Month: December 2010

The Cuban Press: Rather than Inform, It Disinforms / Iván García

Cubans are readers of newspapers by habit, and after dinner at 8:00 in the evening they sit and watch the television news, not knowing all the details of the current conflict on the Korean peninsula.

The people of Cuba have been well informed that the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea responded with heavy artillery to the island of Yeonpyeong, because of supposed South Korean military aggression in the Yellow Sea.

There is no hint of criticism or questioning of the deplorable action from the Sung dynasty, which, if true, seems a disproportionate response to an island inhabited by civilians and which resulted in four deaths and dozens injured.

When the Asian bullies, addicted to the Juche ideology created by their “dear leader” Kim Il Sung, already had an arsenal of atomic bombs, the Cuban press, would only publish the occasional article, noting that it was all a United States disinformation campaign, because they were looking for a pretext to attack North Korea militarily.

The same thing happens with Iran. Ahmadinejad is almost a saint to the media. The events of March 2009 in Tehran were reported in a biased manner.

The conviction of an Iranian woman to death by stoning has also been overlooked. They remain silent before the latest reports from the IAEA on whether Iran is able to manufacture nuclear devices. Or they present is as a “new manipulation by groups tied to imperialist interests.”

The editorial policy of Cuba is clear. The Yankees are the evil ones. Them and the rich and capitalist nations. They might oppose certain actions of the United States or the European Union. But from there to applauding and remaining silent about the outrages of counties like Iran, North Korea or Venezuela, just because they are enemies of Washington, is a disgrace.

Now, the Spanish government has asked Venezuela to extradite Arturo Cubillas, a member of the Basque separatist group, the ETA, with solid connections with the Bolivarian administration. The strong man of Caracas has denied the request. Cuba has ignored the subject entirely.

The official press responds to the institutions of the State. The daily paper Granma is the organ and voice of the Communist Party, the only party in the country. The other publications that circulate represent the social and mass organizations controlled by the Party and the government.

A journalist who prefers to remain anonymous says that every sensitive and important topic is bared by the Department of Revolutionary Orientation (DOR). Even to the point that, the reporter says, before Granma is printed Fidel or his advisors go through what’s going to be published with a fine-toothed comb.

This iron control by Castro has waned lately. Despite the fat that only 4% of citizens have internet connections, the appearance of new tools like Facebook, Twitter or mobile phones are widening the information dispersal to the man on the street.

Relatives and friends who live abroad often send news, through text messages, that the national media doesn’t publish or distorts. The same thing happens with email. Many people have internet accounts at their work, and take advantage of the slightest slips of the virtual guards to open a link to a social network, read El Nuevo Herald, or the Spanish digital daily, El Mundo.

People who seek out other sources also listen to the BBC, Radio Exterior de España, The Voice of America, or Radio Francia International.

The management of certain international news in Cuba is, at times, biased. Rather than inform, they disinform. Not that the Cuban press always tells lies. But at times they obscure the truth.

December 4 2010

Brother, you only have one life, to live it with fear, what sense is there in that? – Rafter. Amaury Gutierrez / Juan Juan Almeida

JJ You are a well-known singer, graduate of the National School of Art Instructors in Cuba. Nominated for and winner of several major awards, without a doubt you have achieved something enviable. Tell me about your home, in Santa Clara.

AG I am what you see, I was born in a small village on the outskirts of Santa Clara, which is called Vueltas. There I grew up, studied, was raised. I feel an immense love for my province. There I learned what I am today. My province, the great Villa Clara, has an impressive movement of poetry, music, dance, and although you are from Havana, and therefore a fan of the Industriales, Las Villas is the capital of baseball in Cuba.

JJ It’s true, you’re right, Santa Clara has the best baseball team of Cuba … after the Industriales.

AG Let me tell you something, I’m a fan of the Industriales, to me, the best amateur baseball club of the world and the best club in Cuba. Villa Clara has a tremendous sporting movement, always. It is a major city, and being in the center of our island, there is a continuous coming and going of learning.

JJ Perhaps that is why even the son of Santa Clara is different.

AG No, that’s another thing. No one can speak of a son of Santa Clara. The son of Santa Clara does not exist. Son, like almost all Cuban music is from the East, although in other regions of the country it is named differently and expresses itself differently.

I told you that Santa Clara is a city with a strong cultural heritage, with a constantly changing social life. The people in my province have swing, it is the city in Cuba where FM radio is most heard. People are well-informed about what happens here in the United States and the rest of the planet. It is a population with a hunger for knowledge and improvement.

Santa Clara is par excellence the land of resistance against the current regime, since the uprising in the Escambray in the early 60’s, and most of the protagonists were from Villa Clara, farmers in the area, who helped the rebels.

JJ I think that the group Afrocuba marked a before and after in your career; does it mean something in your life that you are also Afro-Cuban?

AG Absolutely. Afrocuba was the band that I wanted to sing with, the best band in Cuba in the 80’s, it was like the Irakere of its time. No doubt this dream was possible thanks to Arturo Sandoval. In a Jazz festival where I had the opportunity to be the opening act for him, and the luck that he listened to what I did. Then the business was completed with the help of a musicologist friend, Elsa, who brought a cassette with my songs and told the band director, Oriente Lopez, about me.

Afrocuba was one of the most beautiful artistic enriching experiences of my life. But to be Afro-Cuban … let’s see, to be Afro-Cuban is a very difficult thing because the country is racist. If you tell a white man about the racism that exists in Cuba, they always deny it. It’s logical. I know well what I’m talking about, I am the son of a white man and a black woman. I’m black. I realized early on that it was harder for blacks to achieve our goals. I became aware of race at the home of Pablo Milanés. I was then 27, had just arrived from another province and 6 years working in the Escambray, I was still a virgin.

It is very hard to be black; to me it is an honor. Cuba is more than that, it is mixed, white, black, mulatto.

JJ You were a virgin at 27?

AG Yes, virgin of thought, candor, innocence. Music has been one of the fundamental contributions of our island to world culture. I am very proud to be a Cuban musician, of being part of this beautiful phenomenon that is contemporary Cuban popular music. I like my black look. I once had an exchange of ideas with Alvarez Guedes, a guy whom I adore. He asked why not change my image, my braids, my rings. He told me that like this, he saw me as more black. I remember that I answered, “that’s just what I want, to be black, to be myself. I’m not going to dress in costume or stretch out my hair. I don’t want to be like that, I want to be like Bob Marley. I am, like Cuba, a mixture of Africa and Spain, but I am more African.” Africa is within us. If you listen to Cuban music you will find the African presence, the same goes for dancing, painting, cooking, how to talk, body language, cadence of walking… Many talk about the white Spain and seem to want to ignore the years of North African domination. Flamenco music itself has a very strong Arabic influence. But Africa is not only present in our country or in Spain, the popular music we hear today has roots and is basically African. Rock and roll has its African origin, also country music, Caribbean music, tango, candombé… everything.

JJ Is it not a bit ironic that a romantic like you went into exile precisely on February 14, Valentine’s Day?

AG Well, we can consider it as an act of romanticism that was not premeditated.

The reality was that the flight was scheduled for the thirteenth, but because of one of those rare things that only happen in Cuba, we could not travel that day. I was telling you last time that we recorded this same interview – because you should publish it and you lost this interview that you already did — that they were throwing a tremendous amount of witchcraft at us, and so we decided, instead of returning home, to sleep in the José Martí airport in Havana.

JJ Do you consider yourself to be romantic?

AG Yes, I consider myself a romantic in thinking, my way of being, talking about what is romantic in its pure concept. My music is romantic and has to do with who I am, with Matamoros, José Antonio Méndez, with Bola de Nieve, Cesar Portillo de la Luz, Armando Manzanero. My music is romantic, and so are my songs although sometimes there are others that are not so much because they talk about other issues like rafters, the country, etc. I am a romantic, I like utopia, I love it. I am a dreamer.

JJ That’s nice, but sometimes we have dreams that create enemies.

AG Imagine that! The best dreams always have enemies. Ask yourself why, ask Gandhi, Nelson Mandela.

JJ It is pleasant to note that there still exist dreamers, that is comforting.

They say the Cuban government will not allow you to travel to your country. What explanation can prevent you from visiting your family, hugging your friends or giving a concert anywhere in Cuba?

AG That’s a good question. Look, I do not know if the Cuban government would give me the ability to enter my country or my home, or not; I haven’t given them that opportunity, because I have not asked nor will I ask for a visa to go to my country. And, believe me – I’m doing poorly with that because my mother is 84-years-old and it is a fact that it keeps me from sleeping. I miss sitting in a chair and playing for my mom. I’m dying to do that, and to show my records to my mother. Why did Celia Cruz and Olga Guillot die without being able to come and sing in Cuba?

The other day I heard a statement from the Cuban Minister of Culture who said that Cuban culture was in a healthy state because there had been no major figure who had left Cuba since 1959. That is amazing, an unrepeatable joke.

JJ Well, in a certain way Minister Abel Prieto is right. He knows very well that neither Celia, nor Olga, neither you, or any of the so many artists, have left the country, the people love them, listen to them, enjoy them and worship them.

AG You think? I’m a dreamer, a kamikazi, and I don’t consider it decent or just that Cubans have to apply for a visa to enter our country, and ask permission to leave. That is something medieval in the style of the Spanish dictatorship in the time of José Martí. It is inconceivable that in these days there is a government that will do that to their citizens, and citizens who comply without protest. I am not going to accept that, never. It is an outrage.

For me, one of the most beautiful things that could happen to me would be to have the opportunity to travel freely to Cuba, and do a concert in Santa Clara, in Havana, Pinar del Río, Santiago de Cuba, or in whatever other place. That would be awesome, something as beautiful as winning a Grammy. Or more, because sooner or later I’m going to win the Grammy, I’ve been nominated three times, but I don’t know when I will go to Cuba, but it will happen. Any artist in the world can go to sing in Cuba, except us. This reflects the contempt that this government has for its citizens. I plan to travel to Cuba, when you don’t have to ask anyone’s permission.

JJ And what dreams do you have of your first concert in Cuba?

AG I want to arrive unannounced, accompanied by one or two cameramen, sit in any corner of Central Havana, pull out the guitar and start singing. Filming it all, capture the moment in which people keep coming, regardless of the different emotions that could be triggered there. To make a concert at the Karl Marx theater, the Sauto, the National, or in some open space where everyone who wants to can go.

JJ I once read this sentence of yours, “I learned to appreciate a lot the things I’ve gained, because they cost me and they made me more humble.” I find that charming, but knowing now, what you have learned from the things that you gained, tell me what have you learned from the many other things that you’ve certainly lost?

AG I learned a lot more from the things that I’ve lost. I lost the chance to see my mom getting older, to enjoy my nephew, my sister, to see my dad, the opportunity to interact with those friends that I grew up with. I also lost my home, well, not my country, I lost my piece of land because my country is me, my guitar, my songs, the food I eat, my people, my friends, my book of Martí. The country is a state of consciousness, culture, my identity. The fact that I could not live with dignity in my country, the fact that I had to leave Cuba to develop as an artist, and as a human being, is a terrible thing, losses that have hit me hard and made me grow suddenly. It’s all in my work, a constant sadness, longing. We who live outside the island are prisoners as much as those inside. This is evident in the work of Pedro Luis Ferrer, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Lezama, there is a lot of sadness in all of them.

It is incredible that they put a guy in there who does not like dancing, does not like jokes, does not like Cubans, I imagine that your dad has suffered from that also. Because your father was a musician, and black.

JJ Cuba’s next president has to pass the test. If you can not dance, dedicate yourself to something else. The president of Cuba has to know how to dance.

Translated by Ricote

December 4 2010

From the denial of the denial to the denial of the obvious / Claudia Cadelo

I was lucky: I finished the ninth grade with one teacher for each subject. A few years later began the debacle of the “emerging teachers” — who were not allowed to specialize. The same teacher would teach the arts and sciences to the whole high school. The old guard of teaching withdrew in fear (the devil knows more because he’s old than because he’s the devil) and most of the teachers changed the level of instruction, asked to move down, or retired from a long and always underpaid career.

Shutting off the voice of experience, the Ministry of Education gave free rein to its imagination of the absurd, and classes without specialization gave way to classes by television. To make matters worse, the salary and poor classroom conditions remained the same. We finished the academic era and entered the ideological era: more politics, less knowledge.

So things continued until the pitcher went to the well one too many times*. The emerging teachers quickly tired of a profession that was more work than earnings, and the government decided to punish them with seven long years of obligatory social service in the classroom. Negligence, corruption and mediocrity established themselves where, previously, wisdom and education had lived. Parents who had the economic wherewithal found private teachers, and the rest resigned themselves to changing their children’s school all the time.

Then it occurred to someone to try the strange idea of a “new” approach: specialized education. Now they’ve gone back to the days when the mathematics teacher only worried about numbers and not syntax or historic dates. Four or five schools in Havana are serving as guinea pigs for the “unprecedented experiment” and the parents — among whom are several friends of mine — move heaven and earth to ensure that their children are among those chosen to “test the new formula.”

* Popular saying: The pitcher that goes to the well too many times is sure to break.

December 4, 2010

A Difficult Verb to Conjugate / Fernando Dámaso

In some of my posts I have written about the need for tolerance in order to face each day in our difficult present, and confront whatever the future holds for us. Anchored in dogmatic positions, without the willingness to accept differences, there is very little we can accomplish. For many years, perhaps too many, this has been our biggest mistake. Thinking ourselves infallible, possessors of absolute truth, we have turned a deaf ear to the voices of others. The disastrous results are there for all to see.

A tolerant attitude of each citizen, whether occupying a position of management or amongst those at the bottom, would oxygenate our society, facilitate breathing and renew strength, ensuring the participation of all without exclusion of any kind, in the arduous task of restoring the nation.

If tolerance, discarding the fanatic attitudes that only leads to violence with its load of pain and resentment, is important today, how much more so will it be in the near future where all of us, those who are wrong and those who are not wrong, those who left and those who stayed, all those responsible to a greater or lesser degree for our situation, must work together, one day burying forever the differences that for many years have divided and separated us. Cuba is one, and all of her children form a part of Cuba, however they think.

To tolerate is not a verb that is easily conjugated. For too long it has been a cursed verb. To accept it and apply it in our conduct as citizens requires effort and, even more, the conviction of its necessity. But it is essential. Without it, the road to the reunification of citizens is impassable.

Citizen reunification is a necessity. Enough of watching each other as if we were enemies, of feeling happy at the misfortune of others, tripping each other up, of being two faced. Anyone who thinks differently is not a traitor, or a mercenary, or unpatriotic, or a lackey of the empire, or any other nonsense that is repeated daily. It’s just a citizen who thinks differently, and therefore, as worthy of respect as anyone else.

Translated by ricote

November 12 2010

Wikileaks or Cyberpaparazzi / Rebeca Monzo

It’s amazing to see the pleasure taken by so many people in this kind of cyber-paparrazi, which is very disagreeable and highly inflammable.

On my planet they’re delighted, because in the cross-hairs of this unscrupulous Australian’s telescope is the eternal enemy, front and center.

If there is something efficient here, where nothing works, it’s state secrecy. There is great speculation about anything and everything. Sometimes delicate information filters out, but if it’s not published, that means it never happened. Somebody once said that if Napoleon had had the newspaper Granma available to him, no one ever would have heard of his defeat at Waterloo.

What draws my attention most is that, up to now, everything published basically affects just one country, what a coincidence! It could be an oversight on the part of the attacked, or perhaps it’s that someone is paying the attacker too well. Only time will tell.

It’s general knowledge that the diplomats of every country, without exception, inform their governments about everything they hear. This in no way means that what they say is the official opinion of the country they represent.

Gentlemen, it seems to me that sooner or later this cyber-paparrazism benefits no one. If we suddenly opened every Pandora’s Box there is, it would simply be the end of the world.

In general, any well-balanced person finds the paparazzi’s harassment of famous people greatly annoying. I think they should also reject these media intrigues that try to confront the governments of the civilized world, seeing as this is much more dangerous. In my humble opinion, it’s the equivalent of making a big mess and then leaving it to others to clean up.

December 4 2010

Guidelines for the VI Congress of the Party: Update Socialism or Renovate Societal Structures? / Intramuros

By Dagoberto Valdés

Taking into account the absolute and meticulous control enforced by the state in Cuba since 1969 over economic, financial, commercial, and service activities, the Guidelines for the VI Congress are just a drop of water in the desert. Those who know what centralized economy means are well aware that said guidelines are more of the same only with a sense of urgency.

The simple fact that the guidelines come from above to be debated under the supervision of instructors previously trained at a centralized level is a sign that the method and the content are essentially the same. They both come from above, move from the center to the periphery, and are ordered by the powerful for the powerless to obey. The goal is a supporting debate, an opinion survey, an apparent consultation inside well-defined settings. Few believe, but they still put up a show.

That’s why mistrust reigns from right to left even inside the so-called militancy. That’s why any interpretation emulates those of Noah’s Ark. That’s why the results are as foreseeable as 52 years of Revolution put together.

Those who defeat skepticism and with goodwill try to find “something” like an “opening” or a “reform” may look at the first guidelines for an accurate response.

Those who persevere and overcome the initial exorcism destined to sober down the most conservative will find full lessons on in-depth and punctilious control. To say, in the 21st century, that permits will be granted authorizing real estate property transactions is the equivalent of authorizing the use of cell phones or granting entry to a hotel in one’s own country. The idea of contracting personnel to work at small businesses though as neighborhood joints without any incidence in the overall production of goods takes us back to pre-industrial revolution times. That’s what transpires out of the new list of “trabajos por cuenta propia” (self-employment occupations). It is a compilation of medieval arts and crafts ranging from fortune-teller to button liners in the era of the zipper. Implying an actual contribution to further development is like competing with Breton.

Communism like any totalitarian regime can not be reformed. There are only two things to hope for out of this new mockery of make-up artistry with a tainted “actualization” flair. Either real reforms that would eventually bring down the centralized control that keeps the economy and our lives stagnant take place or nothing really happens other than the regular entertainment while the government catches a breath.

“Actualization” is an elusive word. Pope John XXIII spoke of “aggiornamento” when the Council was summoned to renovate San Pedro’s marred boat. By updating a thousand-year-old institution, a rejuvenating breeze of change blew through the window. Later, the church renovated itself with little fanfare and a lot of nuts. A political system is not a church. It could be a new religion, though, with its own dogma and immovable commandments. The 20th century showed that it was a lot easier to bring church up-to-date than to reform socialism, a system that eventually perished in battle without any fanfare or nuts for that matter.

In today’s globalized world, actualization means definitely discarding the nostalgic schemes of authoritarian centralization of every single aspect of human life. That includes the family, teaching methodology, the economic model, the political system, culture, and the anthropological vision of reality.

Actualization is not intended to be the disguising of a culture of imposition and exclusion through false pretense of consultation and participation. Actualization means replacing the essence and methods of the from-above-down culture, the rhetoric of debating what comes from above, and the debating and resending of bogus suggestions by a culture of inclusion and democratic linear management.

Furthermore, it is a change in paternalistic family life into participative family relationships that respectfully promote initiative and individuality.

As to education, it is about putting behind us the current methods of imposition and manipulation of the individual and his right to have an opinion. Today, education is a mere ideological instrument that reproduces slaves not citizens. Civic schools resemble a Taliban seminary on secular religion about totalitarian Utopias. Thus, the embellishment of an indoctrinating system is not enough. It is imperative to embrace a liberating pedagogy that promotes participation and “teaches to think above all”. That’s how Father Felix Varela two centuries ago, and the illustrious Brazilian pedagogue Paulo Freire years later, taught. Our democracy depends on the school we choose.

On the other side, in the 21st century, the actualization of the economic model can not be a safeguard of the state’s control while breaking sound market laws. It can not impede individual initiative or foolish entrepreneurs with medieval trades. We will not head into the future by chaining the train to the inefficient and rusted frame of a system that never worked not even for us, as it was stated and hurriedly denied by Fidel Castro. According to ancient language, actualization means liberating the productive forces when the yoke of the productive relations is broken.

In Cuba, that means releasing the internal mechanisms that constantly suffocate the spirit of its citizens and their unstoppable desire to keep their heads afloat. International maneuvering to impede commerce with a country is as shameful as using bureaucratic mechanisms as well as draconian inspectors to prosecute and asphyxiate honest citizens pursuing a better future on the island. The aftermaths of this native embargo are the black market, the underground economy, the financial mafia, the traffic of personal influences, and the eventual collapse of flagship enterprises like some located in the mining city of Moa. It is the byproduct of not liberating the human spirit and what is needed for personal fulfillment and social progress as the only way to pump some content into that soulless shell the paternalistic state economy has turned into.

Actualization of the economic model also means accepting that economy has its own rules which are not to be strangled by politics. Authentic economic reforms are up-to-date if they convey respect for private property be it personal, family, co-operative or mixed. There will be no reforms, productivity or dreams without strict respect of private property. A look at the 20th century is enough to realize how inefficient an experiment leading nowhere and nurtured with blood and fire, no metaphor here, can be. Nobel Prize winner Amartya Asen once said in his most paradigmatic work that economic development is inextricably linked to the freedom of both individuals and nations.

The guidelines for the VI Congress of the PCC (Communist Party of Cuba) could however be a starting point to correct the path of a train and thus bring substantial changes to otherwise extremely timid reforms. Sadly, as the government likes to say, the reforms are just a push so the old train does not get off the tracks on the way to the same destiny we have been backpedaling to for five decades without moving a single millimeter.

I do not think the structural changes they talked about three years ago but never pushed forward should be radical or abrupt. It is in the best interest of a vast majority to implement them gradually. Yet, gradual does not necessarily mean clogging the line that pumps oxygen into the economy.

The economic laws that govern the market should not be implemented to create an inhuman unruly world that dumps millions of have-nots into the social gutter. The recent world crisis proves economic as well as political and social regulations are a must.

Notwithstanding, I hope the current turning point and the coming debates are an opportunity to listen to each other as a first step. According to a journalist friend, discrepancies should be decriminalized next so that everyone freely contributes his best to a prosper nation. Then, a true “actualization” will really get rolling if those who think differently are not condemned, disqualified, and called mercenaries and worms.

As long as some follow orders from above and disavow their fellow citizens who think differently, Cuba will not embrace “actualization”. It will rather face social disintegration and surely the loss of national identity and civic sovereignty which are the backbone of the sole existence of a Cuban unique character. Nobody wants that. Thus, not a single Cuban should be excluded and talks should be as broad, plural, and welcoming as Noah’s Ark even if only two of each species are granted access.

Renovating without targeting the causes of the system’s dysfunctional core is like trying to keep it afloat by sheer will. Economy and politics do not survive based on this kind of secular faith. They count on ethics as their vision and guideline, technical knowledge as instrument, efficiency as end result, and broader social justice, peaceful coexistence, and integral human development as visible results, able to be perfected..

The structural remodeling of the social environment assumes the following:

An anthropological change leading to an ethic of freedom and responsibility.

An economic transformation that fosters private initiative either by association or mixed and the respect of market laws as well as necessary fitting and moderate regulation on the side of the state and the civic society as economic role player.

A political shift towards the rule of law, democracy, civic participation, and multi-party government.

A social move promoting a starring independent, creative, and friendly civic society as both a new definition of democracy and methodology.

A change in education that proposes a liberating, plural and participative pedagogy.

A cultural transformation towards a vital and shared synthesis between loyalty to the roots of our identity and a refreshing way of life permeated by diversity.

A change in the way we relate to the environment and nature in order to promote a more humane holistic ecology.

A change in the country’s interrelation with the world fomenting an opening without ideological or mercantile barriers and a full integration with the diaspora and the international community.

Other changes and views should round out this opinion. In order to do so, we must have the opportunity of exercising critic and proposing solutions.

Cuba, that is Cuban men and women wherever they are, must exercise their right to reshape to nation we all belong to.

Translated by Wilfredo Dominguez.

November 25 2010

Self-employment, Once Again! / Intramuros

by Karina Gálvez

Once again the legalization of self-employment awakens dreams… and disappointments. Sometimes one gets tired of becoming emboldened and then almost at the same moment discouraged for the same reason that you were encouraged. It is already a custom in Cuba. But we know so well the actions of the Cuban authorities, we can say, as a friend heard some time ago, there are not prejudices, only experiences. This self-employment, as designed, will not save the Cuban economy, much less improve the living conditions of citizens.

The new list of self-employment choices promotes dreams in an important sector of the Cuban people because working for yourself is within the human being, part of its nature and more so for Cubans who have a special spirit of entrepreneurship. Also, because it is the recognition of a right that seemed lost for the umpteenth time on this island. I could not ignore that it also represents an oxygenator of a domestic economy that is intolerably weak. And because, despite everything, you believe that it will be possible to live better.

But immediately after building up hopes, questions and responses arise that lower our spirit and provoke disappointment. The list of legal self-employment jobs is truly offensive. The entrepreneurial spirit of Cubans can not be confined to a list where the most profitable business is a small restaurant with a maximum capacity of 20. Not to mention other work, no doubt honorable but also primitive, just enough to get by in the economy of a cave, such as: button sewer, fancy-dress dancer, carter. The figures of dancing couples, musical duos or bands are specifically named: Benny Moré dancing partners, or Amistad duo. We do not know exactly what this means; if one wants to devote himself to dance as self-employment, must it be called “Benny Moré dance partner” to be legal? It turns out that the Cuban people, after 52 years of sacrifice to build the most just social system in the world, now face a situation of insecurity and massive layoffs never expected nor imagined in the minds of those who believe that the Cuban State is the protective father that it has always claimed to be. And the state is faced with the impossibility of solving this situation. Or rather, it is impossible to resolve this situation without its losing its absolute economic power.

However, since it is not prepared to do this, the Cuban State has authorized the new businesses with much reserve. Self-employed workers have emerged as a “necessary evil” for the current Cuban economic system. It is said that it is a remedy for the mass dismissals that are already underway in state enterprises. I do not believe that the government thinks that by doing the jobs in the published list anyone can make up for — we won’t say the salary — but the security that legal employment represents. We must keep in mind that many workers add to their wages from what they can “resolve” in their work places: resources, the ability to use a service, perks for themselves and their friends. In losing a job in Cuba, more is lost than a salary. It is not these kinds of jobs, mostly from medieval times, that can placate the discontent and confusion of being unemployed in a system where there is a single employer.

Therefore, after becoming acquainted the information given, we find that the legal possibility is not real.

The truth is that to make a change in Cuba, however superficial it may be, takes more than legislation. It requires the creation and accommodation of a different background of economic relations that enable the success of self-employed work. For self-employment to be possible and truly successful (albeit on a small scale for now) conditions are required for which the Cuban government has not announced any strategy.

What would it take for self-employment to be a viable possibility in Cuba?

A wholesale market infrastructure would need to be created.

“The optimum is a wholesale market with different prices. But we are not going to be able to do that in the coming years.”

Marino Murillo Jorge, Minister of Economy

Granma, 24 September 2010

It is clear that access to basic resources will not be facilitated. It will be necessary to purchase them in the retail market, with similar prices for those who purchase in quantities for consumption as for those investing in large quantities

This, of course, affects prices and profits of the self-employed.

But more serious is that the retail market in Cuba is almost without supplies of products for the consumer. How could it supply the mass of self-employed persons that could be generated?

The articulation of a financial infrastructure would be necessary and important.

“… discussed with the Central Bank of Cuba how to make viable the possibility so that those who decide to return to work on their own can access a bank loan to jump-start their chosen activity”

Granma, 24 September 2010

It is laughable that it would be necessary to apply for credit for the kinds of self-employment published in the list of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security. The lack of resources experienced by the average Cuban is obvious to everyone. However, what is needed is the possibility of obtaining credit to streamline and revitalize the changes that are hoped for with the new openness to self-employment. Because it is needed now and because we hope that it could be used in the future to expand businesses.

But the lack of security for self-employment hinders the possibility of credit. Making access to bank credit viable is a mechanism already established and experienced since the rise of central and commercial banks, long ago. The problem is not the mechanism but the circumstances. A self-employed person who is exposed to the possibility of losing the business at any time because of the need to engage in illegalities will not qualify for bank credit, unless the Central Bank of Cuba establishes very flexible credit standards and is willing to take a risk that can not be calculated without a large margin of error. Bad credit policy will over the long run harm the national economy just as it has recently hurt the global economy.

It would require the establishment of fair and affordable taxes.

The enforcement mechanisms, some of the most anticipated information for those involved, have already been published. Taxes continue to pose an unreasonable burden on the self-employed. It is obvious that the self-employed worker desires to earn an income slightly higher than a state employee who delivers only his labor without risking anything. Taxes almost extinguished the burgeoning self-employment in the nineties. Thanks to the burden they represented, a large percentage of businesses had to shut down. With the publication of the new system, I believe that before too long the first businesses that open will close, and that the number of start-ups will be significantly lower than in 1994.

One of the objectives of the Cuban government in stimulating self-employment is the raising of revenue, by means of taxes. Therefore, self-employment will also take a hit in the event that the State does not get the expected amount of revenue from taxes.

A workable system of control of revenue and expenditures would be necessary.

This was one of the main weaknesses of the previous system of taxes. And the conditions are there for this to not improve. The current self-employed persons have income and incur expenses that are very difficult to control. The sources of raw materials and goods are mostly illegal (obtained on the black market) and it is impossible to use legal sources, either because they do not exist or because they are expensive and constitute an unbearable burden for business.

Until now, neither efficient nor sufficient mechanisms to control expenditures and revenue have been established. So fiscal policy will try to be as restrictive as possible, without a reliable base of information. And once again this will put an end to self-employment.

It would be necessary to expand the domestic market.

As long as foreigners who invest in Cuba can invest in big businesses, discrimination against Cuban nationals is also strongly reflected in the economy. The legalized self-employment does not cover activities with large and important revenue for the Cubans. A glance at the aforementioned list is sufficient to be convinced of that. However, some may be lucky enough to obtain significant profits by special opportunities and advantages of place, time, and ability. How to invest that money in Cuba? Unable to expand the business (the list is restricted to a minimum), you cannot buy a home, you cannot buy a car, you cannot travel freely. The money will go from hand to hand and will be little more than the exchange of goods in the early years of prehistoric trade. If the money is going to circulate only among the self-employed, the level that is set by law, Cuban economic development cannot be glimpsed on the horizon.

Clearly, those who get fairly significant amounts of money will try to raise their standard of living by means of the black market. But we will always be exposed to the implementation of the ley maceta* (still in effect).

The expansion of commerce should place private and state enterprises on an equal footing. Working under normal conditions, little time will be needed to develop a broad and diverse market.

After the disappointment.

Of course, in verifying this reality and, perhaps, others not mentioned here, one is discouraged. It is very probable that of those who build up hopes at the beginning, only a small percentage will be able to bring their own business to reality. I am inclined to think they will not be able. I hope this is not so. Hopefully, as has happened on other occasions, despite everything, new self-employed people can emerge. Hopefully we will not be faced with disappointment and we will fill small spaces with small businesses that are always more efficient than the large state enterprises that we have to cope with, at a disadvantage, in unfair competition. Perseverance has saved the Cuban nation many times from succumbing to calamity. Self-employment is an economic right based on the natural right to private enterprise, of achieving survival by our own efforts.

If there is a fence that limits the exercise of this right, push it calmly but firmly, with nothing more than the serious and constant exercise of it. It is legitimate and necessary.

It is not a matter of self-employment to passively accept all the absurd conditions that constrain it. The only novel element of the new self-employment legislation is the hiring of labor. It does not represent in any way a sign of voluntary openness. But it is a step that the Cuban government has been forced to take and could be the economic rift that breaks the dam of the totalitarian system, if we do not yield to the temptation to conform without trying to open it further day by day.

Every time we gain degrees of personal freedom in the economic sphere, we will gain degrees of personal freedom at all levels, and we will need more and greater freedom, for which we have the necessity, and the moral obligation to demand for ourselves for others.

With this we will be helping to convert what in Cuba has been called “self-employment” into the free exercise of private enterprise; what have been called timbiriches*, into respectable micro businesses, and what has been called “the self-employed” into small, private entrepreneurs. Finally, we will be contributing to the birth of an open market economy, efficient, supportive, and subsidiary.

This is really the only thing that can save the Cuban economy: freedom of economic initiative, taking into account the laws of the market, with a genuine openness to domestic and foreign investment, with the principle of efficiency, and seeking equality of opportunity.

Karina Gálvez Chiú (Pinar del Río, 1968)
Degree in economics, Professor of finance.
Director, Grupo de economistas del Centro Civico
Founding member of Editorial Board of the Magazine Convivencia (Coexistence)
Lives and works in Pinar del Rio.

*Translator’s notes:
Ley maceta is the popular name for laws that punish illicit enrichment
Timbiriche is the popular name for a very small business such as a stand or a kiosk.

Translated by ricote

November 25 2010

Peter Pan Syndrome / Regina Coyula

For years, Cuban television in coordination with UNICEF has produced some short films to promote the rights of children. In general, they are very well done and have a positive message. One that has come out recently with the message that more or less affirms that children and young people have the right to be heard. So is the point then, in Cuba, to not grow up?

December 4, 2010

The Winter of the Patriarch / Regina Coyula

The Young People Will Not Fail Us!

This year Student Day (November 17), a celebration inherited from the time of the Socialist Camp, has acquired an exceptional character. There were no classes in the university and pre-university schools of education, and the students had only recreational activities. To mark the date, Fidel wanted to address students, and so he met with a select group of them to talk about the topics he is now most interested in, and which have led him to buy tons for foreign literature, offer all-expense-paid trips to foreign scientists and writers to speak with them personally, and order that his Reflections be translated into various languages so that they can be distributed among the delegations at the headquarters of the United Nations.

But I don’t care to refer to the energy displayed by the 84-year-old leader on the subject of nuclear winter, because it is no longer news. I would like to talk about the young people who gathered to listen to him. Young people who, when they were invited to ask questions, instead of taking advantage of this exceptional opportunity they put a great deal of effort into obsequious and repetitive questions directed to the old man seated at the podium of that meeting. In the contest to achieve the greatest triumph in this regard, one boy called him, “the greatest man of all humanity.”

These students, almost all enrolled in university courses, are supposed to be “the changing of the guard,” of that which they themselves have pledged to complete with the slogan, “It’s Guaranteed.” Is this their design for leading this country? Are these the young people who should be making decisions? Is this the youth of Cuba? This?

Translated by ricote, and “unstated”

November 22, 2010

Havana International Film Festival / Miguel Iturria Savón

The Journal of the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema is already out with its XXXII edition with previews the festival scheduled from December 2-12. Playing in the main theaters of Havana, home since 1978 to one of the most comprehensive festivals of images and sound on the continent; it includes the U.S. and Canada with co-productions, representative samples, conferences and the section “Latinos in the USA,” to which this year is added the Homage of the National Film Board of Canada, which is showing 47 works at the festival including animated, fiction, and documentary films.

As in previous years, the filmmakers will compete for Coral Awards in fiction (feature films), first works, documentaries, animation, script and posters, along with the coveted award of popularity, the Latin American First Copy Award and other awards. In 2010 there will be works on the Bicentennial of Independence, with the 25 Glances in 200 Minutes — shorts of Argentina; the animated series Fates, humorous and short stories of Independence and the Mexican Revolution, which will showcase 26 movie minutes lasting 90 seconds each (13 dedicated to the Independence and 13 to the Centennial of the Revolution started in 1910).

The schedule contains 21 feature films, 4 from Argentina and the same number from Cuba and Mexico, 2 from Brazil, Chile and Venezuela and 1 each from Peru, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay, and two Uruguay-Spain co-productions, and another from Venezuela, Cuba and France – plus a Brazilian film outside the competition on the life of president Lula, supplemented by 23 medium-length and short films, among them a German film about Cuba, which premieres Bathers, Carlos Lechuga, and Aché, about the writer and filmmaker Eduardo Llano; and including Brazil (7) and Mexico (5), and followed by Peru (2), Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic and Venezuela (1 each).

Twenty-three first-run films are competing, led by Brazil and Mexico (4), followed by Argentina (3), Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba and Uruguay, each with two works. Generating the most interest are the entries from Argentina: The Intern, No Return and Puzzles; Five Favelas from Brazil; Of Love and Other Demons (Costa Rica) and Fierce Molinas and Affinities (Cuba), the second directed by actors Jorge Perugorria and Vladimir Cruz; and The Mute House, by Uruguayan filmmaker Gustavo Hernández, based on real events.

Argentina leads the festival with 91 pieces in total, including documentaries, animation, scripts, posters, etc., revealing a fascination for its films, the most convincing of Latin America; followed by Cuba (85), which benefits from its status as host to show 33 minor works and 17 audiovisual productions from the Superior Art Institute; and then Mexico (70), Brazil (42), Chile (24), Colombia (15) and Venezuela (10).

This edition is well served by animated film, characterized by color, humor and brevity, and represented by 28 titles, led by Argentina (7), Brazil, Chile and Venezuela (4), Cuba (3) — among them Nikita Chama Bom, by Juan Padrón Blanco — Mexico and Colombia (2) and the unusual presence of El Salvador.

The organizers scheduled 42 films in the section Made in Cuba, of which 35 are documentaries, 6 fiction, and one experimental; 33 are from Island producers and the others are from Ireland, Italy, Britain and Uruguay. That of Ireland appears as a formal request as it constitutes the Castro regime’s version of the Black Spring of 2003.

In “The Hour of Shorts” (23 tapes), are submissions from Vanguards (17), Latin American Panorama (22 fiction), and Latin America Documentaries in perspective (38), as well as fantasy and horror films, confirming the “fraternal rivalry” between the film industries of the leading countries in regional culture.

International options at the Film Festival of Havana include films from Germany, Spain, Italy, Britain and Poland, as well as Finnish Animation 8 titles and some from Denmark, France, Norway, Egypt, India and Iran.

Moviegoers will be able to attend two seminars, see seven exhibits in the Chaplin Room and other locations, buy books and magazines, attend shows with actors and directors and choose what to see among the 515 films on billboards, of which 122 are competing. It may be too many for ten days and more than 20 theaters.

December 2 2010

THAT I WOULD BE GOOD / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

I pronounce your name
in the dark nights
when the stars come
to drink on the moon
and the branches sleep
the hidden fronds.

And I feel hollow
of passion and music,
crazy clock that sings
dead hours old.

I pronounce your name
in this dark night
and your name sounds
more distant than ever.

More distant than all the stars
and more bereaved than the gentle rain.

I will love you like then
some time? What fault
is in my heart?

If the mist dissipates
what other passions await me?
will it be quiet and pure?
if my fingers could
pluck the moon!

December 4, 2010

The Cachita of Central Havana / Iván García

In September, Havanans venerate three virgins: on September 7 the Regla virgin; the following day the Virgin of the Charity of Cobre, and the Merced virgin on the 24th. Regla and Charity are mixed race, and one of them, Our Lady of Charity of Cobre, is the Patron Saint of Cuba.

Rain or shine, Havanans gather on September 8 at the church that bears her name, a construction from the 19th century, painted white and yellow. For some time, a procession passes through the streets outside on this day.

The temple is located in Los Sitios, a neighborhood of poor, black, marginal people in Central Havana. It is a few miles around and from everywhere you can see overflowing trash containers, sewage running in torrents, and a frightening odor of shit that emerges from the cracked and filthy tenements.

The area is one of the most densely populated in the city. In miserable shacks, and high houses propped up on stilts with twisted iron balconies, innumerable families live crowded together, many consisting of “Palestinians,” citizens who come fleeing the extreme calamities of the Eastern provinces.

Almost all are living in Havana illegally. On the day of Cachita, as Cubans call their patron saint, the easterners carry the devotees in their bike-taxis. And they charge double. And they aren’t the only ones making a killing. One woman in dark glasses reads the cards for one convertible peso (less than a dollar). Other neighbors sell roasted peanuts, homemade candy, and bread with thin slices of ham and cheese.

With so many people crowded together the “choros” (pickpockets) take advantage of the least chance to grab a wallet from a pants pocket or a backpack, looking for money or anything of value. A black-haired young woman flies into a rage at an older man who for some time, according to her, had been pressing his penis into her ample buttocks. She threatens to call the police and the guy disappears.

The police, of course, flood the area around the church. The State Security agents keep their distance with their short hair, Motorola cell phones and Suzuki motorcycles.

Tourists usually show up with video cameras. A well-built black boy hugs his Spanish girlfriend. Hookers dressed in the latest styles try to make it inside the church to put a roll of coins on the altar.

The priest announces that the procession is starting. The figure of the virgin is taken out in a class case and mounted on a convertible car.

The crowd starts to move. Some are praying and some are drinking rum and beer. Others eat peanuts and chew gum. They take photos and record videos. Although perhaps only once in their lives, Cubans go to this church to pay tribute to Cachita. It doesn’t matter that her Havana temple is surrounded by poverty.

Fortunately, her real home, in the Cobre Sanctuary, in Santiago de Cuba, is located on a beautiful place surrounded by mountains.

Translated by RST

September 15, 2010

A Region of Cafés con Leche and Pork Rinds / Ernesto Morales Licea

Is there any lesson Latin Americans can take from the recent appalling events in Ecuador, where a group of mutinous police, demanding the repeal of a law affecting them, kidnapped and physically assaulted the president of the Republic?

I believe so. I think that incidents of this nature have a radius of action a hundred times greater than the simple context in which they occur, and they shed a very clear light on certain practices that concern not just a handful of citizens, but an entire region.

What took place in Quito last Thursday has, in my opinion, an exact definition: embarrassing. Allow me to set aside the definitions of legality, democracy, constitutionality, because in truth, the feeling generated in me — as a television viewer and ultimately a Latin American — by this Hollywood spectacle of kidnappings, mobs, nocturnal shootings and risky rescues, was just that: a deep shame.

In the first place, what is the origin of this political riot that could evolve into a coup d’etat (although I differ with those who say that was the original objective)? It was the discontent of an important sector of the Ecuadorian national police with the passage of a Public Service Law which did away with certain benefits — salary increases and bonus rewards for years of service.

The impending loss of these benefits had already caused those affected to hold negative opinions (reaction rather than logic), and in order to discuss the new uses of the dollars saved, and the fairness of the measure, the Ecuadorean president had gone in person to the Police Headquarters in Quito.

The final outcome of the presumed dialog was physical aggression not only against a leader — who, whatever people say, enjoys wide popular support in his country — but who is also a human being who was recovering from an operation on his right knee.

They used tear gas against the president. They insulted and attacked the president. They confined him at the Police Hospital and for twelve feverish hours held him hostage along with some of his closest aids and political appointees.

The demand from the insurgents remained the same: “You abrogate this law and we’ll stop everything,” was more or less the offer of his captors.

Now, the first question that could be asked about this act of social barbarism is: What kind of confidence can Ecuador have in its institutions, after one of the most visible, and by definition the one charged with ensuring public order, engaged in such an uncivilized and violent act?

At that moment, trying to mentally weigh the impact of what I saw on television, I remembered a brief social essay by Mario Vargas Llosa. It was titled, “Why has Latin America failed?” One of the fundamental ideas that great writer (in the past also a politician) defended was that there cannot be sustainable democratic development in our region while our institutions continue to be so greatly discredited, and while the people do not really believe in them.

I subscribe to this statement one hundred percent. How can Latin Americans achieve a prosperity that is not only economic, but also social and cultural, while the institutions created to safeguard the functioning of society behave themselves, at times, like legalized gangsters?

Latin Americans cannot have confidence in a renewal process while the judges who make the laws are officials who can be bought and sold (Mexico: case in point), or puppets who distort the law whenever their government master demands it of them: See Venezuela.

How can we pretend to elevate our region to a more respectable and dignified status in the eyes of the world, if the police are more corrupt than the narcotraffickers, and common citizens often don’t know who to fear more, the criminals or the supposed agents of public order?

How can Latin Americans have even the slightest level of self-esteem, when it has been more than a practice, and in fact a tradition, that the armies overthrow the presidents (just or unjust, democratic or totalitarian) and bathe in the blood that flows in the streets of their own countries?

This was the first conclusion I came to in the new case of Ecuador: the state of health of democracy in Latin American continues critical when a vital institution like the police believes it has the right to attack the highest authority of the nation, and present its demands as it would to any headquarters colleague.

Those responsible for these institutions can perhaps be replaced, but social awareness is not so easily replaced.

Another important point to consider is the speed with which so many leaders in our region rushed to ridicule an incident of this magnitude.

Me, although I am not even remotely a politician, understand that moderation and tact — when the pieces are not yet clear on the board — are primary in this profession.

Meanwhile, two presidents whom I don’t hesitate to define as the most lamentable in Latin America today — Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales — lost no time in making themselves the laughingstock once again, this time with the crisis in Ecuador as their stage.

The first was comandante Chavez, whom I remember cynically saying to Jaime Bayly in a television interview in 1997, before his investiture as president, that should he win at the ballot box it would not “go badly” for foreign investors, that he would respect private property and freedom of expression, both so necessary in his country.

Well, this current paradigm of governmental arrogance didn’t hesitate for a second to shout that the United States was the real orchestrator of this coup, and he repeated it a few more times, in case the grinning Amaryan who administers Bolivia wasn’t listening closely to what he should say. Evo heard, of course, and repeated it like a faithful clone.

With almost the same alacrity as the rest of the denounced governments, the United States officially and in no uncertain terms denounced this act against the president of Ecuador.

Not even the Cuban government dared, this time, to accuse the Americans, at least publicly, of being behind this incident. Nor has the one principally affected, Rafael Correa, who at other times hasn’t hesitated to confront U.S. policy hand-in-hand with his allies Chavez and Evo. But those two, one as the voice and the other as his echo, were consistent in their perennial effort to be the least respected presidents in our hemisphere.

I think this act of police insubordination in Quito, still offers us material for analysis. It will come to light whether — as Rafael Correa claimed from the outset (also unwisely and without proof) — the ex-president and coup leader Lucio Gutierrez had a hand in it, or if it was simply an event coordinated by the dissatisfied police.

Partisans of both hypotheses can say what they will, but there is no clear evidence that event was limited only to discontent among its participants, nor that it was an attempted coup where Gutierrez took an active part.

But what we can already take away as a definitive lesson from the attack suffered by a president in the exercise of his mandate, on the part of the police facing the loss of some of their economic benefits, is that a great deal is still left to be accomplished in Latin America to build First World countries, not only with regards to economics, but also mentally.

A typically Cuban anecdote related that a well-known politician, during the presidency of Tomás Estrada Palma at the beginning of the Republic, could find no better way to describe Cuba’s battered civil spirit than to say, “This is a country of cafés con leche and pork rinds.”

Offensive but true: Latin American nations, with such a tradition of blood and brawls, where three coups can happen in the same country in less than a decade, where the tradition of putting dictators in power is not dead, and where in the 21st Century a president can be slapped for taking away benefits, has not ceased to be, with a few exceptions, a region of cafés con leche and pork rinds.

November 21, 2010