14ymedio, Havana, 24 December 2023 — If instead of choosing faces, at the end of 2023 we had compiled the objects that best represent Cubans this year, we would have included in the list a suitcase, some police handcuffs, a baseball, a judge’s gavel, a keyboard, a microphone and graffiti on some facade.
Every presence leaves traces and the protagonists of these 12 months that conclude could also be followed through the tools, supports and infrastructures that they have used. But this is the list of the protagonists, not their things. We are not compiling the tools they used but rather their personal responsibility for certain events. It is not even the mural of the victims or the perpetrators, but the canvas of those responsible who drew the lines of what we have experienced.
For this reason, we have focused on the people who left a mark, sometimes light and beautiful; others heavy and destructive. Nor is this a “doomsday” glossary, but rather a list of those who impacted our lives this year, for better and worse. Sometimes they helped us fashion wings and other times, unfortunately, they built anchors that made it more difficult to regain civic, economic and personal flight. But, in addition to their intentions, the snapshot we have captured of their faces and their stories forces them to share space.
In these 14 faces there is everything. Those who promoted and those who blocked. There are those who entered the list because they were fully exploring life, and others because they left this existence just in time
Most likely, the majority of them, if they had been consulted, would refuse to appear on a list with any of the others. But to be a public figure is, in some way, to stop belonging to oneself. Judgments, evaluations and labels are part of what awaits everyone who has moved away from the stillness of the anonymous individual and has crossed the red line to express their opinion and create “out loud.” All those mentioned here are children of that impulse: to remain silent or to speal; hide or show; let the story take its course or try to influence it.
Not everyone deserves applause. It is not enough to act. There is a minimum ethic to respect and, under a dictatorship, those points are very clear: you will not betray, you will not repress the freedom of another, you will avoid acting as a gag, scissors or shackle. There is everything in these 14 faces. Those who promoted and those who blocked. There are those who entered the list because they were fully exploring life, and others because they left this existence just in time. This is not an obituary but neither is it a podium with medals.
These that are read here are, simply, the names of those who shaped this year, 2023, in which we live in the limbo of political and economic uncertainty. There is no better image than theirs to tell of this “no man’s land” that we have inhabited in these months and to put a face to the advances and setbacks that an entire nation has experienced.
We present the anatomy of 2023.
[To our TranslatingCuba readers – We will update this list with the links to the English articles, as they become available. For now, here is the entire list, mostly ‘still to come’ in both languages.]
1- Alina Bárbara López, the Rebellious Professor of Matanzas
2- Michel Torres Corona (Con Filo) y su maestro, Iroel Sánchez
3- Los ‘mipymeros’ cubanos, la última esperanza económica de un régimen moribundo
4- Ricardo Cabrisas, el gran maquinador del régimen cubano
5- La Asamblea de Cineastas desafía la censura en Cuba
6- Las tribulaciones de Buena Fe en España
7- Los cubanos emigrados con el ‘parole’
8- Los que se quedan en Cuba
9- Idalys Ortiz, judoca
10- El Team Asere, sin patria pero con amo
11- Yasmany González Valdés, el “culpable” perfecto para la Seguridad del Estado
12- Rubén Remigio Ferro, cancerbero de “la ley y el orden” en Cuba
13- Bruno Rodríguez, ministro de la Desinformación
14- ‘Invasor’ se sale del redil
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