Author: Fernando Dámaso

Without the the Pact of Zanjón it would have been impossible to preserve and rebuild the forces that, years later, would participate in the War of Independence that ended in 1898, since these individuals would have been decimated and their main leaders sacrificed in vain.

Years later, with the acceptance by the most reasonable Cubans of the Platt Amendment, the emergence of the Republic would have been impossible, because the US occupation troops would not have left Cuba, and Cuba would have become a protectorate, without actually constituting Nation, regardless of everything bad that would have flowed from this.

If. in the 1930s, the intelligence of certain groups had prevailed instead of their ambitions, the reality would have been different, and the country would have moved more quickly on the path of development.

If, in the decade of the 50s, those who worked for a political and non-violent solution had triumphed, instead of those who believed in armed struggle, we would have avoided these six decades of backwardness and misery.

That is, betting on the extremes has never been synonymous with wisdom, although some people are more attracted to noise and hubbub than to good sense. It would be convenient if, in the days and months to come, the latter would prevail.

This means that for the same reason, those of Antonio Maceo and Máximo Gómez, also near the sea, will be moved. And the multiple iron sculptures installed by the Historian of the City on Avenida del Puerto along with Roberto Fabelo’s bowl on the Malecón at Galiano.

Will it also happen with the anachronistic Martí of the Anti-Imperialist Bandstand and with the bandstand itself, built by the sea, making this part of El Vedado ugly?

It is explained that there will be a park with a star, a large Cuban flag and a bronze plaque built in the space where the monument was, explaining that the monument was here and the reasons for its move. I suppose that a budget has been established to replace the large flag from time to time, due to the effects of the saltpeter and the strong wind.

I think that maybe this is no more than a temporary park, similar to those that are built where buildings collapse. Will anyone be interested in such a magnificent place?

In short, these measures only serve to lacerate the identity of our towns and cities, depriving them of part of their architecture, which is also their history.

It recalls the game with the remains of Stalin in Moscow’s Red Square, which were first located next to Lenin inside the latter’s mausoleum and, years later, when the dark side of Stalin’s character was publicly revealed, they were removed and buried near the entrance, with a simple pedestal without a bust.

This move now, whatever they say about it, reflects deep manipulation, perhaps with the aim of attracting visitors to the site and, therefore, as a collateral gain, towards the monolith.

And as if the manipulation was not enough, Dona Mariana is also supposed to be granted the title of “Mother of the Nation,” something that no Mambí (fighter for Cuban independence) gave her nor did any of the veterans of the War of Independence, as if it happened with Carlos Manuel de Cespedes. The greatest title of Doña Mariana’s is that of being the mother of the Maceo, and that of having accompanied them in the first independence struggle: she does not need another.

They justify this by saying that when she died José Martí sent a wreath of flowers in whose ribbon said “Mother,” is too farfetched like something from the Historian of Havana, who,for a long time. became the historical oracle of the authorities. It would be good to remind him of an opinion from our Apostle: “There is no spectacle, in truth, more odious, than that of servile talents.” (Volume 13, page 158 of his Complete Works).

Although, according to what we were told then, the “historical leader” asked that his name not be given to any public establishment, institution, avenue, street, etc., what is being done now is worse: they are trying to place it, in importance, next to Céspedes and Martí. The Fathers of the Homeland deserve respect.

As if that were not enough, a white stone coffin, with bones brought from the Pantheon of the Veterans, dedicated to the Unknown Mambí Soldier, has now been located in the Hall of the Lost Steps of the National Capitol.

Everything seems to indicate that this funerary addiction will continue.

All revolutions have a beginning and an end, totally unrelated to the wishes of those who execute them: in the case of political, social or economic revolutions, they begin with the assault on the established power and end with the institutionalization of the new power. They are ephemeral phenomena, although their consequences and effects extend over time, beyond the periods of their own existence. The Cuban Revolution is no exception: it existed only during the transition stage.

To speak of the Cuban Revolution today, as if it were still a current event, and even worse of the “Revolutionary Government of Cuba,” as it is often written in official statements, in addition to referring to something that does not exist, is illegal, since, what the Constitution recognizes is the Government of the Republic of Cuba. It seems that this absurdity responds to the need that the “old revolutionaries” have to maintain their “histories” and to defend their old conceptions, without daring to insert themselves in the present.

They are addicted to the little word (economic, agricultural, industrial, educational, cultural and other revolutions), although over time, despite having tried to erase the so-called bourgeois period, changing the political, social and economic structures, and also the names of many towns, companies, businesses, and health, educational, cultural and other centers, as well as plazas, parks, avenues and streets, they have become well-off leaders and officials, with higher standards of living than those of the bourgeois they fought, with the difference that the old bourgeois lived off their own resources while the well-off leaders and officials live at the expense of the people’s resources.

They will continue to call themselves “revolutionaries” until the end of their days, but their revolution has long since ceased to exist.

Today’s Russia, and the countries that formed the former Soviet Union, are something else entirely. The Russian Revolution is simply ancient history and lacks validity in the current era, except for the eternal dreamers of global communism.

It is striking, that official speeches and writings only refer to the so-called “heroic years” of the experiment, and say nothing about the many black years that were imposed on millions of citizens with arbitrary arrests, deportations, forced labor. and summary executions, all in the name of the “luminous communist future.”

Much is said and excerpts from the book of the American communist writer John Reed’s “Ten Days That Shook the World” are published, where the “heroic stage” of the revolution is related, but it is not told what happened to the writer and his Russian wife, when they were forbidden to leave the country, although for political convenience their remains are located at the foot of the walls of the Moscow Kremlin.

It would be helpful, if one wanted want to know the true story of the experiment, to read “Doctor Zhivago,” the novel by the Russian writer Boris Pasternak, which tells the cruel reality of those difficult years, from the perspective of ordinary citizens.

It is also said that CNAs have their own assets, autonomy of management and cover their expenses and tax obligations with their own income (Resolution 305/12). All this constitutes a partial solution, which demonstrates the historical failure of state management.

The absurdity is that the agency (Ministry of Internal Trade) responsible for this failure, which was not able to efficiently run state enterprises of any kind, and destroyed them when they were under its direct administration, is now in charge of overseeing the good operation of this entire new structure, as well as controlling it and dictating its legal norms. As a part of this control it interferes in pricing, quality, and other matters that the services offer, issues that should be the responsibility of the new managers.

In addition, certain problems that conspire against the success of these forms of management have not been solved: there is no wholesale market with differentiated prices, state suppliers know nothing of contracting procedures, nor do they know how to negotiate with the CNAs, and they do not have transport to deliver supplies to them.

The socialist state, unfortunately, is inefficient and it is impossible for it to stop controlling and imposing “straitjackets” on the citizens, even if it is these same citizens who are the ones who solve the problems and render  services with a quality that none of the state agencies, institutions and companies have achieved for years, and the body designated to ensure all this lacks credibility and the moral strength to do so.

Here it seems that the reason for maintaining a bureaucratic and incapable ministry, which has proved to be unnecessary and has acted as a “bottleneck” between producers, marketers and the population, complicating all kinds of distribution, is its “single achievement” of maintaining the greatly reduced “ration book.”

Something similar happened with commercial announcements: small and mainly textual in their beginnings, they were transformed, gaining in size and artistic quality, until becoming the original illumination of the fifties, adorning the streets and avenues of our cities and towns , Enriching them by day with their color and at night with their luminosity.

Starting in 1959 the awnings began to disappear, destroyed by the weather and indolence and never restored, and the commercial announcements were removed from cities and towns and even prohibited. Then came the unique political propaganda, directed and controlled by the Party: streets, commercial establishments, public fences and artistic and sports centers, still today, display their heavy ideological, dogmatic, repetitive, boring and unbearable weight. Only in some international event that requires it, are the spaces of the propaganda enlivened with some commercial advertisements. It is a secret to no one that commercial advertisements could serve to defray the costs of maintenance of these facilities.

Currently, due to one of the many absurdities, both the installation of awnings and advertisements, especially if they belong to the self-employed, require a long and complicated chain of authorizations and bureaucratic procedures, excessive payments and regulations, which make them unlikely, even if this is detrimental to the comfort of customers and the advertising of businesses.

It would be interesting to know which urban bureaucrat can be blamed for these barbarities and which leader approved them. Awnings and advertisements, in every city in the world, embellish sidewalks and boulevards. In Havana, in addition to the streets, they existed everywhere: at first in front of the restaurants, cafes and bars, as the famous ones in the “open airs” of Paseo del Prado, in front of the National Capitol, and later, also surrounding the whole environment, on the roofs of buildings, both in Central Park and Fraternity Park as well as and along the Malecon, just to name a few.

The authorities of the city and the National Institute of Physical Planning should be more interested in solving the serious problems that affect Havana, than waging a war to awnings and advertisements. This schematic application of the austere, monotonous, gray and unbearable socialist order, has brought as a consequence public spaces (stadiums, sports halls, cinemas, theaters, shops, establishments and even parks) that are ugly, cold and unfamiliar, something different from what happens in any self-respecting city. Regulation is one thing and prevention is something totally different: our authorities have always been prodigal in the second.

If by day our streets are bustling and broken, dirty and stinking, at night they become somber and dark. Then, only the small spaces dedicated to international tourism shine, as if the foreigners were the only ones who deserve to enjoy the beauty and the light, perhaps for the currencies that they contribute to the coffers of the State; while this is denied to Cubans.

Political and social promises have still not been fulfilled. Civil liberties and basic human rights remain in short supply. Meanwhile, salaries and pensions are low while racial and gender discrimination, violence on the street and in the home, poor education, anti-social attitudes, drug addiction, corruption and disregard for the natural environment continue.

Blame for this chain of calamities has always been placed on the “embargo.” But even before it was a topic of conversation, and at a time when the country enjoyed huge Soviet subsidies, these problems never improved much less got resolved. Instead, abundant resources were squandered on foreign wars, subsidized insurgencies, absurdly grandiose and ultimately doomed projects, and other daredevil adventures.

Though they adopt revolutionary rhetoric, the socialist state and its leaders have irrefutably demonstrated that in Cuba the system does not work, that it is impractical, just as has happened in all other socialist countries that bet on it.

Advocating for “a prosperous, efficient, sustainable, sovereign, independent and democratic socialism” is advocating for a contradiction. It amounts to yet another utopian ideal intended to delude citizens and hold onto power for a bit longer, knowing that, in the end, it will fail just as it has in the past. While perhaps attractive in theory, socialism is a failure in practice. Betting on it, in any of its guises, means certain loss.