Masochism is the “sexual perversion of someone who enjoys being humiliated or mistreated by someone else,” says the dictionary. Did the writers who now rightly denounce the official television revival of Luis Pavón, Serguera and Quesada actually enjoy it?
“Pick little fights, don’t try to be a hero,” the current director of the Cuban Academy of Language advised me one afternoon in 1997 in Mexico City. Are most of the protests against the resurrection of the deputy commanders perhaps following, with discipline, the morals of this picaresque warning?
Please, the impossible? — to finish with Sancho Panza. Except in one of the protesting jousts — by a talented storyteller — there appears not the slightest intention of judging the lion, nor the brother, by those who never publicly repented of perpetrating that National Congress for Education and Culture in April, 1971, after the disaster of the Ten Million Ton Harvest and the subsequent submission to the Moscow of scientific communism and socialist realism.
Critical thinking in 2007 by the same people who shut down the magazine Critical Thought and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Havana? Is it naiveté or fear on the part of some who today accuse the television — as totalitarian now as it was in the “black decade” — of complying with an order handed down from the Party. Is this similar to what happened then?
Will it be tacitly understood, implied? Let’s hope so … What is not clear or hinted at in the Aristotelian rhetoric of complaints against the media tribute to the supporters of Pavón is, simply, whether they have now lost the little faith they had in the Halls of Power. That’s what, apparently, eludes them.
What did Luis Pavón do before being named president of the National Council of Culture? Was he not perhaps the director of the magazine Olive Green, a cadre very near the absolute confidence of Raúl Castro? Who could appoint the former prosecutor Papito Serguera at the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television? And by the way…
Ah, memory. I suggest a campaign to collect “perfumed love letters.” As I have not lost my memory — nor want to lose it — I remember clearly Fidel Castro’s speech at the closing of the Stalinist Congress on Education and Culture. The same contempt for intellectuals that the vice presidents show at the beginning of 2007: the proof flared up on the small screen.
I agree in general with Duanel Díaz’s article. Perhaps what is worrisome is not the posture of critics that some masochistics now assume, but the message that brings such resurrections with it. Is there another turn of the screw that has been sweetened? Will there be changes in the staff running the government’s cultural policy? Are we witnessing the resumption of blatant repression against artists and writers they consider dissidents? Are we done with being in limbo?
It takes Esteban, 43 years old, four hours every day for the round trip to his job on the outskirts of Havana. Around 7 am, along with a bunch of people, he tries to board the P-8 bus on the Acosta P-8 and Calzada 10 de Octubre line.
“For several months, the city bus service has taken a dive. I don’t know why. Every day going to work is a disaster,” he points out, sweating after running 60 meters to catch a bus that paused beyond the bus stop.
In Cuba, the only means of cheap public mass transit are the city buses (they cost less than a nickel U.S.). State taxi service has disappeared. It’s a fleet of Ladas manufactured in the mid-80’s in Russia.
These cars have seen 20 to 25 years of service and generally are in poor technical condition. The state has leased them to the drivers, who must pay for repairs and extra fuel after serving half a day providing assistance to hospitals, funeral homes and air terminals.
The fee is ten pesos (0.50 U.S. cents, the average salary for a day), the same as private taxis. But there are very few Ladas in service. And it doesn’t occur to anyone who uses public transport to spend part of his daily wage to get to work on time.
So the only option is the bus. In 2008 the government bought around 750 buses from China, Russia and Belarus to improve the disastrous service in the capital. It designed a main line of 17 routes identified with the letter P, which usually run along the main thoroughfares of the city.
These buses are articulated and initially arrived every 5 to 10 minutes during peak hours. There was also a support network of buses, to transport people to the inner neighborhoods and suburban areas, where the main lines often did not go. They have the letter A and run every 25 minutes.
But by mid-2009, with the policy of conserving fuel and tightening the screws on the local economic crisis, they stopped purchasing the buses, and improvements in the quality of urban transport suffered a setback.
Everything went to hell. In December 2010, the situation became precarious. Media predictions of half a million people unemployed prompted an increase in the number of people taking the bus every day.
At all hours the bus stops are filled with people who are anxious and desperate to get to their destinations. The main lines like the P-12 or the P-16 can take up to 45 minutes to arrive.
The frequency of the rest of the P line has also deteriorated. And this leads to overcrowded buses all day. Alberto, an employee of the company Metrobus, which is in charge of transportation in Havana, asserts that more than 80 buses are out of service. “For lack of financing and debts with China and Russia, it hasn’t been possible to get batteries, tires and other essential parts for the maintenance of these vehicles,” he points out.
Given this reality, habaneros like Esteban will have to keep suffering every morning to try to get to work on time. The same as with most economic sectors on the island, investments in urban transport are paralyzed. Until further notice.
“A massive discussion of the Guidelines contributes an enormous and rich wealth of arguments,” said Esteban Lazo, member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Cuba, speaking before the National Council of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba. The information appeared in Granma on January 13.
In addition, Lazo said it was very difficult to carry out the proposed changes without the consensus and opinions of all. According to the newspaper, over 55,000 “discussion meetings” had been held in the country, about one-third of those planned.
As a worker of the Municipal Court of Arroyo Naranjo, I attended the meeting in my workplace on January 7. What was disturbing about the proceeding was not the opinions, but the method by which they were received.
The meeting had been announced three days before and scheduled for 4 p.m., half an hour before the end of the workday. As they had not announced what was going to be discussed, the comments started in the halls and fears surfaced. Everyone was waiting expectantly. They thought they would address the issue of who was “disposable,” that is who was going to be laid off.
At the time and place agreed upon, in a narrow room where the majority stood, the meeting began. A lady with sharp acrylic nails, claiming to be a member of the PCC and chair of the event, then reported the matter to be discussed: the economic guidelines for the next five years. They knew that if the matter had been revealed earlier, they wouldn’t meet the required attendance rate.
While each of the participants registered on a piece of paper and signed it, the Party member explained how the meeting would take place. First the document would be analyzed chapter by chapter, and then whoever wanted to give an opinion would raise his hand, give his full name and the number of the guideline he wanted to discuss.
“Don’t be afraid to say what you think, all approaches will be heard,” she said. “The proceedings will go into a computer and will be sent in an encrypted and encoded message to the Council of State, not to fall into enemy hands,” she explained, like telecommunications in Cuba were so developed and available to all, and information could be easily stolen.
I was amazed and I wanted to laugh. Was it fiction or did they want to make us feel like we were the center of the world? The vices of Cuban socialism are difficult to eradicate. Obviously, its followers have not internalized the words of Raul in his latest speech, when he confessed that we should struggle against state secrecy.
While the señora tapped her fingers on the table, my subconscious processed the information that I saw and heard. Would her salary allow her to keep her hands so beautiful? In the informal market, acrylic nails cost 200 pesos in national currency (8 cuc) and 100 pesos (4 cuc) to put them on and fill them periodically. Her Party militancy was not in keeping with her attire or the message she was trying to convey.
“First and last names, for the encrypted information.” In other words, they need to know who gave an opinion and what the workers were thinking, I thought. Under these conditions, the smart ones would weigh their words, especially when after this assembly another one could come, declaring who was “disposable.” Is this the way to encourage debate and divergent opinions?
If they really wanted consensus and everyone’s opinion, they would conduct a constitutional referendum as is legally required by the new transformations. In one day and with one single question, they would know how many Cubans support the upgrade of the socialist model. Of course, the country’s socio-economic conditions do not support that procedure.
Discussion meetings are more effective and reliable. It was the method used when they increased the retirement age. In France, faced with such a prospect, the workers took to the street and protested, creating a government crisis. In Cuba, the proletariat marched on May 1 to give its support for the Revolution.
The political propaganda calls it “a popular consultation mechanism.” And it’s a subtle way to control the citizens and silence opinion. It even allows you to predict the results and put in Granma headlines like this: “The people of Cuba unanimously approve the guidelines. ”
José Julián Martí y Pérez was born on January 28, 1853 and died on May 19, 1895. For Cuban politicians, he is what Christ is to the Catholic Church. No matter the ideology or leaning. Everyone prides themselves on knowing him inside out.
It is politically correct for any official or dissident document to be preceded by a phrase from the great man. Even in my blog we have put one: “Nothing comes from hypocrisy.”
On the island, they really like taking photos with his picture in the background. In the independent libraries of the opposition and on shelves in government offices, you can see thick volumes of his complete works crammed together. It’s rare not to find a bust of him in a Cuban public school.
On the ideological propaganda billboards that surround the main arteries of the country, developed by unimaginative designers from the Department of Revolutionary Orientation, epic sentences from the hero appear on top of gloomy colors, where Martí always looks very serious, dressed in a funereal black suit.
The government likes to sell the image of a sad guy, committed to the independence of his homeland. Martí was much more. It’s not wise to sanctify men of such stature. Nor advisable.
It often causes hives in the new generations, who are not pleased with this frozen image of José Martí . Nobody likes to contemplate statues of ice.
Two Cuban intellectuals have tried to remove him from his pedestal. One was the late writer Guillermo Cabrera Infante, who won the Cervantes Prize in 1997. In various chronicles, Cabrera Infante offered us a flesh-and-blood Martí. The other who gave us ‘Pepe’ unwrapped is the filmmaker Fernando Perez, in his film The Eye of the Canarian.
158 years after his birth, José Martí is still an indispensable paradigm. But a re-reading of his work is needed. A disclosure without a cover-up that demystifies for us the undeniable greatness of this habanero, the son of a Spanish soldier, who lived his childhood in a small house on Calle Paula.
As a political genius ahead of his time, he was misunderstood. Rough military leaders of the jungle watched him closely. Guys who had strong arms to launch brutal machete charges against the Spanish troops, but of limited intellect.
They were people who were quick to take up arms, believing that they would win stripes by shooting or by collecting their enemies’ heads as trophies. And Marti was a scholar, a humanist and political strategist. In spite of everything, he won prestige working tirelessly for a different, democratic Cuba. In 1892 he founded the Cuban Revolutionary Party in Tampa, Florida.
On February 24, 1895, he landed on a beach in eastern Cuba, to start what he called a “necessary war.” Which it was. Although according to some historians, his presence was not needed on the battlefield.
But “Pepe” Martí wanted to prove he was more than a brilliant pen. He wanted to put himself to the test. He fell into the trap of his political enemies, who pejoratively called him “Captain Spider.”
Some scholars of his work agree: It was a real political suicide to join the insurgents. Three months later, on May 19, 1895, he was killed in an absurd skirmish, near the village of Dos Rios.
In this 21st century, the mandarins of the regime keep the island full of his images. At the first move, they place wreaths on him. But when the time comes for state policy, they value the guts and courage acquired in the trenches of combat more than men of ideas.
Martí was also a universal Cuban. The best ever. A precursor that serves as a catch-phrase for politicians from both sides, inside and outside Cuba. But the reality is that Marti is not yet fully known. They all take advantage of the aspect that best reflects their interest. The rulers and the opposition take the spoils of the national hero for their own ends.
Everyone believes they deserve Marti. One more useful dead man. A cliché. When the undercurrent of these stormy times passes, the work of rediscovering the Apostle, as they called him before 1959, will fall into the hands of Cuban intellectuals. Debt and obligation.
Those young people who have taken up the banner of banalities and whose goal is a passport and an exit permit need to do that. That decaffeinated figure of José Martí annoys them a lot.
The new policies of flexibility in the U.S. embargo against Cuba have permitted an exhibit, provided by the MT Abraham Center for Visual Arts in the United States to be displayed at the National Museum of Fine Arts.
Nestled in Zulueta Street, a stone’s throw from the Spanish embassy in Havana Vieja, the Museum shows a complete collection of sculptures by Edgar Dégas (Paris 1834-1917), one of the key figures of world art.
The exhibition is part of the tributes that in 2010 were conducted in different institutions and countries to mark the 90th birthday of the prima ballerina assoluta Alicia Alonso (Havana 1920).
Under the title “All the sculptures of Edgar Dégas,” the exhibit consists of 74 pieces, shown previously in Athens, Tel Aviv and Sofia. It will remain in the Cuban capital until the end of January and then continue its tour in Spain.
The star of the collection is The Little Ballerina of 14 Years, sculpted between 1878 and 1881, the only sculpture that this controversial and contradictory Frenchman showed while he was alive. Praised and reviled, Dégas is known as one of the founders of Impressionism. He was considered by Renoir as the best modern sculptor, ahead even of Rodin.
Despite the heavy and persistent rain over the weekend in Havana, the show has had an extraordinary reception. Cubans who advocate ending the embargo and normalizing relations with the United States are grateful for the possibility of cultural exchanges between the two countries and also the measures taken for the benefit of the families on both sides.
Now, from the United States, you can send through Western Union up to $10,000 and receive it on the island in convertible pesos with a 10% tax. Soon, direct flights to Havana will depart from several U.S. airports, not only from Miami, New York and California.
Raul Castro’s government is rubbing its hands. The Dégas exhibit can be a beginning. The icing on the cake would be to end the old, obsolete embargo and have droves of Yankee tourists arriving. It would not be bad for an economy that is leaking. Despite the drought.
Photo: Cubarte. Alicia Alonso contemplates The Little Ballerina of 14 Years, by Edgar Dégas at the Museum of Fine Arts in Havana.
According to the January 6 edition of the newspaper Granma, “Updating the Cuban economic model demands concrete actions from the police to ensure the safety of families and order in society.” The Ministry of Interior made this known during the celebration of the 52nd anniversary of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR).
Apparently the Cuban authorities are fully aware of the dangers surrounding the application of its new policies — mainly, the plan to lay off 500,000 workers this quarter. This is something unprecedented in the history of the socialist revolution, which promised, in its state constitution, full employment for all its citizens.
The situation on the streets is tense. “Transportation is getting worse, food is scarce, prices have gone through the roof, and there is no money. The only option left is to steal,” says Peter, a young man of 38, self-employed, who fills lighters. “I chose this activity because I can be on the corner waiting for some business to fall into my hands. The license at least gives me some cover,” he comments.
The government is aware of this reality. It knows that the new self-employed workers need the black market and the illegal trafficking of merchandise in order to finance their economic activities. It’s the only way to guarantee enough resources to stay in business and pay the state taxes. Classified by the population itself as excessive, given the precarious state of the island’s economy.
Cuba has a population of 11.2 million people, and the State, the main employer, has the ability to hire fewer than 3.9 million. There are too many people “inventing,” and we all know that illegal activity is the main source of survival. Faced with this phenomenon, the government increases its repressive force, mainly in the capital. In July, the Interior Ministry graduated nearly 600 officers, and in September, 500 were added to the new class.
The Cuban police, to curb black market activity, control the inter-provincial highways and deploy operatives who hunt down traveling vendors. They can detain someone and make a record of his belongings on a public street, although this power is not derived from the law, but rather from the excessive power that the government places in this body, whose members do not skimp on abuse.
In fact, they decide which citizen will be tried or not by the courts. The Penal Code gives them the power to impose an administrative fine instead of referring a crime to the court. There are quite a few police officers who accept bribes to apply the law at their convenience.
This truth is well silenced by the government. They warn: “The law is applied with the utmost rigor and severity.” However, they tolerate corruption and abuse, in exchange for impunity for members of the police. They are the main force of repression and the only one that guarantees them that an unsustainable system in maintained.
“Not even by paying 10 CUC (12 dollars) can a family get a pipa (water truck) in order to fill buckets, tanks and containers,” says Liudmila, a resident of El Calvario, a desolate hamlet south of Havana. Although there have been deliveries of water lately, shortages continue.
In the first week of January, in El Calvario there were 5 days without water. The lack of pipas to alleviate the water shortage created a very tense situation for people. The same thing has happened in other places, where there have been no lack of protests.
The drought that has affected the Cuban capital for 7 years has caused a deficit of more than 328 thousand cubic meters of water. The dramatic shortage has led to reductions in the delivery of the precious liquid to 10 of the 15 municipalities of Havana.
If you add to the disastrous drought the fact that 60% of potable water distributed in the city is lost due to breaks and leaks in the pipes, and that 128 major industrial centers in the capital use three times what they need, then in addition to being serious, the problem becomes complex.
Excessive exploitation of surface and ground water has resulted in the collapse of different supply points to the capital, with water quantities well below their capacity.
From 2003 to date, the average rainfall for Havana was as high as 89%. This has been the driest period in the last 49 years.
The provincial supervision of water resources in the capital has activated a Code Red. Five years ago, the company Aguas de La Habana, with hard currency financing from a Catalan society, began to restore the deteriorating distribution networks, but the work has been slow and insufficient.
Only 20% of the pipes in the city have been repaired, due to their age and a chronic lack of maintenance, which has left them severely damaged. The broken pipes in turn make a mess of the public roads, which are full of holes, due to torrential water flows daily in the streets.
Then there is the main aqueduct, the Albear, which was built in the 19th century and designed for a population of 400,000. Today Havana is a city of over 2,500,000 inhabitants. The most critical situation in the water supply occurs in the municipalities of Arroyo Naranjo, Habana Vieja and Centro Habana.
In the late 80’s the El Gato water main, on the outskirts of the city, began to function. But between the severe drought, the absence of systematic repairs and the lack of spare parts, it is working at less than 50% capacity.
To reverse the delicate situation, the Institute of Hydraulic Resources intends to quickly implement 14 investments to alleviate the crisis. They are valued at 7.5 million convertible pesos (about $9 million) and involve placing 22 kilometers of pipes. If these works are not carried out soon, for spring, the deficit of water will reach 493,640 cubic meters of water.
In Havana, more than 70,000 families have no direct access to drinking water. They have to carry it in buckets, tanks and other containers. When stored, it becomes a dangerous breeding ground for the Aedes aegypti mosquito, a transmitter of deadly diseases such as dengue hemorrhagic fever.
Due to the scarcity of water in poor neighborhoods, there are people who are paid 100 pesos (5 dollars) to fill a 55-gallon tank. “In addition to earning money, I get exercise,” says Philip, a bodybuilder engaged in the business of carrying water.
If in the coming months the powerful drought continues, if water is squandered and doesn’t reach households and production centers, the government of General Raúl Castro will have a new headache. Another one.
About the text “A little ashamed of ourselves” by Luis Manuel Pérez Boitel, in response to “The crisis of low culture” of Francis Sánchez.
My friend Riverón,
Although I consider friendship one of the gifts that should be defended at all costs, I also think that standards about things that happen in life, art and literature, should, if not considered equally, at least be ahead by a nose at the finish line. Quite often our personal discussions have raised the tone to the point that only friendship has stopped the harmful avalanche of blindness on both sides. I also value highly the grateful recognition of good deeds from others who are not exactly part of that small group of friends, even more those that honestly spring from the adversaries who have accompanied us on the same journey.
This long speech, that you know well, maybe with more humorous tones and turns, as I like to talk person to person, allows me to introduce, in this communication that already I’ve given permission for you to use publicly if you feel it necessary, an idea that, although predictable given the many anecdotes that I can relate as a witness, does not stop surprising me negatively:
I’m referring to the treacherous message that Luis Manuel Pérez Boitel circulated and in which he tried to insult you “considering that an editor at the head of a publishing house with which he began to reach his first little bit of prestige,” is obliged to assume, without any benefit of the doubt, the fair and deserved price of his pay.
I remember at that time our poet and anti-fascist fighter, not “litigious” as he says, (as a lawyer, knowing what the word means by which meaning you would have put in a cumbersome legal process that did not occur) but haggled over I believe with good cause, his fees, which were set at the amount he demanded, in my opinion unjust, much less than he would have deserved.
I know the details because I also saw a dodge that consisted in declaring that he didn’t agree with the price, and, from respect for the scandal and out of solidarity with Boitel, he settled for a meager sum, and I hope the copies of the contract may serve as further proof and challenge as well a search for any proof of a “claim.”
What he did was to lobby senior officials to press his demand for payment and talk about the incident to many, too many, people. I also remember how you assumed as your own problem that he could attend the award ceremony for the poetry prize, which he won in a closed vote in the Casa de las Americas contest, news he received a few hours before, and how you pledged both your institutional influence and your personal courage as an intellectual and editor at a time when he was the subject of satirical gossip in much of the country.
I assumed he was grateful for these efforts, happily accomplished, even more upon hearing himself reclaimed — during the meeting, or encounter, that we had in the Villa Clara UNEAC with Iroel Sánchez and Omar Valiño, that is, the “duo of the Party,” who took the trouble to talk to us about what was happening around what I named the “Pavonazo” phenomenon at work — that attendance at the awards was definite and that the Casa de las Americas, naming Jorge Fornet as the irresponsible person, and careful of saving the “diplomatic decency” of Roberto Fernandez Retamar, had failed to inform him the following year, once his book was in circulation, about “What his role would be in the activities of the award,” and that they would not offer him any support.
That said about your commentary “Eating from the new-born turkey” (“pavo” — turkey — is a play on “Pavón”), which now seems so suspicious to him and about which he did not issue any opinion even though we were provoked to do it during those conversations. That attitude confirms that the title of what was written by Francis Sánchez continues to be accurate, since it confused the low cravings for the role with the lower passions and culture is something mean in the most Marti concept of the term. And although perhaps the overwhelming majority feels that he justly deserves not even the honor of the insult, the basic instinct of my low passions requests a retribution.
So, friend, on behalf of those dishonest and opportunistic intellectuals with a double standard, that like the dreadful English of Neruda we still hate, in virtue of what appears unthinkable “to take them out of circulation and credit” I ask you for an apology. I am ashamed that such a fight broke out in the midst of a moment that in my opinion is crucial to the cultural destiny of those of us who continue deciding to build from within.
The children of certain heads of the nomenklatura have their own style. They wear designer clothes. Drink cognac or whiskey. They have their own cars. Internet at home. They’re fond of good food and spend nights dancing in the best discotheques in the city.
They have a passport to travel abroad. And in private they inhale more cocaine than a vacuum cleaner. They’re fans of lesbian pictures and sex with several girls. To obey form and follow in the footsteps of their parents, they study at military colleges.
They study either administration or marketing at prestigious schools abroad. Their double standard is exquisite. In front of strangers, they parrot the typical nationalistic and anti-American speech.
Among friends, they await the final outcome of the revolution to see which side wins. Until the moment arrives, their parents position them in good jobs.
When there is real change in Cuba, not the artificial one designed by the gurus in olive-green, Papa’s children will be the future managers of the companies, banks, hotels, golf courses or any other business that makes money in post-Castro Cuba.
Now they go about under cover. They waste fuel and spend hard currency on Havana nightlife. They live well and eat three hot meals a day. They dance salsa at night clubs like the Red Room of the Capri or the River Club, a discotheque in Miramar, a few meters from the Almendares River.
The always leave smiling, with a full wallet. They end the night in cafes that are a stone’s throw from the Malecón. Drinking Heineken beer and snorting a mixture of drugs in the back seat of their cars. They usually go to bed at the time that many people are going to work. They lunch on meats and seafood while they watch the latest world news on giant plasma-screen televisions.
Their parents are allowed to have satellite dishes and ADSL (high-speed Internet access). They are trustworthy revolutionaries. The cream of the socialist revolution. When the official discourse calls on simple Cubans to tighten their belts, these offspring, the sons of important men, sleep for ten hours, have central air conditioning in their homes and spend their weekends fishing on the old man’s yacht.
The good thing about being the son of a “big-shot” (leader) in Cuba is that they don’t have to worry about paparazzi or scandals in the tabloids. Their dirty laundry stays at home. Their parents have the power. They control the army, the communications media and production.
These young people have a free hand to lead a dissipated, easy life. And their parents? They prefer to look the other way.
The WikiLeaks revelations have shown the Cuban opposition in a bad light. What a sector of U.S. diplomacy thinks about the poor performance of traditional dissent is the same thing that independent journalists and foreign correspondents talk about.
If a series of shameful acts of corruption, nepotism and caudillismo committed by the leaders of opposition groups haven’t been brought to light, it’s because of that old straitjacket that makes alternative journalists think that making such issues public is a favor to the island’s secret services.
I don’t share that opinion. It’s time for the local opposition groups to change their tune. If they don’t turn 180 degrees and plot their strategies looking inward, they will remain simply a movement of courageous people who openly challenged the Castro brothers’ regime.
To their credit, many opponents must have passed through the harsh island prisons without breaking. It’s admirable that Cubans who could have been peaceful parents or grandparents had the courage to establish political parties and organizations that the government considers illegal and that Cuban laws punish by several years in prison.
But being brave is not everything. Inside the traditional dissent there are quite a few autocrats who pretend to be civil. They are intolerant and dishonest gossip mongers. They have become accustomed to living off U.S. government agency aid or groups and people of different political leanings in Europe.
I am one of those who thinks it’s not healthy to accept money from any government. I could be wrong. Years ago, in a public and transparent manner, the opposition had to tackle that uncomplicated issue.
It’s true: when they take the path of dissent against Castro, as a rule, dissidents lose their jobs and stop collecting a paycheck. It’s also true that they need money to do any political work.
Hiding the issue of money has led to the unfortunate rise of corruption. By not having effective controls, internal democracy and transparency at the heart of many dissident organizations, certain group leaders have shamelessly appropriated money and material assistance.
The list is long of heavyweights inside the dissident movement who steal hand over fist. Out of decency I will not reveal their names. In addition to being corrupt, with some exceptions, the Cuban opposition is mediocre and ineffective. A banana dissidence. You can count on one hand their political projects that try to involve citizens.
The local opposition is directed toward the Exterior. From their living rooms, small groups of people write a document, quote the foreign press, read it on Radio Marti and then feel they’ve accomplished something.
Ordinary people in Cuba don’t even hear about it. It’s painful. The number of people upset by what the government does, I assure you, is broad. If the opposition parties started proselytizing, they would be known in their own country.
There is unexplored territory for the dissident movement. The lack of materials and services in Cuba affects everyone, loyal to the regime or not. Both sides want to repair their children’s schools, the hospitals and streets of the neighborhood. Both sides want to have clean water every day, and not lose 60% due to leaks.
Regardless of ideology, every one suffers from having to travel like sardines in a can on the crowded buses of chaotic urban transportation. Think like they think. Cubans want more and better food. Decent wages. Clean cities. A single currency. To be able to travel without state permission. To have Internet access and satellite dishes for reasonable sums.
In 52 years, the Castros have failed to solve these problems. If the dissidents would do community work in the neighborhoods, they could inspire a number of small and modest projects that would involve and benefit the people. You hardly ever meet activists like Sonia Garro, a black woman living in a slum in Mariano, who helps children living in homes that are small hells.
It’s good to demand democracy and freedom from the regime. But it’s also good to look for options – and solutions – for the women and men deep inside Cuba.
Of course, the secret services do everything in their power to make sure the dissent doesn’t forge a real social base. It’s also true that the traditional opposition has adapted to living from unrealistic projects, better known in Miami than in Havana.
It’s healthy to have different political tendencies and discrepancies inside the dissent. But there are four or five points of agreement between the opponents that would allow them to design joint projects.
Disagreements do not mean the opposition groups are enemies. It’s what happens. But so many quarrels and hatreds have diminished coherent and serious political work.
The current opposition, if it’s not recycled and doesn’t democratize the rules of the game, will be a political corpse. But it’s never too late to change.
Photo: EFE. Press conference of the Agenda for the Transition, Havana, April 2010.
Photo: Aroldis Chapman, Cuban pitcher who has already broken records in the Cincinnati Reds.
A storm is coming to the national sport in Cuba. In the last session of the monotone parliament in December, against all odds, the government maintained its strategy of not allowing ball players and other athletes to compete in foreign leagues.
Since 1991, more than 350 ball players have fled the island. By maintaining the absurd policy of not allowing baseball players to contract with foreign clubs, in a few years the figures could double.
Not only would ball players jump at the chance to sign contracts. Boxers would bet on winning money on professional tours in the U.S. or Europe. Volleyball players would look greedily at the prestigious Italian league.
Track and field athletes would try to become Spanish citizens, Czechs or even Sudanese (no wonder: the Cuban triple jumper, Yamilé Aldama, competes for Sudan), to be able to enjoy the money they earn in athletic clubs.
Even players of handball or basketball, not big sports in Cuba, would give a sideways glance at the market for these disciplines in the Greek and Iberian circuits, and, of course, the fabulous NBA.
The sports myopia of the Cuban leaders is colossal. Their position is childish and capricious. In a country where you need state permission to travel, there are institutions like the Ministry of Culture, which for over a decade has freely permitted intellectuals and artists to contract for work in other nations.
This has not stopped the exodus from this sector, but it turns out to be an option for talented artists, who can sign contracts and earn enough hard currency to permit them to live comfortably on an island of extreme poverty. An example is the actor Jorge Perogurría.
However, in sports, they don’t want the latch to be opened. So the athletes, especially baseball players, jump the pond and enter the Major Leagues by the back door.
Cuban baseball, moreover, is in its lowest hour. Quality has taken a dive. Everyone realizes this. Official journalists and retired stars agree that the baseball that is played now in Cuba is that of the “jungle” (low quality).
The journalist Gilberto Dihigo, living in Florida, son of the illustrious Martin Dihigo, the first Cuban player who entered the Hall of Fame in New York, is convinced that Cuban baseball is in crisis.
The repercussions from these bad moments in baseball are reflected in newspapers and blogs published in Miami, home to around 800,000 Cubans, who follow this sport in “the green crocodile” with interest. And the specialists don’t exaggerate. It’s true: the march of stars and young talent has diminished the quality of Cuban baseball.
The tactical and technical ideas of the current pitching and batting coaches are also outdated. The strategies of the managers show shocking gaps in the subject of baseball. Nor do referees escape from this decline. Their reduced zone of calling strikes is one of the factors in a brutal batter clobbering a defenseless pitcher without pity. Seventy percent of National League pitchers are on the verge of tears.
It’s terribly out of control, with an average number of bases walked that is childish, an average speed no greater than 84 miles per hour – in a baseball that deserves respect, pitchers should reach 90 miles per hour – and a reduced repertoire that includes only two pitches, fast and curve balls.
Bad things follow. The swing technique of many hitters is from the middle of the twentieth century. The players’ gloves are ripped. And the numbers don’t lie. The defense in the current season is 967. In a decent league, fielding is around 980.
Despite the shortages that hinder the main pastime of Cubans, baseball is still the biggest show in the country. And its players, with their natural talent, are candy for the scouts.
It’s true that to reach the highest level they have to overcome the deficiencies. But the promising young on the playground are losing the dream of the million-dollar salaries they pay in the U.S. Major Leagues. They know that the sooner they leave, the better the chances of someday playing the best baseball in the world.
In contrast to expectations – it was rumored that the government would make changes in its sports policy – General Raul Castro dropped the ball, and the illusion that Cuba would allow the free recruitment of athletes went up in smoke. A response to the unrest prevailing in Creole baseball could be the increased exodus of ball players. From time to time.
I am grateful that you sent me the debate. I don’t know how to get involved in the analysis but I think that I need to.
If you can, send this opinion to whoever you want.
Although I have to confess that I find it difficult to express myself and to organise my thoughts in this form, I don’t want to not do it as I think that the TV’s resurrection of those ideas that we thought were dead demands a reaction of repulsion. I want to add my thoughts to those who have offered their analysis so far. There have been some profound and well-argued reflections, and it’s important that they don’t end here.
I was studying design when Pavón was president of the CNC and Armando Quesada was head of Teatro y Danza, and I remember perfectly well the tragedy of the “misfits” and the almost total destruction of some theatre groups, just like the censorship in the field of literature. I lived the period up close, involved as I was in university TV, as one of the screenwriters and assistants for the TV program,”6:30 pm”…These “orientations” had a cultural character with relation to the treatment of art and literature on TV, with personal comments added by Papito Serguera.
I will never forget the impression almost of conspiracy that one felt when reading Lezama or Dulce Maria, the sad memory of meeting Cintio Vitier and Fina García Marruz spending hours in a cubicle of the National Library explaining to you that they would consider you as ideologically divergent because you liked the Beatles and not Casino or Mozambique, the possibility that your friends would snub you in the street or that they would make you lengthen the hem of your skirt to attend school.
Someone told me that some months ago Armando Quesada was working in television, and I didn’t want to believe it. Now he is resuscitated as a main character on programs along with Serguera and Pavón. I didn’t see the programs, but what I have heard here is enough for me.
I think that it’s really unfortunate, and more than unfortunate, worrisome.
I think we are in an internal ideological confrontation between Marxist and revolutionary thought versus thinking lacking any intellectual interest, demagogic. So I also believe that the debate should not remain only in this exchange of mail. As Zenaida says, it’s time to raise our voices so they hear us.
Belkis Vega
Another message from Belkis Vega
Looking at the past from the present. I think this has been a first for the greater part of us Cubans who have been participating in this debate.
For as long as I can remember I have been hearing the same paralyzing phrase repeated over and over: “This is not the time, this is not the place.”
How many of us say in our defense that to be revolutionary is to be someone who transforms, someone nonconformist and critical. We have also allowed ourselves to abandon the hope of this time and place that never arrive. And always for the supposedly noble and unifying but also paralyzing end of not giving arms to the enemy; without taking into account the fact that the paralyzing status quo is a very efficient arm.
It occurred to me again last week when I tried — naively? — to bring up some of the worries that we are exchanging about the theoretical debate that was developing in the Festival of Television.
It happened that it was neither the time nor the place.
I now think that many of us are not prepared to hope for more. I think we’ve lost many things in this waiting, our life has been in this waiting.
I remember that during the most critical years of the Special Period, a friend told me that they would have to ask every Cuban, man and woman, if they wanted to continue living in Cuba, and if the answer was affirmative, to give them the Party card directly. It seemed to me a very sensible idea.
I think the majority of us who continue here have proved over and over that we are interested in the social project of the Revolution; in its most ample meaning, as a humanist project that tries to recover and defend human dignity and develop a society that satisfies the growing needs of its men and women. This appears elementary, but many have forgotten it. Our society is not perfect; none of us are either. It’s essential to speak of errors, to assume them, reflect on them and try not to repeat them.
I’ve always questioned who has the right to decide who are the guarantors, the censors or the classifiers of what is or what is not revolutionary.
It’s very simple to look in a dictionary and remember the definition of “revolutionary.” Sheep are not revolutionary. Men and women who act like sheep would never have assaulted the Moncada Barracks. To propose this, you have to want to transform the world. It was necessary to dream big to assault the sky.
I read the writing of Colina and reviewed the list of Cuban films that were not shown on TV. I remembered also how many of the film-makers who started to direct in the workshops of the Asociación Hermanos Saíz in the ’80s are not here. And I remember my recent sleepless nights when I tried to find out why the analytical, reflective and critical works of some of the young Cuban film-makers wouldn’t remain in a show, so that those young people would find their space in our Cuba — the one for all Cubans — and they wouldn’t have to search in other latitudes like so many do.
It hurts me, it lacerates me. I don’t understand the politics of exclusion.
Knowing errors, analyzing them, learning from them. To be nonconformist, to want to be better, to criticize the bad in order to amend it, to respect and take into account differences. Is this “not revolutionary”?
A few months ago a Miami TV channel showed part of the documentary, “Divers, Lions and Tankers” by young Cuban filmmakers who attend the ISA. This documentary had been recognized in some festivals in our country and selected by critics as being among the most significant films made in 2005. Channel 41 TV in Miami had a manipulated discussion of the content. The film’s director wrote to the station saying that he considered this manipulation a violation of his rights. Many people in Cuba learned from the comments about this show in Miami that this documentary existed, and they have tried to see it, but the documentary is not displayed publicly. It circulates underground. Something similar happened with the fictional short by Eduardo del Llano, “Monte Rouge.” And with other works; these are just two examples.
And I always wonder if it is not much more beneficial to bring these works to a public debate. Display them on TV, have a panel where the creators of the works can discuss views with journalists and others. In short, are we going to continue postponing the controversy over our reality, which we live every day, until we get a right time and right place that never appears?
There are many works made within the revolution by Cuban artists and writers who are HERE and who have every right to have their own voice and to call attention to aspects of our reality to those who SHOULD find a solution for themselves.
Criticism, self-criticism, jumps from the quantitative to the qualitative, unity and the struggle of opposites, these words and phrases now sound like Martian to many in our country.
Where have the principles of dialectical materialism gone? Which now our young people aren’t even studying.
Nor has the fall of socialism in Europe made me think that Marx was wrong in his formulations. History has proven that it is much more complex to apply Marxism to everyday life than to theorize about it. But out of curiosity I would like to know how many people in our country today know what characterizes a society as socialist. Any of us at any time can be exposed to questioning by some officials who flaunt the right to classify what is revolutionary or not, and who confuse dogma with being revolutionary.
It is no secret that all this generates self-censorship, and I think we all have self-censored a lot. There are battles we’ve won when we’ve defended our work and our positions in a brave, energetic manner, with solid arguments. The examples Colina gives, referring to the film Alice in Wondertown or the refusal of the directors of ICAIC to be unified with the ICRT, are proof of that.
The polemics should come out of our emails. I think it’s fundamental to find a way to publicize these debates and open up participation. I think the analysis of the Five Gray Years that has begun here and that will be deepened with the Ambrosio Fornet conference and the subsequent exchange should serve as a starting point for taking back our own history, moving forward and finding many ways here and now where we Cubans can reflect on our reality in order to transform it.
Belkis Vega
Reflections provoked by the “affectionate” letter written by Paquito de Rivera for Fefé Diego.
Some people would be better off shutting up…
And I’m not saying that because of intolerance, much less because I don’t respect differences in thinking.
I say it simply because I think it’s better to be quiet when you don’t know how to express your thoughts coherently and with respect for others.
It really hurts to confirm such a great contradiction between musical talent and the ability to express ideas with a minimum of argument and depth.
Some years ago I was at the International Film Festival of Miami, exactly the year in which the festival bravely decided to show Fernando Pérez’ film, Life is to Whistle, with the possible punishment of losing part of its funding for showing the work of a Cuban “over there.”
After the films you could attend a jazz concert at a hotel, I think it was the Sheraton. So there I was, ready to enjoy the musical talent of Paquito de Rivera and imagine my surprise to hear him tell distasteful and vulgar jokes about the situation of the child Elián González, whose family in Miami did not want to send back to his father.
Never in Cuba did I hear Paquito oppose UMAP or criticize Marx or question the socialist definition of the Cuban revolution.
As much as I’ve tried, I cannot remember any “brave” position Paquito de Rivera took against the terrible things that according to his list have occurred in our country.
I don’t even remember if he tried to criticize the Stalinst stage of the USSR, nor if he dared to criticize the terrible things that happened around it.
It seems in that epoch he assumed the same attitude as the rest of the Cuban artists and writers “who so irresponsibly have supported such a bloody regime,” according to him.
I don’t know, then, what bravery he’s talking about. Or his bravery is to insult in a public letter an exceptional musician like Carlos Santana for deciding to wear a t-shirt with a picture of Che Guevara.
I also never knew that a guy as brave as Paquito de Rivera opposed the invasion of Iraq or protested the lack of attention given to the victims of Katrina. Or perhaps he felt worried about Africa. It’s more probable that all that seems okay to him.
I agree with Boris Iván that it would be better if he used his head for musical scores since it would appear that language is not his strong point. Perhaps if he had remained in Cuba he would be capable of reasoning and writing in a more consistent and less vulgar manner.
However I do remember other voices that raised questions in the time of that stage of Cuban culture that has been the object of debate these days with the participation of many Cubans from here and there.
Some voices are more timid, others stronger. There were not many, there were not enough. But there were voices.
As there also have been voices at other times that, for example, supported the performance artists of Street Art, the filmmakers of Alice in Wondertown or Guantanamera, and the actors of Manteca, when these artists and their works were questioned.
Luckily there are more voices participating in this analysis of part of our recent history, which is so necessary. And by luck this debate has motivated the participation of people with different positions and opinions.
Of course something very important is missing, and it’s the opening up of the debate outside the circle of writers and artists who have email.
Now I know, Paquito, that you don’t know who I am nor what I do.
I also know that with this letter I’m exposing myself to your insults.
It doesn’t matter to me. I believe that now the only important thing is to tell you that, luckily for both of us, I’m not interested in being your buddy.
Around midnight I arrived at the bus terminal in Havana, a three-story building, painted blue and white. It was built in the late 40’s and inaugurated in 1951.
It takes up a block, and more than 100 buses a day leave for the 14 Cuban provinces and major cities across the country. Before 1959, the average for these bus trips, coming and going, was 1,500 every 24 hours.
As I was taking only a backpack and a briefcase, the luggage department told me I could take them on board. They checked my ticket and I went to a circular room with air conditioning and plenty of seating in black plastic.
It’s the waiting room. Two hours later my bus leaves for Ciego de Avila, a province located some 400 kilometers east of the capital.
The independent journalist Pablo Pacheco was born there. He’s now in the Canaleta prison. I am bringing him some gifts that my mother sent from Switzerland to his wife, Oleyvis, and his son Jimmy.
Pacheco is one of the 75 arrested during the Black Spring, in March 2003. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and he has served 6. Of the 75, 57 still remain behind bars.
All are in prison for thinking, writing and saying aloud that their country urgently needs political and economic changes.
Note: In a 24-hour trip in April 2009 that I took to Ciego de Avila, I wrote 10 articles. The Waiting Room is the first. The others are: Obama at Dawn, For a Fried Chicken, A Natural Guajiro, Highway Police, A Cuban Sunrise, Blind on Sight, The Pimp of Venezuela, Dr. Oleyvis, and From a Pedicab. All the posts published in 2009 on the blog From Havana were accidentally deleted. Since we have the originals, we are going to post them again here, or on Tania Quintero’s blog.
Pablo Pacheco and his son Jimmy discover snow from their exile in Spain.
Roger thought he was a respected delinquent. A sharp guy who at the first slight would exchange blows with anyone. He always hung with a group of buddies who looked like gangsters.
They dressed like the blacks in the Bronx. And they didn’t think twice before assailing a tourist, snatching gold chains from the necks of naive women, or picking a door lock and running off with the valuables.
He was sure he was a tough, successful guy in the marginal world. But everything changed when Roger fell into the tank (prison). At 19 years old, he had his first and only prison experience.
And it went badly. One rainy morning, while he was being transferred to a maximum security prison in eastern Cuba, he swore he would cut open like a cow any prisoner who tried to mess with him.
A tall, good-looking mulatto, he aroused lust among the sodomites who had been behind bars for two decades without women. He knew no one. In his cell block, three robust blacks were the cell leaders.
There everything was a matter of business. From the brown sugar, the food, cigarettes, pornographic magazines, even bathing water. In the first week he had a couple of brawls which didn’t end well for him.
At meal time, the rations were minimal. One of the cell block chiefs undressed him with his eyes. One night after the recount, without knowing why, some convicts gave him a fierce beating. An animal fear took hold of Roger.
He wanted to form a truce with the chief. “I can protect you, my beauty, I can get you good grub and take care of you as if you were my son, but I ask that you give me something in return,” said the chief, lasciviously.
“I’m not a queer. And I’ll split open anyone who tries anything with me,” he bluffed, without much conviction. The old prisoner kept looking at him and said, “We’ll see about that, kid.”
Without a weapon or a friend to help him confront the crooks who ran the cell block, Roger spoke with a prison guard to ask that his cell be changed.
But it went nowhere. “You’re not brave, so settle things as well as you can. The prison is packed. So either work it out or give up your ass,” was the guard’s answer.
The sexual harassment increased for Roger. On certain days he woke up with his body full of semen. When it was time to bathe or when he was in his bunk, the sodomites masturbated openly.
Desperate, Roger opted to mutilate himself. He injected oil into one leg and was sent to the hospital prison. When they tried to send him back to his cell block, he again tried to injure himself or tried to take his own life.
Between the sexual harassment of some prisoners, the panic, the physical and verbal mistreatment of the guards and the small quantity of bad food, Roger decided to put an end to his personal tragedy. One summer dawn he hung himself from the bars with a cord made out of bedsheets. He had escaped from the siege.
It was a lucky day for Ernesto. After 10:00 last night, a neighbor told him that the number he had bet 250 pesos (10 dollars) on had come out first in the local (illegal) lottery.
He won 24,000 pesos (1,000 dollars). The money arrived just when he needed it most. His daughter, Yenima, was turning 15. And his mother, bedridden, suffering from terminal cancer, was waiting to die.
Ernesto is a self-employed craftsman, mediocre and unlucky. Every day, he spends 12 hours trying to sell a collection of leather shoes with gaudy decoration. It wasn’t going well. He barely earned enough money to feed his four children and buy milk and juice for his sick mother.
He had a bag of debts with the worst sort of troublemakers. He had pawned the few valuable jewels of his family, a Chinese Panda television, a refrigerator from when Russia was communist, and some silverware that came from his grandmother.
The way to win a few thousand dollars and stay afloat was by venturing to bet every day on the illegal lottery known as the bolita. In Cuba, gambling is prohibited.
But for years, the police have looked the other way when it comes to gambling. The bolita or lottery is the hope of the poor. In Cuba there are illegal banks, which move large amounts of Cuban pesos. Arnoldo, 59, is one of them. He has always lived off the lottery.
After 20 years in business, he is considered a guy who is solvent. He has a couple of comfortable houses and two 1950s American cars, which are gems. He has more than enough money and influence. He almost always get what he wants.
He is used to slipping a fat packet of money under the to one or another difficult policeman. On any day, Arnoldo earns 3 thousand pesos (125 dollars). Every day, more than 600 people are betting money in his bank.
Ernesto is among them. The night when he learned he had been favored by luck, he borrowed 100 convertible pesos and went to the corner bar. He bought three cases of Bucanero beer and six bottles of aged Caney rum.
He invited all his friends to drink with him. In the morning he paid his debts. He bought beef and powdered milk for his mother. He gave 300 convertible pesos to his wife for the quinceañera party for his daughter. He went with the kids to have dinner at a paladar, and with the rest of the money he bought glasses, towels and sheets that were so badly needed at home.
Two days after winning the award he was penniless. But without debt. He still had problems to solve. The stroke of luck in the lottery was only temporary relief.
According to the January 6 edition of the newspaper Granma, “Updating the Cuban economic model demands concrete actions from the police to ensure the safety of families and order in society.” The Ministry of Interior made this known during the celebration of the 52nd anniversary of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR).
