Category: Translator: Norma Whiting

The report is based on Suarez’s two particular personal experiences. The first took place 4 o’clock in the morning, when the reporter was on her way to work and she encountered a group of teenagers, between 12 and 15 years old, gathered on a corner of Havana’s Vedado district. The second, when she attended a choreographed performance by a large group of children from the primary school Quince de Abril, in the Havana municipality of Diez de Octubre, on the occasion of the celebration of the 57th anniversary of the Organization of Pioneers of Cuba. The reporter showed the video recording of that performance in conjunction with the report.

It’s heartening that someone finally cares about this matter, despite slow reaction by the government press when it comes to addressing the problems of society

In the first case, Suárez stopped to talk with the night-owl boys, asked them their ages and reflected on the families’ lack of supervision that allows these children to stay up late at night in the street, with all its implied risks.

In the second case, the video presented on NTV shows a group of children at the Pioneer celebration, dressed in their school uniforms, dancing provocatively to the sound of reggae music, sensually swaying their hips, glutes and waists. Suárez believes that the celebration should have included the sort of music which is more appropriate to a children’s audience than that which led to a vulgar, erotic display that played out on the school’s stage.

“Are these the spectacles we want from our children?” the worried reporter of the official press asks rhetorically. The journalist insists on the importance of “the interaction of the child with the family,” underlining that the development of minors is an obligation “that the whole society should be concerned with.” All of which is (or should at least be) true.

However, perhaps driven by her passionate interest in the education and care of children, Maray Suárez forgot to inform us if – as one would expect – she consulted or asked the families of those children for their authorization before exposing them publicly performing their obscene dance in a video broadcast by the Cuban TV news media, which did not take the trouble to have anyone pixelate their innocent faces.

Could it be that this media professional not know that exposing images of children publicly constitutes a crime in any moderately civilized society in the world?

Could it be that this press professional did not know that exposing images of children publicly constitutes a crime in any moderately civilized society in the world? Where, then, are her own ethical values as a journalist? Does she find it very educational to act with such flagrant disrespect to minors and their families?

Unfortunately, since Cuba is not a State of Laws, the parents and children thus vexed are defenseless: they cannot sue the colossal official press apparatus or the reporter in question.

Although the reporter addresses the issue of family supervision, it would not hurt to introduce reflections on the role that the teachers and the primary school management played in this case. Ultimately, it was they who allowed – and perhaps even promoted – these children’s vulgar dance display at school.

For the problem to be really corrected, the official press should put aside all the hypocritical puritanism that mediates each article of information and take on the challenge of describing and exposing the dark and dirty cracks lacerating the current Cuban society.

The official press should put aside all the hypocritical puritanism that mediates each article of information and take on the challenge of describing and exposing the dark and dirty cracks lacerating current Cuban society 

The task is particularly impossible if we take into account that to find a solution to sensitive issues such as the one we are dealing with, it is necessary to stop beating about the bush. Instead of flirting with the effects, you must first identify the causes of the malady.

But faced with a deep problem in education, it will not be the communicators of the government press who air the dirty laundry.

Because, at the end of the day, the official journalists are also a bit like children: to publish each and every one of their lines or tidbits they need the consent of the principal responsible for the disaster: the Government. And the journalists of the Castro regime are, Yessir, respectful and obedient children.

Translated by Norma Whiting

_________________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

As a result of such mockery, the film was relegated to a quasi-symbolic exhibition in the small Terence Piard screening room, with capacity for a small audience of only 24 spectators, the reason for the filmmakers’ decision to retire the movie from being shown.

The ICAIC not only suspended the press conference where the filmmakers would give their own views on the matter, but also divulged their own statement explaining their intolerance to what they consider “an insult to Martí.”

The reaction was immediate. The ICAIC not only suspended the press conference where the filmmakers would give their own views on the matter, but also divulged their own statement explaining their intolerance to what they consider “an insult to Martí.” The film producer and the coordinators of the event used the social networks – obviously, they knew that they would not be granted space in the official media – to express their disagreement with the ICAIC’s decision and to promote a public debate.

As a greater irreverence, the filmmakers exhibited a fragment of the movie where the above offensive epithets against Marti that led to censorship takes place, making public precisely aware of what the official “watchmen of virtue” sought to silence.

Everything indicated that, for the purposes of national public opinion, the matter would remain on social networks, that is, circumscribed to the small segment of Cubans who have access to the Internet, and within the usual gossip of those “in the know”. However, the censorship and scolding seemed insufficient punishment to the art curators, so that the powerful monopoly of the official press has also lashed out – with even a stronger force, the Apostle (as Cubans call José Martí) would have said – against the filmmakers.

The most recent (journalistic?) pearl about the subject has been an extensive article by Luis Toledo Sande, taken from Cubarte and reproduced over six columns in the Sunday edition of the Juventud Rebelde newspaper entitled Fatal Bullets against José Martí (With the Objective of a Movie in Production).

The article is a difficult read, and too bombastic to be credible, where the abundance of accusations against the young filmmakers contrasts with the lack of clarity in language and arguments.

Judging by the angry speech of Toledo Sande, it could be said that Cubans are a people given to the veneration or idolatry of the founding fathers of the nation

Judging by the angry speech of Toledo Sande, we would say that Cubans are a people given to the veneration or idolatry of the founding fathers of the nation, when in fact the excessive tendency to derision that characterizes the natives of this island results in nothing – or almost nothing – seeming sufficiently sacred to them.

In any case, the closest examples of veneration evidenced in Cuba are the procession of Our Lady of Charity – Cachita, as she is more popularly known – who corresponds to the deity Oshún (or Osún) in the popular tradition of the Yoruba religion heritage, and the numerous yearly pilgrimages to Rincón, to fulfill promises or to ask for healing miracles to San Lázaro, or Babalú Ayé, also in the Yoruba religion. In both rituals there is a strong base of superstition and practicality, rather than a feeling of true holiness.

But in the heat of his revolutionary delirium, Toledo Sarde considers that the movie makers have not only mocked the “massive veneration” of Martí, who has been granted “the brand of the sacred” in Cuba, but they have crossed the limits of freedom of creation to become practically traitors to the nation, just like the shadowy “enemies of the Revolution”, who invoke the name of Martí to destroy Cuba.

“The dialogue in particular (disclosed by the producer of the film on social networks) contains rudeness that had not reached any of the most bitter Martí detractors,” exclaims Toledo Sande, indignant. Which justifies censorship because “the nation would be in very bad straits if, blackmailed by the maneuvers of its enemies (…), would even tie its hands so as not to stop what must be stopped”.

And, since “at this point it’s senseless to speak of the ‘trusting ones’,” Toledo Sande says that the affront to the Apostle in the case of the aforementioned film constitutes no less than a “poison”.

Now, beyond so much hypocritical patriot scorn, this attack on an unfinished movie, unseen by the public and against a small team of unknown filmmakers, is extremely disproportionate. The point is not that reviling Martí or your neighbor is right or wrong, but seeing the facts in their proper dimension, without tears or tango passions.

Beyond so much hypocritical patriot scorn, this attack on an unfinished movie is extremely disproportionate.

Sticking to the mere object of the scandal – just a few “bad words” in the dialogue of a feature film – what could be the insult? Is it that the official homophobia in this misogynistic and patriarchal society cannot tolerate that the National Hero be branded as queer? The defenders of revolutionary virtue should clarify the point: if Marti’s transcendence is derived fundamentally from his actions for Cuba’s independence, why would attributing a certain sexual orientation to him be so offensive? Would Mariana Grajales² lose her title as “mother of our country” if some archival document is found indicating she was a lesbian? Would someone who referred to her as “Mariana the Butch” be labeled a traitor?

There are written testimonies of participants in the emancipatory deed that assure that both Máximo Gómez -the flamboyant Generalissimo of our two Wars of Independence- and the ultra-brave Antonio Maceo – labeled with the nickname “Bronze Titan” – an epithet that today would accuse a certain suspicious whiff of racism – felt an undisguised disdain for José Martí, whom they called contemptuously “the Delegate”. Yet, both Gómez and Maceo have a high focal point in the pantheon of patriotic glories.

However, the really rude thing is that the Cuban government, specifically the late Fidel Castro, has insulted so many times and with impunity the memory of the Apostle Martí by pinning the José Martí National Order, conceived in 1972 to distinguish “Cuban and foreign citizens and Chiefs of State or Government for their great deeds in favor of peace, friendship and humanity’s progress”, on the chests of representatives of repressive regimes – such as Soviet Leonid I. Brezhnev, Ethiopian Mengistu Haile Mariam, Romanian Nicolae Ceausescu or Czechoslovakian Gustav Husak, for example – and even on the chest of worldwide repudiated genocidal individuals – like Zimbabwean Robert Mugabe and Cambodian Heng Samrin – without anyone in this Island, pregnant with virtuous admirers of Martí, having raised their voices in protest against such scandalous affront.

What really hides under all the commotion around a simple fiction movie is the unspeakable fear of the leadership and its servants before an uncertain national and regional horizon

What really hides under all the commotion around a simple fiction movie is the unspeakable fear of the ruling dome and its servants before an uncertain national and regional horizon.

And all this without forgetting what an insult it is to bestow Martí with the intellectual authorship of a violent, armed assault, in broad daybreak, against military barracks where soldiers of the constitutional army were sleeping – and not criminals – an attack that today would classify as a terrorist act and one that, at the time, only served to satisfy the dreams of glory and greatness of a megalomaniac, who ended up becoming the leader of the longest and most destructive dictatorship that this island has ever known.

But more than the ridiculous divinization of the Apostle or the alleged defense of our national values by the commissaries of the Castro regime, what really hides under all the commotion around a simple fiction movie is the unspeakable fear of the leadership and its servants before an uncertain national and regional horizon, in the midst of which the transfer of the government of the ex-guerrilla elders to a new generation of supposedly “faithful ones” must take place.

The point is not that a presumed veneration of the Apostle is crumbling, but that every little civic irreverence seems to remind the autocrats that, for them, there will not even be pedestals.

1 Tomás de Torquemada (1420-1498) Spanish Dominican monk, first Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition

2 Mariana Grajales and her family served in the Ten Year’s War, the Little War (1868-1878) and the War of 1895. She was the mother of José and Antonio Maceo Grajales, who served as generals in the Liberation Army from 1868 through 1878. During her time serving in the war, Mariana ran hospitals and provision grounds on the base camps of her son Antonio, frequently entering the battlefield to aid both Spanish and Cuban wounded soldiers.

Translated by Norma Whiting

________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

The schism was even greater among the opposition groups. There were no nuances. Overnight, a war seemed to have been declared: the radical groups not only considered the process of dialogue between the two hitherto opposed governments unacceptable, but also disparagingly pinned the labels of “traitors” and “dialoguers” to those broad sectors of dissidents that considered the new policy of the White House as a more propitious strategy to gradually push the long-awaited changes inside Cuba.

It is worth mentioning that the radicals conveniently ignored one small detail. Many members of that large group of political prisoners and persecuted citizens were in favor of the dialogue proces.

The matter became a defining moment, where the most rabid enemies of diplomacy – faithful to their violent and intolerant nature – used verbal aggression and even attempted physical violence against supporters of dialogue in some cases, although the latter were just being consistent with the pro-relations and anti-embargo discourse that they had been defending for decades.

The very brief period that elapsed between the beginning of President Obama’s policy of flexibilization and his departure from power did not make, and obviously could not have mad a significant shift in Cuban politics, but it did have the benefit of undermining the unbending Castro anti-Yankee discourse and completely exposing the lack of political will of the dictatorship to take advantage of the US measures that, if permitted to be carried out as Obama conceived them, would have meant prosperity for Cubans, in particular for the incipient businesses that emerged under the timid attempt of the so-called “Raúl reforms.”

In any case, the “failure” of a rapprochement policy that did not have enough time to show results – and it is known that time is a category of capital importance – was not due to the supposed ingenuity of the American president but to the inveterate stubbornness and totalitarian vocation of the Castro regime. If the dictatorship responded to the flexibilizations of its northern neighbor with repression against dissent and the suffocation of the private sector, it is an account that we cannot attribute to Obama or the restoration of relations, as certified by decades of arrests, imprisonments, executions and despotism that took place in Cuba under the pretext of the existence of the powerful “external enemy” long before the Obama era.

If the dictatorship responded to the flexibilizations of its northern neighbor with repression against dissent and the suffocation of the private sector, it is an account that we cannot attribute to Obama

And since time is a consideration, it is worth remembering that, in fact, in about a year and a half after the restoration of relations between Washington and Havana, the US measures of flexibilization allowed thousands of tourists from the U.S. to enter Cuba, which brought discrete economic benefits, not only for the tourism industry of the Castro regime, their native entourages and their foreign associates, but also – to the alarm of the olive-tree hierarchs who felt threatened by the sudden rise of self-employed Cubans – for a considerable number of private businesses, especially those dedicated to lodging and food services, which in turn generated many jobs associated with their respective facilities.

The election of Republican Donald Trump in November 2016 and his inauguration on January 20^th, 2017 not only put an end to the brief era of diplomacy, but it has constituted a clear setback in the rapprochement initiated by his predecessor, to the delight of the recalcitrant opponents to dialogue.

A delight that, nevertheless, is not justified in certainty, since until now Trump does not seem to have intentions to make the two great demands of the most radical sectors a reality, that is: the rupture of diplomatic relations with the Cuban Government and the reestablishment of the ‘wet foot/dry foot’ policy, repealed by Obama a few days before leaving power.

Interestingly, fundamentalists on both banks remain silent on this point. And in general, whether he’ll act or not, Trump remains the unquestionable hero of the fanatics in Cuba.

The silence of the anti-dialoguers is more outrageous these days, when the arrogant Donald Trump has declared his intention to establish a dialogue with none other than the current North Korean satrap

But the silence of the anti-dialoguers is more outrageous these days, when the arrogant Donald Trump has declared his intention to establish a dialogue with none other than the current North Korean satrap, the mass murderer heir to the long power of the Kim dynasty. And this is not necessarily a political error for Trump. In any situation it is more desirable to resolve differences with words and agreements rather than with missiles, especially nuclear missiles.

Only that, following the logic applied to the Obama-Castro dialogue, wouldn’t this President of the world’s greatest power also be “legitimizing” a miserable dictatorship that represses and murders its people? Where are the angry defenders of human rights who are so offended by the US-Cuba dialogue? Could it be that some dialogues are “good” and others “bad”? And in this last case, who is the referee that defines the appropriate adjective in each case?

For the time being, and until they prove otherwise, everything indicates that the exalted atheists of the Cuban opposition have either run out of arguments or they were never very clear. Perhaps in reality what they understand as “politics” is just the reductionist and sectarian vision of a bench of most passionate sports team fans. And there are still some who think of themselves as presidential leaders for the future Cuban democracy. God help us!

Translated by Norma Whiting

_____________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

However, the details offered and the terrible picture described are not surprising. Ordinary Cubans are perfectly familiar with the depth and magnitude that corruption has reached in Cuba, since it is part of the everyday reality and covers practically all aspects of life.

Ordinary Cubans are perfectly familiar with the depth and magnitude that corruption has reached in Cuba, since it is part of the everyday reality and covers practically all aspects of life

Omissions when disclosing the number of corrupt individuals in the article is not a big surprise either. There is no mention, for example, of the agents of the National Revolutionary Police and the officials of the Inspectorate, or of their habitual practices of extortion to offenders or the acceptance of bribes; crimes committed with the greatest spontaneity and absolute impunity.

If Barredo is Cuban and wants to appear honest, he cannot and should not dismiss the grave fact that corruption has penetrated so deeply that it also undermines the official institutions called in to combat it in the first line of fire.

Corruption in Cuba is like an unbeatable hydra that owes its success and persistence to its double function, apparently contradictory. On the one hand, it erodes the moral foundations of society, while on the other, its role as provider makes it an essential resource for survival in a country that is biased by shortages and instability.

Not wishing to justify crime or to minimize the perniciousness of the damage it causes, corruption in Cuba is an inevitable evil, at least under current conditions. Not because the population of this Island has a natural propensity to transgress the law, or a spontaneous will to commit a crime, but because corruption is an inherent, and also pernicious, sociopolitical and economic system imposed six decades ago, whose makers still hold the absolute political power.

Not wishing to justify crime or to minimize the perniciousness of the damage it causes, corruption in Cuba is an inevitable evil, at least under current conditions

One of the glaring omissions that stand out in Barredo’s article is that, unlike other nations of the world where corruption “is a cause of moral crisis and a discredit to governments and parties”, in the case of Cuba “this scourge is concentrated in the fundamental, in the managerial, and in the administrative management”.

The article takes for granted the immaculate integrity of our leaders, especially the political leadership, a fallacy that is also a manifestation of corruption by its author, since among the essential functions of the honest press are, among others, the questioning of political powers and the responsibility or the public opinion mobilization based on its link to the truth.

Thus, from the author’s discourse, the Palace of the Revolution not only stands out as the last stronghold of wholesomeness remaining on the Island, but in addition, the olive-green dome does not have any responsibility in the chaos and decay that undermine the country to its foundations today.

Perhaps this explains the plea for the masses – at once victims and beneficiaries of corruption – to wage another transcendental battle in the abstract in which the enemy isn’t (though not directly) “the US imperialism”. Now it’s about a much more dangerous subspecies that threatens the existence of the Cuban sociopolitical “model” in our own home.

This explains the plea for the masses to wage another transcendental battle in the abstract in which the enemy isn’t not the “U. S. imperialism”

This is a really surrealist battle which has already been lost, considering how difficult it is to imagine, for instance, a family’s humble mother betraying the illegal reseller who provides her with milk at lower prices than those at the retail stores that sell in hard currency, so that she can have it for her son’s breakfast because his right to milk on the ration card was terminated when he turned seven. Or when someone’s conscience might lead him to clash with the speculator who guarantees a sick family member the essential medicine missing from the shelves of the pharmacy networks.

According to the article, the hardened hosts of incorruptible “honest citizens” – that is, a non-existent category – should confront those who are corrupt: ambitious officials, enriched self-employed workers, notaries and judges who falsify documents or accept bribes, street resellers, merchants of agricultural products, employees of hard and national currency stores, people who evade taxes, food service employees, doctors who accept payments, and others.

One doesn’t have to be a genius to conclude that, although all of society is involved in corruption, the causes of its existence concern only those who decide the country’s policy

Barredo’s story of crooks (with significant exclusions, it must be noted) is almost as infinite as the causes of the proliferation of corruption, which discreetly remains silent. Let’s list some: the incompatibility of wages and the cost of living, the availability of food and any other kind of commercial items available for sale, which is much inferior to the demand for them, unemployment, generalized poverty, government hold back on private initiative and the productive capacities of the population, demonization of prosperity and wealth, society’s high dependence on the State, excessive centralism, absence of freedoms…

Consequently, it is not necessary to be a genius to conclude that, although corruption involves the entire society, the causes of its existence concern only those who decide the country’s policy, so that the solution to the problem depends essentially on them.

It’s a pity that the impunity of the political power in Cuba is the only thing that reaches, or perhaps surpasses such colossal magnitudes as corruption. This is why the beginning of the end of corruption will only take place when the system that empowered and sustains it disappears.

At the moment, everything indicates we will have corruption for a while.

Translated by Norma Whiting

________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

The request might help Fabiola mitigate, to some extent, the high retail costs of disposable diapers which her mother’s severe incontinence demanded

It was for this reason that Fabiola decided to go through the process, knowing that, aside from the high cost of adult diapers, there are often cyclical crises due to shortages of such an essential product.

She also knew that in the neighboring municipality of Old Havana there is a regular system of elderly care, a service introduced by the City Historian, by virtue of which the coveted diapers for elderly bed-ridden residents of that municipality are distributed, with duly accredited prior medical certification.

All this is possible, of course, “subject to availability,” a pretext coined by some astute official, which is almost as useful as “the imperialist blockade” since it can be conveniently applied by official institutions in the face of any shortage situation.

However, Fabiola thought that the public health system, and in particular social services, because of their unique and national character, would function the same way in each municipality, and decided to try her luck in hers. Her second mistake was, then, to attribute some margin of efficiency and functionality to an official institution.

Almost four months later, after a telephone call and after thoroughly confirming personal details of the patients and Fabiola – labeled “caretaker” – a kindly clinic employee notified her that “it was her turn to pick up the module” in the establishment assigned to her, where she had to go and present the “receiver of the benefits” to get the expected help.

The new ‘module’ consisted of 12 bars of soap, one and a half meter of antiseptic fabric to fashion a strap for the patient’s bed, a rubber bed pad and a thin, small towel.  No diapers.

The employee explained that “that is all there is.”  After all, she punctuated, “it’s free and it’s something.” And she also said that the modules could be accessed every six months, as long as the patient’s medical certificate was presented that would certify the patient’s status.

The new ‘module’ consisted of 12 bars of soap, one and a half meter of antiseptic fabric to fashion a strap for the patient’s bed, a rubber bed pad and a thin, small towel

With her ephemeral exercise of faith deflated, and after recognizing her unjustifiable slip, Fabiola decided to close and forget that chapter. She would continue as before, resolving everything necessary on her own, attending to her mother with the same specialist doctors, who were her friends, and made house calls to her mother, and – if necessary – appeal to her relatives abroad to get whatever medicine or help they might need.

But believing that she would be unscathed when using the system’s controls was the third and most naïve of her mistakes. Because when Fabiola – who for decades stayed out of the government’s health system – gave in to the temptation to officially register her mother’s “case,” she was not only attributing credibility to a proven ineffective institution, but was making an attempt against one of her most precious personal assets: her privacy.

It turns out that the Cuban socio-political regime is precisely designed to invade one’s privacy, to blur the individual into “the mass” and to create in the population that humiliating feeling of commune or flock in need of the Government’s protection, which favors in the first place the acquiescent assimilation of official controls disguised as “protection of the population” – invasions of private spaces by fumigators and inspectors under the pretext of eliminating vectors (which are never eradicated), or untimely and unsolicited visits from the family doctor or nurse, among other intrusions – and collaterally establishes as a social norm of mutual vigilance, promiscuity, vulgar egalitarianism, envy and mistrust among neighbors, for all of which there are mass organizations, the different meetings of the so-called People’s Power and all the institutional entelechies conceived by Castro over decades of totalitarian power.

Now, since she applied for Social Assistance “help,” automatically turning her mother into a statistic of the system, Fabiola – who is a rare Cuban journalist who does not belong to any political or mass organization, does not vote, does not participate in neighborhood meetings or popular festivals, does not like gossiping or personal confidences, does not meddle in the lives of others or give advice and does not cause discomfort or allow the invasion of neighbors or strangers into her home – has started to feel that her house is a kind of besieged square, under the merciless harassment of state officials.

With her candor, Fabiola and her family had fallen into the system’s networks, which now tried to breach her impenetrable privacy, something that in Cuba is considered a remnant of a decadent bourgeois, incongruent with the project of eternal socialism to which we Cubans aspire, according to the Constitution.

As a result, in recent weeks the doctor and the family nurse have insisted (in vain) on intruding in her house at any time of the day to “see the patient”

As a result, in recent weeks the doctor and the family nurse have insisted (in vain) on intruding into her home at any time of the day to “see the patient,” while the municipal Social Assistance office has recently sent her an employee with an extensive questionnaire that sought to collect, in addition to the personal data of those who inhabit the house, the income of each one and its origin, the occupations, the number and brand of electrical appliances they own, how many rooms they have, monthly expenses for gas, electricity, food, and a host of intimate details that Fabiola, true to her custom, refused to answer.

“Tell your bosses that none of that is any of their business, and that it’s already very clear that I never should have and will never again request your ridiculous ‘module,’ so don’t send me anyone else because I will not see them. Do you ask all these indiscreet questions to the bunch of decrepit old men who rule this country? Or do they not need those alms? Because many of them are old enough for adult diapers. Also tell them that my mother is perfectly well taken care of, and it’s not thanks to the Revolution”.

The young official, stunned, feverishly took notes on a blank piece of paper writing, perhaps for the first time, an official report without information. She felt uncomfortable and frustrated, and probably thought that Fabiola was as crazy as her mother. Which could be true, because Fabiola has the extravagant madness of behaving like a free individual in a slave society. In fact, this has always been the greatest of her abilities.

Translated by Norma Whiting

___________________________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Some analysts argue that the confrontation between both tendencies is what has caused the advances and setbacks of the limited lead-ins to the euphemistically called self-employment (private sector), whose restraint restrictions and current setbacks seem to indicate an eventual predominance in power of the most conservative tendency.

One of the theories that immediately circulated to account for the delay was the disagreement between two supposed tendencies in the top leadership: one reformist, and the other conservative

However, a more objective analysis of the Cuban reality, based on the experience of the last decade, from the time Raúl Castro assumed power, in any case, shows that the struggle has been taking place between two equally conservative tendencies, only with different degrees of stubbornness, but whose common final goal is the preservation of the status quo that guarantees the retention of power in the elite group of the anointed that includes both factions.

Consequently, the Cuban political class – that socially differentiated and privileged caste – does not include a sector headed by Raúl Castro with a true reformist vocation and a desire for profound changes. Those who interpret it thus, seem to forget the strategic position that the current president occupied during the 47 years of government under his brother and mentor.

What clearly seems to exist is a segment that is more reactionary than any other within the same caste of anointed ones, whose common interest – the preservation of their political and economic power – seems to be much stronger than their differences, regardless of whether there are gut struggles aiming to divide shares of power, previously a one-man show, but currently showing clear signs of fractioning.

Differences exist in methods, rather than in ends, used to prolong, as long as possible, the greater share of the power of the elite. The most lucid understand that the changes that urgently need to be implemented in Cuba have the double edge of being, at the same time, the only possible way to ease and eventually beat the economic crisis, the catalyst that would accelerate the collapse of the so-called “Cuban socialism.” At this point, it is fitting to remember the general-president’s not so casual phrase that he was not put in his position “to destroy the Revolution.”

It is likely that, regardless of their stances, both positions favor a search for pacts rather than a disruption that might sweep the board

It is likely that, regardless of their position as “reformists” or “Stalinists” in Cuba’s ever unknown political front, both positions favor the search for pacts rather than a disruption that could end up sweeping the board, especially with “the historic” octogenarian gerontocracy, who have been directly responsible for all the disasters of the last 60 years. In such a case, the arranged equilibrium between these two sectors of the same caste would have prevented the progress of the self-proclaimed liberal measures introduced by Raúl Castro in the first half of his term, between 2008 and 2013.

Those who, years ago, bet on Raul Castro’s supposed pragmatic spirit and his fictional organizational capabilities to at least aspire to economic advances in Cuba, have been let down. The general crisis has deepened, while the gap between the Government and the governed widens day by day.

What is most paradoxical in this case is that, if the general-president – despite his bleak past – had had just minimal audacity and independence, he could have established himself as the facilitator of a peaceful and orderly transition towards democracy in Cuba. To this end, he was holding such aces as the vast majority of Cubans’ desire for change, the willingness of the US to establish dialogue, the relaxation of Barrack Obama’s government views towards relations with Cuba and the rapprochement of the European Union. However, he chose to maintain a position of subordination before the dark shadow of his brother and of all the elements that sabotaged his proposals.

Consequently, if there is something the olive-green baby brother has shown all these years of lost opportunities, it has been his mediocrity and insecurities at the time of assuming the helm, as well as his cowardice to take on the challenge. That is the true legacy he will leave for History.

If there’s something the olive-green baby brother has shown all these years, it has been his mediocrity and insecurities at the time of assuming the helm, as well as his cowardice to take on the challenge

However, though not meaning to establish absolute judgment, it is quite unlikely that the outgoing president will surprise us with some solution that he has not proposed in the previous ten years, so clumsily dilapidated. There are 80 days left of Raúl Castro’s government – at least in his visible period at the head of government – and the inefficiency of his mandate is an established fact.

The volume of pending issues that he will leave his successor –monetary unification, electoral law and economic reforms, elimination of the ration card, increase in foreign investment, or the simple promise of a daily glass of milk for every Cuban, among many more – far surpasses the funds that he will leave in the nation’s coffers when he finally makes the symbolic handover of the presidential chair.

It is possible that the 55 days of the “Raulista” moratorium, from February 24^th to April 19^th, will have more to do with the shuffling of cards of an undoubtedly difficult succession than with any strategic proposal for the future Government, which – supposedly – is already outlined in the Party Guidelines and will guarantee the continuity of the Castro legacy until 2030, at least at the legal level.

It is very possible that the new president of 11 million Cubans will “ask permission” of the Assembly to keep the old general as permanent adviser to the “new” Government

If the purest dictatorial tradition remains – and to date there are reasons to suppose that’s what will happen – on April 19^th, when the 605 parliamentarians elect the person who will figure as president of 11 million Cubans, he “will ask the permission” of the Assembly to keep the old general as permanent adviser to the “new” Government; a pernicious and permanent contract, not written or recognized in the Constitution or the Electoral Law, but one that would legitimize de facto the perpetuation of the dictatorship from the shadows of a simulated retirement.

For those of us who have lived through almost six decades of the Castro regime, April will not bring many surprises, but there is no doubt that the departure of the general-president projects a certain and inexplicable sense of relief within the opposition in Cuba. Not because the new president means a promise of prosperity and bliss, but because the lineage of the Castros has marked a disastrous sign in the hearts of Cubans. Many of us want to think that the era of the darkest and longest dictatorship is becoming blurred and that it will continue to fall in the future. Until its end.

Translated by Norma Whiting

________________________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

What specific strategies does the State-Party-Government intend to use to overcome the countless obstacles that continue to arise in the unbearably long path of “socialism” or, very specifically, what kind of calculation was used by experts in the field to announce the 2017 final results as a miraculous growth of the Gross Domestic Product, despite the negative results of the first semester, the contraction of oil subsidies from Venezuela, the increase in pressure from the US embargo and the devastating effects of natural events such as the severe drought in the first half of the year and the intensity of the September hurricane, which caused considerable economic damage.

However, like it or not, official reports are required to reflect at least some figures. And it is precisely at this point that the seams of the system come to light

However, like it or not, official reports are required to reflect at least some figures. And it is precisely at this point that the seams of the system come to light, the slips jump out here and there and the nakedness of the king is exposed. The making of a show of imagination deployed from the official quackery is one question, and it is quite another, very different, to synchronize those speeches with the stubbornness of numbers, which have no commitments to ideologies or policies.

In this sense, the project of the State Budget presented to the Assembly by deputy Lina Pedraza Rodríguez, also Minister of Finance and Prices, is perhaps the most difficult of the cabalistic exercises of the administrators of misery.

Pedraza has the unpleasant task of not only declaring the very questionable results of the fiscal yearend in relation to the budget assigned – revenues exceeded forecasts by 2.3% – but also announcing other equally contestable figures, such as the quantities that will be assigned to the so-called Economic Plan. All this must be done without ever declaring the amount of the aforementioned Budget, and to do this, the ruling party often uses a simple trick: some figures are offered in percentages, while others correspond to exact numerical quantities.

Thus, for example, Cubans are up to date on 2018’s budget, which will be 6% higher than that of the year now ending – whose amount we never knew – and that the sectors of the Health and Education, as a “paradigm of social justice and protection of human rights” will have priority over 55% of the resources.

Cubans are up to date on 2018’s budget, which will be 6% higher than the year ending -whose amount we never knew- and that the Health and Education sectors will have priority over 55% of resources

We also know that 8.18 billion pesos will be allocated to “education in general” – which includes 1,960,000 students at all levels of education – and that Public Health will receive a total of 10.56 billion pesos for all its services, from medical consultations and expenses for patients admitted to the “development of specialized rooms” and dental services, among others.

Social Security will have 6 billion pesos for its expenses (5% growth in relation to the previous year) to guarantee the pensions of more than 1,700,000 people and “short-term benefits,” such as maternity leave and other benefits.

As a sample key of “the measures that the country is adopting to face the aging of the population,” the budget has allocated an amount (not declared) “for the care of more than 13,000 elderly people who attend grandparents’ and nursing homes, which confirms the humanistic character of our system.”

Now, if the simple mathematics “rule of three” is applied, it can easily be calculated that those 13,000 elderly people attended to in specialized state institutions – since there is no approval for this type of service in the private sector – constitute only 0.76% of the country’s retirees, a ridiculously insufficient figure that contradicts the spectacular humanistic character of the political system, in a country where the only indicators that are undoubtedly increasing every year are poverty and the number of elderly.

“More of the same”, some may have muttered to themselves, but they are wrong.  It is the same, yes, but with much less

Also note that the reference numbers correspond to what in Cuba is usually called “Cuban pesos,” that is, currency that cannot be converted into foreign currency, and, since there are two different rates of exchange – 1×1 for legal persons; 1×25 for natural persons** – a vagueness is created that prevents knowing exactly what amounts are involved.

However, it can be assumed with almost absolute certainty that the figures provided by the State Budget are not reported in the Cuban convertible peso or any equivalent to foreign currency, so it is a ridiculously small amount, just to alleviate some of the numerous and pressing economic and social problems that they must face.

“More of the same,” some of us few Cubans who had enough mental health and stoicism to immerse ourselves in the dark labyrinth of official reports must have said to ourselves. But we are wrong: it is the same, yes, but with much less, although they are trying to convince us otherwise.

 Translator’s notes:

*Roughly $308 million USD.

**In jurisprudence, a natural person is a person (in legal meaning, i.e., one who has its own legal personality) that is an individual human being, as opposed to a legal person, which may be a private (i.e., business entity or non-governmental organization) or public (i.e., government) organization.

Translated by Norma Whiting

___________________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.