, or never had, the character of a showcase not only for an audience that wants to buy or browse, but for  entrepreneurs , directors or cultural promoters of the publishing world.

How many agreements are closed during the two weeks of the event? What is the total amount of contracts signed? The day we know the answers to those questions we will be able to see on the Fair’s heart monitor whether it’s a straight line and a beep that confirms it’s over.

Ideology also influences the selection of the guest country, whose offerings in recent years have been turned into more of a showcase for the ruling party than a literary exposition. On this occasion the announced highlight of the Fair was the presentation of the book “From Banana Republic to Non-Republic,” written by Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa. The cancellation of the South American dignitary’s trip “for work-related reasons,” was not properly announce. The Fair was already in a free fall since its opening, where off-the-cuff speeches tried to cover the absence of the missing president.

Still, the fairgrounds have been filled and will continue to be filled in the coming days. People will buy thousands of books and stand in long lines to get the most attractive titles. Because the number of visitors doesn’t reflect the quality of the fair, but rather the publishing wilderness that surrounds us the rest of the year. Parents will watch their kids play between the walls of what was once a prison and also the scene of summary executions. The Havana that presents itself from La Cabaña in this gray winter is a strange and beautiful sight.

The Un-Fair has begun.

15 February 2014, from Yoani’s “Cuba Libre” blog in El Pais newspaper

Everything moves clumsily, heavily. Even the sun seems to take longer than normal up there. The clock knows nothing of precision and the minute hand is stuck. Making an appointment with the exactitude of three-fifteen or twenty-to-eleven is the pure pedantry of those in a hurry. Time is dense, like guava jam with too much sugar.

“If you hurry your problems double,” the clerk warns the customer anxious to get home early. The man sweats, drums his fingers, while she cuts her really long fingernails before even hitting a key on the cash register. The line behind him also looks at him with scorn, “Another one who thinks he’s in a big hurry,” says an annoyed lady.

We live in a country where diligence has come to be interpreted as rudeness and being on time as a petulant quirk. An Island in slow motion, where you have to ask permission from one arm to move the other. A long crocodile that yawns and yawns as it lolls in the Caribbean waters.

Someone who manages to complete two activities in one day might feel fortunate. It’s common not to be able to find ways to do even one. There’s a hitch at every step, a sign that says, “Today we’re closed for fumigation,” “We don’t serve the public on Friday,” or Raul’s phrase, “Without hurry but without pause.” Delay, postpone, suspend, cancel… the verbs most conjugated when you face any procedure or paperwork.

The turtle’s pace is everywhere. From the bureaucratic offices and the bus stops to the recreation and service centers. But the big winner of the award for having “the blood of a turnip” is the government itself: Three years after the fiber optic cable was connected between Cuba and Venezuela it is still impossible to contract for a home Internet connection.

Two decades of the dual monetary system and they still haven’t published a schedule for the elimination of this economic schizophrenia. Fifty-four years of single-party government and there is no sign of a day when we will have the right to free association. Half a century of government blunders and mistakes and they haven’t even begun to hint at an apology.

At this rate, one day they’ll re-baptize the Island “Never Never Land,” a place where clocks and calendars are banned.

18 February 2014

It’s just been born and in a few hours they will register the baby with its brand new name. A few days will pass before the parents get the birth certificate and then the so-called “minor card.” Without an identification card you can’t receive products from the ration market, enroll in school, get a job, travel on an inter-provincial bus, or put your belongings in a bag-check at a shop. Every day of your life you need this document, which at the top carries a unique combination of eleven digits. On the little piece of cardboard your temporal and geographic data is registered… and also certain physical details.

It looks just like a letter on the back of the identity card, but it is an initial that describes the color of our skin. This consonant classifies us as one race or another, divides us into one group or another. Amid repeated institutional calls to end discrimination, the Cuban Civil Registry still maintains a racial category for every citizen. Along with the date of our birth, and our address, it specifies if we are white, mixed or black. The assignment of a “B,” “M” or “N,” (Blanco-white, Mestizo-mixed, Negro-black), in a nation with so much race mixing, is often the result of a functionary’s subjective judgement.

Amid so many priorities, so many rights to demand and injustices to end, it might seem trivial to demand the withdrawal of a letter on our identify card. However, its small presence doesn’t diminish its gravity. Especially when the document itself already has a photo of its holder, where you can see his or her physical features.

No citizen should be evaluated by the color of their skin, nor placed in a category according to the amount of pigment they carry in their epidermis. Such bureaucratic backwardness speaks more to prison files than civil registries. It’s not a question of melanin, but of principles.

17 February 2014

The Capitol Building under repair in a country in ruins.

Behind the shelves there is another International Book Fair. One barely perceived among the partitions and walls of the exhibition areas. The national newspapers will never report on it, but these parallel and hidden events sustain the other one. A network of hardship, endless workdays and poverty-level wages, support the main publishing showcase on the island. For each page printed, there is a long list of irregularities, improvisations and exploitations.

The Cuban Book Institute (ICL) is the principal organizer of this celebration of reading that is held every February. However, the state entity that controls literary production is overwhelmed by the lack of resources and corruption scandals. Its director, Zuleica Romay, asked to step down weeks before the start of the book fair. However, it’s still unknown if she will be granted “liberation” from her responsibilities, or will “follow her duty” to maintain her position.

Many of the people who worked on this twenty-third edition of the Fair played the role of the ants who prevent the collapse of the anthill. The “credits” chalked on the Cuban government’s account are the fruit of personal sacrifices and violations that no union would demand: lunches delayed or missed completely, editorial decisions that can’t be taken because first “you have to consult the comrade from State Security,” workers who bring resources from their own homes to decorate the place, books that travel in the trunk of a private car — or in the basket of a bike — a lack of institutional gasoline and water supply that never makes it to the mouths of the thirsty employees…

Spanish post
15 February 2014

Unusual in his generation, Santiago Feliú was, for years, the Nueva Trova singer I most listened to. His themes moved away from the commonplace poetry of his contemporaries and he went on to create a personal and inimitable style. There was a certain real life toughness in his lyrics, lacking affectation, but lyrical. He stood out among others who were once rebels and ended up as officials, among the former long-hairs now with military haircuts and so many non-conformists who turned into functionaries in guayaberas.

A beloved folksinger, the author of “Para Bárbara” frequented gatherings and let loose with guitar, rum and people captivated by his notes. He sang in our living room now and then, and it surprised us to see him stutter when he wasn’t singing a melody. Like Baudelaire’s albatross flying high, but finding it extremely awkward to walk on the deck of a ship… a ship aground in this case. He was approachable, close, human, without boasts or arrogance. He was just one of us among us.

Dying, he has left us with the image of his untouched mane, his many colored bracelets tied to his wrist, and his dark clothes that became a fashion. There was so much life left in him, so many chords in him, the shy, irreverent, forever young one. He has left us, gone, like “those shitty days that will also pass.” But this time he’s not right, because “you are not my love” but nor are the others… it has just been Santiaguito, who in the middle of the night played his last note, chugged the last drink, and left us with his music forever.

*Translator’s note: A line from one of Santiago’s songs.
12 February 2014

The trajectory of a place is always a mystery, its possibilities a mystery. The soaring chimney of El Cocinero will soon shelter another kind of process, less industrial, but more creative. In a few days its main facility will open as a space for concerts, exhibitions, fashion shows and performances.

Havana was missing its “Rote Fabrik,” one of those sites where sweat and production once played their part that now vibrates with musical notes, the audacity of artists and the applause of the public. Art taking over what was once purely industrial territory. Thanks to X Alfonso, this absence is about to be filled. The singer has been deeply involved in preparing this place with an enormous potential but in desperate need of repair. It is the culmination of months of hard work.

Red brick over red brick, soaring ceilings and a roof with an unusual view of over the mouth of the Almendares River.

“This will be a site that doesn’t quit,” the ingenious author of disks like Reverse and Revoluxíon has declared. While he says this he’s wearing pants splattered with cement and putting the finishing touches on his new creation.

This time he has not composed the soundtrack for a movie nor won a Goya for it. However, on seeing his project through he will have the gratitude of many here in Havana and countless Cubans.

10 February 2014