Translating Cuba

Yesterday, April 16, 2013, the attorney Amelia Rodríguez Cala interviewed Angel in Prison 1580.

Angel has been removed from the punishment cell but remains under very severe conditions and maintains his hunger strike until they respect his rights as a citizen and as a prisoner — whatever happens. He is unjustly imprisoned after a trial fabricated by State Security with the only purpose of silencing and discrediting him as a person and as the great writer he is.

Angel has lost a great deal of weight and today completed day ten without eating or drinking. We fear for his health and his life. continue reading

To every city we attach a face, to every place a personality. Camagüey strikes me as a sober lady with a long ancestry, Frankfurt is punk hair and skinny ties, Prague is the blue eyes and crooked smile of that young man who — just for a second — crossed my path. For its part, Lima’s face is indescribable but covered in dust. The dust of Lima swirls and settles everywhere. It flies over the cliffs that drop abruptly into a sea which, for Caribbeans, feels too cold, too choppy. Tiny particles of earth and sand that stick to your body, to food, to life. Dust on the native fruits, on the recently served ceviche. Dust in your “pisco sour” cocktail that leaves your tongue wanting more and not wanting any. A layer of gold, unreal, that coats the windshields and the newspaper sellers who defy the red lights to unload their merchandise before dark. The dust which we all become after the final day, but which in Lima carries us forward in life.

Lima seemed to me a girl with copper skin. Reserved, with something of that mysterious silence of those who come from the mountains. And with healing hands. Because in Lima I recovered my voice, and that is not a metaphor. I arrived after more than fifty days of intense travel, hoarse and feverish. I left recovered, coddled by my friends, with my energy restored having witnessed a city that has outgrown itself. I submerged my feet in the Pacific for the first time, I climbed the hills of the village of El Salvador to see people gaining ground against the aridity of the soil and poverty. I saw the historic center with its churches, its tourist attractions, its religious processions. Because Lima is a host of cities, some whimsically superimposed on others. It’s like a young woman whose body has outgrown her clothes and they no longer fit. Thus, the traffic bottlenecks and the many cranes raising buildings on all sides. This city has a face put together in a hurry, an eye here, a mouth there, a forehead taken from everywhere; it is mestiza, chola, German, Swiss, Chilean, Spanish… and very much Lima.

18 April 2013

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When information is systematically hidden and distorted, it can happen that a certain event brings to light the prolonged manipulation of the news. This is exactly what happened with the Venezuelan elections and their treatment in Cuba’s official media. Hugo Chavez died and the presidential campaign started, and the Island’s television as well as its print media  threw themselves into the task of demonstrating how unpopular the opposition candidate Henrique Capriles was. Every day, starting in the early morning, national television assured us that Nicolas Maduro would slaughter him at the polls. A resounding victory was predicted from all sides.

So last Sunday night, when they finally released the election results, the majority of the Cuban audience didn’t understand what had happened. The slight difference in votes between Maduro and Capriles confused many who had believed the official newspaper Granma when it boasted of the immense popular support the “substitute president” could count on. However, the tiny difference between the two candidates, less than a quarter of a million votes, didn’t correspond to the predictions made by Cuban officialdom. The reality is that the ballot boxes showed a Venezuela almost divided in two, polarized, one where both the government and the opponents have millions of citizens who support them. A nation divided in half, in which the ideological confrontation is exacerbated, a nation that seems doomed to a crisis of major proportions.

From now on the Cuban press will find it more difficult to speak of Venezuela as a country of only one color, of a single party. We have now listened to the polls and what they have said is a long way from the unanimity they wanted us to believe, a long way from total support for Nicolas Maduro.

17 April 2013

The result of the Venezuelan elections — a Pyrrhic victory for the ruling-party candidate in spite of having all the levers of power at his disposal as well as the celestial help of the deceased former president and his entire retinue — shows the degree of polarization of the population between those who accept the government’s agenda and those who reject it. Among those who exercised their right to vote, 51% supported it while 49% did not. This does not take into account those who chose not to vote for one reason or another. It is a group is made up of several million Venezuelans who, while not swayed by the opposition, cared even less for ruling-party candidate.

It is noteworthy that in a very short period of time — barely seven months since the October elections — one million voters switched sides from the ruling-party to that of the opposition. The reasons for this were the illness and subsequent physical demise of the Bolivarian leader, and his replacement by an uninspiring and dull figure devoid of charisma or his own power base. In spite of latching on to the cadaver of his predecessor in hopes of rising in the political firmament, he did not get very far. The future for a president with these personality traits is far from assured, as time will tell.

What is shocking is how the print and broadcast media in this country played along with stories and reports of big, tumultuous demonstrations in support of the ruling party candidate, portending an overwhelming landslide victory against “the representative of the bourgeoisie and imperialism,” with ten million votes and even a twenty point advantage. Neither turned out to be the case. It was pure media manipulation. The bubble burst when confronted with reality. Now the question to ask is: Was it a victory or a major defeat for chavismo? Again, only time will tell.

15 April 2013

The Venezuelan opposition, led by Henrique Capriles, surprised us on Sunday April 14, and according to figures from CNE, the National Electoral Council, almost defeated the Chavista candidate Nicolas Maduro. The margin of the declared winner of the elections was narrow: 50.75% for the government candidate and 49.07% for the opposition. As the government authorities apparently expected, Capriles did not accept the results declared by the CNE and called his followers to express their disagreement with the banging of pots and pans and street demonstrations. On Monday the situation remained complicated and Telesur reported moderate disturbances in several states.

If, despite the emotional toll of the death of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, the official government candidate got this poor of a result, you can almost predict an uncertain political future in the short term for the Venezuelan nation.

Nor did the material promises of every kind, which ranged from wage increases to plans to construct housing, Nicolas Maduro managed to motivate the citizens of Venezuela to support him. And 14 years of Chavism, with forecasts of a new socialism, a 21st Century socialism — which no one actually knows what it is — has been more than enough for the Venezuelan people.

The Real Cuba is very close, and surely, even those Cubans who have been there on “foreign missions” have told them. The fear of losing freedom first, and everything else later, have been the main protagonists of these national election campaign results. Neither leaders nor oligarchies, nor dictatorships, seem to have a future in our America.

16 April 2013

The 5 spies, who committed bloody acts and spied for a foreign country, have not been punished like they do with any prisoner in Cuba. Here they humiliate and constantly harass them.

They, the Castros, say that at the Guantanamo Naval Base they commit horrors, but they don’t say what they know because they commit the same abuses they “denounce” daily.

Here the prisoners swallow nails, springs or pieces of spoons to demand their rights, or at least have the opportunity to explain to someone.

Amused, I always have to laugh and respond to my new name, no matter how many times I tell them to call me Ángel or Political — like they used to — but they have baptized me Mandela. I have begun to be their hope despite finding me isolated, although without them letting the two prisoners who helped me get even to the door of my cell; I’m totally isolated.

I asked for my glasses and they also refused me. The only thing I can do is write on the walls, except that there is less space left, and I’ll have to figure out how to reach the ceiling; I’ll have to do something about it. Writing is a mania, a necessity and a duty. When they searched me on my arrival, twelve guards commanded by Major Erasmus did it.  And I told them that my weapons were in my mind and they couldn’t get them out of there.

I thank God for giving me the protection and constant companion in my lonely hours, but I’m also grateful to be here, they provide me Literature and complaints against the regime.

God, forgive the dictators and their henchmen.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats
1580 Prison. April 2013.

Editor’s Note: Ángel Santiesteban-Prats finishes on his ninth day of a hunger strike today.

I already said in two tweets Sunday: “Even after death #Chavez won elections in #Venezuela. Maybe now, his imitator will let him rest in peace.” And I added the following: “The socialist bus driver takes the helm of #Venezuela. Let’s see how he drives from now on, Chavism without #Chavez.”

This April 14 the presidential elections in Venezuela ended with the hard-fought victory of Nicolas Maduro Moros. The leftist TC network Telesur — which we call TeleMaduro these days — constantly favored the incumbent candidate with extensive media coverage, so I could not confirm if the opponent Henrique Capriles followed the same pattern of behavior and showed himself as exalted and disrespectful as Maduro.

It’s true, I saw interviews throughout the campaign on that television network with followers of either presidential candidate: Maduro’s “Chavistas” knew and spoke highly of the candidate’s programs; Capriles’s supporters didn’t know a thing about his projects. It seemed that the respondents had been chosen and it was just like we were in Havana, in the presence of the usual discriminatory traps of the Cuban government.

It is no secret that Cuban authorities had bet on Maduro, no matter if the core of his campaign program was talk over and over again about Hugo Chavez, exploiting its undisputed leadership, charisma and image, giving with both hands — and even with his feet, like a magician king throwing a people’s money out the window of irresponsibility — the country’s resources just to get elected and stay in power. The obvious case is those eternal leaders of the Antillean archipelago who were forced to avoid jeopardizing the advantageous oil commitments made with Venezuela, and the security of continuity that they have provided for the last fourteen years.

On this side, the authorities did their part to give a boost to the driver’s* association. I’m referring to visible aid, as television programs reiterated over the last days devoted to Chavez and the so-called “Bolivarian revolution.”

In the past, in Venezuela, surely they also favored him with supporting the campaign openly on Telesur and with good advise to help the support his path to Miraflores. I imagine that knowing the results of the contested election, having received an alert about the odds advantage of the Socialist candidate, whom we don’t know if he’ll be capable of properly leading the destiny of this South American nation during his presidency.

I imagine that the Cuban leaders focus their gaze with more interest in the cardinal point to the north, focused on the survival of their own model of government, but while they are so intolerant and show no signs of real democratization and respect for diversity and political pluralism, they will not be taken seriously by any first world country.

Returning to Venezuela, I add that I don’t know if there be “Chavism without Chavez” or “immaturity” with “Mr. Mature” — i.e. Maduro –  what most concerns us and what we don’t have, is a financially independent Cuba. That, coupled with the destruction that “the most patriotic” have led the country in a general sense — well, if these are good …! — and the stubbornness of the U.S. government to refuse to normalize relations with Cuba, forced many Cubans to express their satisfaction with the electoral victory of the Chavista candidate. To want something different would have been a parody of the popular irony and ask for a rope for our suffering neck…

*Translator’s note: Maduro was previously a bus driver.

16 April 2013

By: Ignacio Estrada

Havana, Cuba. There have not been many Cubans since the immigration reforms who have taken a plane to the democratic world, to fulfill the role of true doves or pigeons, messengers from a nation that through them sends a message to each person who is a lover of freedom.

The country is proud to see them sending the message of a nation that for years longed to describe it, and has been forced to do so through alternative media. The real-time Cuba is being told in these moment by those who did not hesitate for a moment to board the first aircraft to, go to fulfill a noble task which, rather than enrichment, we will see what consequences it brings them when they return to our island?

There are many who cackle and try with the old tricks of the past to distort this reality that is already being experienced by the protagonists, followed by countless citizens of this universe and collected in the few media that exist.

People who pose as doves or pigeons have names, and no matter how much time they spend burning the midnight oil like many say, confronting the Cuban regime. The important thing is not only are journalists, writers, administrators, bloggers and human rights activists, above all this. They are courageous Cubans who do not hesitate for a moment, to call things by their name.

Each one is an example of the wider thinking of Cuban civil society, from the intelligentsia to those who peacefully take to the streets to demand the release of their loved ones armed with the unique weapon of a gladiolus.

Berta Soler, Yoani Sanchez, Rosa Maria Paya, Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo and Eleicer Avila belong to different generations and also have different thoughts and political currents. But only one truth unites them and that’s what matters, it is this which makes them the protagonists of what I now want to call a real Operation Truth.

The recognition was not enough to honor these who weren’t even for an instant those who cried, “I won’t travel!” “I’ll want to see what happens to the first ones who travel and who then return, and then I’ll travel!” Words that many repeated although looking at some of those boarding one of those steel birds, which for decades has been the dream of Cubans.

What each expresses during their journey, the way in which they do it, is as if they are fully entitled to exercise the right of freedom of expression. A right that is only paraphrased in the alternative media on the island.

I am also one of those who wish to travel, I am among those who want to narrate our daily lives not only as a communicator, nor as Cuban more than this, I would like to do it from my point of view as a person living with HIV/AIDS for 12 years. I have a passport, but I have no money now, I trust in God and friends I also, at the right time, will be able to leave and tell the truth of the community.

Whoever criticizes, criticize the history already written. We will only achieve part of it when with tears, sweat and blood we can also write our own page.

In my note I do not want to ask a vow of silence from anyone, on the contrary I want to urge them to write beyond any personal grudge or professional envy. We don’t all have to thing and say we have the right to be diverse.

We recognize that these Cubans are in these moments those who are fulfilling Pope John Paul’s words, Open the Doors of Cuba to the World. Making their way through the democratic world.

25 March 2013

By Juan Carlos Fernández Hernández.

José Martí, the man we Cubans call our “Apostle,” was, and let no man doubt it, a man of vast moral, spiritual and cultural heritage. Qualities that have served as the cornerstone for modeling the thinking of being Cuban.

Well, some years ago José Martí Cultural Societies were set up in provinces and municipalities, designed and created to foster among our population, especially young people, the thought and vision of the Master; this was a vain endeavor by Communist Party leaders to somehow fit Marti within Marx, Engels and Lenin.

It sounds crazy but the effort still persists, although it is fair to say that the Communist ideologues don’t know how to insert the liberal ideas of Marti within those of International Communism, and no one swallows their story anyway because the Complete Works of Jose Marti circulate freely on the streets, and in these works Marti dismisses Marx, Communism included.

But back to the idea of the so-called Cultural Society, as an idea it is very good but, it all depends on the intentions… let me explain.

If this was intended to rescue the thinking of the Apostle from shameless oblivion shameful for new generations, for them to have as a reference in their lives, it would be logical that these institutions would have the social role that the name suggests. But, on the contrary, the organization almost unknown to the ordinary person from Pinar del Rio, passing by its headquarters, dilapidated and unpainted, in an old house located in San Juan Street between Yagruma and Martí. What irony, given that this was the home of a respected and wealthy local family. It is in such a shameful state due to the degree of neglect that is inhabited only by the ghosts of its former owners.

I do not think anyone in Pinar del Rio would be happy with the fate of the José Martí Cultural Society, but the complaints can be put to good use, we have to rely on citizen action, so we can together find solutions to rescue something that can be very valuable and appreciated by all.

A public collection in Pinar del Rio would involve a lot of citizens, taking as its theme something that can’t miss: “With all and for the good of all.” It would be healthy, it would empower citizens and they would feel a part of a city repairing one block for this Society, where the authorities are rushing to repair the hard currency store  popularly known as “Bambi.”

I would like to note that material things are important to us, but more important than profit are the healthy and transcendent ideas of the Apostle of all Cubans, who preferred to reach out with the white rose because he could not hate.

by Juan Carlos Fernandez Hernandez. (1965). Pinar del Rio. Co-leader of the Brotherhood Assistance to Prisoners and their Families Pastoral Care of the Diocese of Pinar del Rio. He is a member of the team of Coexistence.

4 April 2013

16 April 2013

That big red brick chimney always caught my eye. As a girl it seemed immense to me. I imagined goblins living there. It aroused great fascination, especially since it was on a route we had to take — leading to the “scary” iron bridge over the Almendares River, which occasionally would open up like a giant wolf’s jaws to allow yachts to pass through — when we went to visit Aunt Cuca in Miramar. It was always one of my favorite walking paths.

With the passage of time and the sudden takeover the country by incarnate deities, these fantasies and dreams of childhood were abruptly ripped out by their roots in order to make way for a “new reality.” The dream-like tower remained, but it no longer sent out smoke signals. Little by little it came to seem more lifeless. My make-believe creatures disappeared along with the gray puffs that no longer billowed from its long neck. The bridge stopped opening; there were no more yachts. Little by little rust covered the iron structure. We were no longer able to visit my aunt either; she had gone to live far away.

Many years have passed since I felt motivated to overcome my fear of crossing the aged bridge. My old red-bricked friend is still there, mute and inert, towering over its continually decaying surroundings.

After learning a few days ago that it had been converted to a restaurant bar, I was motivated to go see it again. I brought along my Nikon to try to get some photos, hoping also to get the back story from some of the neighbors. Luckily, I found one cleaning the street. When he saw the camera in my hand, he approached me, thinking I was a tourist. After I identified myself, he told me the history of the place. He was born and raised there, so he knew all the details.

“What happened was that, after the factory was abandoned at the beginning of the 1960s, a man moved into the base of the chimney. He later got married but after a few years the marriage ended. Since neither of them had any other options, they divided the space, with her living in one part and him in the other. They were ’sharing’ the space like this until a young man came along with a little wine and offered them two apartments in exchange for the big chimney.”

After interviewing some of his friends who knew about this unusual investment, I found out that, given the new opportunities for acquiring licenses to open businesses, three young friends, who were familiar with the place and its history, decided to pool the resources. They “talked to the former couple” and offered them what they so desperately needed.

The first thing they did was restore the chimney, returning it to its former glory and preserving the original painted sign with the name of “old” cooking oil factory, El Cocinero. At the entrance there is now a well-tended garden where antique objects from the factory itself are exhibited like sculptures. A large bell at the gate greets you. A circular staircase rising two floors inside leads you to the roof and a pleasant bohemian bar where a wide variety of tapas and drinks will guarantee you an enchanting and “offbeat” evening. Everything in the hard currency of CUCs, of course. The restaurant has not yet opened.

15 April 2013