Racial Purity / Mackandal – Manuel Aguirre Lavarrere

ok 2On May 30, 1893, Juan Gualberto Gomez wrote in the newspaper Equality: “It is not possible to predict that for the colored class on this island there will ever be present, in the future, more sad and painful situations than they currently face.”

Race and skin color have always been a constant in the battle of the Cuban nation. Supremacist thinking has never ceased to be present, trying to do the unthinkable by superimposing a supposed racial purity over the other components of the ethno-racial population.

From the early nineteenth century they tried by criminal practices, to exterminate blacks and their mixed descendants. They attempted to bleach and purify the blood not only through control of the immigration of Iberians with access to privileges such as the right to acquire land, with great guarantees and privileges. This project was led by José Antonio Saco, Domingo del Monte and Gaspar Betancourt Cisneros. continue reading

The latter, known as the Lugareño, a member of the racist aristocracy of Camagüey, did not fight slavery in any of the many articles he wrote, but called for a white Cuba for whites.

So did other anti-black Cuban icons, such as Felipe Poey, the anthropologist Luis Montane, Tomás Romay, and Carlos J. Finlay, who through science achieved a eugenics movement in Cuba not comparable to any other that has taken place in America.

Not a single Cuban scientist or anthropologist who adopted the Lombroso theory — criminality is inherited — as strongly as Fernando Ortiz, along with other current and similar studies that appeared in succession during the first twenty years of the last century, practices which he agreed with.

Many names and projects involved advocating for a supposed ethnic health by taking out blacks from the coloring of social Cuba. At first he experimented in prisons against blacks and helpless people, many without any family support.

Juan Gualberto Gómez 1854-1933, Leader in the Cuban War of Independence
Leader in the Cuban War of Independence. Lived 1854-1933

Today the racial fusion  in distinct successions of racial mixing, makes the physical disappearance of blacks impossible. However, the idea of extermination is still flowing in the mind and conscience of many bearers of racism, which mainly based political power, using modern forms such as exclusion and invisibility with the marked purpose of denying their cultural and political contributions to convert them into non-persons using a sociocultural extermination.

A racism disguised by new expressions and publicly hidden supports multiple justifications, present in Cuban identity itself, expressed according to the moment and with stereotypes constructed from the sociocultural perspective, that protect the self-esteem of the discriminator through the pretext of outrage, that doesn’t exist from the personal point of view but in collectively constructed.

The rejection of blacks is present in the full range of Cuban society. Cuba remains stagnant with respect to the  inconclusive task of political, civic and cultural inclusion of black and mixed-race people.

Manuel Aguirre Lavarrere (Mackandal)

23 January 2013

Raul Castro Assumes the Presidency of CELAC / Yoani Sanchez

From: http://www.teinteresa.es/
Raul Castro at this month’s CELAC/EU summit. From: http://www.teinteresa.es/

The Cuban leader was in Chile for a few days, for the Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the European Union. Since assuming the highest office in the nation in 2008, questions have surrounded Raul Castro’s few trips abroad. This time the controversy ranged from cheering people to critics demanding the General be put on trial. Despite such an attack, the younger brother of the Commander-in-Chief was handed the presidency of this regional organization. Many believe that CELAC will lose prestige by having as its visible head, for a year, a president who was not democratically elected at the ballot box. However, it is also true that this position will force him to demonstrate a more respectful spirit towards Human Rights. continue reading

Undoubtedly, the country chairing CELAC will be watched more closely during this year. What appears to be a political victory of the Raul regime, could become an element of great pressure on his management. The economic and migratory relaxations that have occurred in recent years on the Island will be evaluated with more severity at a time when Cuba leads the Latin American and Caribbean bloc. The Cuban government’s non-ratification of the United Nations Covenants on Civil, Political and Economic Rights will now appear unforgivable. All eyes from the continent will be focused on our country. There is no honor but that it brings a cost in responsibility, no merit without commitment from he who receives it. Perhaps in the last five years of his mandate Raul Castro will behave like the reformer he so often claims to be. Now, with the presence of his brother fading and that of Hugo Chavez also losing ground, he will be taking his first steps alone.

29 January 2013

Mariela Castro Deputy of Vulgarity / Ignacio Estrada

MarielaBy Ignacio Estrada, Independent Journalist

Havana, Cuba. This coming February 3 will be the right time for another Castro family member to ascend to the Cuban parliament.

This time turn it is the turn of the sexologist Mariela Castro, current director of the National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX). An institute that has tried to distinguish itself with its uncertain efforts at the forefront of Latin America in the struggle for community of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people (LGBT). continue reading

For years Mariela has participated in every session of parliament without even belonging to it, and for years it has been the institution she directs that is charged with reforming with its group of advocates, on more than one occasion, the current code of the Cuban family to submit to the conclave of Deputies for its approval.

Approval has never been possible because of the existing institutionalized homophobia on the island. An example of this government’s homophobia is the last session of parliament’s rejection of the bid made by CENESEX to change the current family code. An amendment that recognizes the lawful union of two persons of the same sex amongst other things.

Before the end of 2012 Mariela Castro testified before the media that her father approved of and supported the work she has been developing for some time. Statements in which she also claimed that before the end of that year the new family code would be approved by parliament. Promises and discourse that were never met.

We are not aware if Mariela Castro had been proposed for this level of government in the past, but the mere fact that in this upcoming election she emerged as a candidate puts us on alert for a plot in the Cuban parliament to accommodate the wishes of the father of the whimsical girl, a father pleased with the delivery of the Cuban LGBT community as a toy.

The mere fact that the sexologist is elected, gives certainty to the fact that is is the strategy of this Cuban woman to put a vote in the next session amending the Family Code, which could   result in the approval of Parliament not because of its own will but because of the force exerted by the presence of Cuban President’s daughter.

Only with Mariela herself in parliament could the desires of the little darling be realized.

If she is not elected on Feb. 3 elected, I have no doubt the girl will throw one of those fits she’s given to, she won’t talk to anyone and those who work with her will really catch it. Things that those who work under her direction are used to.

It would be curious to see her rise before the parliamentarians when she asks to speak, and in one of those moments when she has not achieved everyone’s consent, take off her shoe and throw it at anyone within reach, an event we are used to seeing when she throws insults against anyone who disagrees with her thinking.

January 28 2013

Tabula Rasa / Wilfredo Vallin Almeida

Tomada de Internet

6-vallin_21 Wilfredo Vallín Almeida

On the 160th anniversary of the birth of José Martí, it occurs to me to say something about two of his writings. The first, extremely well-known: the letter that the Apostle* wrote to his friend Manuel Mercado hours before his death in Dos Rios.

In this letter cataloged by some as his political testament, the Maestro* says:

I lived in the monster and I know its entrails and my sling is that of David.

 This phrase has been repeated countless times by all media in Cuba since 1959, in schools and colleges and has been part of countless political texts. continue reading

The objective of dissemination of the phrase — as widely as possible — l seems clear to me. Therefore I want to dwell a little more on this other, which for some unpardonable omission, I have never heard or read in any appearance or any means of education or mass information.

About the independence of Cuba, the Apostle said in an article published in La América, in New York in October of 1883:

“… man is not guilty of being born with conditions of intelligence raised in a fair, heroic and respectable struggle, about other men, that the combined result of genius, natural talent, and perseverance, virtues more valuable to possess than that of genius, cannot respond as to a crime to he who has put to use the power of the mind and the will of nature; nor does one stop to see that whatever might be the systematic attempts at life, enjoyment and common benefits which come as proof of the remedy of evil will never be resigned to men to nullify the mind that populates the highest reaches of the cranium, nor to drown the autocratic and individual passions that boil in his chest, nor to confuse with the confused work of others, that which looks like a piece of his entrails and the wings ripped from his back, and his victory, his own idea.”

These words bring to mind the “brain drain” of the “traitors who leave for economic reasons and not for political reasons,” the Cubans who can not invest in their own country and that the standard of living of many people has always been viewed with suspicion by those who are obliged to know everything, insert themselves into everything and sink into poverty, absurdly, human nature.

At least from it says here, the most universal of Cubans do not seem very comfortable with the idea of making from all Cubans a tabula rasa.

*Translator’s note: Cubans commonly call José Martí “the Apostle” and “Maestro.”

January 28 2013

Chosen Roads. Roads to Freedom Part 3 / Agustin Lopez

Emigration: the road to freedom with no destination, shipwreck, despair and death: the price of escape.

The people of Israel, that is like saying God’s people, emigrated from Egypt. The Creator led them to “the promised land flowing with milk and honey” to deliver them from the slavery to which they was subjected for over two hundred years.

Migration is a human habit, always with the hope of a promised land. Erroneously in most cases when we emigrate we believe we are taking the the path of freedom because we freed ourselves from something that has been oppressing or subjugating.

Wars, famines causing disasters, pandemics, major droughts making vast areas of land inhospitable, and dictatorships, are causes for men, or people, to migrate.

But of all these the less justifiable and most aberrant, which denigrates the human condition, is the emigration caused by dictatorships, and the foolish, clumsy and ruthless rulers who lead them. continue reading

Fear either from instinct or reasoning is a characteristic of living things which in most cases protect themselves against physical and spiritual harm. Fear is the most powerful weapon of dictators, they sow it, cultivate it in the masses of people, inoculate it and  sow, grow it in the masses of the people, inoculate it and vitiate, root it, make it part of the culture of everyday life, one learns to live with fear, fear is drunk, fear eats, sleeps with the fear because it comes into the room, it’s on the sheets, in bed, in the bathroom and in everything related to life itself.

“Paredón, Paredon, Paredón” — “to the wall!” “shoot him” — was an order, a bloodcurdling scream of the recently begun Revolution: Wall and Presidio, there are many anecdotes, much blood was shed behind the walls of la Cabaña under the direct orders of Che Guevara, Raúl and Fidel Castro, masters of life and death for the people of Cuba. In appearances justice was done, in reality man and justice was murdered, freedom was also a victim of the executioners and the Presidio.

The first stampede was from Camarioca. The better prepared, the smartest, the most progressive and also those who were most able to run the country’s economy, deprived of liberty and their property chose to escape. Rather an expulsion, the foolish dictatorships and their fanatical dictators expel citizens nonchalantly.

They left their homes and their property, many a childhood was immersed in the silence of spaces never to return, sadness and nostalgia rather than raising hand to heart in a goodbye desperately locked in a suitcase that cried when it was opened. It was the chosen the path of freedom in the ‘60s of most who did not accept the power of the communists. A small group took or continued with arms in hand, rose or remained as rebels in the Escambray Mountains. Later they launched a great number of people against them to until they slaughtered them rather than defeated them.

This forced migration has continued for 62 years, first from the monarchical government of Fidel Castro and now of his brother Raul. Regardless of race, sex, age or mental or social status, the Cuban deprived of human rights and freedom has been launched in suicidal and desperate exodus in the landing gear of a plane, in the tank of a ship, in a inflated tractor tire, in a rustic boat, the risk is not measured, not calculated, children who will never again see their parents because they perish in the mouth of a shark or are swallowed up by fate in a foreign land, mothers weep bitter tears every day wondering why no one answer, brothers, uncles, nephews, grandparents and friends waiting a day marked in their lives for many years of despair, a face known or unknown and, in some airport of Cuba, North America or anywhere else in the world, to give one hug more than all time kills us.

The American dream attracts migration from anywhere in the world, but the Cuban is not much interested in the dream of the north without waking up from this nightmare of Castro-Communism and for this reason the emigrants go to any country following the closest path and the colony of Cubans that existed there before 1959 has swelled more and more since 1959.

Sad this path of freedom.

23 January 2013

A Man of His Time / Fernando Damaso

Today marks the 170th anniversary of the birth of Jose Marti, our deceived and manipulated Apostle. After dying in an absurd military action, his image and ideology have been used by some and by others, according to the utility of each age: in some cases, in order to throw in our faces not being as he had wanted us to be, and in others, in order to serve as an example for us to imitate in times of disbelief and misery, as much material as human.

Since his fall in Dos Rios, Marti has weighed on the shoulders of Cubans like a glorious burden difficult to carry. Everyone who has had something to say or still has, proclaims himself a follower of Marti, although in reality he has never been nor is. To be a follower of Marti has become more of a wild card than a feeling, the same as wild cards have been (and in some cases, continue being) to be Marxist, Trotskyite, liberal, conservative or leftist, to cite only some examples. The wild card serves as a facade for what is found hidden inside, many times totally different from it, but it confuses and deceives; taking into account accumulated practice, it gives results. continue reading

Drawing on Marti in difficult and complex moments, with the objective of awakening sleeping patriotism, has been and is an effective way of mobilizing citizens to sacrifice or to complete big works. Sometimes the thoughts and ideas of the Apostle are brandished out of context, but it does not matter if they serve a particular purpose: if we go through our distant and recent past, we will prove that it is so.

On this new anniversary of his birth, it would be good to stop martyring Marti and to honor him for what he was: a man of his time with universal influence, clearing away the leaves accumulated by time and by men, and trying ourselves to be also men and women of our time.

Translated by mlk

January 28 2013

Cuba Takes Advantage of Hugo Chavez’s Illness / Anddy Sierra Alvarez #Cuba

imagesThe Cuban government takes advantage of the situation of the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to assume the presidency of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

As everyone knows, the health outlook of the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, is not entirely favorable. He is beset by complications such as heart failure or respiratory infection, not yet controlled. There are speculations that Chavez will not win this battle, because overcoming cancer is very difficult. continue reading

A man with ambitions like Venezuela’s vice president Nicolás Maduro feels more secure in his political position every day, as President Chavez in his statement to the foreign press insisted that the regime should continue with Maduro.

Moreover, the opportunity presents itself on the doorstep of President Raul Castro. With the absence of his beloved “political brother” he has gained ground lost because of the destruction of the Soviet Union.

Surrounded by current political frustrations, Castro will not let the capital opportunities that are opening pass him by.

He will be very careful with this, because today there is no apparent danger to the world balance. If things continue to develop favorably for Cuban dictators. There will be a new era of world domination.

January 28 2013

Yoruba Cultural Association of Cuba 2013 Letter of the Year / Ignacio Estrada #Cuba

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By Ignacio Estrada Cepero, Independent Journalist

Havana, Cuba. The last Tuesday of January the “Yoruba Cultural Association of Cuba” dawned, as it does every year, to a crowd of people at its doors awaiting the famous Letter of the Year. Religious predictions governing the fate of the Cuban nation.

Throughout the morning the number of people increased until about two in the afternoon when the boxes carryring the predictions finally arrived.

The Cuban Council of  Elder Priests of Ifa affiliated with the Yoruba Cultural Association issued the following predictions for 2013*.

Sign: Obara Ika.

Prophecy: Ire ariku yale tesi timbelaye lese orichas (a written message of health, attached to the earth, that is provided by all Orishas [saints]) continue reading

Ruling body: Orichaoko

Accompanied by: Oshun

Flag: Pink and blue (horizontal)

EBBO: One goat, one rooster, two doves, bread, dirt from the door of the house, flag, flour, dirt from the road, plowed earth, dirt from shoes, one arrow, one trap, dirt from work, two coconuts, two candles, cocoa butter, palm oil, brandy, honey, smoked fish, jutia (species of Caribbean rodent), roasted corn, husk, one pink and blue flag. Opolopowo.

Sayings of the Sign

1 – Appearances are fooling

2 – On the earth there is no divine justice

3 – All that seems is not, and what doesn’t seem is.

Works of the Sign

Give the roof something to eat

Plants of the sign:

Yagruma and buttercup (flor de agua)

Recommendations

Ifa says: In his predictions, saint Egun will play an important role and will even accompany the saints Orichaoko and Oshun for the overcoming of difficulties this year. Therefore it’s necessary to pay special attention to all aspects Egun.

Ifa says: We should pay attention to Elegua.

Ifa says: We should cultivate an even temperament so as to prevent stress and to protect our own health.

Ifa says: We should avoid problems between couples.

Ifa says: Ifa priests should be humble, respectful and examples to the godchildren and society.

Ifa says: We must be careful and very respectful of women.

Ifa says: We must plant in order to sow – in social life, in the family and at work.

Ifa says: There will be difficulties and food shortages, especially agricultural produce. We must take steps to prevent this.

Ifa says: All rituals that we have outstanding must to taken care of.

Ifa says: We must act clearly and precisely to avoid embarrassment, disrespect and misunderstandings.

Ifa says: In this Odu, jealousies and betrayals will predominate, so it is recommended to be alert.

Ifa says: With regard to health we must keep good hygiene, be careful about taking expired medications or those that have not been prescribed by a doctor.

Ifa says: In this Odun problems with the liver, the rectum, childbirth complications, skin and blood pressure diseases will be common. For which it is recommended to seek medical attention.

Ifa says: We should avoid grudges between families, both social and religious ones.

Ifa says: We must carefully examine all documents that come into our possession and be very careful about signing them if we’re not sure what we’re doing.

Ifa says: We should be aware of events: climatic, economic, social, family-related and any other type that might substantially change the way we live.

Ifa says: Climate changes that have been taking place for several years will continue to occur and in some cases intensify.

Ifa says: In this Odu, Orunmila was imprisoned for disobedience, so we must be very careful with attitudes that lead to legal problems, such as drug use, alcohol abuse, fraud, the use of weapons, etc.

Ifa says: Our overall improvement depends on the manner in which we are able to comply with the guidelines of the orishas.

For general knowledge

The first of December, 2012, with the presence of a significant number of babalawos from Cuba and other countries, in addition to members of the Cuban Council of Elder Priests of Ifa, ceremonies were held related to the pre-opening of the “2013 Letter of the Year” at the Yoruba Cultural Association of Cuba.

The recommendations were as follows:

The 25 key positions that were requested were carried out. In all cases the responses from the deities were quite satisfactory.

On December 30, 2012, sacrifices were made to the deities as determined in the pre-opening ceremony.

Those ceremonies were held at the “Yoruba Cultural Association of Cuba.”

Note: The translation of the letter is taken from Havana Times.

January 4 2013

Reception of Radio Marti Improves in Cuba / Ignacio Estrada #Cuba

RadioMartiBy Ignacio Estrada, Independent journalist.

Havana, Cuba. Listening to Radio Martí* in the just concluded week has improved. Listeners on the island have witnessed this in different provinces as well as in the capital Havana.

Oscar Benitez who lives in the town of Santo Domingo in the province of Villa Cara commented about it, “I do not know what’s going on but, now I can hear radio Pepe better than ever” … while residents of the municipalities of Quemado de Guines and Sagua la Grande agree with Oscar’s opinion that they now have the option of listening to Radio Martí also through Radio Caracol at night. continue reading

In recent years, Cubans have been complaining of poor reception for Radio Marti on the island a station preferred by Cubans for its accuracy and timeliness of the news. Reception has improved in recent weeks.

A resident of the Havana municipality of Playa commented in a bodega, “What I like to hear most are the changes in their programming, these days that have been talking about a different José Martí* from the one we know; what makes me furious is that we still can’t watch the TV, but times change,” the old man concluded.

*Translator’s note: Radio Marti is a U.S. government program to broadcast programming to the Island’s residents in Spanish. Today is the birthday of Jose Marti, from whom the station takes its name.

January 28 2013