(Article originally published in the Diario de Cuba on July 8, 2011)
The recently published interview granted by Cuban-American businessman Carlos Saladrigas to Orlando Márquez, editor of the magazine Palabra Nueva of the Cuban archbishopric, has provoked numerous reactions on both sides–Cuba and Florida–although, of course, the official Island media have not even mentioned the matter. As expected, when the topic is about proposals of reconciliation and of Cuban expatriates’ capital investments, dynamite-charged intensification is expected, ready to blow up bridges or to place obstacles, though conciliatory opinions trying to find a middle ground do emerge, a peaceful balance between offers and opinions of the debating parties, though, as is often the case, these mediations are usually too restrained when they occur from within Cuba, since they remain frozen at the midpoint between the problem and their possible solutions.
The work I am using here as reference, in addition to the mentioned interview of Mr. Saladrigas–whose proposals I consider very attractive–are Vicente Escobal’s article (“Mr. Saladrigas, Don’t Count Me In”) recently published by Cubanet: the debate between Jesús Arboleya Cervera and Ramón de la Cruz Ochoa published in Espacio Laical Digital Supplement No. 137/July 2011, and González Mederos Leinier’s article (“Saladrigas Arboleya and the Debate on the Future of Cuba”), published in Digital Supplement No. 138/July Digital 2011 of the same venue. All texts consulted are just a sample of how complex and necessary the topic of the Cuban reality, the reconciliation, and the role of the different social actors on the future of the nation are, as well as the schism created by the tremors that have encouraged the Island’s government for over 50 years.
Vicente P. Escobal, in his personal interpretation of the proposal, criticizes Saladrigas for the project of reconciliation between Cubans (he refers to “Cuba and its Diaspora: the Challenge of Facilitating a Reunion” published in the “Espacio Laical” Digital Supplement of the Archdiocesan Laity Council of the Archdiocese of Havana), for considering it as an apology to the Cuban government, and he concludes that “If our aspirations are to “perfect” communism, to hand the executioners of the Cuban people a statement of “forgive and forget” and to betray the memory of our beloved martyrs, then, Mr. Saladrigas, don’t count me in”.
For his part, Jesus Arboleya, a political analyst associated with the Cuban Ministry of the Interior and the official academic sector, attacks Saladriga’s proposal due to his not being completely convinced of “his appreciation about the virtues of the market”; not only because they don’t harmonize with the socialist aspiration and vocation that he–by virtue of certain capricious and unknown statistics–considers generalized in the Cuban people, but because “the world is upside down and it’s the market’s fault, socialist ideas have never before been more alive in Latin America, and State intervention has even been necessary in the US in order to resolve the wrongs brought about by neoliberalism.
As for Leinier González, we will need to thank the conciliatory spirit that animates him–something that’s always timely when it comes to resolving tensions–and some notes about the objective reality of Cuba today, though at times his focus may be somewhat dreamy and not entirely in tune with Cuban conditions, and though he might have felt obligated to throw the occasional soft dart against the dissidence, when–referring to the work of Arboleya–he states: “I dare say that an intellectual effort has not existed from the Cuban opposition party (neither inside or outside Cuba) that has managed to equal, in quality and reach, the narrative defended by Jesús Arboleya”. As if Cuban intellectuals who oppose the government in Cuba were able to make use of the same editorial possibilities as that man, or if the many academic émigrés did not have their work solidly published outside Cuba. Naïveté, fear, ignorance or opportunism are impulses that, on more than one occasion, have clouded the best of intentions of the forums, and it is for that reason that I prefer to attribute this minor cluelessness of Leinier González instead of the rush that guided him at the time he partook in a debate so very important as to stop at trifles of this nature.
However, my intention now is not to analyze the ever-challenging issue of dialogue among Cubans, nor the obvious advantages or disadvantages of alleged Cuban-American businessmen’s investments in Cuba, but to insist on jumping the sharp contradictions of the official budget, including the brilliant arguments of the outstanding analyst Jesús Arboleya. And this is because when the market relations are so demonized that they would ultimately defeat a nonexistent socialism in Cuba, the defenders of the system are forgetting to make some proposal to inform us how prosperity and development may be achieved outside the market. At the same time, the selective amnesia of thinkers like this individual omits the existence of a strong middle class in Cuba, represented by sectors effectively linked to foreign capital and strongly correlated to the power strata. The same memory illness does not allow the analyst to include in the category of “dangerous” foreign capital business investment from Spanish, French and Brazilian investors, and even from the Chinese government, among others, operating since long ago in our territory, from which only the Cuban government draws profits, its narrow circle entrenched in solid interests and its foreign partners. Is this not about the demonic “concentration of capital”? Isn’t the combination of capital and absolute power the worst the worst monster created by the so-called “socialism”?
The Cuban-American dollars are, without a doubt, the “perverse capital”, though in reality they constitute one of the largest sources of foreign capital income on the Island and the financial support to tens of thousands of Cuban families. Cuban-American dollars and not “socialism” have achieved the survival and even the economic welfare of their relations in Cuba. Mr. Arboleya and the top leadership which he serves are well aware that Carlos Saladrigas’s proposals not only contribute to legitimate a source of prosperity essentially Cuban that would turn into a dangerous beginning of autonomy for many individuals in the country, but that it will eventually foster the growth of independent cells in civil society. Florida’s Cuban entrepreneurs’ capital and not just market capital would result in, at the end of so much detouring, the vehicle for that huge “perversion” known as Freedom.
Coco (Guillermo Fariñas) with a group of collaborators and friends during the Prince Claus Prize Ceremony for Yoani Sanchez
Recently a fellow Cuban living abroad and I exchanged views on the advisability of hunger strikes as a way to confront the dictatorship. The subject, of course, was motivated by the strike initiated by Jorge Luis Artiles (Bebo) last May 9, in the city of Santa Clara, and that was assumed on Friday, June 3, by Guillermo (Coco) Fariñas, when Bebo ended his faced with the danger of grave consequences to his health, too impaired to withstand a prolonged abstinence from food and water; that is, before the logical imperatives arising from the action he had voluntarily chosen. My colleague, who has a great admiration and affection for Coco, is, however–like myself–against hunger strikes. His position is that we must fight dictators with our lives. I fully agree with him.
Fariñas’ current strike, beyond the question of his demands which I do not question and also consider to be mine, puts back on the table an issue that goes beyond the particular aspects of the event: the appropriateness or otherwise of the method in each case. At the risk of upsetting the most sensitive, I think that as dissidents living immersed in totalitarian regimes, we must be more rational than passionate when the time comes to face off against the government, even if it implies–as our friend Orlando Luis would say–adding a dash of cynicism to our analysis. We have to consider first and foremost the real possibility of achieving a significant advance as a result of actions undertaken, such that they truly merit the sacrifice. With all due respect, health and life are too high a price.
That is why–although in hunger strikes there is, without a doubt, a huge portion of altruism, and an incredible individual willpower, as shown in the one Coco held between February 24 and July 8, 2010, and that influenced the release of dozens of political prisoners and of conscience–using the method as a standard device can be counterproductive and ineffective. The fact is, if every demand we have against the government, however just it might be, requires an opponent’s ultimate sacrifice, in a very short time we ourselves will have achieved the extinction of the dissent, to the delight of dictators.
The sacrifice involved in a hunger strike is well-known and the will required by the striker to overcome the demands of his own body, used as a weapon in the service of his cause, independent of whether or not the demands that motivate him are met, contains a dose of triumph, considering that even the death of the striker would constitute an accusation against the system. Eventually, however, this death would not be a guarantee that the government would accede to the striker’s demands. At the same time, in the difficult circumstances of Cuba today, much more than moral successes is needed. An opposition leader on the Island is much more useful alive than dead.
Nor should we neglect other collateral considerations, such as the circumstances within which events unfold. Many factors of external pressure and the existence of internal forces pushed us towards a favorable solution to the prisoner crisis and a successful end to Fariñas’ strike last year. Some of these internal factors were more significant, taking place simultaneously on the national and international stage: Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s death in prison which sparked the beginning of Fariñas’ strike; the worsening of the general crisis within Cuba, exacerbated by the scandal of the death of more than two dozen patients at the Havana Psychiatric Hospital; the force and visibility reached by the Ladies in White movement and the solidarity established among many civil society groups in favor of that movement and its cause also influenced the outcome.
For their part, foreign media covered the events taking place on the Island, expanding the possibility for the pressures of international public opinion to force the government to seek a solution. At the same time, the government was anxious to offer the world a gesture of good will–we recall the lobbying of Mr. Moratinos to try to lift the European Union’s Common Position–such that the General considered it opportune to demonstrate benevolence to those he had always classified as traitors and mercenaries. This, there was an understanding in which all parties could find an advantage, a requirement to achieve a pact.
The current scenario, however, is quite different from that; not because the acute sociopolitical and economic crisis in Cuban has passed, but because the international picture is extremely complex and events are unfolding that are coming to mark globally defined milestones. Some of these events are the wave of uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa which are drawing a new political scenario in the region; the crisis in Libya with the reluctance of Qaddafi to relinquish power, the presence of rebel forces and the NATO air strikes; and the demonstrations in European countries–such as Spain and Greece–demanding new political and economic strategies to overcome their respective crises, are some of the most relevant events.
In this environment, the demand for justice for the death of a Cuban dissident, and the demand to the dictatorship to cease to beat those who demonstrate peacefully in our streets, are as close to chimeric as possible. Particularly since both demands reach very high levels, requiring a retraction from the government in the first case (retracting what they published in an official press release saying that Juan Wilfredo Soto had never been beaten); and with regards to the second, capitulation would mean taking the risk that the streets would be filled with dissident demonstrations, in contradiction to the call, at the close of the Sixth Communist Party Congress, by the General-cum-President to defend the streets “as spaces for Revolutionaries.”
A public commitment of this nature on the part of the government would implicitly recognize that in Cuba–paradigm of respect for human rights according to official preaching–violently represses those who think differently. And I state that if the government were to retract or back down, I would be the first to celebrate the miracle.
It also happens that, unintentionally, a hunger striker puts additional pressure on his fellow travelers, who inadvertently fall into the ethical dilemma of siding with him, even if they don’t support the strike, they must support the demands while deprecating the methods to achieve them. The strike also imposes a moral commitment that banishes to another level every aspect that is not related to the demands of the striker, which may affect programs and activities of other groups, perhaps no less important.
That is, in spite of being an individual action in defense of collective interests, it commits spaces and social networks and forces priorities. I am certain there will be no shortage of critics who will take the opportunity to attack me for what they will call a lack of support for Fariñas. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is precisely because I support him and share his demands, because I esteem and respect him, that I have a heartfelt desire that he would abandon the practice of hunger strikers: those of us who do not accept these methods are also those who want to live and be here to support the Cuba we dream of; we need Cubans of his honesty and courage for these times and the times to come.
To date, everything indicates that the government will not cede spaces to democracy, therefore, it is urgent to find new solutions to conquer them, beyond those involving the voluntary martyrdom of Cuban democrats. I return to the phrase of my colleague, who also suffered political imprisonment in terrible and lonely times in the ’60s, to propose that we oppose the dictatorship with LIFE. To awake to life every day and to prepare ourselves for an individual and collective future, is in itself a triumph over the regime, because life is the first condition for hope.
At last, skeptics have been able to confirm the accuracy of their assessment of the insolubility of the Cuban problem from government “initiatives”. The Sixth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party, held last April, didn’t go beyond a situational formality intended to legitimize the decisions previously issued by the top leadership of the country and give the green light to the same outmoded system, generator of the national crisis, despite the supposedly reformist varnish that was intended to give some attractive luster to the always drab event. After the Sixth Congress, it became clear that the improvisation as the system’s own method has reached its limits. It was an event that did not materialize steps, phases, timelines and specific proposals, and whose “agreements” apply stale cryptic language in which ambiguity remains the official recourse to prevent obligations and elude responsibility.
In many areas and in virtual opinion forums the problem of the impossibility of partial changes in the midst of a systemic crisis is being discussed; a thesis that is being confirmed, for example, by the apparent contradiction of simultaneously implementing economic measures while increasing repressive actions against sectors not in tune with the system. All the ongoing “opening up/repression” — in which the latter is much more visible — is based on the authorities’ knowledge of an elementary principle: any movement within a totalitarian system, however minimal, will, sooner or later, lead to the total transformation of that system. In Cuba, after half a century of ideological wear and sustained “massification” of individuals, limited autonomy or opening up of any kind could lead to the precipitation of events that would ruin the regime’s “renovation project” and, consequently, the regime itself. The hastiest response to avoid this, on the part of the system, is to nip any expression of disagreement or dissent.
Apart from official decisions, however, is the Island’s asphyxiating sociopolitical and economic situation. The first part of this year has seen an accentuation of a markedly unsalvageable dichotomy: on the one hand, General Raúl Castro needs to implement, in a relatively short time, his economic measures destined to the “upgrading of the model”. On the other hand, the social equilibrium gets more fragile at every turn, a product of the general crisis of the system, which goes against both the effective completion of said process of reforms as well as against the government’s forecasted results. Behold, the General faces an almost impossible mission: to demonstrate the viability of the process of economic reforms that tend to grant independence to large sectors of the population –let’s not forget that the government itself seeks to ensure that the planned layoffs will be conducive to increasing the sector of self-sustaining protobusinessmen that will contribute to the economy through taxation — while maintaining social control in order to retain all power. The whole dilemma revolves around whether it would be possible for the regime to stay in the role of shepherd of a flock of more than one million individuals who will stop being “masses” to turn into citizens as the result of the application of those same government measures, or if an eventual process of reforms would stimulate the strengthening of an independent civil society stemming from the emergence of groups with common interests, that is, a theoretical situation of checkmate, judging by the position of the pieces that can be seen on the board.
This situation, in turn, has led to a slowdown in reform implementation, demonstrating that the reversal of the general paralysis is much more difficult and complex than expected by the renovation ideologues from their comfortable climate-controlled cabinets. A recent Council of Ministers, chaired by the General, had, among the items on its agenda, the analysis on the implementation of self-employment applied so far, “which proved inadequate in its initial basic preparation” which is seen as a congenital inability of some municipal leaders to create “the conditions necessary to ensure adequate care for those interested in this employment alternative”. This, coupled with the usual bureaucratic ills (request for documents not required by law, undue delay of proceedings, etc.), in turn settles the top leadership’s inability to make himself understood by his subordinates — or in his failure — their reluctance to abide by guidelines from above (“authority crisis?). Half a century of top leadership has failed to prepare for its adequate replacement, not even to save it from its own interests, but aiming at being the vanguard that would protect the interests of the entire nation. Nothing could better illustrate the insurmountable fissures of the system.
At the same meeting, the ministers approved the proposal “to extend the timetable for executing the process of availability of the labor force” or, in words without any euphemisms, to also slow the layoff plans, a measure that corresponds with the insufficient answer to private business as a viable alternative to unemployment in the Cuban realm. That is, even if not articulated in that fashion, several factors demonstrate how reality problems go far beyond the scope of the official proposals: the lack of sufficient stimulus on the part of the potentially interested in this “employment alternative”, faced with difficulties, such as high tax rates, the lack of wholesale markets for materials, supplies, etc., plus the risks of investing one’s own limited resources in a country where approximately 20% of the active labor population will be unemployed, among other factors.
While the government has slowed the implementation of reforms and layoffs, an apparent radicalization of dissent is taking shape. This is a process that is experiencing a modest but steady growth, which could, simultaneously, be affecting the depletion of the system, the general crisis of values, the standardization of poverty and corruption at all levels, the loss of credibility in the Revolution, government and institutions, the lack of expectations and a host of other countless, equally significant factors, including the very repression. Paradoxically, the regime has simultaneously maintained a marked tendency to the systematic harassment of individuals and groups critical of the system, thus enabling the expansion of the range of sectors potentially hostile to the government and, additionally, granting visibility and importance.to them.
Using suicidal logic, authorities have stepped up harassment, intimidation, threats, beatings, “operatives” and brief arrests, with the intention to stifle any possible outbreak of riots and to discourage the emergence of new alternative spaces, succeeding in the opposite effect: strengthening the role of dissidents, awakening the sympathy of the population for those persecuted — who are usually, at least, respected by the supposed courage of confronting the regime’s power — exposing, each time, the perverse nature of the system, positioning the magnifying lens over the growing civic and opposition activism, and helping to extend a feeling of latent rebellion among those who desperately seek other options in the face of the failure of the communist experiment. Similarly, it has become extremely difficult for authorities, seeking the support of economic powers and political forums, to provide a friendly face to foreign powers as it establishes, as a mechanism of control inside the country, a kind of “terror attenuated” which is the selective application of the repression over isolated individuals and groups to maintain a climate of mute panic over the rest of the population..
Today, Cuba is becoming aware that, if the government leads in the economic plan, imposing its rhythm and depth on the reforms basic to the state’s monopoly in this sphere, in the social aspect, alternative or independent civic groups are marking the beat through pressure that the authorities can’t afford to ignore indefinitely. An unequivocal sign of progress in this regard is that several groups have already passed the initial stage of catharsis in critical areas, and are taking frankly responsible positions in the process of making citizens out of the masses of slaves. The social offensive is tilting the balance in favor of sectors with new proposals, truly innovative ideas, and a rather conciliatory and inclusive discourse. Somehow, it has begun to cause the breakdown of the social immobility before the end of the economic stagnation, probably because, as the economy remains subject to the power center, civic niches, as a social phenomenon, have relative independence in that respect. A general, more defining spirit of radical changes, with greater depth and a more comprehensive one than Raúl’s reforms is thus intensifying, gradually.
Among the main attractions of the alternative sectors are open public debates, free press, free flow of ideas and opinions, the right of association, and access to information and communications; requirements that correspond to real time, as the rest of the world we live in, whose denial can no longer hide behind barricading slogans and enemies of the occasion. In an incipient, but visible manner, a web has begun to be woven — still fragile but tenacious — from the meeting of dissimilar minds that are being joined by a spirit of shared civility. It is too soon for triumphalist predictions: In Cuba, better forged ideas have failed more than once, but this one is perhaps the last hopeful spark, barely a log floating in the ocean of the national shipwreck. Over a century of revolutionary experiments leaves no room for doubt. Evolution, not revolution. We have no other choice.
(Published in the magazine Voices 8 for the month of May)
Pedro P. Oliva creation. Graphic taken from a virtual gallery
I have read the words of the famous Cuban painter Pedro Pablo Oliva, 2006 National Prize of Plastic Arts, published on his website following his demotion from the post he occupied as a delegate of the Provincial Assembly of Popular Power in Pinar del Río which, once again, demonstrates the perverse nature of the system. Here is a government official — who allegedly represents the people who (also allegedly) elected him to do so, but was deposed by the delegates of the power elite — trapped in the sordid corners of the policies of a country, where, inexplicably, a parliamentarian is not designed, even remotely, to voice political views, much less to voice questions that criticize the national situation.
Because of those ironic life’s coincidences, Oliva has the fruit of the tree of peace as his last name but the system has declared war on him. That is why they have officially labeled him with nicknames such as counterrevolutionary, traitor to the Motherland and annexationist as befitting all those who “have moved onto the dissidence dividing lines”, according to a dictum formulated by the “ethics commission” destined to seal the cease of the functions of this parliamentarian.
About the Pedro Pablo Oliva case there might be much or perhaps nothing to say. The painter himself states that the purge did not take him by surprise, from what may be inferred that he was aware of the price for his audacity. Already various informational agencies and various websites have offered details about the news. There are those who have given their verdict as well, stoning Oliva from the most inflexible positions of the very “dissident gang”: guilty. Though these accusations are exactly the opposite of what the revolutionary diehards accuse him of, duplicating the same disqualification methods. The charges? Having been an official representative of the government, having partaken of the ideas of the revolution, having painted Fidel Castro, having confessed to (through persuasion) “sympathy” for him, and being grateful to that same defunct revolution for having become an artist. This isn’t anything that several of his relentless inquisitors have not done at some point. If there is something plentiful among Cubans it’s the propensity to being district attorneys, judges and executioners of ourselves, forgetting that, if viewed through a calm and rational eye, Oliva not only has the sovereign right to commune with whatever ideas he has chosen –the privilege of many, including his second-hand critics- but, as far as I know, he has lent true cultural services to his community, from his potential, a lot more than what most of the celebrities in this Island are willing to do, or what those censors have ever done.
That is why I have chosen to be on the side of the testimony of the heretic of the day himself in order to conjure the fairest opinions possible, leaving out all the tribunals of the Inquisition. The analysis of Oliva’s critics, stemming from his own words, is the most enlightening. That is, what he writes in a letter that was published in Yoani Sanchez’s blog, in the answers he gave Little Comrade Edmundo García for this show “La Noche se Mueve” – the Miami version of the Round Table, only more colloquial, sweeter, and with a deceptive sensitive touch — as well as in the letter that the painter has just published in his website.
Apart from the likes or dislikes that everyone may feel towards Oliva and from their views or positions (let’s remember that this is really not a politician, but an artist who once thought fit to assume responsibility as a public official in one of the provinces of the Castros’ Cuba), the fact is that everyone has the right to amend his course. Let’s say that the former Delegate to the Provincial Assembly has decided to return to his brushes and resume, full-time, his vocation after being punished for making statements that fall within the broad range of malcontent. That is, in Cuba everything that challenges the official line to any extent qualifies as criticism of a dissident nature. And, up to a point, it is, though, in our view, Pedro Oliva might not be – or he might not have realized it himself — an activist dissident. It is not necessary to always label people or to form the two monolithic sides, so similar to each other: dissidents / not dissidents or revolutionaries/counter-revolutionaries; who may be “good” or “bad”, depending on how they relate to the ideas of the labeler.
As far as I’m concerned, if Oliva — with all his prestige as an artist and as a person — makes public statements that many of us agree with, labeled or not, it’s OK with me. We are not talking about two high nominees like Lage and Pérez Roque, who, after Oliva’s downfall signed respective mea culpa little letters exonerating the regime of all liability and burying themselves in their own crap and the crap of their superiors. Oliva is something completely different, and, so far, has not retracted anything he said, neither what we like nor what we haven’t shared. That is honesty and courage. If, in addition, as is the case, the painter made his remarks while he held an official position, I think that is a testimony to the state of putrefaction of the system. And if it doesn’t stink even worse, it is because the coffin’s hinges have not completely popped. Oliva’s judgments are, therefore, welcome. May he paint much, because his art exalts him and us. I, an acknowledged dissident, dream of a Cuba where no one has to keep silent or hide to state what he is thinking. Not even communists.
At any rate, Pedro Pablo Oliva’s saga once again places on the front burner the subject of the government’s inability – in all its instances — to head a process of change within Cuba. The real loser in this process is the regime. For the rest, if the elected officials themselves cannot state their points of view and are punished for disobeying the norms (“code of ethics” is what they call the mysterious ritual of swearing in that deprives representatives of their right of speech; in theory, of the people’s will) what’s left to mere mortals, without a voice and with a false vote! The proposition to change a system without changing ideas is absolutely impossible, and neither is the intention of a vote to overcome the inertia without breaking, de facto, the rigidity of the Stalinist schemes rooted in the ruling ideology. Wish there were more “Olivas” among the artists, intellectuals, and officials of this Island. In the meantime, we will continue to wait for a statement of the UNEAC or the Ministry of Culture … or at least a small Granma notation informing its people about the “deviations” of this illustrious derailed comrade. To your health, Pedro Pablo Oliva, and may honesty and the muses of your art continue to guard you!
Translated by Norma Whiting
Some obviously well intentioned readers have sent me valuable suggestions regarding the events that have been occurring in the city of Santa Clara, in the Villa Clara province. These readers ask me to use images that attest to the events cited, but they overestimate this blogger’s materials and logistics. Regretfully, I inform you that if I had those images in my possession, I would have made them public.
I want to return to the issue because the quasi-clandestine nature of citizen journalism in Cuba is often misunderstood, even by openly dissident bloggers, as is this friend of yours, with the impossibility of being in all scenarios and graphically recording the events that take place. In this continuing saga of repression against individuals and groups who criticize the government, one of the first measures adopted by repressors is precisely to prevent the taking of photographs or videos, a relatively efficient way of conveniently denying the events.
The recent death of John Wilfredo Soto after a brutal police beating in full view at Parque Vidal, loudly denied by the government, could not be recorded, at least not by any citizen who was present, as far as we know today. If pictures do exist, they would be collected by their own security cameras, which, according to friends of this beloved city, are installed at the Hotel and the CADECA, both in front of said park. If the authorities were willing to dispel doubts of the national and international public opinion, by publishing images of Soto’s courteous arrest by the police, the “lying mercenaries” would be ridiculed.
However, the fact that there are no pictures does not mean that the events are not taking place. Unfortunately, there are many examples in history showing “truths in retrospect” shocking photographs and films about something that had been completely ignored, as the existence of the sinister work fields, or the Nazi death chambers, or the atrocities of the Soviets against the Polish people. For example, fairly recently, the world found out about the Katyn events, and though the Internet era certainly facilitates the mobility of the news and allows users to report events in real time, let’s not to forget the conditions in Cuba, where connectivity is minimal and there are only a few who have the ability to occasionally tweet from cell phones.
That’s why our own meager networks are based on a system of solidarity-credibility-confidence. I reported the information that a colleague and friend Carlos Valhuerdi offered me from Santa Clara, and I quote him at every instance. It’s a way to support and protect the most vulnerable: the dissidents in Cuba’s provinces, more exposed than those who live in the capital. To disclose what our friends tell us is a way to offer our faces and run the same fate. It means not being alone, though often we don’t share the same political ideologies, which is not what unites us, but the civic spirit of aspirations for a democratic future for all Cubans. My credibility is certainly the only asset I have, so I can’t afford to put it at risk. I place my trust in friends in Cuba’s interior, as in the case of Luis Felipe Rojas, from the distant San Germán; Ferrer, from Santiago de Cuba or Granma; Dagoberto Valdés and the group Coexistence, in the charming Pinar del Río region; Santa Clara friends or many others. They are all valuable and truthful testimony enough for me. Each is responsible for what they provide, and there are a few of them who suffer persecution, beatings, meetings and even arrests and jail because of it.
I understand that my Santa Clara colleagues have been compiling information, interviews, recordings of testimonies, etc., which will sufficiently support what is reported in this blog and other sites. I will appreciate for those who trust in us and know about the Cuban situation to make the events public and, when appropriate, claim responsibility for their sources. I will count on you.
José Lino Asencio. Photograph courtesy of Ricardo Medina
Since the death of John Wilfredo Soto this past May 8th as a result of beatings received by local police, successive acts of violence, threats and harassment of various kinds have been carried out against dissident groups and individuals in the city of Santa Clara.
My friend and colleague, Carlos Valhuerdi, has informed me by telephone about the hospitalization of Jorge Luis Artiles Montiel (Bebo) on a hunger strike since May 9th to demand justice for Soto. Bebo was admitted to the medical room C, bed 21 (phone (42) 270 450) at the Arnaldo Milián Hospital in the city of Santa Clara.
Witnesses who had contact or were involved in the care of Soto shortly before his death continue to be harassed. Such is José Lino López Asencio’s case, who was beaten earlier last week by some individuals while they shouted revolutionary slogans in an isolated neighborhood near his home. Lino went to the hospital with severe headaches, dizziness and vomiting, where he was treated by a Bolivian student because the doctor had “no time” or “was busy.” The student ordered a head x-ray, which came back negative: Lino showed no fractures. However, they did not order a tomography and much less an MRI or any other additional tests, except an abdominal ultrasound to verify that pancreatic fluid had not leaked into the cavity.
Apparently, the medical authorities at the Santa Clara Provincial Hospital have discovered that dissidents in the region have the tendency to develop rare pancreatic disorders. Finally, at this “consultation” Lino was advised complete rest and prescribed Naproxen to treat inflammation. Later that night, he again returned to the hospital and received an analgesic injection intravenously to relieve the headache. The friend who accompanied him, Sander Reyes Machado, said that, after leaving Lino back at his house and setting out for home, some unknown individuals were waiting for him in that same remote neighborhood, who attempted to beat him with clubs, but ran away because Sander was armed with a machete and showed his intentions to use it to defend himself.
Lino continued with headaches, dizziness and swelling of the face into the next day. Once again he went to the hospital. This time they indicated a tomography and reached a diagnosis of a left sub occipital neuralgia with post traumatic cephalalgia. The neurosurgeon who examined him, Dr. Agustín Arocha García, stated there were no blood clots in Lino’s brain. They continued with the anti-inflammatory treatment.
As if all the troublesome process were not enough, on Saturday, May 21st, Lino was taken to the Third Unit of the Santa Clara Police, so that he could once again relate the assault he was subjected to. Just five days after his initial declaration, Lt. Colonel José Luis Pacheco Ribalta, Head of Province Criminology — who had previously been a police-instructor — conducted an interrogation peppered with threats, and belatedly took photographs, when the Naproxen tablets were already having their effect on the facial swelling. They indicated that they would “investigate” the events and that “they would question him again”.
Carlos Valhuerdi, dissident and independent journalist in Santa Clara is the source of any information expressed herein. As Valhuerdi states, harassment of members of the group linked to William (Coco) Fariñas has gone on since Soto’s death, and there is strong pressure against witnesses of police brutality. A group representing Guillermo Fariñas’s group stood outside the Third Unit, in Lino’s support, while he was being interrogated.
During this past week, the official Cuban media have shown very reliable evidence of how it is possible to use information from international events to mask and to try to dilute conflicts within the Island. There is no doubt that government journalism takes the cake in what I normally call the squid effect: a dark stream of dark ink for slipping away in the midst of the confusion and coming away unscathed. At the same time, it tries to create the false expectation that a reversion to communism in Europe is close at hand and viable. In Spain, no less.
The latest news acquisition by the media to squirt its ink on the national disinformation spectrum has been the demonstrations that have been taking place in several Spanish cities, and the press has instantly launched into its fabrication of an environment supposedly conducive to communism in these expressions of social discontent. Judging by what the written press and TV newscasts are publishing, the popular clamor in Spain is inspired by a spirit between Marxist and anarchist, capable of bringing down Capitalism, Transfiguring the social order and establishing the first labor commune of the XXI century. As simple as that. Of course, it doesn’t show it explicitly, but those are the intentions underlying the reports. A simple example is the “declarations” of one of the protesters expressly interviewed by the newspaper Juventud Rebelde…via e-mail. Could it be that this subject was carrying a sign with his e-mail address, to make things easy to the journalists on this side? Coincidentally, the individual is a Communist sympathizer or militant. The journalists in our national press have such good aim! Thus, the mobilization of Spanish citizens, mostly young, under the legitimate claims of changes capable of reversing the current economic crisis, unemployment, corruption and other ills afflicting the Iberian country, have been converted, by the grace of the official Cuban press, into a revolution ready to destroy Capitalism and establish a system change.
It is no coincidence, then, that the unusual role is being granted to the United Left from the official media, as if it were the party that organized, convened, and sustained the protests in the plazas, and counted on an overwhelming social support. And, in addition, it is an occasion to celebrate! From the logic of journalism at the service of power, movements against Ahmadinejad in Iran, or against Muammar Gaddafi in Libya don’t qualify as real, national, people’s demands, but they are uprisings organized from outside by the West, though the peaceful protests that take place in the heart of a Western democratic society constitute practically a prelude to a legitimate and vindicating Marxist labor revolution by the will of the majority of Spaniards.
Without a doubt, a minority party would do everything possible to seize the day’s critical moment to try to grab a larger share in the current political scene. It is exactly what this United Left seems to be doing. It is clear that many Spaniards are fed up with the crisis and are making use of the advantage of living in a democracy; that is, they are exercising their right to protest, to demonstrate publicly, and to claim what they consider just. That is infinitely more than we Cubans can dream about right now, sunk in the manure of Tropical Communism, so I hope that Spaniards know enough to safeguard those civic spaces they enjoy. I hope that the protesters in the Spanish Squares are able to achieve their goals without waiving their right to demand them whenever they see fit to do so. I hope that the vicissitudes of their long and rich history will allow them to discriminate between the word “change” and its main antonym “communist system”. I have great faith that the country that knew how to develop a remarkable transition after the tensions of a long dictatorship will be able to respect the constitutional order and achieve its aspirations without turning violent its civility, a pillar of liberty that cannot be surrendered. May their crisis be about growth and not regression. These are my best wishes for Spain, from the depths of my communist hell.
At the close: Monday May 23, the results of the regional and autonomic elections were published, and the Partido Popular won. The Cuban media, curiously, have refrained from mentioning where the United Left came in.
Our Lady of Charity, Patron Saint of Cuba. Photo from the Internet
During this past week, Mr. Carlos Valhuerdi, an independent journalist at the Cubanacán Press website, has been telling me about some recent developments beginning on the night of May 7th through the 8th in the city of Santa Clara, after the death of John Wilfredo Soto, resulting from a brutal beating at the hands of four uniformed police officers and which, with unusual haste, was denied by government authorities in a press release issued on Monday the 9th.
On May 12th, Granma published an additional whole page article (page 3) titled: “Cuba Scorns Lies” with some eyewitness accounts – among them one of an inexplicably smiling sister of the recently deceased Soto — as “evidence” of the falseness of the beating. There are always people lacking in scruples ready to surrender to fear, whether they are relatives of the victims of repression or not.
What Granma has not reported is the death, on the night of May 11th, of one of the policemen involved in the beating, as a result of a gunshot to the head by his own hand on the same Sunday afternoon, the 8th. According to testimony not published by Granma and revealed to me by phone by my colleague Valhuerdi, the policeman’s name was Alexei Herrero, and he shot himself in the bathroom of his home, located on the outskirts of Santa Clara known as Callejón de San Antonio, on Camajuaní Road, after having returned from the second meeting he had been summoned to by investigators into the death of Soto. The wake for Alexei — an individual with propensity for violence, according to testimonies — was held under heavy police presence at the Santa Clara Funeral Home (formerly Camacho Funeral Home), an action that extended to the deceased’s own home.
Tension has prevailed in the capital city of Villa Clara, with a steady eye on the opposition, threats, and even retaliation. Héctor Bermúdez, a member of the group led by William (Coco) Fariñas, was stoned after making public statements about the police operation that broke out in the provincial hospital Arnaldo Milián and the pressure that was put on doctors when Juan Wilfredo Soto was admitted, which he witnessed personally. Bermúdez suffered a head wound, as he headed back home, that required stitches.
On Friday the 13th Santa Clara was still not peaceful. Valhuerdi again told me about an incident that day at Parque Vidal, in the heart of the city. This time, a group of citizens — not organized members of an opposition group — orchestrated a spontaneous repudiation rally against Amado Gómez Rodríguez, , a flower seller around said park and one of the witnesses presented by the newspaper Granma, who had stated that Soto did not receive a beating as the “enemies of the revolution were describing”. The group in question was accusing Amado of being “a snitch” and other epithets along those lines at the top of their voices, until uniformed policeman peacefully broke up the angry Santaclareños without hitting, fining, or arresting anyone. Lesson learned, or wisdom of the moment, the truth is that this is not the best time to do something like this in Cubanacán.
In closing, this Sunday the 15th, Our Lady of Charity came to Santa Clara, following the pilgrimage route through Cuba to mark the 400th anniversary of her appearance, to be held in 2012. It is said that the Cuban Holy Patron’s reception in Santa Clara was exceptionally outstanding, with a massive congregation of believers and nonbelievers who attended under the force of her symbolic significance in the popular fancy: it is, so to speak, the Cuban Holy Virgin of Freedom since her presence in the fields of the Independence peasant fighters. Cubans, after half a century of broken illusions, are seeking a faith that will unite and sustain them.
Despite the grief that loss of life due to violence incited from power signifies, it is appropriate that the authorities have received, loud and clear, an unequivocal signal: sooner or later, people get fed up with their oppressors. Legitimization of violence, as unwritten guidelines of the VI Congress, could backfire against the dictatorship one of these days. Let’s not forget that clever saying: For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.
Santa Clara, Cuba. This travel blog photo’s source is TravelPod page: Under Construction – City of CHE
After the close of the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party, which officially established its approval of the stagnation of the system, and circumvented the changes of large social sectors, including official sectors, the only point on the official agenda that seems to be right on the mark is the repression of the alternative groups that have been growing at a significant pace in recent years.
During the month of April and until today, we have witnessed a marked upsurge in acts of harassment, arrests, intimidation, house searches, seizures and threats against members of the dissidence, both opposition party members and representatives of the independent civil society, in an escalating repression that has even caused the death of a citizen, Juan Wilfredo Soto a victim of a brutal beating by the local police last May 8th (Mother’s Day) in the city of Santa Clara.
A strategy of reducing protesters while at the same time reinforcing fear in the population is the strategy chosen by the “reformist” General, who aims to establish his cosmetic measures in order to retain the most absolute control over the social actions and thoughts in a country where the tensions and the absence of rights, long violated by the dictatorship, continue to accumulate the ingredients awaiting the suitable breeding ground for an eventual process of protests.
The General wants to introduce an artificial peace, though for his zealous subordinates – not exactly characterized by having a high IQ — this might literally be the sepulchral peace. That is why, with cynicism that impunity allows, the official media were, with unusual speed, quick to “clarify” with its “moral fortitude” its own truth: the “murder victim” (whose exact meaning, according to Aristos dictionary, is “killed violently”) was no less than “a delinquent” who “fulfilled his two-year prison sentence”. In short, from the perspective of the regime, Juan Wilfredo deserved to die, although it would be inconsistent to assume that the lynching by kicking an opponent was exactly the General’s intention when he called from his mock revolutionary congress for revolutionaries to defend the streets.
Simultaneously, the authorities are also developing a quiet but steady purge job within official places, using extreme measures in the presence of any suspicion, primarily in relation to Internet usage. In this regard, the Telecommunications Company (ETECSA), now completely controlled by the Ministry of the Armed Forces, has gone so far as to fire young computer techs from their jobs because of the absurdly punishable circumstances of having occasionally connected to Facebook, or “of having used the Internet excessively”, or under the pretext that those responsible for computer security “have lost track” of sites they connected to, which shows that the social networks and the access to information currently constitute true threats to the regime.
Careful monitoring of its employees, forced to convincingly justify every minute of virtual navigation, collaterally contribute to the establishment of a state of permanent fear in those individuals known to be monitored. Paradoxically, such a system only manages to breed a sense of rejection of the government, because young people subject to such controls can thus more clearly perceive the castration of their freedoms.
In short, if the physical and psychological repression is the strategic card chosen by the regime, little would be left for it to do. It is the most effective method it could have found to help, sooner rather than later, to fill the dissent ranks.
The recent Congress of the CCP, with all its greyness and its whiff of pre-epitaph – since it is probably “the last” where the so-called historical generation will be in attendance — has clearly demonstrated some issues that, until now, were cause for speculation among the Cuban reality analysts: behind the charade reform of the “new” Cuban President, only the conservative nature of the regime is concealed, something that should not be a surprise or a mystery to anyone.
The quasi-Shakespearean essence of the Cuban government’s dilemma (to change or not to change) lies in its very controversial and intractable nature: a totalitarian system cannot change, because change is precisely the genesis of its own destruction. The contradiction is compounded if we consider that, irrefutably, it is urgent to introduce changes to allow a breathing space for the Cuban economy and to make allowances for a grace period for the lords of the manor to consolidate the permanent control over the territories, already distributed among its heirs and acolytes.
At this point, one might wonder whether those in power really believe in the possibility of the “renewal” of an obsolete model, or if they just seek to sow this ingenuous belief among the slaves of the plantation, to encourage hope in them in the midst of an infinite wait. I favor the latter. This will keep the rhetoric of “revolutionary”, touched up with critical nuances that literally fall in a no-man’s land. In the official discourse there is a disembodied group of defendants on the bench: “bureaucracy”, “the inability of those in charge of enforcing the above guidelines”, “a lack of knowledge about the functioning of the economy” and a lengthy and timely “etcetera” which, once again, serves to cover-up under a pious cloak the sins of the olive green caste and its responsibility in the precipitous national ruin.
The surprise statement by the General of a breach in the agreements arising from each of the five previous congresses has been interpreted by some analysts as a veiled criticism of his older brother. Whether this conjecture is true or not, no official document has been disclosed that reflects changes in the original guidelines of the order to the VI Congress, the agreements stemming from that event are unknown, and no clear strategies were offered to guarantee that, this time, the new phantom accords will be met in five years, a period of time established by the statutes of the PCC of holding the single-party new congress, and the time appointed by the General to start to reap the fruits of his work as head of the government.
An interesting aspect to analyze, beyond the formal requirements and the undeniable will to cling to power — as it is reflected clearly, for instance, in the structure of the Politburo, where calculating radiocarbon age is more practical than calculating the ages of those in charge — would be the real ability of controlling an eventual “reforms” situation within the Island. They have at their disposal the monopoly over all the economic, social and political structures, regardless of their obsolescence, with an almost total orphan Cuban civic society and the whole repressive apparatus at their service, ready to be fully activated at will. Against them is the time factor, the failure of half a century of experimentation – with its undeniable decline in people’s conviction — and an international panorama not favorable to dictatorial repression.
When viewed from the perspective of the possible, the next five years could mean an opportunity for alternative groups that have been generated within Cuban society since the last decade of the twentieth century, with a slight upward trend in the increase of new civic phenomena in the last ten years of this century. A slow process, as befits societies under totalitarian regimes, but a progressive sign that could constitute a major breakthrough in the promotion of democratic venues if political opponents, independent journalists, bloggers and dissidents of all stripes would take advantage, with their intellect, of the scenarios that could be drawn from an influx of new economic and relatively autonomous factors, in which might underlie the seeds of new interests and the beginning of a long-restrained social mobility.
In this case, the challenge of the various groups seeking more radical and effective changes than the government intends to implement, if they really intend to gain space and mobilize wills, is to try to reconcile the interests of broad social sectors found in the alternative proposals, a road to long-lasting collective and self-realization, a difficult task to accomplish under current conditions in Cuba, and whose platform signage should be the broad and inclusive nature of its proposals. In this regard, we must not neglect the role that some groups could play in the face of eventual change processes, those groups that have reform propensities, that today are among the “revolutionaries”, and that are sending interesting signals. In the next five years, dissidents must seek consensus, alliances and strategies that will allow them to overcome the status of survivors in a hostile environment, for which they will need to explore real growth. Beyond ideological trends, most of these groups share minimum essential elements: hopes for a democratic Cuba, the vision of the need for changes in order to achieve it, the commitment for a peaceful and gradual transition, and the will to continue to work towards these goals. That could be a start.
The Sixth Congress has been the consecration of the stagnation of the Cuban system, a goal in itself, perhaps the swan song of the Antillean communist experiment. No renewal is possible within the old structures of the regime. The so-called irreversible socialism is nothing more than a meaningless slogan, and it has aptly proven its failure after half a century of setbacks. Now it is the duty of the citizens to transform what is real and possible into what will be desirable for most Cubans, a dictatorship-free Cuba.
Translated by Norma Whiting
(Article originally published in the Diario de Cuba dated April 4th, 2011)
With such discipline as my training provides, I am carefully reading, for the second time, an article published on page 3 of Granma (May 4th, 2011), in a section created to reminisce about the revolutionary liturgical and dated events of the moment, which they named Remember Girón. The referenced article, entitled “I was the youngest combatant at Bay of Pigs”, is signed by someone named Ramón Jerez Carmenate, recounting in the first person his own experiences from participating in that battle 50 years ago.
In case any readers are now wondering what kind of morbid masochist wish has me reading a Granma article more than once, let me assure you that I would not have conceived such journalistic cynicism otherwise. Let me suggest to you to share my impressions from a brief account of what Jerez Carmenate states. This gentleman says: “I turned barely 13 August 20th, 1960 and joined the militia with my brother Luis, who was born in ‘46”, which means he was a mere boy then, as was his brother, just 14.
Anyone in their right mind would question, for starters, what kind of parents would allow their underage children to become part of an entity destined for war; so the author justifies it his way: “My old man tried to persuade us and talked to us about joining the Youth Patrols and Rebel Youth, but we always wanted to do what we had not been able to accomplish during the war: to fight the enemy face to face”.
Another question would be what kind of institution or government would authorize the recruitment of children into armed militias, and here again the author explained: “Thus, in Jaimanitas, where he lived, they finally allowed me to become militia, though I, at least, was put through huge obstacles because of my age, and I can’t even remember how it was that they let me in”. It is a pity that Ramón Jerez’s memory failed at this point, though he must be only around 63 today, and – curiously — does remember that “The FAL rifle they assigned to me was almost bigger than I was, but I managed to get along with it”. On the other hand, Jerez recognizes that “… this was the age of playing, and pencils, and notebooks, and I was already acquainted with guns, and bullets, and machine guns”. Granma sketches his testimony this way, as the adventures of a cute militant boy.
But that child’s participation in the militia was not merely symbolic, judging by his own words. The writer recalls that in the midst of the events at the Bay of Pigs, “on the morning of April 17, my unit, J, was sent into the combat zone, which we didn’t even know where it was located…” and later he summarizes his personal experiences those war days in other passages. I quote, because they are self-explanatory:
“… The four mouth kids gave the mercenary aircraft hell, and those that we didn’t down, we prevented from completing their mission of massacring the population and attacking our troops.”
“On April 18th, at the entrance to Playa Larga, I really found out what it was to fight against airplanes, because we found ourselves facing two enemy B-26. In the afternoon, we continued the charge, and if it wasn’t because a portion of our location was changed, we would have suffered several casualties, because a rocket fell where we had just been”.
“Then we continued the advance towards Playa Girón, and on the morning of the 19th they greeted us with a shower of mortars, cannons and machine-gun-50 bursts”.
On seeing the fall of other members of the militia, Ramón Jerez states that, “Those scenes of seeing dead and wounded comrades, instead of filling you with fear, they make you fight against the enemy with more hatred and anger”. The author himself confesses that he was unaware of being the youngest fighter at the Bay of Pigs, until writer José Mayo — author of a book entitled “Hero Children of Bay of Pigs” — confirmed it.
In short, in 1961, not in Batista’s Cuba, but already in the revolutionary era of social justice, the socialist character of the process just recently declared by group acclamation, and in clear violation of any civilized human principle, the Cuban government allowed sending children to war.
However, I may not been paying much attention to a Granma chronicle, which was, by the way, certainly splashed with bravado, but because I remembered that the same newspaper, dated instead April 1st 2011, had published an article titled Children of War (page 7) signed by Sara Cazal Sardón, where she, very rightly so, denounced the violation of the Facultative Protocol of the Convention of the Rights of Children, which manifests itself in the actual recruitment of minors by government groups and insurgencies in Africa and other underdeveloped areas of the world, in order to have them engage in war. The reporter wisely argued that “children are cannon fodder.
It doesn’t matter whether they are recruited by force or voluntarily. Once trained for war, they fear nothing”. And she pointed out that “In addition to the physical effects that come with participation in conflict, children suffer severe consequences on an emotional level.” I could not agree more.
But her article did not just refer to Third World regions as responsible for such violations. Cañizal also noted that “… though in Europe and the United States minors do not participate in wars, they are trained in recruitment camps for minors. In the US, the Pentagon recruits children in schools as young as 14 (…). The purpose is the same: to train them to kill”. And she concludes by launching a sentence I would gladly subscribe to 100%: “The recruitment of children is a war crime and it goes against the declaration of Children’s Rights. In any situation, children should be the first to receive protection and aid, and they must be isolated from all kinds of cruelty and exploitation. A world that sends its children to war is doomed to its own destruction”.
What I don’t understand is how the official journalism could have forgotten – if it’s about an oversight and not about flagrant disrespect to its readers — what it published before about this issue and now, after just one month, can contradict itself in such an absurd manner. Is it any less criminal to recruit militant children at Playa Girón? Even taking into account that it was the exception and not the rule than those of other children of the world in times of war? Is it that the main Cuban newspaper, at the same time it grants itself the right to criticize the Pentagon, has the nerve to ignore the existence of military schools for teens in Cuba, such as Camilo Cienfuegos Military Schools, nicknamed “the Camilitos”? Don’t these military Cuban schools also teach our young “to kill”?
What could also be categorized as criminal is the cult of war violence and the use of weapons against other Cubans, established as values to be imitated, which each anniversary are endorsed in children’s representations of an imaginary attack the Moncada Barracks, the landing of the expedition of the yacht Granma, the attack on the Presidential Palace, the fighting guerrillas in the Sierra Maestra, the invasion of the Rebel Army and of many other acts of war being taught to students of primary and secondary education as top examples of heroism. It seems that the Cuban government is in possession of a special license that allows it to promote war in a child’s fancy, without constituting a reprehensible or sinister incident.
It would be nice if the director of Granma and all those responsible for the official Cuban press would be a tad more careful when selecting the themes of their “news” media. After they have already lost their professionalism and decorum, a bit of silence could be useful, at least to save decency… if decency has indeed survived all the shooting.
Nursery school children. Photo taken from the Internet
Readers, allow me to tell you a recent anecdote. Zamira, a close friend whose son started attending Kindergarten just a few months ago, was very alarmed when she received guidance from the director to teach her four year old toddler who Fidel, Raúl and the “Five Heroes” are. Appalled, Zamira flatly refused, to the amazement of the director, who did not understand how a mother could refuse to comply with what was stipulated. “You will make me look bad with the inspectors” insisted the teacher, and to convince Zamira that it was not a personal whim, the good lady (she really is) showed her the teaching agenda for three and four year olds, a worthy rival of the Surrealist Manifesto, that – indeed — makes clear that indoctrination is a goal of educators in order to instill “patriotic values” in kids who only yesterday opened their innocent eyes to the world, little people who will leave their place in line in pursuit of a toy, candy or ice cream, who do not have the faintest idea of the meaning of the word homeland, and whose main ambition is to play and romp. But Zamira would not budge an inch, “Look, ma’am, try to have the inspectors ask another child and not mine, because I want him to be a child, not a political laboratory mouse.”
This was at a Kindergarten in the capital, but it also goes on throughout the Island. All is needed is to visit any of these centers to notice the presence of wall murals of leaders of the revolution, many dead celebrities, the yacht Granma and even violent scenes of the assault on the Moncada Barracks. A recurring image is that of the Sierra Maestra guerrillas with guns raised and faces fierce with screaming expressions, subliminally encouraging violence as part of the revolutionary culture. A real crime.
The fact is neither an exception nor a novelty. The fierce indoctrination to which children are subjected in Cuba since the early years of their life is widely known, as it’s endorsed in primary school textbooks, including those textbooks with which students in first grade, only six years of age, learn to read.
Unfortunately, almost no mother is as courageous as my friend Zamira. It is common for parents to tolerate in silence the violence of the doctrine and the implementation of methods, because “What the heck, children do not know about that. Back at home we will make sure they think about other things”. And that’s when a dramatic clash of values in which the children receive twice the impact of a controversial discourse: Fidel Castro and the “Five Heroes” in the morning, in daycare or at school, and Mickey Mouse, Donald and Spiderman on video in the afternoon, upon returning home. No need to clarify which of the messages is more attractive (and appropriate) for children. In fact, in private life, all children want to be like Ben 10, like Superman or Zorro, never like Ché. No one has ever seen a child in a private costume party dressed as the legendary Argentine guerrilla fighter, as Camilo or as Fidel Castro. These “heroes” do not belong in the children’s repertoire, but are only used to meet the requirements at the official venues.
But, simultaneously, without adults trying, they are planting in very young children the hypocrisy of the double standard that the system has fostered, the false belief in something that even they don’t believe, thus supporting a process that our friend Dagoberto Valdés has defined as anthropologic damage, whose harmful effects will long survive the regime that produced it.
For my part, I think that even protesting sectors in the country have ignored for too long the relevant details of the rights of Cuban children. We have prioritized our rights to freedom, democracy, to participate fully in our own individual and collective destinies, but we have neglected the most vulnerable sector of society: children. We assume that, by giving our children our love and guaranteeing them food and material wellbeing, we are doing our part. We are thus committing the same error as our own parents: we are allowing the State to carry out the sacred mission of educating our children morally and completely instead of doing it ourselves, as we are able to and as we can freely choose to. We thus prolong in our children the saga of slavery of thought, of pretense, and of corruption of spirit of which we were victims, and which we so condemn.
Children are born with the right to be educated, but it is a flagrant violation of their rights and those of their families to plant an ideological doctrine in their minds. It is an appalling distortion of human nature and it should be denounced in the strongest terms, so that we may finally banish the collective consciousness of violence, submission, and lies that half a century of dictatorship has sown in Cubans.
The General, in the framework of the Central Report to the Sixth Congress, made reference to the need for new journalism. Picture taken from the Internet.
A friend of mine, knowing about my quest for information and of my online time constraints, is kind enough to send me, from time to time, items he considers “interesting”, published in places that I don’t usually visit basically because of the above reasons and for my preference to prioritizing other venues within those limits.
Recently, the same friend has brought me two works published in Kaos on the Web, a site commonly classified as “leftist” and heavily visited by fundamentalists of various stripes, judging by the tone of many of the comments they dump there. These articles (“Cuba: Raúl’s worst enemies,” of April 4th, 2011, and “Yoani Sánchez and Cuban TV compete in their clumsy Manichaeism” of April 7th, 2011) are signed by a person calling himself Orlando Pérez Zulia, a Cuban with no other details, who, under apparent critical presuppositions about the reality of the Island, only succeeds in throwing dirt in the readers’ eyes, a practice much employed by more than a few collaborators of such a website.
I think I should stop and briefly explain two points about this issue: 1 — Why, if the articles mentioned seem so biased to me, do I waste my valuable time commenting on them? And 2 — Why does my kind friend classify these articles as “interesting”?
The answer to the first question is very simple: It’s clear that Kaos — voluntarily or otherwise — serves to support the authorities’ campaign of demonization against Cuban dissident sectors, in particular against the blogosphere, though its support for the government is presented — as happens in this case — masked in a language apparently critical of official sectors, in what constitutes an insult to people’s intelligence and an infamous manner of contributing to the chronic misinformation that affects Cuban society. It’s imperative, therefore, to denounce the exercise of media hypocrisy hidden behind this maneuver.
Regarding the second question, the answer is that my friend has undoubtedly become a victim of the illusion projected by Kaos: he wants to prove to me what he considers a sign of change. According to him, these types of articles seem “interesting” in that they indicate, at the very heart of the revolutionaries, the emergence of a critical group that openly and courageously points out the faults of the system. My good friend thinks that this official sector could help in transitioning a future Cuba into a more democratic and inclusive country. Such naiveté!
So it’s not exactly a useless waste of time to analyze in brief the result of the neuronal outgrowths of Orlando Pérez, without inferring intent to exhaust the subject completely, or attempting a theoretical positioning of someone who seems to consider himself a thinking bombshell. I do not intend to ascend to such a high level of intellect.
I couldn’t begin to enumerate here the number of words and empty phrases deployed in both his writings, which stand out for their lack of substance. I’ve become bowlegged in the face of some that I have found truly novel, but what is incredibly sinuous is the discursive strategy of attack against both dissident writers (independent journalists, alternative bloggers, etc.), as against the official media, including the regular press and Cuban TV, the latter charged — or so Orlando tells us — with spreading false social and economic achievements of the revolution and giving credit to dissidents for devoting space to its stoning. I admit that, in this, we have some common points. Either way, this position also curiously coincides with the criticism that the Gray General directed at official journalists in his Central Report to the Sixth Congress of the CCP … Pure coincidence?
However, a position as “condescending”, yet energetic, on Orlando’s (?) part, with its masquerade of justice, tends to sanctify as tested truths certain lies that also circulate through the official media, born of invocations from the constant repetition of “information” about internal dissent, particularly their mercenary character with respect to the ever-satanic Northern Empire (the “wealth” of some of these mercenaries, stemming from payment of their salaries reaches fabulous figures, judging from these and other means, which Orlando also asserts). But the writer fails to go beyond the exclusionary nature of the system and its representatives, when one attributes the ability to determine how and who can disagree with the government. The subliminal message is clear: “the right to dissent is for revolutionaries”. Without a doubt, the desperation of this regime is making its lackeys give birth to truly amazing subterfuges.
Of course, the direction of the revolution is still being presented as immaculate in the writings of this champion of fair criticism who — as any other follower of the dictatorship — shows signs of generous and profuse flattery: “President Raúl Castro has undertaken a Cyclopean task to route Cuban society through the trails of efficiency, which will culminate into a minimum state of welfare, always promised to our people but frequently postponed. His speech at the closing session of the December 18th, 2010 National Assembly of Popular Power was impressive by his clear and forceful self-criticism”. This is stated by the writer as a premise to a new generational Messianism, according to which “Cuban revolutionaries” are being summoned at this dramatic hour to assume “a commitment of historic dimension”. It’s the new “Now, indeed!” of the hour, which assures us, by the reforming hand of the cabinet General, his exemplary punishment of the corrupt and deceitful leaders (like himself, I would add), the advent of the promising future with which the regime has gripped our lives for the past 52 years.
It turns out that Orlando Pérez, like his ancient olive-green idol, is also a reformer, something like a reformism theorist. That is why he considers it “a mistake” to attack all internal dissidents alike, since they are not all “pathetic hustlers”, “brainless puppets”, or “mercenaries without values” (the latter suggests the existence of “mercenaries with values”, a complete tribute), so he asserts that Yoani Sánchez — paradigm of evil, witch among witches — should be allowed to leave Cuba so she can show “the shallowness of her analyses” (she is “a lesser being”). That is why Orlando (“a higher being”, for certain) also wonders: “Are individuals who have been or are still imprisoned for unclear crimes menacing enemies, who are often limited to express different ideas, though some of them have flexed their muscles in the foreign news media? Are those who have done so without being jailed also menacing enemies? And in the next sentence he states that they are not a menace, which has been demonstrated by the “unilateral” liberation” (?) that they have been receiving. It might seem that political prisoners released in recent months — due to the many pressures on the Cuban government, both by foreign governments and institutions, and by civil society groups and dissidents within the Island, and not by the political willpower of the dictatorship — belong to a faction that is also holding government representatives imprisoned and has not agreed to give them their freedom in turn. Or that independent journalists in Cuba waste opportunities they are offered to publish in the national media, so they publish (muscle-flex) in the foreign media.
Orlando is a very sharp guy, so he arrives half a century behind with the discovery of “the serious errors leading to the prevailing precariousness and its consequences: corruption and absurd and ubiquitous prohibitions, both born of the glaring incompetence of the methods used, to date, to produce confidence and prosperity”. And only a group of corrupt officials, notable among them, “the sons of Acevedo, of Guillermo García, of Maciques, of Lusson and of Torralba”, among others, are responsible for those evils that dissidents point out in such vile and opportunist ways. So easy and simple. Not the Castro brothers. They are not responsible for anything. Because, without a doubt, the writer knows the golden rule of the tricks of the trade: play with the chain, but don’t touch the monkey, so he takes good care of not reporting the names to the nouveau riche, the original sin that accuses Yoani and El Nuevo Herald. As you can see, he is indeed a convincing guy.
I must admit, however, that Orlando (why does that have a false ring to me?) is right, at least to the extent that the official media are liars, boring, tiring, manipulative and insistent. However, he avoids basic issues: whose media is it? Is the national press better than the media trash he criticizes so much? Why doesn’t he mention that the eyesore Cuban TV also illustrates the “cultural decadence” that affects our nation? And, as far as the alternative media, specifically the blogosphere, why does he try to present Yoani Sánchez as dissident analyst of the Cuban reality, a title that she has never claimed for herself, instead of mentioning a space of such serious and substantial analyses of our history and our reality as, for instance, El Blog de Dimas? (this is a rhetorical question. Obviously, reading that website would leave the referenced writer standing in his underwear on his lofty platform of media purity).
Maybe Orlando Pérez Zulia — who would be more credible and respectable if he had presented himself with his true identity in any forum — may be part of a new and devious official strategy born out of impulses of the much publicized and artificial “media war” a new conflagration designed by a government that thrives only in confrontations. At any rate, with or without a pseudonym, he has shown with these two deliveries that he still has a lot of imperfections to polish in his worn-out race of web misinformation. May he forgive me if I don’t wish him luck in his endeavors.
The General, in the framework of the Central Report to the Sixth Congress, made reference to the need for new journalism. Picture taken from the Internet.
Thanks! You have opened... a blog... and can now begin... to post. (Cartoon from the internet)
Just four years have elapsed since the emergence of the blog Generación Y, which soon started a proliferation of the presence of independent citizens on the web, an effect that is known in the media as the blogger phenomenon, or the Cuban alternative blogosphere.
Much has been said among the dissident sectors and opposition groups in Cuba about the alternative blogosphere, however, few know the true nature of such a phenomenon, therefore, quite erratic, inexact or unfortunate opinions appear frequently about something that is obviously not well understood. I think that, first of all, we would have to start from a premise: the Internet exists, though it is not accessible to many, and it has well-recognized access limitations. Beginning a few years ago, before Cuban blogs were born, several members of the opposition already managed their respective web pages and some independent periodic publications in digital magazine format also existed.
Practically all members of the opposition and dissidents whom I know, or know of, already had their own e-mail accounts and had many friends and collaborators abroad, which is fine with me. That is, by having friends who are ready to give support –- let’s say, to lease an internet domain to launch a digital platform — using templates or free software, acquiring a minimum of computer knowledge, and applying themselves to work and offer proposals, almost any individual of average intelligence can have a blog. So, what is the problem some people have with the existence of the blogosphere? Why do some feel that the alternative bloggers are grabbing something from them or stripping them of some legacy?
I recently had access to some of Darsi Ferrer’s work, published by martinoticias last March 30th (Alternative Bloggers, a lesser evil for the Castros), which might well indirectly illustrate what some others, with a sense of proprietorship, may be gossiping about. I will address some points of the article only as partial reference and not as foundation, so this post absolutely should not be considered as an outline of his. I insist that the alternative bloggers are not the adversaries of the opponents and vice versa, as was demonstrated on the episodes of the TV series “Cuba’s Reasons”, an offensive against all individuals and groups criticizing the government, and not against one of their sectors.
The independent Cuban blogosphere is, as the name implies, a phenomenon unrelated to either government or the opposition. That is, it does not respond or belong to anyone, it lacks programs because we are not a political group — or a group of any nature — we don’t have leaders, but are, instead, about a totally free and individual phenomenon, which means that opposing bloggers may exist or that some blogs (like this one) may choose to publish opinions about matters related to politics.
But beyond all this, some common interests may lead bloggers to share views, knowledge of digital technology, information, and many other issues, so it’s not unusual that we meet informally, without compromise, without impositions and without mutual obligations. This has created an atmosphere of empathy and, in some of us, the feeling of belonging to a common phenomenon these days: the spirit that comes from the flow of information, the use of computer technology and the civic will to exercise freedom of expression.
We practice a particular and innovative way to address the lack of freedom imposed by the government in a venue that, until now, for whatever reasons, had been underutilized both by the government and by opposition groups: the virtual space. The Internet is neither our monopoly nor our feudal property.
Ferrer stated in his article that “the work of the alternative blogosphere has achieved significant external impact, but less of an internal impact in the country, given our particular conditions”. Certainly, the Internet access limitations and the technological lag slow down the blogosphere’s influence in Cuba. Nevertheless, real webs, not virtual, have been created spontaneously among our Cuban followers, who covertly divulge our blogs by means of CD’s or flash drives, having them circulate from one computer to another; readers outside Cuba have also volunteered to be activists in our spaces, conveying our work via e-mail to their relatives and friends.
And I must mention Radio Martí, many of whose programs spread the Cuban blogger activity. I can’t see how the limitation of bloggers to publish their work is any more difficult than that of opponents to spread their proposals or move their initiatives, nor can I understand how blogger activity on-line is less deserving of credit or does any more harm than what opposition groups do in the streets.
Also, the projection of the opposition has been more outwards than into the country — the reasons are obvious — therefore, to say that “a virtual dimension” in Cuba “has a popular limited and controllable impact in general terms” is relative, because, in that respect, the opposition has not demonstrated having a greater “impact” or being less “controllable”, in spite having been in existence longer than the blogosphere.
Another distinguishing feature of the blogosphere with respect to the so-called “traditional opposition” has to do with the supposed “objectives” that they attribute to us. The opposition parties respond to agendas, statutes and guidelines that correspond to the vertical structure of that type of organization, and in order to comply with them, adherence to certain objectives is expected. The blogosphere is just the opposite: each blogger determines what, when, and how she does it; there isn’t a “blogger structure”, blogger objectives, or, even less, a hierarchy.
The greater or lesser visibility of a blog depends more on the empathy achieved with the readers, the quality of its design or of its posts, and the personal status reached among those readers. Viewed from the proper perspective, I don’t know of any blogger who has been nominated to “overthrow the dictatorship” from the virtual space, although it would be childish to ignore that undermining the government’s monopoly on the media threatens its structure… and let’s not forget the power of information and circulation of ideas, hence the official attack on the blogosphere is actually not so “surprising” or so “unusual.”
Instead, what does seem truly bizarre is that some opponents feel that bloggers are taking away from them even the hatred that the government should direct only towards them; it’s one of the most pathetic things that I could have imagined three years ago, when I started this blog.
As for “standing our ground”, I would like to know specifically what Darsi Ferrer was alluding to. I prefer to think that everyone stands their ground in his own territory. For example, the blogosphere took advantage of its “outward” visibility to support the marches of the Ladies in White, denouncing the abuses they were victims of, and demanding the release of political prisoners, among other campaigns.
Guillermo Fariñas’s hunger strike recently reached international dimensions due, in good measure, to the coverage the blogosphere gave to it, which Fariñas himself recognizes. I will take this opportunity to note that the Ladies are not a political or an opposition party, according to their own statements, and they have met with and maintain good ties with the alternative blogosphere.
I also don’t remember any independent blogger who has attacked, from his blog or from other means, an opponent or colleague, as – unfortunately — the reverse has indeed occurred; nor do I know of any blogger who requires unification around him or around one of his proposals, or one who considers whether he is not taken into account for some meeting, event, interview or program. To do so would constitute complete failure. More than one opposition member would be surprised at how many issues alternative bloggers have disagreed on without involving feuds, personal attacks, or hostility among us. We practice peaceful disagreement with healthy regularity, and we enjoy it.
There is a persistent habit of mentioning “the alternative blogosphere’s young people”, ignoring that it has a large group of the “not so young.” For example, of its first year founders, only Yoani is young, the rest — Reinaldo Escobar, Dimas, Eugene and I — span from 51 to 68 years of age. Subsequently, even some bloggers over 70 years old have joined in. As can be seen, we are young, but not so much so.
Today, just entering the platforms Desde Cuba and Voces Cubanas is evidence that the faces of most of the bloggers have left the freshness of their youth behind, though we have retained our freshness of spirit. It also is not true that notices of our meetings are posted regularly on Twitter, or that access to our virtual platforms (not only “the Generación Y blog”) has been “unlocked.”
In fact, the filter that blocks access to the administration of our blogs was only lifted during the days when the International Computer Science and the International Book Fair events were held in Cuba, evidently to indicate that our complaint of the blocking of said platforms is false. Sometimes they unblock those pages for a day or a few hours, intermittently and irregularly. Apparently, the government disinformation tricks also work for some gullible people here, who unwittingly join the chorus.
I fully agree with Darsi Ferrer in that “the vehicle for social mobilization in Cuba will not be the Internet or the social networks because of their limited presence”. In fact, I have published several articles in support of that view, not only in my blog, but also in the Voices magazine and the Diario de Cuba, which, of course, brought me quite a few detractors.
I would only add that I don’t think that the supposed “social mobilization” has the traditional opposition groups as its driving force or as its “trigger and coalescing force”. I can’t see, right now or soon, what the social factors and actors of a mobilization that I doubt will take place would be, for reasons that are irrelevant to repeat here because I have exposed them extensively in the mentioned publications.
As to the alternative blogosphere being an “elitist phenomenon”, the same, and with equal justness, could be said of the opposition. In totalitarian regimes, individuals or groups who dare to oppose and confront power in any way always constitute elites, minorities. So that the term “elitist” envelops a precise connotation, completely extraneous to the blogosphere, because that word implies “being in favor of the elites.” I guess the author’s bad use of the Spanish language in this case may be involuntary. If our vocation were “elitist,” how do you explain the explosive growth of the blogosphere with authors, subjects and interests of the most varied tendencies?
Once again, we are linked to the popular uprising that was actually summoned from abroad through Facebook, not the Cuban blogosphere on the Island. I must confess to Mr. Darsi that I am not aware if any of the thousands of internet users who joined the web of potential “insurgents” was an alternative blogger in Cuba. At least, the ones I know did not take part in the campaign, so that no one should be surprised that we were not present at the place and time of the appointed date.
We did not summon nor felt obligated to respond to summons without previous consultation, except if a blogger, on his own, wants to join in, for each is free to decide. Here is exactly what some do not understand: we are not a herd, let’s not put on cowbells, let’s not be charmed by slogans nor be obedient and complacent.
As for me, I congratulate myself for the release of the Black Spring political prisoners and other prisoners of conscience. Anyone who confronts the regime with his best willpower, talent, and bravery deserves admiration and respect, and I will always support him from my little virtual space. Their activities, like ours, embrace peaceful actions that challenge the dictatorship and aim to democratize the Island.
At the same time, though, in my capacity as citizen journalist, I feel I have the right to respectfully question any plan aimed at proposing the future of a nation that belongs to all and not to one or another group or leader. As several opposition members so brilliantly once enunciated, “The Motherland belongs to ALL”; except that, seemingly, some feel they carry within them their own, distinctive, personal Motherland.
Regardless of my sharing with many dissidents of the most diverse trends the hope of changes for Cuba, some bilious views within the opposition make me suspect that the official control patterns some claim to be against inexplicably repeat themselves in them.
The psychology of exclusions is thus maintained, according to which, a sort of dissident pedigree exists that establishes hierarchies according to what activity is carried out by whom, exactly the same as a system of meritocratic government.
Such a waste! It would truly be healthy indeed to overcome so much angst so that – each in his own way — everyone contributed to a pluralistic and inclusive Cuba. For now, it appears that the activity of alternative bloggers is, somehow, indeed affecting the regime’s slumber… and also, painfully, that of others.
Former President Jimmy Carter has just completed a new visit to Havana and an air of expectation lingers among some alternative sectors of society. Carter is tied, without a doubt to several processes of movement of the official strategic policies that have had repercussions on the Island. In the late 70’s, during his presidency, Carter promoted an intelligent approach towards the Cuban regime; he was successful in establishing a dialogue between official Cuban authorities and emigration representatives –- an event that opened the gates to their travel to the Island and allowed family reunions between Cubans from both shores after 20 years of separation — and the corresponding Interest Sections in Havana and Washington were also established. Under the Carter administration, the migration accords were established to regulate the legal exit of thousands of Cubans to the US, and a climate of relative truce took place in the antagonism that had dominated politics between the two governments for two decades.
In 2002, Carter’s first visit to Cuba would mark an unprecedented milestone when, in a venue as official as the Great Hall of the University of Havana, he gave special credit to the Varela Project, whose creator, Oswaldo Payá , was a member of the opposition. It was the first time that a proposal from the much demonized opposition sector was made public on the national stage in Cuba.
Now, for the second time, Jimmy Carter visited Havana prompted by an invitation of the new ruler in the same decrepit dictatorship, but the scenery and the circumstances are currently markedly different from his previous visit. The guilty verdict against Alan Gross, a U.S. contractor accused by the Cuban authorities of collaborating with an alleged internal network to overthrow the government; the recent release of the 75 Black Spring and other prisoners of conscience; the upcoming conclusion of the VI Congress of the Communist Party, primarily addressing the legitimization of the economic transformation of the country to “renew” a proven failure and the deepest structural crisis that the revolutionary process has experienced since its inception are some of the factors that make the difference. On the other hand, positive steps are being taken by the current United States Administration designed to ease the restrictions set by previous administrations, thus undermining the old Cuban government’s pretext to keep a besieged position on the Island.
At a lesser level, Carter’s visit also coincided with the process of “media lynching”, a term coined by journalist Reinaldo Escobar to describe what the Cuban authorities have unleashed against independent civil society sectors. So, shortly after four chapters of the deplorable series having aired on TV, portraying the Ladies in White as mercenaries of the Empire and Dagoberto Valdés and a group of independent bloggers as other demons of the dissidence, the government allowed a meeting of these “paid employees” with Jimmy Carter, a delegate of the very Empire that “subverts” them. And, since the people are so spontaneous, there were neither repudiators’ gatherings nor temporary arrests against the evil traitors; no henchmen prevented the dangerous enemies from taking part in the meeting and exchange of views with the former President of the hostile power. It seemed that, in order to offer a friendly image to the visitor, the miracle of “the dignified peoples” who appreciate and respect differences had taken place.
In summary, the expectations awakened by Carter’s visit are based on the hope of the end of official inaction, because every instance when he has come close to the Cuban government has weakened the Cuba-US discrepancies, an essential Cuban foreign policy stance for over half a century. Regardless of the specific concerns that have prompted this visit, we must recognize that Carter’s conciliatory attitude, his capacity for respectful dialogue and interaction with representatives from both the official line and sectors of the opposition and independent civil society mark a particular style that crashes against the belligerence on which the Cuban regime feeds.
