LET THE OLD DEAD GIVE WAY TO THE NEW DEAD
Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo
The title is, of course, a quote from the Czech, Milan Kundera, an obsolete reference for the rest of a world, which believes it is living in the post-communist era. But in Cuba, it continues to be something referring to the future.
Just as in global capitalism, “time is money”, in twenty-first century Castroism time is the essence of totalitarianism itself. Because of that, Cubans don’t have lives, only, barely, biographies. And because of that Cubans don’t live in human time, but buried, with the dismal defect that it could last for all eternity. And because of that, for the first time, the White House is so interested in co-opting us. Because of that Fidel Castro’s funeral fascism is rescued by the tyrranical resolutions of Barack Obama and his Democrat mates who hate democracy, in Congress, just as in the Plaza de la Revolución (before his disappearance as the Chief many of them travelled to the island to take supportive selfies with our dictator).
After his 20 January 2015 State of the Union Address, the United States was ready for his presidential winding-down. The American union’s voters are awaiting his demagogic dissolution. To survive in a stable fashion, the democracies which are going to remain on the planet should now do it not just in opposition to fundamentalist conservatives or lefties, or both, but also in opposition to the United States. And the Cuban case feels like a valuable precedent.
As a part of the secret pact between the two elites, it was obvious that nobody was demanding anything from anybody, except mutual recognition of legitimacy. The 5 or 55 “heroes” or “brothers” of the horror-show arrived in Havana threatening that they were keen to carry out new assassination and infiltration missions, like the informant doctor who theatrically returned to Africa to challenge Ebola again. David and Goliath nowadays are only money and abuse.
The first attracts the second to the island with no Commander, where time stands still, but where there are a thousand and one “decent” descendants of degenerate generals. The second is the mechanical gesturing of the most unknown North American civil president: his public programme is based on springing a private surprise. Even physically, he seems crafty. We don’t matter to him in the slightest, on the contrary, we irritate him. He has a different agenda and Obama is not going to miss out on the legal impunity he can enjoy in his last two years.
In the case of Cuba, the communists’ revenge for Cuba’s exile has finally been accomplished. They fought for that for decades. They bumped off their libertarian leaders with sudden post-soviet diseases. They empowered those who were interested in investing – and inventing – with a “Plattismo” economic model. They collided with North American public opinion using little Elian dolls and “sperm spies.” (It was easy to do this as they were dealing with an infantile and detestable audience). And now comes the grand orgy of reconciliation between the victims of post-revolutionary repression – without the orgasm. Today there is not one sensible Cuban, whether in exile or on the island, who believes in the changes. Castroism ended. And, for that reason it is never-ending.
Nobody will ever ask the Castros anything about their more or less famous deaths. In her conspiratorial path to Havana, Roberta Jacobson must have gone cursing the plane from Washington DC on which she met Rosa María Payá when she felt obliged to lie to the martyr’s daughter: “it’s something we can always put on the table” (the translation is mine, the deceit is hers). Always say always.
Do me a favour. If nobody is against this farce. This disingenuous vaseline applied by the victors is unnecessary. Do less of the LGTB posturing, be less culpable, with fewer dirty needs, and come out of the Castro closet with the oppressor’s pride (the shame assumed is ours). The old dead are not yet good luck charms for our memory. The new dead can now wait to be recycled into the future dead, who are coming.
The obsolete Castroism – except in the rest of the world – manages to survive because it knows many things. But the Czech Milan Kundera had the weakness of only knowing one thing. My fellow countrymen, you can finally hang up your Cuban passports. Now, the nation of the Castros, by the Castros and for Castros has finished being embargoed forever.
Translated by GH
21 January 2015
