Economic Reasons / Rebeca Monzo

Many people on my planet have been abducted by official propaganda, which goes into the same sack as all the emigration that has occurred, especially since 1959, which is classified as of economic origin.

They especially want to justify to others, as economic, the reasons why their children and close relatives have abandoned the country. As if they were ashamed that a child of the Revolution, born into it, educated at its schools, and in the embrace of a close family, would have to justify this decision to others so it won’t be questioned. And they always add the famous tagline that throughout the world many people constantly emigrate for the same reasons.

In saying this, they seem to forget that when people in other countries emigrate for economic reasons, they don’t risk losing their current jobs when they communicate their decision, their house (if they live alone), or (if they live with others) that the relatives with whom they live will have to pay the State for the share of the home that corresponds to the one who is leaving. In addition, they have to submit an inventory of all their belongings, get themselves taken off the ration card, turn in their identity card, and, of course, ask permission to leave. Also if things go wrong they can’t return, because from that point on they have absolutely nothing to do with their country of origin.

So when someone tells me that Cubans emigrate for economic reasons, they are pointing to just one aspect of the phenomenon. In my view, there are at least two reasons that produce this alarming emigration: political and economic, the latter being the effect, not the cause, of the first. There is no one who doesn’t know that our leaders, on several occasions, with no shame at all, have proclaimed that in this system politics is above economics. I don’t believe anyone is deceived by the continual parroting of this kind of euphemistic slogan.

May 24 2011