Since the introduction in early 1959 of the term bitongo* to refer to youths who voiced opposition to the newly formed regime, Cuban authorities have routinely used denigrating terms when referring to those who do not share their ideas or their proclivity to publicly express them.
Annexationists, Plattists, mercenaries, imperial lackeys, traitors, stateless, anti-Cuban and many other epithets have been extensively used for more than fifty-four years. They continue to be used even today as tools in campaigns to discredit opponents. The term most commonly employed, however, has been gusanos, or worms.
Gusanos were professionals, intellectuals, artists, workers and students who first said no and they are those who continue to say no. The term has become so ingrained in the public’s mind that many people use it indiscriminately, without thinking about its meaning, to refer to anything that veers from the official party line. For these people there is no such thing as someone who thinks differently; there are simply gusanos.
Inertia has led some opponents and dissidents to also use the term when referring to themselves or to others who sympathize with their ideas. A well-known woman, now deceased, who was opposed to the regime from its very beginnings, used to say with pride that she was a “protozoan worm.”
While not going such an extreme, the term’s usage continues to grow even today within Cuban society, throwing a log on the fire of division and political confrontation. It is the preferred term among defenders of the regime during disturbances carried out by students, workers, professionals, artists, housewives and others mobilized under the official banner of “an enraged people” who participate in “acts of repudiation” against the Ladies in White and other peaceful opposition figures.
The term anti-Cuban is reserved for those living overseas, wherever they may be, who carry out orders issued by “Miami’s anti-Cuban mafia.” In reality what exists in Miami is a powerful group of Cubans opposed to the government — a situation repeated in other cities around the world — just as there were Cubans opposed to the Batista dictatorship in the 1950s. It did not occur to anyone at that time to label them anti-Cuban because they were not that then nor are they that now. Politics is one thing; Cuba is something entirely different.
Distorting terminology to take advantage of the confusion this creates and generalizing disrepute has been a regular practice of Cuban authorities. This is not conducive to creating the climate of tolerance and mutual respect essential to producing the national dialogue that Cuba needs.
Translator’s note: Someone who is arrogant, haughty, vain, swell-headed; a bourgeois youth.
The Calzada de Jesús del Monte (Jesus of the Mountain Roadway), now known as the Calzada de Diez de Octubre (Tenth of October Roadway), begins at Esquina de Tejas (Texas Corner) as an extension of Calzada de Infanta (Princess Roadway). It extends to Entroque de La Palma (La Palma Link), where it splits into Calzada de Managua and Calzada de Bejucal, crossing, connecting or bordering in its path the neighborhoods or districts of Cerro, Santos Suárez, La Víbora, Luyanó, Lawton, Sevillano, Santa Amalia, Apolo, Víbora Park and Barrio Azul.
Immortalized by the poet Eliseo Diego, it is still one of the most extensive roadways in the city. In the 1950s numerous bus routes ran along it and it saw a great deal of vehicular traffic, though by then the streetcars were already gone as were their tracks and overhead electrical lines.
It was adorned with movie theaters, stores of all kind, bakeries, pastry shops, bookstores, pubs, restaurants, coffee houses, pharmacies, jewelry stores, a major hospital (Purísima Concepción, more commonly known as Quinta de Dependientes), police stations and the constant hustle and bustle through its doorways and over its sidewalks of students from numerous schools located nearby, who visited its bookstores in search of school supplies and classical textbooks published by Editorial Thor, which were offered for sale at low prices.
The cinemas Florida, Moderno (side-by-side with Police Station no. 11), Apolo, Tosca, Gran Cinema and Marta (which faced Station no. 14) satisfied the needs of several generations of movie-goers.
The Toyo bakery and pastry shop, as well as a pub with the same name — located on the lower floors of the Civil Registry building — became synonymous with one of the busiest and noisiest street corners in Havana. It served as the crossroad for those buses that changed course, heading in the direction of Calzada de Luyanó, and those that continued, one way or another, along Calzada de Jesús del Monte.
The ever-present aroma of freshly baked bread left its distinctive imprint on the site, as did the desserts and pastries from from shop next door and the magnificent sandwiches from the pub. At the entryway there was a newsstand. Hidden behind the authorized newspapers and magazines, as though they were winking, one could see portions of the covers of small notebooks and erotic or pornographic photos, which were printed on low-quality paper by unidentified publishers. This is also where the shoeshine stand was located.
Several blocks away, near calle Tamarindo (Tamarind Street), the characteristic aroma from the coffee roaster permeated the surrounding area, reaching as far away as the pharmacy, as well as the small shoe store and its workshop across the street, beyond calle Municipal (Municipal Street).
Further along, from left to right, there was a series of stores until you got to Loma de la Luz, which everyone associated with the roadway of the same name. After that there was the parish church Jesús del Monte (Jesus of the Mountain) and the high, thick wall that still obscures it, leading to the multiple commerce established in the space between the Loma de Chaple (Hillock of Chaple), at the end of the Lacret Street and beginning of the Avenida de Dolores (Avenue of Pains). Hundreds of meters away, the Avenue de Santa Catalian has taverns, coffee shops and a bakery. In between other types of bread served at the bakery, they offer a Galician bread known as “bonete”, as well as cookies, breadsticks, pork crackling and pastries of cheese, ham, or meat.
On the opposite side of the street was the Tosca movie theater, where we children over twelve years old would go, motivated by the French and Italian movies, which showed light nudity, something unusual in the United States at the time.
Then appeared the residences of the middle-class, more rich and progressive, that had large portals with columns and were always uphill. The “Paradero de La Vibora”was where the tramcars ended their travels and entered the maintenance area in order to start their routes again.
Then, with the disappearance of tramcars,the maintenance area became the modern bus stop, which were called “nurses” due to their white and blue color. This place was suitable for trade since it was the beginning of Route 38 that led to Batabano. Batabano and had a conglomerate of restaurants, inns, cafes, french fry stands and shops. It also had a beautiful house with the figure of a “black boy with the lantern”, dressed with blue pants and a red shirt, in the large front garden. Opposite the house was the Tropicream, the house of one of the first settlers in the city, and the square of the Church of the Passionists.
Next to this this was the street that led to the Institutes of the La Vibora and Edison.
Beyond this there was a train station, which was home to the legendary Cafe Colon and across the street was the Cheesemonger Santa Beatriz, a modern milk pasteurization plant. Then there were scattered homes, some with patios, fruit trees and gardens, which marked the end of the cramped city with the houses up against each other and the beginning of the country environment, which extended to the “La Palma” Crossroads, which had a famous ice factory, and continued to Bejucal and Managua Roadways. At that time, after the Avenida de Acosta, the paved road was narrow with large flowerbeds and trees on both sides.
Today, unfortunately, all the cinemas have disappeared with the exception of the “Marta”, renamed Joy and turned into a party room, as have the bread shops, bakeries, restaurants, taverns, inns, bookstores, shops, stands, shoeshine chairs, and many other shops. They converted these premises into housing, with horrendous architectural adaptations or low cost. They also transformed the former “Calzada de Jesus del Monte” into a sad Museum of buildings in decline, totally damaged or collapsed by cave-ins.
One could offer many reasons to try to explain the inexplicable, even dip into the broken argument of the U.S. “blockade” or embargo, but the only real cause of what happened is the incompetence of the authorities and the tax system, both with regards to protecting what was created by previous generations of Cubans, and creating something new and valuable.
The street “Calzada de Jesus del Monte” or “Tenth of October”, as it is called, has had the same terrible fate of other roads, avenues, and streets of the city of Havana.
But in recent months, with the increase in self-employment, some of its sections are home to small private businesses. They even used local buildings, which were previously establishments that became precarious dwellings. Even still, the vast majority of major facilities are in the hands of the unproductive State-owned enterprises, with demonstrated inability to offer quality services to the citizens.
Perhaps these facilities, if they are privately rented or sold, will serve as a real spur for the rapid revival of the once important road, which will never be achieved with the stunted measures adopted so far. For instance, the government only authorised to revive these facilities with a few services where there are fewer than five employees. This means, ultimately, they continue betting on the “bonsai” or “pinching” commercial activity, which actually solves very little.
Anyway, the “Calzada de Jesus del Monte”, due to its importance as a means of communication towards the southeast of the city, should truly liberate the productive forces and the Cuban people can develop their initiative, returning to be what it was was, and then become modernized and in keeping with the time.
These days, the authorities boast of having renegotiated their debts to Mexico, Japan, China and other countries, which, convinced that it would be very difficult to collect them, have forgiven them in part on the one hand and extended settlement periods for the rest for ten, fifteen, twenty and more years. Take whatever you can get, no matter how little.
What they do not say is that these new deadlines further mortgage the country, and transfer the obligation to pay to our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who have had nothing to do with the substantial credits received, wasted and squandered on absurd projects and guerrilla adventures in Latin America and Africa, instead of having been used responsibly for the country’s development.
I don’t know if Russia participated in these renegotiations; a great deal was owed them when they were part of the former Soviet Union. In any event, the debt continues to be huge, despite what has been forgiven by some countries.
The sad thing is that continues to grow, because the authorities, accustomed for over half a century to living off of others, continuing to request credits, and some countries, to secure the payment of what they are owed, even within a few years, conceded. They bet on the future, convinced that a once again democratic government will settle its debts.
Ignoring what’s been forgiven, what was delivered as grants and gifted, Cuba’s foreign debt, according to data from its creditors, has now reached forty billion dollars. And official number the Cuban authorities have never divulged, keeping it hidden under the cloak of their habitual secrecy.
As a curious element it’s worth noting that, when they took power in 1959, the debt was only seven hundred eighty-eight million dollars.
Some years ago, when they started granting licenses to engage in a few types of self-employment, some people who had been working in the underground economy to supply families with fresh and powdered milk, yogurt, butter and cheese, fish and seafood, meats, clothing and other products and articles, as well as serving meals from home, on hearing that they could now do this legally, told me that didn’t have the least bit of confidence in the government and would continue to do it in their own way.
They kept their word, and despite the persecutions, fines and forfeitures, still continue to do so. Given recent events involving some self-employed workers who are now prohibited from carrying out their activities, it seems that they were right.
This new step back by the authorities, one more in their continued retreat, is going to throw thousands of Cubans on the street, people who will now have to return to inventing some way to make a living and survive, with all the resources they invested lost, abandoned by the government that says it protects them.
As nobody accepts dying of hunger by decree, some are looking for new businesses, and others, the most optimistic, are returning to illegality, strengthening the development of the black market.
I don’t know if the authorities, worried about maintaining absolute control at all costs, have assessed the economic, social and political consequences of their latest blunder. With these absurd measures, to speak of progress shows a lack of respect for the citizenry and also strengthens the disrepute in which they are held by ordinary Cubans, who, in practice, respect them less every day.
A government entrenched in power for over half a century, keeping the same leaders in the top jobs, does not change: it only repeats itself, repeating its same mistakes.
The existence in Latin America and the Caribbean of presidents closer to comic theater than politics is not an exclusive, since they have also existed and do exist in other regions of the terrestrial globe.
What happens around here is that these characters like to interpret their roles with an elevated dose of overacting: Mariano Melgarejo between 1864 and 1871 in Bolivia; Porfirio Diaz between 1876 and 1911 in Mexico; Juan Vicente Gomez between 1908 and 1935 and Marcos Perez Jimenez between 1952 and 1958 in Venezuela; Rafael Leonidas Trujillo between 1930 and 1961 in the Dominican Republic; Francois Duvalier between 1957 and 1971 in Haiti, and some others constitute the important historical benchmarks.
In the 21st century, in order not to break the tradition, there have emerged others, among those that stand out are Evo Morales in Bolivia and Hugo Chavez and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, in Venezuela.
As Chaves, now physically disappeared, for his characteristic histrionic and inimitable nature, deserves an individual study, I will only point out in passing that Morales, the native Aymaran, more fiction than reality, is capable of saying the greatest simplicities without the least blush, as if he were expressing transcendental truths (the one about chicken meat and homosexuality is priceless).
But I will stop on Maduro, who has exceeded them all, who himself converses with a Chavez converted into a bird (maybe the one from Twitter?), a bird that gives him instructions and tells him how to govern, which appears to him in the streets or on the wall of a Caracas Metro tunnel under construction.
Some days ago he created the government position of Vice Minister of Love and Supreme Wellbeing, and now we have the Day of Loyalty and Love for Chavez. It seems that, besides suffering from hallucinations and visions from beyond, he has a fixation on the word love. He seems to me to be re-reading 1984, the magnificent and terrifying novel by George Orwell, only now become reality. Closer to a psychiatric hospital than the Miraflores Palace, this true bull in a china shop, like all good comic theater actors, always appears with something new to make us laugh, very superior to all that came before.
Without a doubt, all these presidents and others that I do not mention, chose the wrong careers: with magnificent conditions for the stage, they erroneously decided on politics, unfortunately for our nations.
The closing, on 1 November, of the 3D movie rooms, and the ban, after 30 December, of private shops, deals a hard blow to self-employment. The authorities, once again (we remember “Operation Bird on a Wire,” “Operation Flowerpot,” and the liquidation of Free Farmers Markets in earlier years — all crackdowns on private enterprise), demonstrate their inability to compete with private property, even if it is nascent and must exist within absurd straitjackets, and the falsity of the so-called updates and changes to the economic model. Where there’s smoke there’s fire, and it wouldn’t be unusual for them to apply other or similar measures in the coming weeks. Time will tell.
Anchored in the past, dogmatic to the core, Marxism-Leninism and socialism fanatics, despite their more-than-proven failures, they are trying to survive (at least as long as they have a physical existence) in the closed feudal system they’ve turned the country into, light years away from the real world. The sad thing is that many citizens peacefully accept this arbitrariness, most often committed against their own neighbors, and they may even declare their support for them in some of the so-called “Public Opinion Polls,” which we are getting used to in the official press.
Forgetting the more then 54 years of failed improvisations and failed inventions, some who see a little hope in what was happening slowly, have received a real bucket of cold water. If the government intends, with the application of these measures, which respond only to the desire to demonstrate force and show who’s boss, it will gain followers and organize the country’s legal system, in which disorder is the greatest element, they are wrong again.
Once again, illegal activities and the black market will proliferate throughout the country, like before, simply because no one can force the citizens to starve to death and live in misery. Our young people, their life plans blocked by demonstrably incompetent authorities, choose exodus, like so many professionals, athletes and artists in Cuba; and as the lyrics of an old tango said, it will continue sliding down the slippery slope.
When we talk among friends of the things we discuss in Cuba, some label me incredulous. I will tell you the reason, and try to explain my incredulity, in that they are too old (older than 54) listening to the old and new storytellers telling the same stories. Of course I’ve ripped the pages from many more calendars than they have.
They talk to me of some decentralization of power, of a little economic autonomy in the state enterprises, the reduction of bureaucracy, control of corruption, self-employment, flexibilizations and many other updates, and it makes me smile. The authorities, as a rule, like to show the carrot, but usually placed at an elusive height, adding many obstacles as well. This tactic has been used many times and has not changed, because so far they have been successful.
Some tell me now that the situation is the same, because everything has become very complicated, and the more responsible citizens question and demand something that didn’t happen before. This, according to them, has forced the authorities, even against their will, have to offer a little more, and also they have to compromise on some economic and social issues, never politics, because the update of that is never contemplated in their calculations.
These realities make hope flourish in some of the youngest (those who haven’t opted to leave) but, unfortunately, they are only elements in the struggle of the authorities to gain more time at the least cost possible. It’s good to remember that our authorities only know two speeds, first and reverse, and that there are others to move forward. When applying the first, and producing a slow movement, they are frightened and immediately shift into reverse to return to the starting point. So it has been before and is repeated now with the private shops, the 3D movie rooms, bars and other businesses.
To expect serious changes and reforms that solve national problems, is not a part of the approved Guidelines. I have said and repeated to the old and new storytellers: Here there is no reform, there are only updates of the same model to make it more prosperous and sustainable. A word to the wise!
Two pieces of news attract my attention these days: Cuba’s draft resolution against imperialist politics to be presented to the UN General Assembly today October 29, and that Cubans is among the top in the world in gender equality.
The first is repeated every year, updating the supposed damages inflicted by the blockade (the embargo) on Cuba. Now, after meticulous mathematical calculations of the various agencies and institutions, which have been published daily in the newspaper Granma, the figure rose to $1,157,327,000. It is striking how well the government economists can calculate the figures for the supposed damages of the blockade (the embargo), and yet have never been capable of calculating the damages from Cuban mis-governance, with the errors, improvisations, voluntarism and failures, that they have inflicted on the country over the last 54 years.
This shifting of the blame to another and laying all the responsibility for our misery entirely on their account is repeated every year. It’s beyond belief!
The second makes me laugh: that the World Economic Forum (WEF) makes this claim, putting Cuba in fifteenth place in gender equality globally among 136 countries evaluated because it has a high percentage of women in its parliament, shows how superficial they are.
The Cuban Parliament is a parliament in name only: all that its male and female deputies do — meeting twice a year for three days — is unanimously approve government decisions that, as a rule, have already been implemented before this formal approval. These deputies have nothing to do with those of other countries and are completely useless, simply members of the chorus.
It would be nice, before making this absurd claim, to ask our women about gender equality. Gentlemen of the WEF, please, a little more seriousness.
In any country, the acquisition of a car, whether new or used, usually represents a reason for the new owner’s satisfaction. In Cuba, if acquiring a vehicle demands overcoming numerous obstacles, keeping it functioning requires overcoming many more.
In the first place, new cars can only be gotten if the State grants the right, generally to functionaries of political and governmental agencies, armed forces officers, some professionals (above all from the health sector after completing missions abroad), artists (mainly musicians), some intellectuals and high performance athletes with relevant results in international events. In all cases, demonstrated loyalty to governmental ideology and politics is an indispensable requisite.
In the second place, the decree that authorizes the purchase and sale of vehicles between citizens — something that was already done in an illegal manner — refers only to those in use for several years. We are talking about those that have traveled our deteriorated roads and avenues for a long time: vehicles from the ’40s and ’50s, the first known as “almendrones” (from the word for “almond”) mostly of American make, some German and Italian, and the ones built in the formerly socialist camp, largely the extinct Soviet Union and Poland. In recent years, although in reduced quantities, vehicles from Japan, South Korea, Germany, Brazil and lastly China have been added.
The owner of a vehicle must confront various problems, one of the most important being the acquisition of fuel: he must pay 1.20 CUC in convertible pesos for each liter for regular gasoline and 1.40 CUC for higher octane. This represents, in the first case, two days’ salary in national currency (29 Cuban pesos, or CUP), and in the second, more than two days’ (33 CUP), based on an average monthly salary of 440 CUP.
The next problem refers to the oils and lubricants, missing in the garages that offer scrubbing and lubricating service in national currency, requiring the car owner to get them in CUC, at elevated prices, in the convertible pesos garages, or in CUC or CUP at a lower price on the black market.
Nevertheless, these problems are trifles compared to those involved in confronting repairs and the acquisition of replacement parts, tires and batteries. The majority of state mechanic shops disappeared, and individuals not yet authorized, the repairs must be resolved with private mechanics, who are able to work on state premises devoid of equipment (by arrangement with the appropriate administrator), at his home, at that of the car owner, using his own tools and, sometimes, even those of the client.
The prices, as is to be expected, are arranged directly between the mechanic and the car owner, usually being elevated, as much in CUC as in CUP. The main replacement parts, almost always missing from the state stores, must be gotten on the black market. Customarily, near the state stores, the presence of the citizens equipped with cell phones that, before any solicitation, immediately locate the searched-for piece or accessory.
In the state stores, depending on the type of vehicle, a tire may cost between 89 and 155 CUC (five or eight months’ average salary) and a battery between 90 and 175 CUC (the average salary of almost five to nine months). On the black market tires can be acquired for 60-80 CUC and batteries for 90-110.
It seems, although it may not be the intention, that the State, with its elevated sale prices for citizens, stimulates the the existence of the illegality, especially when all or most of these items come from the “misappropriation of resources” and theft from the state stores and warehouses.
And best not to address the issue of sheet metal and paint, because these services, more than the cost of the materials (sheet metal, acetylene, welder, paints, thinners, etc) reach astronomical figures, on the order of hundreds of CUC.
The decision about having or not having a car in Cuba demands a lot of reflection: although it resolves a problem of scarce public transportation and represents freedom of movement, it constitutes too heavy a burden for any pocket and the psyche of the happy (?) owner.
The Cuban cartoonists, who publish their cartoons and works in the official media, seem to have signed an agreement, by which eighty percent of their satirical darts are directed against the empire and its lackeys, and the other twenty are partitioned between the treatment of general topics (peace, war, hunger, climate change, etc.), that does make anyone cringe, nor cause them personal problems or complicate their existence, plus some things and cases about irrelevant administrative leaders, bureaucrats, service employees, and so on.
“Liborio” – a character similar to “Uncle Sam”
Never has any politician at any level been touched with so much as the petal of a rose, although they have systematically demonstrated their ineptitude and incapacity to fill the jobs they occupy. They seem to be included in some clause of untouchables, together in a signed agreement. It is often said that political satire has been and is an important part of humor because it is a thermometer of politicians’ rights and wrongs.
In Cuba it was like this until the liquidation of freedom of the press by the new regime. The Liborio character created by Roberto de la Torriente, later the Bobo (Fool) character created by Eduardo Abela, and later, in the fifties, Loquito (Wacko) by Rene de la Nuez, showed, with salt and pepper, what was going on in our national life.
Bobo
Other cartoonists did the same, having among the characters in their cartoons and work all the public figures, from the president of the day down to minor figures. Then, political humor was not persecuted nor punished. To review the thousands of caricatures published during the years of the Republic, is to take an interesting and instructive tour through this part of our history, which is impossible with the most recent, where reality has been kept hidden and distorted by spurious ideological interests.
Loquito
To be able to do this, we have had to turn to publishers outside of Cuba, for the magnificent Cuban comedians living abroad.
Now that some pro-government journalists have dared to respectfully request a loosening of the current secrecy, it would also be advisable for some of these humorists to ask, also respectfully of course, to be allowed to reflect, from the humor side, the sad national reality and the many responsible for it.
In the recently concluded Second Congress of the Hermanos Saiz Association (AHS), a government organization that brings together young artists from the art world, the three most repeated words were Fatherland, revolution and socialism.
Furthermore, most of the time were used together, as if the first had no life without the presence of the other two, which is absurd, since the Fatherland existed before the revolution and socialism, exists now, and will exist when the latter two no longer exist. The reason is very simple: the Fatherland is absolutely independent of them.
The concept of Fatherland is eternal and includes all Cubans, without exception, whatever they think and wherever they live, and is above politics and ideologies, which does not happen with revolution, which is just a temporary social phenomenon, generally violent, and socialism, also transitional, which is just one of several known social systems: slavery, feudalism, capitalism, and so on.
The use of these three artificially united concepts, is a long-standing government practice, intended to confuse the public and take them for a ride. It was denounced in 1998 by the late Bishop of Santiago de Cuba, Pedro Meurice, in his words prior to the Mass of Pope John Paul II in this city, but fifteen years have passed and the formula continues to be used by the authorities.
It’s a shame that young creators, who in all eras have represented societal forces of renewal, accept this manipulation and do not raise their voices against it. I am convinced that not all accept it (examples abound), but silence gives consent and, unfortunately, this is what has happened in this Congress, and what happened at the congress the Union of Journalists of Cuba (UPEC), and it will happen in the congress of the Workers Center of Cuba (CTC): words and more words and more of the same, unchanged.
Losing the opportunity to influence the economic, political and social life of the nation, wasting these few opportunities to be heard and, even more, to make demands to the authorities, does not reflect well on the Association or its members. Every day we see it demonstrated that, over here, the various congresses, organized and carried out under the control of the State, are only small enclosed oasis, so that participants feel they can breathe a little easier, in the great desert of national life.
With regards to the adoption of the Mariel Special Development Zone Decree Law, it comes to mind that this idea of trying to solve the problems of the country not in a global way, but by creating regions and special plans, has been a tendency of the authorities since their earliest days in power.
We remember the declaration of the town of El Cano, as the first socialist town of Cuba and, later, that of another unimportant one as being the first town where money would not be needed. These constituted, at the time, childish utopias within the large adult utopia that has been the so-called Socialist Revolution, which has had very little of socialism and a great deal of voluntarism.
To these initial blunders, we have to add the failed Havana Cordon, the Ten Million Ton Harvest, the micro-jet bananas, the failed livestock cross-breeding plans, the Pharaonic harvests of pangola grass and pigeon peas, the windbreaks, the embankments on any nearby key, the Turquino Plan*, the Escambray Plan, and a great deal more economic and ecological nonsense.
Now, copying the Chinese brothers in turn (we lack originality), and after greatly criticizing them, the so-called Special Development Zones started to appear which, though they strengthen the creation of accelerated wealth in the chosen and controlled regions, they deform the economic map of the country, generating reas of extreme poverty, where people have no other option for survival than to emigrate to these new El Dorados, where all this rootlessness and loss of identity leads, affecting the social fabric, making even more virulent the economic and social differences between regions, creating a country alienated by its different living conditions, very distant from “with all and for the good of all” advocated by José Martí.
For those of us who dream of a single prosperous Cuba, where citizens do not have to emigrate from the places of birth to develop their life projects, time and the tenacity of Cubans are working in our favor.
*Translator’s note: The Turquino Plan was a 1980s effort to develop forestry and site appropriate agriculture to stabilize mountain populations and make mountain areas independent of cities.
The phony honeymoon between the self-employed and the State could not last long: their interests are totally different. While the former try to develop themselves, the latter does everything it can to prevent it. The trite theme of their having reached their legal limits, with the current attempt by the authorities to eliminate individual stores that offer mainly imported products, as well as other successful businesses, such as 3D movie rooms, has raised the social tension, leading to major confrontations, absent for years in our unchanging environment.
Without understanding that feudal methods, with the mighty lord of the castle and his henchmen on one side and the submissive serfs on the other, are outmoded and are obsolete, the authorities intend, through regulations, limitations and repression, to maintain the state’s commercial domination over obedient citizens and complacent unions that they have enjoyed for more than 54 years, doing and undoing at their whim, without any social restraint.
After taking over a developed and efficient light industry — made up primarily of companies financed with Cuban capital, which were important sources of employment, and which produced virtually everything that was necessary to meet the needs of the population — and making it disappear with absurd economic measures, today the government has to import everything, using the few credits it receives, besides having failed miserably in the production of material goods.
They have tried to alleviate this situation with the establishment several years ago of various state chain stores, where low-quality imported goods are sold at high prices in order to extract from the few citizens the few economic resources they have, mainly the product of remittances sent from abroad, under the pretext of responding to the patriotic necessity of recouping hard currency.
With the appearance of privately-owned stores, some better outfitted than others, with higher quality items, more variety, and at more attractive prices, buyers gravitated to them, abandoning the state stores, which in this competition have everything to lose. Hence the reaction of the authorities and the entire bureaucracy of ossified officials, worried that their privileges would disappear. The conclusion is: the State with all its resources, is unable to compete in a fair fight with individuals. Examples abound in the world and in Cuba. Despite the difficult conditions in which they have to survive, besieged by exorbitant taxes and absurd regulations and limitations, they pull it off: privately owned rooming houses, eateries, shops, 3-D theater rooms, equipment repairs, and other kinds of successful businesses.
In this confrontation, you need to say a prayer for the self-employed, and what they represent as new economic players, and firmly defend them, not allowing them to again be swept from the national scene, as happened on other occasions in the face of citizen apathy and passivity. The current conditions are very different; before acting hastily, Cubans as well as the state should assess the high social and political price they would have to pay for a new mistake.
It seems that the battle against trees on our streets and avenues continues, carried out by the authorities as well as individuals. A few weeks ago the authorities cleared the trees that were in front of the Havana Zoo, at the intersection of 26th Avenue and Zoo Avenue, and in particular those at the corner of 37th Street and 24th, all in Nuevo Vedado. These are just two examples, taken at random from the many available.
It’s gotten to the point that no one complies with the regulations (if any exist) established for their protection, and the city continues to lose its trees. Maybe if, for every tree felled, the one responsible was required to plant one in the same place, and care for and protect it until it reaches adult stage, the problem could begin to have a solution. That is, of course, if the authorities also assume the progressive restoration of the thousands of places where trees have been cleared (there are acres of land where they once were, along the sidewalks of our streets and avenues).
I don’t think the embargo had anything to do with it, since the resources required for their restoration are minimal: dig a hole, bring a young tree, and plant it. When they’ve wanted to, it’s been done. There are examples of hotels and other buildings where, for the official opening, a grove of mature trees has appeared from one day to the next, transported in trucks, hoisted with cranes, and planted.Apart from the lack of culture for vegetation, it’s all happened through indifference and accumulated irresponsibility, with much televised propaganda and little real practical action. Will this destructive escalation ever stop?
Self-employment, in the face of capricious decisions by the authorities in charge, continues to lurch along, and its progress and solidification as a lawful way of life for thousands of people becomes more complicated by the day. Although it has been officially declared that the policy continues the same as when it was first authorized, and the only thing intended by the new regulations is to set up greater order, in practice it is not so.
Apart from the widespread confusion between what is authorized and what is unauthorized, caused primarily by the generic, ambiguous, extremist, and bureaucratic regulations of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, the Ministry of Finance and Prices, the Councils of Administration of the People’s Power, and others involved, plus the arbitrariness of inspectors and others in control, requiring compliance with nonexistent provisions, and imposing excessive fines according to their personal interpretations, the chaos created makes the practice of self-employment a living hell.
Day by day, because of all this institutional disorganization, it survives by the tenacity of those who practice it, risking resources and efforts on activities that not even its proponents have been able to define within serious legal boundaries, leaving everything to future studies, adjustments, and details, as the authorities are wont to respond to those who ask, demonstrating their professional precariousness for holding the positions they occupy. While the unconditionally incompetent constitute a majority in the different levels of state administration, the solutions shine by their absence, the rope continues to tighten to the breaking point, with the implications that entails, and the problems pile up.
It seems that self-employment, which emerged as a necessity to resolve the employment that the state is unable to assure to its citizens, continues to terrorize those who were forced to authorize it, those who, without the help of their many advisors, find ways to control it without completely strangling it and, what concerns them more, without losing any of the perks of power accumulated over so many years. But it turns out that the citizens of today do not look anything like those of yesterday: they are now tired of fables and impositions and are willing to defend their rights of survival.
