Translating Cuba

I worry about this old man who, after working all his life, now sells cigarettes on the corner. Also the girl who looks in the mirror and values her body for “the sex market,” where she could meet a foreigner to get her out of here. I worry about the black man with leathery skin who, no matter how early he gets up, can never rise to a position of responsibility because of the racism — visible and invisible — that condemns him to a lower position. The deeply wrinkled forty-something who pays her dues to the union, but senses that at the next meeting they will announce that she is out of work. The provincial teenager who dreams of escaping to Havana, because in his village all that is waiting are material shortages, a badly-paid job and alcohol.

I worry about the girlfriends I grew up with and who now — with the passing of decades — have less, suffer more. The taxi driver who has to carry a machete hidden under the seat because crime is increasing even though the papers never report it. I worry about my neighbor who comes over in the middle of the month to ask for a little rice, despite knowing she’ll never be able to return it. Those people who race to the butcher shop just when the chicken arrives in the ration market, because if they don’t buy it that same day their families will never forgive them. I worry about the academic who remains silent so that suspicions and ideological insults won’t rain down on him. The mature man who believed and no longer believes, and yet even thinking about a possible change terrifies him. The boy whose dream is going to another country, to a reality he doesn’t even know, to a culture he doesn’t even understand.

I worry about people who can only watch official television, only read the books published by the official publishers. The peasant who hides the cheese he will sell in the city at the bottom of his bag, so the police checkpoints won’t find it. The old woman who says, “Now this is coffee,” when her daughter who emigrated sends a packet with a some food and a little money. I worry about the people who are in an ever greater state of economic and social need, who sleep in so many of Havana’s doorways, who look for food in so many trash cans. And I am worried about not only the misery of their lives, but because they are increasingly at the margins of speeches and politics. I am afraid, I am greatly concerned, that the number of disadvantaged is going to grow and there are no channels to recognize and fix the situation.

26 November 2012

My brothers have told me how embarrassed they felt when, on a day like today, they were called to come forward at the morning assembly. For the Edison Institute it was a great honor to have among its students three grandsons of the Commander of the Liberation Army, Miguel Coyula. Today, November 23, the anniversary of his death, was designated the Day of Citizen Integrity, a celebration which, like so many others, was forgotten after 1959.

My father, a militant communist all his life, sadly and quietly accepted that people had forgotten my grandfather, whose teachings and example made my father the wonderful man that he was. For his descendents, however, including those who were not even born before he died, it has been a great honor to have this legacy.

Not long ago a friend of mine asked me if our family had been rich, assuming the answer would be yes. She was surprised when I told her we were not, that the family fortune was this unmistakable butnow much devaluedlast name. Citizen integrity in today’s Cuba is quite rare and considered utterly worthless. If mothers used to think of a doctor, a teacher or a lawyer as “a good catch,” their hearts now skip a beat at the prospect of a bartender or taxi driver, and they can burst into tears over an Italian, even if he is just a construction worker.

There is an Comptroller’s Office, but it cannot guard against the constant outflow from what is considered to be the public domain.

As you might imagine, citizen integrity has fallen on hard times, though there is no harm if I choose to remember it, considering it is a family affair.

November 23 2012

With regards to the cause of Oswaldo Payá’s death, I give his family the complete benefit of the doubt. And all the details that have been happening day to day after such an unfortunate event, reinforce this.

I highlight the total lack of communication between the survivors and the family [enforced by government officials]; communication that would have been the most natural thing in the world if it had actually been an accident. Not to mention the events that happened earlier, over decades, with regards to Oswaldo’s life; because no one can deny the benefit of the doubt in a case where there have been so many threats and attempts to liquidate such an important life. This was done with so many others, including poor Camilo Cienfuegos, whose fate this event has one again called to mind for an already incredulous people as one of the most macabre precedents.

Payá himself had been clearly warned, “It is a final combat between the power of the lie and the terror on one hand and the spirit of liberation on the other.” The regime, for a long time, simply undertook a simple cost-benefit analysis of his death and brought it about with innumerable stratagems.

Payá’s warning in recent times with respect to those called the new oligarchy, those who bet on power smelling the un-postponable change and the style of some of the Eastern European experiences are taking steps to take for themselves the best slices of the cake; these must be the worst and most pragmatic enemies of the present time and as time passes they will become more dangerous still.

Not to mention those who desire revenge, remembering that this is just an extension of the Black Sprint that began in 2003, and in particular considering that that this peaceful enemy of Fidel Castro could have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

All this without mentioning that in any country where there is rule of law, if it really had been an accident, as the person responsible for the bad state of the road and the lack of warning signs would have been guilty without discussion, and that would have been just. So considering all the possible variations, the finger points to the same suspect over and over again just as a compass always points north.

November 16 2012

About two weeks Antonio Rodiles was arrested by State Security. First he was charged with resisting arrest, then they concocted a charge of undermining the authority when nearly a dozen witnesses deny the police accusation. It is not anything unusual, because in Cuba long arbitrary detentions are part of the repressive praxis. This time it’s someone with undeniable charisma and whose authenticity is demonstrated with concrete events: In a short time Rodiles has converted Estado de Sats — against all flags and with modest resources — into an important space when it comes to probing the Cuban reality.

Several factors contribute to our atmosphere today of alternative aromas. In this regard, the extensive possibilities of the Internet, which open a digital breach to the world for the restless gaze of the island’s bloggers and twitterers, to which are added the lack of ethics in the official press to denounce the shamelessness of the corrupt, the ineptitude of the leaders and the constant violation of our civil rights. In this context we have inserted alternatives like VocesCubanas.com and Estado de Sats.

Bit this latter space is not only a virtual peculiarity: in Rodiles’ home, during the presentation of the programs, there is a frequent assiduous and physical convergence of around a hundred irreverents, and we know what that means to the powers-that-be in Cuba.

This modest but clear capacity to call people together, ended up worrying the general staff, and so Rodiles presented himself in front of State Security’s Section 21 on the afternoon of November 7, and the leadership saw the awaited opportunity to book him and decapitate his project. But those who reason this way underestimate a civil society that is not disposed to cede an inch of space conquered at great risk.

We are a people saturated with promises that sound like mockery, words belied by the demagoguery of a bourgeois elite that demands austerity from us, while their table overflows; we are a people forced to face unjustifiable hardship and shortages that generate a deep social immorality, which have turned theft, simulation and lies into “trifles,” and what is worse, sincerity and civility into a crime.

We are looking at a youth that is definitely different, and wants to open itself to a world it suspects is out there, a youth that knows it is imprisoned, but that now knows the name and the password of its jailer and is increasingly less afraid. And the jailer knows this and represses every birth, tries to mutilate each new shoot, stuffing the cracks so that the cell never receives the dangerous rays of the sun.

Rodiles is accused of assault, and yet, in Estado de Sats, Rodiles’ home, I never saw anywhere a club or the tip of a trigger, never heard plotting of attacks of sabotage, never heard a threat or a call to violence. I heard nothing more there than ideas and arguments, reasonable or not, but launched from the perspective of tolerance, respect for the opinions of others.

As far as I know, no Cuban opponent ever stopped a delegate of the National Assembly of Popular Power in the entrance of Parliament, or any member of the Communist party to prevent him from participating in the last Congress of the Party, nor conducted any “operation” to boycott their last National Conference.

However, from the other side, it’s a different matter: the raids and arbitrary detentions perpetrated by state security against any dissident when, how and where they want, without due process and even without charges — including many who went to Estado de Sats — is their daily practice, reported thousands of times by bloggers, twitterers and by the same project now want to shut down.

If despite the deafness strongly imprinted during the last decades by the dissidence against the all-embracing State power, this has been no more than a few turns of the screw, one can only imagine the scene of these gentlemen didn’t know they were installed by the select share of Cubans who dare to speak while the rest remain silent.

Alternative spaces like the monthly Voices Magazine and projects like Omni Zona Franca, and Estado de Sats itself, are at this time so necessary for this people like the miracle of the loaves and fishes, and must not disappear simply because some gorillas consider this country remains the same jungle as in the ’60s and ’70s.

But they had to take Rodilies because every brave person is one less slave, because each front raised is an act of vindication, because every mask that falls away is a triumph of human dignity, one of those miracles that are the work only of able-bodied men.

For all this, by reality and necessity, spaces like Estado de Sats must be preserved. The barbarians must understand once and for all, that it is useless to incarcerate a many when his dreams fly free.

Rodiles conceived this project, now ours, and dedicated his efforts, assumed all the risks and put into it the same hope and the same faith that is put into a child. For this we must care for Estado de Sats — we owe it to him and to ourselves — because whatever problems appear on the horizon we will never abandon the child of a friend!

November 19 2012

To visit the famous city of Holguin is a truly unique experience for those who enjoy excursions beyond the area where they live. Images can be captured by the unique lens of any national or foreign tourist.

Holguín is one of the country’s eastern cities waiting to be discovered by restless walkers. Walking through its broad streets and numerous squares — which earned it the nickname “City of Parks” — we can see the different architectural styles that recreate the work of renowned architects.

On one of my walks I constantly heard the word … Bike … a word that is recognized or a request for service that becomes the main form of transport in the largest provincial capital cities of the country.

Prices for access to this transport vary according distances traveled but I assure you that no one wants to leave this earth without riding in one. The Bike Taxis are maneuvered by elderly retirees and young people who have found them a source of income for their homes. Any of these pedicabs may surprise visitors with their characteristic comfort and the originality of their owners. Trying to attract customers, some place beach umbrellas to protect people from the sun, others add audio equipment and decorate them like beautiful cars.

One of those I ride assures me there were 4000 bicycle-taxi drivers working in the city. All are recognized by the State. This work is one of the allowed forms of self-employment.

The Holguin bicycle-taxies adopt the model intended by their creator, the best known and demanded is the single seat, which is a bike with a sidecar added. These, according to their builders, are faster and very light for transporting passengers. There are other bike models but they are copies of those in other provinces.

If you ever have the pleasure of visiting this city please join and be one of many that request transportation service by shouting … Bike …

November 19 2012

The search for a cure is one of the central themes of this years meeting. In the course of the symposium, the renewed efforts to find a cure were reviewed, as well as the attitudes of people with HIV toward the perspective of finding one.

During the symposium “Towards an HIV Cure” was presented, a declaration that establishes the steps necessary to achieve a cure for infection by the virus.

At the meeting was scientists know about a cure was explained, how it can be achieved and the difficulties and challenges presented by this enterprise.

The renewed interest in finding a cure for HIV was inspired by the case of the “Berlin Patient.” This person was cured of his infection after a difficult chemotherapy treatment, immune-suppressive treatment and a bone marrow transplant, from a donor with a rare genetic mutation that gives a natural resistance to the infection of this virus.

It is not an attractive treatment — nor a realistic one — that could be applied to cure other people, but it raised the possibility of achieving a cure. In interest in finding a cure is also raised by the increasing cost of treatment and the attention of people with HIV.

November 12 2012

It’s calculated that there are some 65,000 people living with HIV in Guatemala. There are 20 new cases daily, 7,500 new cases a year. The HIV epidemic in the country is concentrated in population groups at major risk, like sex workers and their clients, and men who have sexual relations with men. There is great discrimination against these groups in the county which makes access to services for HIV more difficult.

According to the first national report on human rights, between 2009 and 2012 more than 313 complaints were presented to the Attorney General’s office and to civil society organizations. Of these 46% were associated with violations of healthcare rights and 13% with the right to life and bodily integrity. These violations were about the scarcity of anti-retrovirus medications and the lack of adequate personal sanitary facilities and diligence.

The transgender organization OTRANS stressed in the report that transgender people have limited access to employment because of stigma and discrimination. OTRANS also reported cases of physical assault, disappearances and deaths due to gender identity. The organization said 13 deaths were reported and three disappearances from 2007 to 2011.

“From the beginning of the epidemic, stigma and discrimination were identified as the main obstacles to effective HIV response,” said Cesar Nunez, UNAIDS Regional Director for Latin America. “The HIV-related discrimination is itself a violation of human rights which, in turn, implies the violation of other rights such as the right to health, education, dignity and equality before the law,” he said.

November 12 2012