The Manipulated of Little Note / Angel Santiesteban

Foto: Karel Poort

For many it came to be the program with more viewers, but far from looking at it for ideological reasons, they took it as simple entertainment, assuming it was another fictional series, very bad indeed, but at that time on the schedule there was nothing more entertaining than baseball. Those who had satellite channels in their neighborhood had the option to watch other things on TV, but the majority, with no other choice, chose to wait for the surprise. It could be any program, the least expected, and hence the appeal of “Cuba’s Reasons.”

There are those of us who remember the serial, “It had to be in silence” (1979), which marked our generation. It was about the Revolutionary hero who risked his life to foil the plots against the lives of Cuban leaders or to sabotage of national industry. Comparing that to the new series, “Cuba’s Reasons,” leaves us no option but to make fun of so much ridiculousness.

But the last thing we should do is underestimate the creators of this media show, because there was something surreptitious about it which was their true intention: to create paranoia. To instill more fear; to make people afraid of those closet to them, be it a family member, a friend or colleague of a lifetime. At a time when revolutions are starting in Egypt and other countries, they need to reinforce the justification that we are a country under attack in case demonstrations happen in Cuban demanding that the dictatorship open the doors of Democracy.

The Ladies in White were the spark, the detonator of an awaking of national dignity, because then they, the fascists, could defend themselves in their own way and ensure the manipulation of the rest of the population that remains naive or is unwilling to see the truth; and to beat, as on other occasions, these Ladies, whom the men of Cuba envy for their courage, and to call for marches of “reaffirmation,” which are nothing more than blackmail, where people are forced to attend because they don’t want to lose their “stimulation” (monthly cash), or even their jobs, and even students, independent of their grades, they won’t give them the political endorsement that allows them to attend college. So they have taken up once again, the slogan, “the universities are for revolutionaries.”

So the viewers have no other choice but to wait for a second season that will improve, if possible, the quality of the scripts. Meanwhile, others, those who have no bosses, nor masters, nor gentlemen to whom they respond in exchange for their gives and rewards, nor who receive payment in hard currency for labor and political behavior, but whom the honesty of feelings compels, we are left to construct for the Nation a dignified history of shame and modesty.