Category: Translator: Norma Whiting

These days, mothers of babies are in search of disposable diapers, missing from almost all stores of Havana. Shortage crises of such articles take place every once in a while, a product that is so useful, and needed so desperately by mothers today, and despite being marketed only in convertible currency. Gone are the days when women had to boil with soap again and again our children’s antiseptic cloth diapers, and hang them in the sun to keep them pure. Fortunately, these days women have left behind slave labor to take up, as far as possible, the benefits of innovations, however expensive that may imply in Cuba.

But the same is true with other essential items, such as sanitary napkins and cleaning articles like mopping cloths, descaling products, toothpaste, detergents and toilet paper, among others, whose intermittent disappearances from store shelves become a nuisance to the people, given how much time is wasted in pursuing such products, going from store to store, many times without results.

On the other hand, some other popular products that are more “economical”, such as butter — for months absent at the foreign currency stores, the only place where it could be purchased — some chopped poultry (such as Canadian chopped turkey, the most popular), hot dogs, and many others, without any explanation on the part of store management… and even fewer explanations through the official “information” media.

Cubans, with a deep awareness of insularity, sown from the very beginning of the colony, without information about what drives these empty spaces on store shelves, and for decades used to not having anything produced here and everything coming “from outside”, have coined a phrase, half joke and half truth, to explain the shortages: “the boat has not arrived”. A kind of imaginary vessel that could come full of anything that has disappeared, from flour, needed to make bread (oh, the favored bread, the first point in the Cuban political agenda!) even the spices that caused so many wars in antiquity and, for many here, almost entirely unknown, or oil with which we cook our humble daily rice. Just comment anywhere that there is a shortage of anything for the popular answer to make its appearance: “they are waiting for the boat…”

A grocer in my neighborhood is of the opinion that we don’t need for the boat to arrive, but a flotilla to take us all out of this Island, while an illegal loudmouthed street vendor of air freshener and clothespins disagrees and has an easier solution: “Nah, with just one boat they can take all of THEM and their relatives, and you will see that then there won’t be any shortages!” In our Cuban cryptic language we all know who “THEY” are. These are quaint touches of everyday life that begin and end in such a castaway complicity as sterile as the system itself.

So, these days, Havana mothers anxiously await “the boat” of disposable diapers with which to alleviate, at least to the extent allowed by each pocketbook, the burden of keeping babies clean and neat, without ruining hands, nails, and wasting time in the process. And meanwhile, they pray that soap and many other cleaning products won’t fall in the cycle of disappearances, just in case the ever-awaited “boat” is delayed.

Translated by Norma Whiting
19 July 2013

It is Sunday, July 7th, and in Centro Habana, only the Belascoaín and Zanja Bank ATM is working.  The line is long and wide. The other two ATMs facing Zanja are empty of funds and the Banco Metropolitano, of course, is closed today.

The line is two and three people deep, and they are chatting among themselves.  It is made up of several dozen people wishing to withdraw funds.  They had trekked, without success, through several ATMs in the city to finally end up at the only functioning one, at least in many blocks around.  People cannot understand what is happening.

A young girl comments that she has been at the ATMs at Galiano and Monte and they are out of commission; a middle-aged gentleman came from Calzada Infanta, where he found two ATM’s were also out of commission.  Another person is sure that the one at Monte and Infanta is out of funds. The one at Carlos III, corner of Marqués González is not working.  In fact, the same ATM (CADECA) at this location and the one at Infanta and Estrella have been closed for the past few weeks. Not just a “bump” that occurred today, but something that is happening regularly. It is rumored that some CADECA’s have been “shut down permanently”, though nobody knows why, so –as usual, in the absence of official information- speculation is running wild.

And, since everything that is “is shot out” here ends up as nonsense and, since every bit of  nonsense is possible in Cuba, each person has his own theory on the subject, and those who are “informed” are never far, the ones with a friend or relative working in banking or finance, so they know more than the rest of us mere mortals. So the word out on the street is that “they are going to unify both currencies, so they are reducing the circulating currency”; that “there is a lot of counterfeit money, so the government wants to detect it and take it out of circulation by closing down the ATMs (?); that there is “no liquidity”; that the network is down”; that “the armored trucks broke down”; that “they discovered a chain (another one) of corruption on the part of many employees and bank executives, so they have ‘frozen’ all the ATMs” and a whole lot of  other rumors that would be funny if it not were for all the obstacles against the rights of people to their own financial property.

“Efficiency” is the general-president’s vocabulary word. However, the use of banking digital technology in Cuba has never resulted in monetary transactions that are efficient, simple or optimal in the service that should be expected, theoretically.  It is just like applying technology all at once in the Paleolithic era. So in stores that accept only foreign currency, the procedure to pay with a card issued by the National Bank is that a person goes through the hassle of simultaneously handing over his identification, writing down his name, address and “customer’s” card number on a form, and signing a receipt that will be carefully filed under the cash register. That, as long as the rare and happy event that the “network is not offline”, while people line up behind the owner of the card to transact their payment. And, paradoxically, the public gets upset and impatient at the customer who pays with the card or with the cashier who has to go through the steps of the complicated procedure.

But back to the line at Belascoaín this Sunday, a 70-something grandmother finally showed up with her hypothesis: “perhaps last night’s thunderstorm affected the functioning of ATMs. Maybe a lightning bolt; these things run on electricity… who knows!” To which a wise old man, with an expression of mischievous complicity, quickly replied: “Yes, ma’am, it was probably lightning, but not one that struck last night. This one struck in 1959 and the truth is that it ruined everything!”

Translated by Norma Whiting

12 July 2013

There is an old tale about a husband who comes home unexpectedly and finds his wife in bed with a pair of men’s feet sticking out from under the covers. Angered by her infidelity, he challenges: “Slut!, whose feet are those?” To which she, serenely, replies: “Oh, husband, you never ask me where the food you enjoy so much comes from, which we could never afford on your salary, or how I manage to pay all the bills with the meager amount you give me, and how we get to the end of the month without any hardships…” to which the husband, after pondering for a minute, wisely answered: OK, wife, but at least cover those feet”.

Obviously, the husband in this story was not exactly a two-timed husband; he had simply miscalculated. Just like what happened to the official organ of the Cuban Communist Party, the Granma Newspaper, when it recently published an accusation, without names, proof, or foundation, against executives of the Interest Section of the United States in Cuba (SINA) for “having accepted bribes from Cuban citizens for granting them visas” and to the US government in Washington for “profiting from applicants who want to travel for family reasons”.

The source Granma echoes, without investigation or process, is an article published on the blog of one of the most perverse Talibans of the regime, which is, so far, just a scam designed to create some new intimation in the regime’s ever-belligerent relations with the U.S. government, who knows with what dark intentions.

But the net they cast is not entirely barren: the use of calculations using the official media is always a good opportunity for reviewing one’s math, which never lies. Managing the numbers involves the possibility of multiple interpretations about the same phenomenon, not necessarily what the sources of the data intended, as in this case.

I would suggest to readers, for their entertainment, a practical exercise: let’s assume for a moment that Granma’s information was completely accurate and that the figures provided by the author of the scam-article are also accurate. That is, in an infinite display of our imagination let’s play at pretending that Granma is a trustworthy newspaper and let’s do the same calculations from the opposite angle.

We would have to assume, then, a scene of 600 Cubans applying for visas every day in the U.S. Interests Office in Havana, each of whom had paid 100 CUC at the offices of the Ministry of the Interior to get their passports, leaving the regime a profit of 60,000 CUC per day, 300,000 weekly and 3,000,000 every ten weeks. All this in a country where 100 CUC is the equivalent of about six or seven times the average monthly salary of ordinary Cubans. And these would be just those Cubans who apply at the USIS and not all those who apply for visas in many other diplomatic offices throughout the capital, who also must have spent staggering amounts to acquire their Cuban passport.

We could add to that the minor detail that most of these Cubans who want to emigrate received the US dollars needed to get their passports from relatives living in the U.S., which turns the ugly little blue book which officially makes you a Cuban traveler –always a potential emigrant and a source of tension at each border where it’s presented- into one of the most lucrative businesses that the government has ever devised at the expense of its peoples. Barely without investing any more than cardboard and ink, with horrible print quality, the emigration industry continues to contribute, directly or indirectly, to the gerontocracy’s juicy dividends, essential principle and reason of the existence of some three million Cubans and their descendants scattered throughout the world.

And let’s not discuss the additional revenues, such as the famous health check to be performed on those wishing to emigrate permanently, at a cost of 400 CUC per adult and 200 per child, which will go directly into the Castro coffers. If the U.S. government approves 20,000 visas per year, and we assume, hypothetically, that half of them are intended for adults and half for minors: the Castro profit would be a total of 4 million CUC for adults and 2 million for children on an annual basis. We would still need to add the title certificates and other documents, with a cost of 200 CUC each in the International Consultancy. Add it up: the result it a not so negligible currency harvest, I’m just saying.

But this is only an imaginary calculation, since we have no official statistics from emigration offices. In fact, statistics in Cuba are like diseases: they make use of them only when they want to realize some advantage.

Now let’s focus on the sociological aspect of the matter. There are no precedents in Cuba’s history of such a huge number of nationals who want to travel, with a large percentage of those eager to emigrate permanently. Without stopping to find out among categories of political or economic émigrés, somewhat absurd in the case of Cuba, where the policy of a dictatorship of more than half a century has devastated the country’s economy, the steady exodus of nationals of all ages and backgrounds has become a plebiscite, especially since, for decades, most of those who leave the country are not the representatives of the clichéd “predatory oligarchies, sellers of the homeland and exploiters of the humble masses,” but the prospects of the New Man, born and raised under the ideological doctrines of the communist party, planted into power, i.e., the peoples; and because even those who only stay away from the country temporarily are part of a family fractured by emigration, a clear demonstration of the political and economic failure of the system.

Granma does itself quite a disservice with the publication of such an unfortunate article. Not only because it is the most eloquent manifestation of the huge levels of shamelessness achieved by the regime, but because it honors that sentence about excessive pride clouding reason.

At this point, I return to the story with which I began this review, where the Cuban government parallels the “cheated on” husband, the people: the wife whose favors ensure prosperity at home, and the “imperialist enemy”: the lover whose feet poke out from under the covers. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate if, instead of accusing someone, the regime took care to cover its own feet?

Translated by Norma Whiting

1 July 2013

This past Tuesday June 12th was for me a personal errands day in the hot Havana sun, the thick smog of the avenues and the usual dirty streets. It was one of those days that are doubly exhausting because of the slow pace at which life moves on the Island, the mundane nature of any movement, and the irritation of the people under the scorching summer that makes us wish we hadn’t left home. So I felt almost blessed when, at the end of the day, I managed to board a full almendrón*, on my way back home.

As is custom and folklore, the passengers were doing their daily catharsis with complaints about all small and great evils: our lousy public transportation service, the sweltering heat, the cost of living, the bad potato harvest, no one can live in this country, etc. Our driver, however, seemed determined to maintain a good mood and had an optimistic and comprehensive response for each complaint. He was a man of about 50 and seemed to know everything, as if he possessed the gift of universal philosophy. Heat?? “But ma’am, we should be happy for this climate. Don’t you know that there are countries where people are dying due to heat waves or, conversely, cold waves?” Transportation is bad? “Yes my friend, but in a pinch, at least ten little pesos seem to appear to pay for a car, right?”  The potatoes? “There are potatoes, but they are being kept in refrigerators so they won’t rot this rainy season in the fields.” Are the prices high? “Well, they’re doing a study to raise wages, you know.” The country? “It’s the best in the world. Here, anyone will lend you a hand and people will help.  In other countries, you can die and no one will lift a finger to help.” It seemed that this driver, in addition to being a philosopher, was a noted expert traveler and knowledgeable about the world.

But I was definitely amazed about the man’s infinite capacity to appease hotheads and his ability to spread a positive atmosphere inside the vehicle. I think that, deep down, I even thought he was right.  It must be awful to spend your whole day listening to complaints and disagreements, however profitable being an almendrón’s driver might be.

So we went on like this, balancing between the disgruntled and the peacemaker, until we got to the Esquina de Tejas and we had to stop for a red light. Then the driver noticed, on the porch of a nearby house, a group of street dogs: a female dog in heat and a gang of eager suitors wishfully sniffing at her, while a male dog was busy, in turn, sniffing the other dogs, loftily ignoring the female. Unexpectedly, the driver exploded and started yelling at the dog in question: “Sniff the female, you queer, the female!” And turning to the astonished passengers, red with anger, he almost shouted at us: “It turns out that being gay has become fashionable, and even dogs are trying it out! And I will not put up with that! What’s this country come to?” He snorted in a real fury, and accelerated violently when the light turned green.

Suddenly, the quiet philosopher was gone, and in his place emerged an irate homophobe, able to tolerate any of the many problems that plague the lives of ordinary Cubans, but not the right of the people (or dogs, obviously) to choose their own sexuality. Fortunately, none of the passengers backed his opinion and a heavy silence descended in the car until, with great relief, I got off at the corner of Infanta and Carlos III. I didn’t say goodbye.

Believe me, dear readers, this is my testimony, faithfully taken from real life.

*An Almendrón is a taxicab that operates as a small bus.

Translated by Norma Whiting

I’ve just returned from a short trip to Stockholm, Sweden, where I was invited by the government of that country to participate in the Stockholm Internet Forum, Internet Freedom for Global Development, which met on May 22nd and 23rd. While there, I had the opportunity to meet up with other Cuban activists living on the Island, with whom I participated on a Cuba seminar that took place at the Swedish Parliament, and a panel on freedom of the press in Latin America, at the press room attached to the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  Neither one of these activities were related to the event program.

In just a few days in Stockholm we visited a local newspaper, the headquarters of Reporters without Borders, the offices of ECPAT, a nongovernmental organization fighting against child prostitution and pornography and the trafficking of children, and the headquarters of The Civil Rights Defender. We were also invited to the launching of the book We Must Take the Police Out of Our Heads, edited by the International Liberal Swedish Center, a report on the Island’s reality between 1998 and 2012 and the peaceful struggle for democracy, from the perspective of the analyst Erik Jennische.

Of course, I managed to walk around and learn something about the city, its people and places.

Some regular readers have written to me, asking me to comment on this blog what I consider my most important impressions in this experience, and how they could be used in the struggle for rights in Cuba.  Personally, I was pleasantly impressed with the reception of Cubans who manage the magazine Misceláneas de Cuba, headquartered in Sweden, with whom we had the privilege of sharing through various meetings they set up for us, and I also met others whom I knew only through the mail up to then (as in the case of Hugo Landa) and the dozens of Cuban residents there and in other European countries that showed extraordinary solidarity with our Cuban struggle. Verifying the bonds that unite Cubans of all points of the diaspora is a source of inspiration and hope in the midst of the totalitarian drought in which we live.

On the other hand, the event’s sessions highlighted the technological backwardness and computer weakness in Cuba. In addition, many of the delegates expressed their solidarity with the cause of freedom of expression, information and news that Cubans are demanding. Some work strategies of various organizations and institutions in Sweden could be useful in the Cuban case, and we established links with them to implement proper agendas, in accordance with our reality.

A few yeomen of the guard were present among participants of this area, questioning our right to demand freedom when “Cubans have guaranteed free health care and education”. I will not repeat our answer to them, but suffice it to say that we did not see them again, nor did they try to boycott our public presentations, for their own good.

To those who have been so concerned about the funding of this trip, I will personally answer, not because they deserve it, but for the sake of transparency. I was invited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Swedish government, which generously assumed all costs for travel, accommodation and food. I take this opportunity to publicly thank from this space the many attentions received from all Swedish organizations I had contact with, and in particular said Ministry.

Finally, I hope that, in future editions of this Forum, Cuban participants will have the opportunity to tell a different reality than we have at present. As for me, I will continue to do everything possible to contribute to make it so.

31 May 2013

To my readers: As has become customary, our desdecuba.com has been hacked again for several days, therefore, I have not been able to update the blog. To my surprise, today I found out it could be accessed, but since I did not have a post ready to be uploaded, I will duplicate an article I wrote, published May 7 by Diario de Cuba.  Hugs to all, Eva-Miriam

And Telesur Says So

At first glance, it would seem that the Telesur TV channel — now live in Cuba — is the same as any other news program on national television. On Telesur, as in the regular channels in Cuba, the U.S. government is the great villain, enemy of peace and prosperity of the people, and equally villain are its allies, the government of Israel and the ever-evil “western powers.”

On Telesur, broadcast reports also indicate that the good-natured and just FARC vigilantes have the government of Juan Manuel Santos up against the ropes. He has been forced to sit at the negotiating table, while Bashar Al Assad is the paradigm of kindness for the Syrian people and the hope of Arab countries against Western domination.

Telesur shows how the hairy ear of the interventionist US imperialism hides behind all the conflicts of the world, with provocations against North Korea –- which for that reason has been forced to use the threat of nuclear war — or with its peculiar way of recruiting mercenaries to overthrow democratically elected governments around the world, mainly in Latin America.

Thus, for example, it could almost be said that there is no opposition in Venezuela, though in the recent elections it won almost half the electorate votes, but a fascist clique spurred from Washington, some of them Venezuelan congressional representatives, who had the audacity to “incite violence” when they were deprived of their right to speak and protest against it, the result of which was a brawl in which — curiously — those same “traitors” were the ones seriously injured by the violence of the ruling bloc.

All very simple, as in the old Western B-movies, the world is divided into good-just-because and bad-to-the-end.

This last weekend Telesur broadcast a report from China, where its correspondent in that country presented as a true gender advance that now Chinese women with larger incomes can have two children instead of the only child that the strict birth control stipulates. That is, couples with lower incomes than that officially established will not benefit from this change. Without a doubt, establishing social differences according to income is something that has become common in systems called “socialist.”

But Telesur is not exactly like Cuban TV, as some claim, because since, at the end of the day, it is a channel that broadcasts to the entire region, where the press is not the exclusive monopoly of governments, it is required to transmit images and events that occur daily in the world, and we know that images speak louder than words.

It doesn’t matter if figures and information are manipulated, the fact is that, for the first time, Cubans have seen and heard Barack Obama’s complete swearing-in speech of the oath of office, and we have also taken part onscreen in free and direct elections held legitimately in “sister countries,” such as Ecuador, Paraguay and even in Venezuela itself, complete with electoral campaigns, opposition, international observers, returns, complaints and all the ingredients of a democratic recipe that we have been denied for generations in our country.

In some twisted way, Telesur is a small chink in the boarded window of Castro’s totalitarianism. When there are contrasts, some light is cast. That is why so many Cubans watch some Telesur areas incredulous and in awe, such as a show called “Atomun” which, by detailing the latest technological advances that occur in the world, has the rare virtue of placing the natives of this island face to face with our enormous lack of computer technology and our appalling isolation compared to other XXI century societies which, paradoxically, have not had the advantages of half a century of “revolution.”

Whether they like it or not, Telesur reports to us from disinformation. And it appears that no one can say they are trying to deceive us. Their intentions to confuse are openly declared, even from their own presentation slogan: “Telesur, our North is the South.” And I say let whoever wants to be confused be confused.

Translated by Norma Whiting

10 May 2013

HAVANA, Cuba, May, www.cubanet.org- I’ve heard it said that hunger can affect vision permanently. For a while, I thought that this sentence was just a popular myth based on superstition, however, it turns out to be absolutely true. Hunger and other deficiencies cause, additionally, some distortions, such as lack of perception of reality and total lack of perspective.

This explains why, for many “inside” Cubans, almost everything is irrelevant and nothing transcends beyond the narrow confines of daily survival. Decades of material shortages and of totalitarianism have ruined the ability of a large segment of the population of the island to discern, despite the high levels of instruction exhibited by official statistics, turning subjects into slaves of their own elementary needs.

An example of this was the recent electoral process in Venezuela which showed, by comparison, how far we Cubans are from even reaching the first step of this difficult stairway filled with obstacles called democracy. While Venezuelans offered us a true example of civility by exercising their right to vote and to assert the power of suffrage — an unknown experience for millions of Cubans — the main concern of people on the island was the possibility of the start of a new era of blackouts and a new “Special Period” if the opposition candidate, Henrique Capriles, won. Paradoxically, many Cubans refer to Venezuelans as “crude,” “illiterate” and “ignorant.”

The combined action of the monopoly of information and direction, the lack of freedom of association and the manipulation of the press have been three basic mainstays which — together with the material precariousness of survival — have plunged the Cuban population in a deep ignorance that does not reflect the benign statistics. The Cuban case demonstrates exactly how the use of statistics has allowed the government to misinform the population and feed the national vanity. The farce, often repeated, has spread alarmingly, to the point that even many prestigious international organizations have recognized the “achievements” of the revolution in education and health and other indicators of social development.

The numbers, however, are fickle, and mask a reality very different than the image they project. Decades of incomplete, distorted and biased information have resulted in only a minority of Cubans possessing the ability to analyze issues related to politics, economics, or any event occurring in the world. The “masses,” meanwhile, form opinions from indoctrination and emotions… when they form opinions. Usually, the standard displayed among people faced with any matter not related to their daily subsistence is limited to an apathetic shrug of the shoulders.

The indifference and ignorance grow, while each year the statistics are more triumphant and less reliable. Let’s take the case of the training of doctors and other health specialists. The graduations are massive, but the quality of the graduates is generally very low. The levels of professionalism are often extremely poor and only a few dozen will stand out amid thousands of new doctors and technical personnel in each group.

The same applies to general education. Officially, it is stated that there is a teacher in every classroom, which is a lie. However, the worst thing is that there are hardly any teachers able to educate and instruct students, so both, the levels and the quality of education have declined dramatically over the years, particularly since the 90’s.

The proverbial ignorance of many of these “teachers,” coupled with their failure to educate, has forced parents to search for alternative solutions, such as hiring “tutors,” teachers who have been generally separated from the formal education system due to terrible wages and deplorable working conditions, and now teach in private education. This option has proven the effectiveness the official system lacks, and is marking a major schism among students whose parents can afford the expense of hiring the services of a private teacher and those who must make do with the meager knowledge they receive in classrooms.

But, in the meantime, the numbers and the official press continue out there. The statistics support the government fanfare about the advantages of the Cuban system, yet deceive public opinion by distorting, at the same time, society’s general opinion. The media revels, jubilant, in the advantages of the system. Perhaps this explains why Cubans see themselves as highly educated and intellectually superior to many other people in the region. Another deceit that, in some way, constitutes a small consolation after half a century of dictatorship that has erased the memory of a nation’s population.

Translated by Norma Whiting

10 May 2013

While Telesur and the official Cuban media distract us these days with Venezuela’s political brawls and other conflicts elsewhere in the world, I received a Twitter message on my mobile about the hunger strike just started by 46 Cubans from  National Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), a coalition of opponents that groups members in several provinces of the island, especially the eastern region.

Yesterday, they informed me that activists of the Pedro Luis Boytel National Movement, of the Rosa Parks movement, and of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo FN have joined the province of Camagüey sit-in. Indeed, from this very blog I have expressed, more than once, that I do not approve of hunger strikes as a method of struggle, but today I cannot but express my solidarity with these fellow travelers and respect and support their sacrifice.

The initial demand for the release of Luis E. Igarza Lozada, imprisoned and on strike as of 13 days ago, has even spread to some parts of the province of Matanzas. Posters, leaflets, graffiti and pot-banging protests have been supporting the strikers in various cities and towns of eastern Cuba, amid repression manifested in arrests, beatings, threats and suspension of cellular service to prevent the world from knowing about what happens in Cuba.

The best weapon the activists of the opposition can now count on in their just demand is our support and solidarity. Let’s use the means at our disposal so that they are not alone.  Let’s not allow the cymbals of the Palace of the Revolution, praising their Venezuelan ward, silence the peaceful struggle of our brothers in arms. Let’s boost their voices by spreading the truth about what is happening, and by demanding the release of all political prisoners. We can all be activists against Castro’s repression; do not forget that silence, fear, and indifference are the main allies of the oppressors.

Let’s make a difference.

Translated by Norma Whiting

22 April 2013

HAVANA, Cuba, April, http://www.cubanet.org-   On Monday, April 8th, Cubanet published an article by colleague Jorge Olivera Castillo (Equilibrar la Balanza), which was as surprising as it was regrettable. A fellow traveler who has proven his courage and integrity in the fight against the dictatorship and shared spaces with numerous members of the independent Cuban blogosphere should be more serious and careful when expressing himself.

Perhaps Olivera may have had a bad experience and some day he will understand that lies and veiled criteria do not replace opinions and arguments, but neither do I think it fit to keep silent in the presence of what I consider at least unfair and inaccurate, so to speak. I’m a blogger and freelance journalist, so I feel alluded to in his article and make public my displeasure.

Optimism should not be confused with “triumphalism”, as my colleague Olivera refers to the expectation triggered by the blogging activity of over five years, and also unfortunate is his question about “what the impact could be (of blogging) within national boundaries, when the vast majority of Cubans do not have a computer or internet connection possibilities”.

That observation is doubly unfortunate because, first, although most Cubans don’t have free internet access and that hinders full dissemination of our work, I do not see that any other dissident faction has better possibilities to present their proposals quickly and effectively, and second, because a significant number of bloggers have been the voice of many Cubans, which has proven useful when reporting violations and mobilizing solidarity for all repressed, including political prisoners, and especially the prisoners of the Black Spring.

Olivera asks “how many Cubans would be able to become tweeters, when each transmission costs a little just over a dollar in a country where the average salary is around $20 a month”, and I would ask him how many he thinks would be willing to march through the streets following opposition leaders, demanding their rights or protesting the against the excesses of government. I would also ask him why all those opponents, whose mobile phones are regularly recharged by friends and supporters from outside Cuba, are not tweeters, and what prevents a freelance journalist from opening his own blog and a Twitter account, thus strengthening his voice and those of others to the extent they are willing to do it.

It is possible that the ignorance of the complexities of the blogger phenomenon continues to produce some fears as to the feeling that this is a privileged caste. Many are unaware that maintaining a blog from Cuba has been a source of expense, rather than income, for us. We don’t charge for posting our ideas in a blog, but we have to spend our own money on cards to connect from public spaces in the city so we can keep our personal sites updated.

Our efforts aroused the sympathy and support of many friends who began to give us cards, helped open up many doors, and there even appeared some who were trained to upload our posts when we could not do it. Interestingly, before the renowned blogger Yoani Sanchez won her first Ortega y Gasset award, nobody seemed perturbed that there were at least five active independent blogs in Cuba, or worried about how we managed to post regularly on our web platform. In fact, hardly anyone knew what a blog was around here, and still there are those who are completely unaware of the use of this tool and perhaps that’s the reason they prefer to discredit it rather than to learn how to utilize it.

Another error is believing that the independent blogosphere is “the culmination of a process that spans more than three decades of sustained efforts on the part of hundreds of human rights activists, political opponents, independent journalists and librarians …”, not only because all social or political processes are heir to the accumulation of multiple previous experiences and circumstantial factors, but also because the blogger phenomenon does not represent a culmination in itself, but a conveyer of its own dynamism, barely a phase that will inevitably continue to transform itself into the evolution of civic struggle against the regime.

In fact, for a long time, several bloggers were previously in the process of developing intense dissident activity, either as independent journalists (as in the case of Yoani Sánchez, Reinaldo Escobar, Dimas Castellanos and this writer, among others), or as editors of the first digital magazine, edited and directed from Cuba, which -by the way- did not pay for the contributions of collaborators, since it absolutely lacked any funds or funding, which is why many independent journalists who today attack bloggers refused to collaborate in it then.

Therefore, it is not about that “bloggers reached dissidence”, but exactly the opposite: many dissidents -some hitherto unknown- became bloggers.

Of course, everything has a history, but not necessarily that which colleague Olivera indicates, but the key point is to understand who is considered sufficiently qualified or licensed to narrow historical margins and the inferences and influences of each phenomenon. In that vein, we should recognize the Indian Hatuey and Guamá as the parents of the current Cuban dissidence, for they were “first” in insubordination … We need a bit of contention, don’t you think?

Among the bloggers who now are now the focus of so much discredit -and not only from the authorities, apparently- there are some who had even belonged to opposition parties from before. It is not only about our “new generations” of dissidents. I take this opportunity to make a timely comment: there is no dissident pedigree that allots special merits to those who have been imprisoned or have “arrived before,” as the term is applied by the government, depending on whether or not someone came over on the yacht Granma, was in the Sierra Maestra or not, etc.

To my knowledge, no opponent has been imprisoned by choice but by the arbitrary and repressive sign of a government that we all fight against, that attributes itself the prerogative to select how, when and to whom to apply it, without anyone -before, now, or after- being able to consider himself a sort of supreme magister or chosen one because of it. I, for one, do not aspire to a “merit” that doesn’t even depend on my political performance, but on the sinister tricks of the Castros. The goal is to reach democracy, not the dungeons.

The alarmism that Olivera oozes in the mentioned article seems to derive more from a mixture of animosity and frustration than from some genuine concern, when referring to a supposed “over-dimensioning” for the use of the Internet as an anti-dictatorial tool, or when -at the opposite end, under-valuing such activism- he slips in the phrase “the main question takes route in intramural influence, and that probability is far from realization through the use of the web”.

With all due respect, it turns out to be more hilarious than offensive, but we need to be realistic: the existence of blogs does not block anyone’s dissident path, and we bloggers have never considered that the simple use of the Internet constitutes a kind of secret weapon capable of influencing, by itself, the collective consciousness within Cuba.

However, I would dare say that, since it is capable of creating solidarity networks, up-to-date underground information, and establishing bridges among the different forms and “political and civil entities”, such as Olivera terms them, the blogosphere has demonstrated ample capacity and efficacy. No wonder there have even been special programs dedicated to blogging activity and tweets broadcast on Cuban radio stations abroad reaching a large listening population on the Island. Perhaps the journalist should have researched beforehand with the dozens of tweeters in Cuba whose best weapon for protesting and personal defense has been precisely a cellular phone with a Twitter account.

I firmly believe that if Olivera had heard “rumors that could be the seed of unfortunate ruptures in near future”, he should have stopped them. Rumors only thrive on the receptive ears of those who are willing to pass them on. That may be why no one comes to “rumor” anything with me. I would not allow anyone to speak ill of the efforts of my fellow travelers, whether journalists, figures of the opposition parties, librarians, bloggers or tweeters. Anyway, the “reasons” for a scam are never as “obvious”, as the colleague claims.  The tangles are simply not rational, but emotional, and in all cases, counterproductive.

We could expand into a debate that, far from harmful, would be useful for banishing such an attitude, but it might be better to summon the “preoccupied” to a face-to-face discussion, without “rumors”. Suffice it to remind the colleague and those who have not heard it yet, that, to date, since its inception, the blogosphere has not only consolidated, but in its midst are people who are generous enough to share their knowledge and to multiply it in a community that increases the voice of numerous sectors of Cubans of all beliefs and leanings, thus shaping many who are now able to spread a whole spectrum of opinion and information that otherwise could not be accomplished in such a short time.

Personally, I would never dream of putting the work of any dissident group, or of that of any rebellious brother, on a “scale”. The efforts of all Cubans, on any shore and position, to achieve Cuba’s democracy seems invaluable to me.  It would be truly more productive for us not to worry so much about the visibility or the awards any of our colleagues receive.  Let’s celebrate their well-earned victories together, and above all, let’s take care to balance the underlying emotions.

Translated by Norma Whiting

19 April 2013

Preliminary Note to readers: For reasons way beyond my control, I did not have the chance to update the blog for many days. The Desdecuba.com page was hacked twice, and Yoani Sánchez and other friends are still trying to get it fixed. I am posting a new article, and I hope complete service will be established soon.  Thanks and hugs to all friends.

It’s true that in Cuba there is no freedom of the press. In its place, press licentiousness, as prolific and thorny as the invasive marabou weed, has developed. It is a peculiar way to “report”, and, as crazy as the results are, (or perhaps because of it), it’s very consistent with the system.

The press is one of the indicators that most markedly evidences signs of change, a constant that has an influence even in societies such as ours, where secrecy rules.  Some of the readers with sharper memories will remember that, during the period of Castro I, we experienced an absolutely triumphant press: all  the milestones of the three first decades of the revolution were positive, crop and livestock production grew each year, indicators of health, education, sports and culture marked an unstoppable upward course, the harvests were huge, and so were all the line-entries that heralded an economic splendor always knocking at our doors, without ever entering our lives.

Not even the 1990’s crisis was able to destroy the vibrant spirit of a kind of completely alienated optimism.  So the press repeated each inspired and inflamed phrase of the Great Orate, and we didn’t have food, clothing, shoes or fuel… but we did have “dignity”.  We also had the celebrated battle for Elián, one of the most resonant Pyrrhic victories in Cuban history, in which substantial resources were spent while people went hungry, and a while later we had “Five Heroes”… who, some day, will “return”. Then came the open tribunals each Saturday in different municipalities throughout Cuba, squandering what we didn’t have, and the absurd Round Tables were instituted.  The press had the mission to inflate the balloons that substantiated the indestructible success and the indisputable superiority of the tropical socialist system, despite the collapse of the USSR and the abrupt disappearance of subsidies.

But it has been under the period of Castro II that licentiousness of the press has reached its climax, especially in the heat of the “opening” marked by the so-called government reforms, where the economic parameters sealed the full apogee of an original way to “report” under which things are not what they seem, but something completely different.

This explains why, for example, official figures reported a modest GDP growth at the end of 2012, and, paradoxically, at the barely ending first trimester in 2013, an expanded meeting of the Council of Ministers acknowledged hereto unspeakable evils in the Cuban economy: lack of productivity, inefficiency, defaults, lack of organization and lack of discipline, among others, that prevented the fulfillment of the plans.  Nobody bothered to explain this strange way of “growing” by being unproductive.

Indicators of the progress of the harvest and sugar production were recently published, with very poor results, and, compared with the same period last year, a decrease in foreign tourist arrivals has been reported for the month of February, 2013 (full peak of tourist season). However, the press ensures that the investment plan will continue for that “priority sector” and that an increase in revenue is expected on this line-entry of this important economic sector.

The Moa nickel plant ceased production, however, the General-President insists on “the need to work to guarantee the assured external income, including those derived from the export of nickel and sugar”, although the country is forced to import sugar just to meet domestic demand. In his words, “we are moving at a great pace despite the obstacles”. With such news, it seems clear where progress is moving, but there is no doubt that this informative coven lurching between chaos and optimism is the mirror image of the national condition.

In short, the press turns out to be more licentious the more representative of the Castro II “transparency” it is. But there is nothing to wonder at, according to the dictionary of the Spanish language, some synonyms of the word “licentiousness” are: impudence, obscenity, indecency, dishonesty, shamelessness, among others. I guess that, once the terms are known, nobody will deny that licentiousness of the press in Cuba is enjoying perfect health.

Translated by Norma Whiting

8 April 2013

Last February 6th a note was posted on the digital space Cubanet regarding a TV Martí interview with Lech Walesa, the renowned Polish trade union leader and undisputed trailblazer of the democratic transition in his country, during his recent visit to Miami. This note summarizes some thoughts Walesa put forth apropos freedom in Cuba and the role of the internal opposition on the island, which has caused mixed reactions among some members of Cuban dissident groups.

Overall, we may or may not be in agreement with Walesa’s opinions, but I don’t think that his interests were particularly directed at mocking the dissidents. This is not an exceptional event either: with regard to the review of the situation in Cuba we know that from time to time someone appears who “knows” better than we do what must be done to end the dictatorship. Interestingly, that someone is seldom a Cuban.

But the matter comes up repeatedly, and this case brings with it other lessons, since the person rendering opinions is a recognized international leader, which implies that he enjoys the self-assurance of authority, in virtue of which his opinions may be assumed by others as absolute truths, or, at least, accepted as priori judgments. continue reading

A few days ago, a pushcart vendor in my neighborhood was complaining about a new government measure that will apply to his trade: soon, street vendors selling agricultural products, already proliferating throughout the city, will be forced to get a regulation cart from the State measuring one square meter, two levels to show the merchandise, and a roof. “Raúl’s cart,” as the device has been nicknamed, will cost the vendors 800 pesos, and this tax will be in addition to the recent increases that the “self” employed have endured. Another business that the government will benefit from.

The excuse by the authorities this time is that the vendors use any rolling contraption for selling their goods, with the resulting disfigurement of the city, and, in addition, there are too many illegal vendors, so “Raul’s cart” will serve to monitor violations by those who evade applying for a seller’s license, thus avoiding paying the tax. The cart will be, therefore, something that will grant legality to its owner, a kind of certificate of guarantee that, in a way, will support the inspectors’ jobs. continue reading

The recent ascent of the Cuban President-General to the head of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the silent tolerance or evident indulgence of thirty democratic nations, even before the arrogance that permeated his speeches, highlights the political cross-dressing of “our America”.

Some specific details on the speeches of Castro II, like lessons he offered his… counterparts(?) with regard to drug trafficking and consumption, based on the Cuban experience, on the strategic utility of the death penalty and the egregious disrespect he demonstrated against the will of the majority of the Puerto Rican people – who recently endorsed their sovereign decision to remain a commonwealth – when he expressed his regret at the absence of that island nation at the conclave, and his wish that one day it would serve on the CELAC, are just an example of how we need to advance the region’s democratic culture.

The General’s blunders were welcomed by undaunted representatives of Latin-American democracies attending the meeting, who even applauded the rudeness of the old former guerrilla, wearing a civilian costume for the occasion. So we attended, among smiles, compliments, and handshakes, the alliance of democratically elected governments in the region – whose countries have multiparty systems, freedom of movement, of expression and of the press, freedom of association and other civil advantages that embellish democracies – with the ancient Antillean satrapy, thus legitimizing his dictatorship. The new Latin-American principle was explicitly made: gloss over what they have termed “our ideological and political differences in order to consolidate “the unity of our sister countries” and maintain “the respect to self-determination” of each peoples.

Obviously, the thirty-plus Latin American governments meeting in Santiago de Chile decided that the totalitarianism imposed on Cuba is not only an “ideology”, but has long remained in power thanks to the self-determination of the Cuban people (though we have to admit that they may have a point in the latter). Perhaps Chavez’s oil, the subtle detail that the new capital of Venezuela is located in Havana or that the investments of certain Latin-American enterprises in Cuba might have had something to do with such regional empathy.

Another thing that was not clear to me was what commitments the Cuban government might have entered into with the CELAC chairmanship, what advantages Cubans could expect from those commitments and what the projections are for the medium and long terms as far as the progress of the Latin American and Caribbean countries. At least from what they aired in Cuba, the speeches were geared more towards historical references that would justify our supposed common identity, towards the need to overcome poverty, and the command to create a common front in the presence of powerful economies of the developed nations of the First World. Too many clichés in the speeches. As is customary, there were also many “what’s” but few “how’s”.

In this vein, while in Cuba’s interior the dictatorship does not give one iota about civil liberties, it flaunts the presidency of the umbrella organization of democratic nations in the region. The General’s aggressive speech, presenting the violence of the Cuban experience as the legitimate letter of the government, seems to enjoy the complicity of those attending the regional event while the loneliness and helplessness of the Cuban people escalates. The dictatorship’s summit has ended, and, as for me, if those governments exemplify our siblings, then I’d rather be an only child.

Translated by Norma Whiting

February 1 2013

A sign near the tunnel entrance reads: “Welcome to Havana, capital of all Cubans”. It’s a lie. For years, many Cubans have been literally captured and deported from the capital to the cities and towns where they came from originally, as if they were an unwelcome plague.

“Havana can’t take it anymore…” was the catchphrase of a song made famous long-ago in the 80′s by Los Van Van, whose lyrics, often vulgar, have been a kind of chronicle of what is officially approved to be divulged.

Los Van Van are not just tolerated by the authorities, but belong to an elite club of “artistic” government spokesmen. In fact, the old song was complicit in backing the segregationist government policy of expelling people from the provinces from the capital. continue reading