Author: Regina Coyula

Thus, Macri, the brand new Argentine president is almost always “the ultra-rightwing millionaire,” and “the neo-liberal,” a terrible man who systematically and out of pure envy will dismantle all the achievements of the “Gained Decade,” as the Kirchner era is referred to [as the previous ten years are referred to as the “Lost Decade.”]

Yesterday, this terrible gentleman surprised me with a temporizing and patriotic speech. Without raising his tone or relying on boastful histrionics, he seemed an individual of sufficient intelligence to not reject the positive left by his predecessors. Despite the lugubrious tones in which I have painted him, he is aware that he will govern with the approval of half the voters and, therefore, was very attuned to building bridges to understanding.

To talk about the fight against corruption, the independent character of the judiciary, and adherence to the law sounds pretty good for a Latin American where both issues are scourges that corrode citizen wellbeing.

With the Venezuelan opposition that just took over the parliament, I’m left with the desire to know what it thinks, because my information only endorses what the losers will do: I see Capriles on the screen, but for those who don’t know who he is, it was a face in the background for a few seconds while in a voice over one of those translators, the preachers of Armageddon, didn’t stop predicting catastrophes.

And there must be great nervousness given the spoils of Chavismo achieved by Maduro, because the prerogatives of a two-thirds parliamentarian majority like that achieved by the opposition, range from reassigning crucial positions (such as that of Tibisay Lucena herself, president of the National Electoral Council), to promoting referendums and changes in the Constitution.

But we don’t hear this; we Cubans see on the screen agitated Venezuelans asserting that they won’t let the Revolution end. Seeing such venting before the cameras, I would tell them: “You keep on with your revolution while the rest of Venezuelans are busy rebuilding a country.”

I won’t talk about the treatment of events in Syria, Russia, Brazil, Spain, China or the United States, because I would have to surrender to fatigue. Meanwhile, the translators with broadband who can look at any newspaper, webpage, interview or analysis published, prepare a corrected and degraded version of reality for the masses.

Cubans have nightly news shows, news magazines, news every ten minutes, a twenty-four hour radio news channel, print and digital newspapers, and national, provincial and even municipal television stations. Yet, except for North Korea, we paradoxically remain the worst informed people in the world.

There is a rumor going around that Etecsa’s Nauta* internet service was unavailable not because of technical problems but because of a decision to cut off communication between Cubans stranded in Costa Rica and their relatives on the island in order to suppress information about a mass protest intended to raise awareness in Cuba, and by extension throughout the world, of the humanitarian crisis.**

Whether true or not, the fact that people without Communist Party affiliation are casually discussing this serves to illustrate the lack of transparency in our news media. It should be added that the visit by the Cuban foreign minister to Ecuador and Central America was reported in a way that suggested a trip scheduled some time in advance, one in which emigration was to be only a tangential topic of discussion. The visit by the president of the International Red Cross was reported in a similar way.

This is nothing new. Quite the contrary. Once again the press has managed to turn conferences, workshops, meetings and seminars into crumpled paper. It shows a lack of self-respect, but even less respect for citizens, whom it is trying to keep uninformed. It is an accomplice to a political decision that interferes with a right as basic as the right to information.

Translator’s notes:

*Nauta is service by Cuba’s state telecommunications monopoly that offers wifi internet access in public spaces such as parks and hotels throughout the island. Accounts can be refilled from overseas at a cost of roughly US$2.00 for every two hours of access.

**Thousands of Cuban migrants trying to reach the United States by first passing through Ecuador have been stranded in Costa Rica after the government of Nicaragua denied them passage through that country.

From 2011 and to the present, Casanellas has also taught courses and lectured at the center and at the Department of Biology at the University of Havana. He also served as executive secretary of the Forum of Science and Technology between 2011 and 2013.

Given all this information, it should be clear that there is no question as to this young man’s level of professional competence. His workplace troubles began in December 2013 after a friend, Ciro Diaz Penedo, came home during the Christmas break from his doctoral studies in Brazil and Oscar threw a party for him. Besides working with numbers, Ciro also belonged to a punk band known as Porno for Ricardo. The “official who overseas” the oncology institute brought this and other equally damaging information to its assistant director, Dr. Lorenzo Anasagasti Angulo.

Dr. Anasagasti carried out the order to isolate and constrain the wayward Oscar. Casanella’s arguments that he had never discussed his political views while at work or committed the sin of using the public health ministry’s email server (Infomed) for personal business were to no avail.

In his zeal Casanella’s boss limited his access to laboratories, excluded him from any projects involving Havana’s Polo Cientifico research center, and banned him from teaching at INOR or acting as a thesis advisor. A bio-information course that the director general of INOR had already approved was cancelled by Anasagasti under the pretext that it had to offered by the Department of Biology. Using veiled or explicit threats, he then “dissuaded” INOR workers from participating in the course.

Dr. Anasagasti’s threats led to strains in the workplace. He tried to prohibit other workers from having any interactions with Casanellas. The pressure was strongest on those closest to him, who are were torn between preserving the friendship or keeping their jobs. Some of them could not handle it and requested transfers out of the institute.

Oscar Casanellas has gone to his union and to the hospital management. He has written letters to the Ministry of Public Health, to the head of the department of the Central Committee which handles such mattes and even to the Cuban president, all without receiving a reply from any of them. When he tried to take legal action by filing a police complaint, the response from the national police force was that, since this was a personal matter, he should take it up with the police chief in his area. Casanellas knows all too well that it is not personal but work-related. Until the visit by the State Security agent, his interactions with Anasagasti were cordial.

This period of professional limbo has gone on for over eighteen months. They do not want to fire him because there is no evidence of poor workplace performance, so their intention is to make conditions so suffocating that he resigns.

Casanellas himself provides the key: “They don’t know me very well. For years I have been preparing myself and have run a lot of long distance races. If there is anything for which I am well-trained, it is endurance.”

This may be my last letter from here in the punishment cell and if I survive you will hear more from my lips. So I want to tell everyone that I waited too long for this moment to do a hunger strike, we Cubans have wanted too long to expel these scoundrels.

Now that I have started, I feel my faith, determination and self-esteem go through the roof for having decided. I feel proud of being the artist that I am and of doing the art that I do for the Cuba I represent. So I am willing to give my life a hundred times if necessary.

He who lives without finding out what to die for, has not found the essence of life. A man with ideals of peace, love and one who does not carry a weapon to assert his opinions is the man of the future. Because with his faith, his hope, he builds an Eden here on earth.

Thank you all for trusting me and know that if I die I will die happy to carry with me a tattoo of my time like Laura Pollan, Oswaldo Paya, who left traces of their existence, of their generation, of their responsibility to leave behind then a legacy for their loved ones, one lesson: love what you do and devote your life to it.

I was born in a poor neighborhood, Nuevitas, Camagüey. My family is very humble: I lived in Arroyo Arenas from age 4; in Chafarinas, Guira de Melena; in Covadonga, Las Tunas: a village still without electricity; Guáimaro, Camagüey and Arroyo Arenas, La Lisa. And I was lucky to live in Vedado often, there I have my daughter Renata María, who was born in England.

I am a wanderer and I have gone here and there getting to know my country, my culture, that I love and so I raise my voice to denounce what seems wrong to me. I visited Holland for three months, I lived in The Hague, 45 minutes by train from the fabulous Amsterdam. I studied and lived at Miami Dade College in the United States for three months as well. All these places taught to me relate quickly to my surroundings, that the most important thing is to have friends, to love, to respect and not to do to anyone what we do not want them to do to us. I learned how to stand up to the powerful.

My art is respected today, more than anything because I believe in it. I respected it and gave it—and give it—all my strength, perseverance, affection and love. Although I was misunderstood and perhaps by others I still am, when those around you see so much love and how much you are able to give and how much you respect your art, then they begin to value it. But first we must build an altar of consecration in our chest and others, little by little, will begin to respect you for what you do: this knowledge is my legacy.

Someone said that all of humanity will part when we see a man who knows where he is going. This might be my last work and I have named it “Drawing Attention” or “The Awakening of the Inner Magician.” Each one of us has an inner magician. May my Gothic existence touch your hearts and light your flame and awaken your internal leader, being conscious of this gift of life and standing up against evil. Someone said, “The world is not this way because of those who do evil but because of those who allow it.”

This work is dedicated to my mother, my little daughter Renata María, to all those who support me, all those who added a grain of sand to achieve freedom for Cuba. To all the Ladies in White in the world and especially in Cuba: no more beating of women! To the memory of Laura, Oswaldo, Zapata.

This work is dedicated to my mother, my little daughter Renata María, to all those who support me, all who put in a grain of sand to achieve the freedom of Cuba. To all the Ladies in White of the world especially those in Cuba: no more beating of women! In memory of Laura, Oswaldo, Zapata.

The day I grabbed a spray can in my hand I decided what to do with my life.

So be it.

I am with faith and conviction: Liberty or death, to die for art is to live.

Hugs,

Danilo Maldonado, El Sexto.

Please sign for his freedom at Causes.com. < click there

El Sexto has been on a hunger strike since September 8th. He is demanding his freedom because he has been imprisoned since December 25th (of last year) for thinking to release some pigs with the names of Fidel and Raul, which he never released because he was imprisoned. He is in prison without trial or sentence or justice.

a deeply ingrained psycho-social issue.

It strikes me as being unimportant if we say “the boys and the girls.” What is important is that we stop playing this game in which roles are predetermined by sex. Nor do I think it is important to drag out a sentence just to say “the male and the female youths.” Rather, it is the chauvinist lyrics of reggaeton songs and videos that are troubling. I am bothered by the rather monotone quality of “the women and the men” but I feel a great sense of powerlessness when faced with the verbal and physical abuse that manifests itself on a daily basis in our society, especially when it hides behind and is exercised from a position of power.

I would like to ask these female and male purists of equality if they believe the problem of form will remedy the problem of substance. Are these women and men so committed to be protectresses and protectors in their crusade that I will one day see girls and boys expressing their patriotism by altering a line from the national anthem and singing, “To the battle forthwith women and men of Bayamo?”

*Translator’s note: In their plural form, Spanish nouns like la niña and el niño (the boy and the girl) become strictly masculine — los niños (the boys) — even when referring to a mixed group of boys and girls.

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I cannot say that her mind was as lucid as it had been before the accident — in some conversations she often repeated herself — but she was totally coherent about what was happening and was fully aware of the wall that had been built up around her. Regardless of the quality of her medical care or the extent of her family’s devotion, I cannot help thinking that her last months would have been better if she could have relied on the closeness of her friends.

I spoke with her by phone last Monday. She had fallen again and had been taken to see the doctor but it did not seem serious so she returned home. I promised that my husband and I would drop by to see her on Tuesday and she seemed very happy with that prospect. However, she was readmitted that same Monday evening and, according to what I was told, lost consciousness shortly thereafter. I hope she was still looking forward to my visit.

*Translator’s note: Natalia “Naty” Revuelta was a married, well-to-do Cuban socialite when in the 1950s she met Fidel Castro, to whose cause she provided financial support. The two became romantically involved and she later gave birth to his child, Alina. This daughter later fled Cuba, settled in Florida and became of vocal critic of her father’s regime.

that only benefits the Cuban government. It has nothing to do with civic dialogue, which should be about more pressing issues such as the relationship of salaries to prices, the tax burden and the national budget. Society must make a concerted effort to diminish profound social differences — enriching, not impoverishing — and to eliminate the obstacles that prevent further economic development.

It is very disingenuous to use a sham referendum as a means of choosing an “eternal” social model, especially since its eternity has failed to produce positive results in any country in which it has been tested. In our own country it now has so many loopholes that one is hard pressed to demonstrate that we even live under socialism. This is even more difficult when the measures adopted to relieve the economic crisis rely on capitalist remedies.

It is also highly irresponsible to design a future for the regime’s heirs while locking out the nation’s voters. Let’s hope that — for reasons of dialectical sense and common sense — such a fate is, as much as possible, avoided.

We need an open discussion about how to protect and fully enforce human rights, stripping away the aura of malignancy and subjectivity with which the government portrays them and making them binding. Civil society must take a leading role in dealing with these challenges.

Rather than defining whether we are for or against the Embargo or diplomatic relations, it is ultimately a matter of whether we are for or against the Change.

11 February 2015

culture. There was even a period when her recordings were not played on the radio. The media later took notice of her only after her immense popularity in countries like Peru and especially Colombia. Even then, her best-known song, “Que Viva Chango,” was not broadcast until much later (I cannot remember when).

I once had the privilege of hearing her sing a capella — in full form and powerful — at the home of choreographer Victor Cuellar. I mentioned this to her years later when I met her and her son, Lázaro Reutilio, in 1990 amid the hustle and bustle of buying our (I guess it was one of hers) now-deceased Aleko.*

*Translator’s note: González, performed with her husband, Reutilio Domínguez from 1947 to 1964, when the duo disbanded. In 1981 she formed a duo with her son, performing songs she and her husband had made famous. Her best-known song, “Que Viva Chango” (also known as “Santa Barbara Bendita” or “Blessed St. Barbara”) was a tribute to the Afro-Cuban god of fire and his Catholic counterpart, St. Barbara. She later recorded a version, “Que Viva Fidel,” with different lyrics that paid homage to Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolution.

4 February 2015