I Tell It Like It Is / Regina Coyula

caricatura de GarrinchaI remember how surprised I was in 1990 when I read in the newspaper Granma some of the letters exchanged between Fidel and Khrushchev during the October 1962 Missile Crisis. It was clear to me that Fidel encouraged the leader of the now extinct superpower to get ahead of their adversary and strike the first powerful blow, and he doesn’t mention the possibility of talking first. Even though he now derides the former leader of the USSR as a drunk, the truth is that the Russians handled the crisis as if it were a Chess match; trying to predict plays in advance, they obtained the withdrawal of missiles Turkey and a moratorium for Cuba. Fidel swallowed his pride and only after the fall of the sister republic has he expressed his displeasure at not being invited to the negotiating table back then. He wrote what he wrote, even if now he would like to spin it differently.

Fidel “amuses himself” seeing how the same American journalist who gave him the opportunity to reinterpret his intentions expressed in the letters from 1962, quotes him verbatim when he says the Cuban model doesn’t even work for Cuba anymore. But no, Fidel of course meant to say the opposite.

To sum up the little we know in Cuba about his interview with Goldberg, it’s possible that here in our country the capitalist model will not work as Fidel says; but I’m sure, since I live under it, that socialism, as we know it here and any other place it has been tried, doesn’t work either.

Translated by: Xavier Noguer

September 16, 2010

The Ant / Fernando Dámaso

The tiny hardworking ant dug with her legs into the sticky black mud covering the stone, and with a gigantic effort loaded the heavy fern leaf onto her back, staggered under the weight, and started walking towards the old oak where she had been born, a tree eaten away by the years and burnt by a lightning that struck during the summer’s last storm. She walked with a limp and slowly, struggling with her own legs while trying not to get trapped in the mud. She looked around, straightening her antennas. The humidity had stuck to her body, which shone like it was slick with oil. She kept going painfully slowly, and the small distance she had covered seemed like a great victory. She had lagged behind the long column that had departed at dawn to search for food, while trying to free the juicy leaf, which would prove useful at the end of the fall when the trees become bare, from the mud.

The sun had barely begun to warm the land and it cost her a supreme effort to reach her destination before noon. While making up her mind to the task, she had calculated all the time she would need: to move the leaf, to get it out of the mud, to load it onto her back, to unstick every one of her legs from the mud, to walk the whole way back, to fight against the mid-morning wind making her movements even more difficult. She felt safe, and capable of accomplishing her goal. She gathered all her strength, and step by step, began to approach the oak. There weren’t any predators in the surroundings and this made her feel more certain of her coming success. She reached the tree, completely exhausted, before eleven o’clock. Right before entering the cave, the index finger of the man who was resting there, and who had watched her since the very beginning, crushed her against a bare root.

Translated by: Xavier Noguer

September 10, 2010

The Third Issue of La Rosa Blanca Magazine / Henry Constantín

This is the third issue of La Rosa Blanca, you have to walk a lot in order to publish it, and walk even more to deliver it in a country mute and without internet. Every issue of La Rosa Blanca, which I’ll post in this blog as I’ve done before, since I don’t have any effective way to post it someplace else, is the sum of a few eventful trips to collaborators’ houses and loyal readers.

This magazine is also the end of many trips. In the province of Las Tunas, up north, I meet Christian essayist Frank Folgueira at his house, a stubborn historian focused on the history of another one of the towns – Manatí, which is also my birthplace – hit by the plague that is just ending. As if it were a national affliction, in Encrucijada de Villa Clara, in an old high roof wooden house from before the revolution, I meet Gabriel Barrenechea, suffocated by the gray vigilant atmosphere of his village, writing his stories and copious economics and political essays by hand.

Havana… and fourteen long flights of stairs to reach the apartment of two friendly Cubans, Yoani and Reinaldo, because La Rosa Blanca publishes some articles from Generation Y, which needs from channels like this one to be read in Cuba. Afterwards, down Tulipán street, we turn and continue for a couple of streets, in Nuevo Vedado, and underground – and under the sea which floods this island – we meet Rafael Alcides who breaks his self-imposed silence to offer us a few articles of unheard of tidiness.

A bit farther away, where Vedado and Downtown Havana meet, Yoss delivers dozens of writings of every kind, but always weighing more towards fantasy and science fiction, giving a breath of fresh air to the seriousness that national reality imposes on the magazine. I come back to Camagüey, and go to the only house where everything is discussed, freely and thoroughly, located in Agramonte, and I meet with the intellectual Rafael Almanza going through one of the thousands of pieces that make up his work.

Maybe, instead of coming back to Camagüey, I go from Havana to Pinar del Rio, where Dagoberto Valdés and Karina, Virgilio, Jesuhadín, Néstor, Servando and the others patiently try to inculcate a culture of tolerance in all Cubans. Or I’ll go to Bayamo, where my friend Ernesto Morales, who’s been just expelled from his post working as an official journalist – he’s finally managed to get that badge of recognition of his honesty and bravery – writes and blogs in the tense and isolated environment of the eastern provinces; or maybe to visit Elia, in Las Tunas, in search of Carlos Esquivel’s poems, a miraculous writer who has resisted the temptation of the big cities, and refuses to leave his indolent land.

From the work of all of them, and many others, comes La Rosa Blanca, which will later spread from computer to computer, from memory to memory, and even through old three and a half inch floppy disks, with the same silent fragility which characterizes its making. Here it is.

La Rosa Blanca 3.pdf

Translated by: Xavier Noguer

September 5, 2010

Old Wineskins / Regina Coyula

Most people I know didn’t sit in front of the TV to watch the special session of the National Assembly called by Fidel Castro in order to analyze current international events; it seems they didn’t care about it. But it was interesting. It allowed me to see Fidel almost live. Almost, because the broadcast must have been delayed by a few minutes to fix any unexpected blunders. Nevertheless some gaffes couldn’t be edited out; always a risk when broadcasting live.

We have heard very often about the subject of this session, even before the caller’s reappearance, but always under his aegis. The subject was that war that Obama has delayed just to make Fidel look bad. But our fiery ex-president doesn’t give up: If the war doesn’t begin, it will be thanks to the immense, international and intense campaign started by him with his historical letter last week to the American president.

After Fidel read his message, some of those present “spontaneously” intervened to read prepared written statements, always starting with a compliment to the top leader. Then, as if they were in school, deputies were given three questions as homework. Questions they will have to answer using a new angle defined by the former president. I couldn’t help thinking of storing new wine in old wineskins.

War and the environment are his concerns. (In his crusade for the environment, he always references the French documentary Home, which is good, but very inferior to An Inconvenient Truth, the overwhelming documentary presented by Al Gore.)

After seeing what I have seen since his resurrection, I have no doubt that Fidel’s race for the Nobel Peace Prize should be taken seriously.

Translated by: Xavier Noguer

August 11, 2010

The Face of Magical Realism / Ernesto Morales Licea

Yes, it’s magical realism. Sometimes more evident, sometimes less. But the way one lives on this island at times verges on the incredible, and one has to remember that we live in a land of exceptions, comic or ironic, cruel or terribly sad, where everything can be believed.

It so happens that a friend of mine recently realized that to be able to enjoy certain attractions in Cuba she needs to first show a passport certifying her status as a foreigner or a Cuban residing overseas. She learned her lesson during a visit to one of the hotels of warm beaches and frozen coconut desserts that most of her compatriots have never known.

She was on the arm of her husband, an Italian national she married in 2004, who she lives (to this day) legally in Cuba. Somebody else was also holding her hand: little Dimitri, their son, who’s 4-years-old.

Obviously she was able to visit that tropical paradise, located in Holguin province, thanks to her husband’s money. My friend is a dentist who graduated with a golden diploma. Her husband, a native of Florence, has worked in everything from fixing windows in the Galleria degli Uffizi to working as a mason. Words from his own mouth.

They both knew that her academic achievements were useless when it comes to paying for leisure activities or feeding Dimitri well. (I think I also know that, harsh as it seems, without his money the marriage would never have been possible). But this incident showed them that there were still some things to learn.

Damn the Florentine husband for believing in the enjoyments that one can so easily access in his home country. The moment he asked to use one of those fast jetskis we usually see in the hands of tourists, riding the waves of our beaches, he understood a harsh fact of life in Cuba, a fact George Orwell would describe thus: even though the hotel contract says all guests are equal, some guests are more equal than others.

The friendly hotel employee asked, before delivering the vehicle, to see both of their passports and their son’s. Taken aback, the husband showed him the bracelets worn by all guests. And then the employee patiently explained:

“Only foreigners or Cubans residing overseas can ride motor vehicles. Cubans can ride on a beach bicycle or a surf board, but not on anything with an engine. Cubans have access to the beach bikes, the surf boards, but not to anything with a motor.”

The Italian man tried in vain to explain (first calmly, then feeling insulted) that he had been living in Cuba for years with his wife and little Dimitri, and that this rule made no sense to him.

Of course, the hotel employee didn’t have any obligation to convince guests of the fairness of rules made by his superiors. Even more, he shouldn’t linger on their details to avoid giving away “sensitive” information. So without further ado he put on his tourism worker smile, and apologized for the inconvenience.

The three stared at each other, astonished. The Italian father and the 4-year-old kid (having both Italian and Cuban passports) could ride the waves under the shining sun on the jetski, while the Cuban mother would have to look on from the beach, maybe with a Mojito in her hand, maybe feeling anger and impotence strangling her throat.

Of course, none of this happened. The three went back to the pool, and other less restricted areas of the hotel. But between them, a blurred silence made things different. From now on nothing would be the same, there would be no true enjoyment after the humiliation suffered by the young lady.

Afterwards, talking about the event, someone opened Pandora’s box. A fearless worker dared to tell them about the origin of the rule: After the government allowed Cubans to stay in hotels previously open only to foreigners, the unthinkable happened.

A strong young man took a jetski to the water in an Holguín beach. Beachgoers saw the jetski gaining speed. What they didn’t see was that it stopped, someplace along the beach, to pick up a companion loaded with travel supplies, including fuel, water and food, and then set course for the horizon.

They were stopped by the Cuban Coast Guard, a few kilometers from the beach. Their final destination, and their punishment are unknown. What is known is that they both sent a clear message to the hotel executives, and of course to those of every other hotel in Cuba: in a country with a thirst for freedom, men will try to use even the faintest of opportunities. Sad, but so true.

From then on, the rule was applied without hesitation. Cubans must pay the same price as foreigners to enjoy these places that look like a postcard, regardless of the fact that they are almost unaffordable to most Cubans. Once inside they have the same rights than foreigners… except for the use of motorized water vehicles.

Poor country. It needs to soil the dignity of its children in order to keep them home. It needs to humiliate them, take their worth, put on them the label of potential deserters, because you can’t trust the intentions of an innocent looking beach-goer. And why can’t you? Because behind the look of innocence there might be a soul in need of freedom, of independence, that will risk his life and throw himself, like so many brothers, into the unforgiving sea.

I want to believe that after many Cuba Libres and watching cable TV, my friend started to feel better and decided to enjoy the amenities of the hotel. After all, she should know she was privileged to be able to, during her vacations, do something more than to vegetate in front of the TV, and stew in the heat.

But I refuse to accept that this country where the reality sometimes seems too much like a fictitious face, is the country we Cubans really deserve, and the country for which so many men gave their blood and their lives.

Translator: Xavier Noguer

August 9, 2010

If We Want Everything To Stay the Same, Everything Must Change

By Jesuhadín Pérez.

Things are going badly for Cuba. People lose freedom while trying to get it, and starve to death when asking for justice. Those in power have no ears to listen to the solutions to people’s problems, solutions that would jeopardize historical powers.

This is the contradiction between form and substance. In other words the dead weight of privileges, against the evolution of society and its citizens.

The presidential chairs get stuck to the posteriors of people who have a very peculiar way of understanding democracy. Democracy is a form of government, not a nobility title. In Cuba the time has arrived to turn the page, to respect its people and the natural processes that shape its history.

The history of humankind is filled with men who muzzled their people to try to stop the natural course of events. The fact that all of them eventually fell is no consolation. Our case makes us feel like being buried alive. A pity. We’ve had ten years since the 21st century started. We should be closer to a perfect government.

Here, everyone wants change, you just need to ask to see for yourself. Everyone shouts it if they have the courage, or if they feel safe in the liberties they have been granted by another country. Absolutely everyone wants change, everyone but those in power.

The privileges of those in power are in danger when we talk of change, that is why their main task is to stop and reverse the process using everything at hand… violence or mediation. What a pity that many new-found mediators give higher priority to compromising and flirting than to mediating! What a pity that they go after institutional interests instead of the well-being of the parties involved in the conflict! Even worst, what a lack of historical conscience among those in power. Do they really believe they will be able to hold the system together using banners and slogans, or letting some steam out whenever it seems on the verge of exploding, just so they can close the steam pipe again a moment later?

Just one thing has saved this country till now, just one thing placates the anger and discontent of the masses: A Change. But not the kind of change that consists in giving away lands overrun with the invasive marabou weed, or turning service industry workers into rent paying employees; no. Cuba needs A Change, a big one. Risky. Compromising. Overarching. Resounding. Something everyone can feel. Something that shakes the whole nation. If this tiny changes are the prelude to something for the good, then they are welcome, but if they are just tactical changes they will perish in less than ninety days, because the expectations of the Cuban people are great, and their needs are even greater.

If the Cuban political class wants to keep things as they are, then it will be necessary that everything, absolutely everything changes.

Jesuhadín Pérez Valdés

Founding member of the editorial board of Convivencia magazine.
He lives in Pinar del Río, Cuba.

Translated by: Xavier Noguer

Sui Generis

I don’t know what lesson to draw from this boring celebration of the 57th anniversary of the attack on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes military bases, an action which is considered something of a Genesis for neohistorians. Beginning at midnight, in the first moment of July 26, I was very surprised they didn’t stop the regular programming on TV to read the usual congratulatory statement for this date. At seven-thirty in the morning, amid choral singing, the official event started. The showings of local culture continued with a poem declaimed and some troubadours. And then the Party Secretary for the province hosting the event remarked on the achievements and the tirelessness of the locals, and president Raúl Castro handed rewards to the winning provinces; the high point of the event was the speech by Venezuelan minister Rodríguez Areque. Thanks to this speech I found out that the next war will not be in Asia, but in our own backyard, between Venezuela and Colombia. At the end, the speech by Vice-president Machado Ventura, clearly written by himself, demanding more sacrifice and exalting the unshakable friendship between Cuba and the Bolivarian Republic… does it sound familiar ? Yes, it sounds familiar!

At eight-fifty-five, after the July 26 anthem, it was over. It was the first time we’ve seen such a brief and lackluster celebration. As I said before, I don’t know what lesson to draw from this. Should I try to see anything new in the loquacity of Fidel and the terseness of Raúl ?

Translated by: Xavier Noguer

ETESCA Down on its Luck

One day before collecting their bonus in convertible pesos, known as CUCs, which the Cuban government usually pays to certain institutions, close to sixteen thousand employees from ETECSA, the only telecommunications company on the island, got their second piece of bad news for the month of July.

In the previous days, the company had already started discreetly “downsizing.” This is a nice way of saying they started firing the first few hundred employees so that, according to the company’s executives, “it becomes more efficient and streamlined.”

This new unemployment shock – euphemistically known in Cuba as “relocation” – is part of the plan for strengthening the economy drawn up by General Raúl Castro, the country’s president, who in April during a speech to the Congress of Young Communists, said it would affect more than a million workers.

The unemployment phenomenon, which is vehemently denied by high officials in the government, is nothing new. In 2002, the last year for which there is data, unemployment was 3.3%, but independent economists say the real rate was much higher and is currently over 25% of the Cuban workforce.

Years ago, the government used to pay 60% of their last salary in Cuban pesos to the unemployed during the first 3 months, and offer them training courses. Now, according to the recently downsized employees from ETECSA, they’ll be paid 60% of their former salary just for one month, and then they’ll be on their own.

Besides “downsizing,” the other piece of bad news arrived the day before they collected their CUC bonus, when a memorandum notified them that due to a coordination failure, starting in April, the needed amount of convertible money had not been assigned to ETECSA by the responsible government institutions.

Until July the company had been able to make payments drawing from its reserves of hard currency. But in July there was nothing left. Many employees are angry. On the island, the convertible peso is essential when it comes to buying the basics, such as food, cooking oil, and clothes.

Alejandro, 32, tells how discussions between the workers and their bosses have turned into arguments. “Insults, openly criticizing the government, and calls to stop work until we are paid in hard currency.”

A white collar ETECSA worker earns between 400 and 800 Cubans pesos plus 27.50 in hard currency. Adding it all up it’s less than 60 USD per month. Until the year 2009, the company was a joint venture between the State and an Italian partner.

The Italian partner paid all salaries to a government institution, in hard currency. “For instance, for an engineer the government received up to 2 thousand euros from its foreign partner, and then the state paid 50 the equivalent of fifty CUCs in a combination of hard currency and Cuban pesos. If that is not exploitation, I don’t know what is.”, says Diana.

But it might not be as bad as all that. Company executives have taken notice. According to office rumors they expect there to be a meeting in August where the government would give them the hard currency.

Together with the Tourism Ministry and the Institute for Civil Aviation, ETECSA forms the small group of Cuban institutions which make a profit. This is the reason many employees can’t understand the lack of money to pay their July salaries. The don’t know if they’ll ever be paid either.

Ivan García

Picture: ETECSA main office, in Aguila y Dragones, La Habana. Built in 1927, this building housed the Cuban Telephone Company.

Translated by: Xavier Noguer

Binomial of Three

Frank Delgado and Buena Fe have made a record together. I like the chemistry of these artists a lot, they have a very good eye for looking and for making music which is catchy and makes you think at the same time. The first song, Extremistas Nobles, from which the record gets its name, is a statement of intentions. The songs of love (and loss) are excellent, Retazos de amor, and especially the bachata song Loco por ti have beautiful lyrics. I have always been a fan of Frank Delgado, a rebellious singer who hasn’t been broadcast as much as he deserves precisely for that- he answers back. The duo of Israel and Joel, who are also among my favorites, have had a successful career starting with Sicología al día, and even though they have been marketed, broadcast and received several awards, some of their songs have been censored; but beware: the young crowds still sing their songs and fill their concerts.

This new record is a mix between both styles, which makes it very unconventional. Lacking any pictures for this post, I post here the lyrics for Cubannolito.

Please visit rockason.wordpress.com. I wanted to post some audio from the song here, but I didn’t know how to do it.

Hey, my brother, how come nobody wants to be Cuban anymore

And everyone is busily searching for their ancestors

Do you remember the black Marcelo, all dark and with long grelos

He got a blue passport*, yes, because he’s got a Basque great-grandfather.

Patriotism comes with many strings attached, I’ve been a Cuban for four generations.

The Spanish are achieving what the Gringos couldn’t

Maybe next year we’ll already be subjects of King Juan Carlos.

Nor was it that the Bourbons managed to be a panacea

But they got into the parade and now they’re the door to the European Union.

Perucho Figueredo** points his arrow up. It so happens the Spanish anthem doesn’t have lyrics.

I say what I think: Little Spaniard, say pal what’s up, or low grade Cuban.

And so I find many acquaintances, practicing this new sport, running with the whole family to make sure nobody ends without a passport.

And since it comes with the right to vote in spanish elections, their candidates will be coming to campaign in Cuba.

The good things and the bad things. Fighting to paint or to fade the flag.

If you’re Cuban they will bust your balls (with a stone). The voice of command has a Spanish accent.

When you finally get to be a Spaniard you’ll feel important, you’ll finally be able to travel and even open an elegant restaurant.

What I would like the most is a trip to Spain, but everyone is going from the slum to luxury, it’s becoming a crowd. To the Nigerian embassy!

Translator’s Notes:
* Spanish passport.
** Composer of the Cuban national anthem

Translated by: Xavier Noguer

Telephone

Since I started this blog I’ve felt like never before the isolation produced by not having a phone line. It’s not that I didn’t want one. If blame needs to be apportioned to anyone or anything besides the boycott and the imperialist menace it should be to my husband who never wanted a phone line when he was still an active member of the Cuban Artists and Writers Union (UNEAC for its initials in Spanish). His reasoning was that the telephone ring, the same as the door ring, would upset the state of grace in which he needed to immerse himself in order to write. By the time he knew about answering machines he was already a “writer on hiatus” as he likes saying, and despite my begging he didn’t want to ask for a letter from UNEAC avowing his condition as a founding member of the institution. For those who are lost at this point of the story, I have to clarify that the telephone company is in charge of deploying new lines, but only after being authorized by the Poder Popular Municipal, which is more or less the equivalent of a city government.

Somewhere around six years ago, and without my husband knowing, I went to UNEAC’s literature section and filed a written application for e-mail service, to be “anchored” to the telephone line from my mother’s house. I was told back then that it would take some time because of upgrades on the CUBARTE server taking place at the moment, and I never got an answer afterwards. It seems that my husband doesn’t meet their criteria on reliability, or they knew beforehand that he wouldn’t accept the signed user agreement included in the contract, which implies that no information criticizing the government may be sent or received.

I’m considering now applying for a mobile phone, but I haven’t decided yet, for as long as there are no fixed tariff plans, which is what I really want, a mobile phone may be a luxury or a necessity depending on circumstances.

Translated by: Xavier Noguer