During a break yesterday, December 10, my son’s friend approached a group of people where he was and said:
“Caballero, you have to go sign up, there’s a list over there, to go mix it up with the Ladies in White. Let’s go, we have to go home and change clothes, we gather here at three and they’ll release us at seven.”
It wasn’t my child’s classroom, the classroom selected was the tenth grade, and it so happens it was the classroom of Teo Escobar Sanchez — common names in the Cuban blogosphere.
Those in the group heard the announcement with the annoyance to be expected toward an activity imposed at the last minute; one of the girls commented by way of a goodbye, “What a drag, but if you don’t go they’ll put it in your file and you already know…”
And they went to the Director to sign the commitment form.
I don’t know what they told those kids, how they spoke to them about the Ladies in White, if they mentioned some action they had planned in Villalon Park. Teenagers barely fifteen, the majority with no particular ideas about Human Rights, much less about who these brave women are.
They left school with the Director, the Party secretary and two men who weren’t from the school. Some of them got caught up in the excitement of the crowd.
Maybe I’m deluded, but I see only weakness in what looks like arrogance.
But it is also an act of desperation.
December 11, 2010
