I had no intention of returning to the issue of state inspectors, which I addressed on 14 April of this year under the title “Inspectors: the new plague.” However, subsequent events witnessed by me and verified information given by some vendors on their own, the main victims, force me to do so.
Let me make myself clear, I am not against State inspection, but I am against the arbitrary manner in which it is performed and its methods. Going after a self-employed seller, as if he were a criminal or a fugitive from justice, at the first opportunity, punishing him with excessive fines — no lower than 250 pesos national currency the minimum monthly wage of a Cuban — is not inspecting anything, rather it is a witch hunt, especially when these inspections are not undertaken of government facilities, most of which remain dirty and unhygienic, as if there were no health regulations for them.
To fine a seller of homemade crackers or a vegetable seller 500 National Pesos because they stayed in one place for more than 20 minutes, is absurd and unjust. So is fining a candy seller who sells outside a school, given the demand of some clients, because according to the inspector this is prohibited because children can make themselves sick and the school director is responsible for their health. Yet at the same time the school is filthy, unpainted, with areas and bathrooms closed off, the drinking water — if there is any — comes directly from the street, there is a lack of drinking fountains, the hygiene stands out for its absence, and the students, without any cafeteria, have no lunch, it being replaced by what’s called a “hearty snack” (a little bread with some pasta and a miniscule glass of soy yogurt), which is not a snack much less a hearty one.
What is striking is that the voluminous apparatus of inspectors is directed only against the self-employed, who pay high monthly taxes (600 Cuban pesos to sell cotton candy on a corner). It seems that it is only them who the authorities are interested in inspecting and it so happens that by fining them they take away the meager earning they can get, in order to avoid their becoming rich and a part of the famous 1%, leaving them to belong to the 99%.
The plague continues making its rounds without any kind of control, and in the face of the rejection of the majority of the population, who every day reject it more and support the self-employed vendors, who offer better and more varied products and services than the establishments of the State.
When the washing machine was a gadget of the future, or when it hadn’t reached the distribution it has, washing by hand was an art. Whether in a bowl, pan or sink, the white suds, but especially the characteristic whap-whap-whap typical of rubbing clothes between fists, signaled the presence of a consummate laundress.
As far as I know it was always a women’s occupation, men who needed washing done, with their awkward hand positions, or with a saving brush, would omit the ritual of soaking the piece over and over again, immediately accompanied by the whap-whap-whap.
At that time in my past when I gave it my best in the useless Schools in the Countryside, in the first of these (1967), my bunk mate was Silvia, a black girl three years older than me, shrewd and flirtatious. Silvia spent the week with her hair in plastic rollers secured thanks to an electrical cord wrapped around the ends of each roller.
Every night before bed, without a mirror but with tremendous skill, Silvia unrolled her rollers and rolled them up again. On Saturdays Silvia barely combed her hair, where the results of the week’s rollers was clearly evident.
But my admiration for Silvia was in the laundry, where why managed to return white shirts to their original color after wearing them to work in the fields. As a part of my conversion from a mama’s girl to a “New Woman” my mother changed my sheets, towel and work pants on the weekly visit, but the rest I had to wash myself.
I tried to imitate the Silvia’s dexterity and her whap-whap-whap, but didn’t accomplish either. My shirts finished those forty-five days pinkish-brown while Silvia’s came back impeccable.
After that I was determined to master the mystery of scrubbing clothes, and even get the exact rhythm of the whap-whap-whap. I’ve discovered that this sound has nothing to do with the efficiency of the wash, so when I need to wash something really dirty I always use a brush. The whap-whap-whap is comforting music.
Once again they are celebrating another boring anniversary of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) on my planet. As time goes on, fewer and fewer people lend their efforts to this farce.
As I was visiting a friend yesterday afternoon in Vedado, I was able to observe in the formal garden of her building–which still retains the architectural beauty it had in days past–four neighbors gathered around a filthy and dented cauldron, poking the logs of a fire that the wind was determined to put out. They were speaking in loud voices, telling jokes in bad taste, clad only in shorts and exposing their bare torsos. It was an image that might well have been found in an engraving from an old history book about primitive civilizations.
These men were accompanied by three cute little dogs, one of whom had a woman’s name. I made a comment about this to a lady in the elevator with me. Incensed, she told me it was not just a dog’s name, but a bad joke that showed a lack of disrespect for a neighbor in the building, who had the same name. To me this was yet another indication of the class of people to be found making the traditional caldosa* for this event. During my entire trip home to Nuevo Vedado it was the only preparation of this sort I was able to observe. It must have been because it was still early.
Something else I noticed was that the smells coming from the cauldron were neither pleasant nor unpleasant in spite of the fact that something was obviously boiling in it. I then realized that almost no one from the CDR – at least not on my block – went door-to-door requesting food donations for the celebration’s communal pot any more as they often did some years ago. Certainly, food is not only scarce but the prices are excessively high and almost no one is in a position to give it away. Besides, there are ever fewer people attending these events since in their own homes many have to confront on a daily basis what could be described as – to paraphrase the title from an old film – the silence of the cauldrons.
Translator’s note: Caldosa is traditionally a thick broth or stew.After the Cuban revolution cooking it became a communal event in which neighbors brought whatever ingredients they had at hand. Some say this came about because of food scarcity; others believe that the change had more to do with the collective emphasis of socialism. (Source: cubaentuscon.blogspot.com)
I am not given to interviews. Nor do I like them. Ninety percent of the time I turn down requests for them. A journalist’s role is to question, investigate, analyze and write. What I like about print journalism is the anonymity. Information, news, reporting or chronicling are what matter. Not the author.
I am caught between two currents. Government media outlets have accused me of being “counterrevolutionary.” Just like that, nothing more. I have never visited the United States Interest Section in Havana and I do not connect to the internet at an embassy. I swear it is not because of some neurosis. It is that I am disgusted by diplomats’ tendency towards flattery.
I pay 15 CUC out of my own pocket for two hours of time and once a week I go online from a Havana hotel. My first priority is to send my dispatches and, if time permits, I read online journals in Spanish and copy some texts, usually sports stories and world news.
The internet connection in Cuba is slow and the minutes remaining do not leave enough time to read emails or to visit Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin.
I would like to be able to read more blogs by renowned journalists from major media outlets directly, but I have to make do with links my mother sends to my email address. Once a week I copy them on USB’s, and later calmly open and read the articles on my laptop at home.
A news story captures the reality of the person writing it. No matter how much one may try to be balanced and objective, the article always somewhat reflects the journalist’s views.
I flee from wise monkeys, those whose egos are so big they often keep two beds in their rooms—one for themselves and one for their egos. No blog can completely capture the complex Cuban experience.
There are hookers, male prostitutes and gays disgusted by the economic inefficiency of the government. There are also people who believe in socialism and are confident that Raúl Castro’s reforms will work. Whatever beliefs one has, they should not be an impediment to dialog and the possibility of building bridges.
I like to write about losers. Or winners who are about to become losers. We are all Cubans. We do not all have to think the same way, nor should we. That would be very boring. When the government understands that it cannot govern only for the benefit its supporters, it will grow strong.
Some accuse me of being very critical of the dissidents. Once I described them as “banana dissidents,” which made me a countless number of “enemies.” They did not shoot me because they couldn’t. Instead they chose to accuse me of being a “security agent” and other such nonsense. For its part the government writes me off as a “mercenary.” This is the price one pays for having one’s own standards. I am a bothersome journalist.
But I do not see why people who think differently cannot have a civil discussion. We must stop gritting our teeth and clenching our fists and learn how to accept our differences. It is very easy to accuse and defame. It would be healthy to erase all these human miseries and distrusting attitudes.
The future of Cuba will be decided in ten years time. Perhaps less. All Cubans, whatever our beliefs, should put forth our best efforts to change and improve society. When we learn to say “I do not agree with you” instead of the more typical “you are mistaken,” we will grow as a nation.
Photo: Wooden sculpture of the three wise monkeys by Hidari Jingoro (1594-1634) at the Toshogu shrine, Nikko, Japan
It’s not their best song but the theme cuts me to the bone. I listen again to the Arjona clip and again I shiver, I get up and punish the keyboard with a pain that hurts me, a pain that I try to put into words but can’t, because 50 years already seems like too much time and too many dashed hopes, scattered, promised and postponed, shipwrecked in the Straits even today.
First and core cause of each and every one of the deaths suffered by the rafters in the narrow gap, the travel ban was always a slap on the cheek, my only people divided in two, more than by the Gulf Stream, by the storms of intolerance. Due to this vilifying the professional and the athlete as a “deserter”; citizens served up a la carte, Spanish or Mesopotamian, who suddenly take advantage of their distant pedigree; the hookers who leave trafficking their bodies; selling their spit of the silence of cowards who fake it for crumbs; I see how the dignity of so many Cubans is prostituted.
Family separation caused by migration policy which the Cuban government has imposed for over half a century deserved to be categorized as a crime against humanity in whatever forum is respected. No other arbitrariness, among those held by the Cuban government during this time has been so traumatic and harmful to the people who experience it.
I say the people, because their selective nature strengthens their outrageous nuance: while depriving the people of their genuine right to travel, senior politicians and government wander the world, along with their children, wives, and — why not? — their lovers; they leave and return openly under cover of official missions or as managers of phantom firms and no one know what they do, and if these enjoy their scholarships in Europe, while those pass through Cancun, while I and mine have never gone farther than Matanzas.
It’s been over a year since Raul Castro publicly announced that his government would implement changes, which he did not specify, and the travel and immigration mechanisms, but already we are looking out from our subtle autumn and he gives the impression he doesn’t care, that they still have an entire lifetime to achieve the reunification of the Cuban family.
Every day that passes without the doors opening will be a shameful day and a new temptation for disgrace. Rarely was a leader at such a crossroads having in his hands, so clearly, the power to fix it; today the responsibility rests on his shoulders for every new death in the Straits as until yesterday Fidel Castro was responsible for implementing and maintaining intact for half a century this monster that causes so much pain in my people, that has essentially caused the most dramatic exodus in Cuban history.
There they tell of the mourning of the mothers and the absences and the look of the orphaned and dead children. Now is the time to vindicate, unconditionally, this right of the Cuban people! Anyone who opposes it at this time will be tried inexorably before history and found guilty for this slow genocide.
But while the power calculates in the shadows, I live with a recurring dream: in the midst of a vast and peaceful sea, on a bridge without borders or tolls two children gaze with clear eyes, offering diaphanous smiles, embracing without fear and forgetting everything. Sitting on a pile of new dreams they contemplate a warm sun that comes close to the edge of the common horizon, “The dawn is here brother,” they say, “the dawn!”
For the frequent intercession attributed to her by prisons and the prison world, Our Lady of Mercy or The Most Blessed Virgin of mercy, is proclaimed Patron of the Captives, her feast is celebrated September 24, her image dressed in white, with a scapular with a shield embroidered in red, with a cross at the center and topped by a royal crown, in whose hands the image shows broken chains and handcuffs, as a sign of broken bonds, applicable to life in sin, some images may show Jesus or not, and her carrying a child also wearing the scapular, the Church celebrates her feast and as a Major Feast Day, dressed in white.
Mariana is a dedicated, popularized by San Pedro Nolasco, a pious Spaniard who devoted his vast fortune inherited from his parents when he was orphaned at age 20, and decided to serve Jesus Christ in a ministry dedicated to rescuing captive Christians who were arrested by the Muslims. He was able to do his work by pretending to be a merchant in Valencia. In 1203 he declared that he had received a prescient vision of his mission, and he joined with St. Raymond of Peñaford, in an association that ultimately gave rise to “Los Mercedarios,” the Order of Mercy.
In the early hours of August 1st to 2nd in 1218, he declared his second vision this time of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in which the Virgin asked him to found a religious order dedicated to the liberation of the prisoners which he called “The Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy of the Redemption of Captives,” — “Order of Mercy” or the “Mercedarios” is the name by which its members are known.
This order of a military character, and later mendicant, because among them its members supported the prisoners by asking for alms in the streets. It’s headquarters was established in the Santa Eulalia Hospital of Barcelona on August 10, 1218, with approval and support of James I, King of the Crown of Aragon (the Conqueror). In 1235 the Order came to be governed by the Rule of St. Augustine and Pedro Nolasco served as its first superior until his death on 14 May 1249 in the city of Barcelona.
For his pious life and work he was canonized by His Holiness Pope Urban VIII, who declared the feast of St. Peter Nolasco to be celebrated on January 28.
Prayer to the most Most Holy Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Mercy
Virgin of Mercy, Mother of Christ and Mother of the Church, refuge of the sinful!
To you I draw close, filled with love and confidence, knowing that you always listen to your children, for you are the Mother of Mercy.
I ask of you, dearest Mother, that my faith, hope and charity may grow and strengthen. That I may always live as a true child of God, your son, Madre mía.
I dedicate to you this day all that I have and all that I am: my life, my work, my happiness and my suffering. I want to be completely yours. I want to follow your footsteps along the path that leads me to Christ, our Redeemer and Liberator.
Do not forsake me, Heavenly Mother. Grant what I ask of you from my heart, for me and for all those who suffer imprisonment for their causes. I pledge my everlasting gratitude for your favors and to love you more each day.
Lady of Mercy, pray for me and for all prisoners, and grant them the grace to be freed from the chains of earth and from sin through love for your Son, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns forever and ever.
Six years after the Proclamation in which Fidel Castro delegated almost all power to his brother, and four years after Raul Castro officially took the reins of government, almost all optimism about the possible beginning stages of transformations to advance the economy in Cuba have faded. Much less can there be any illusions regarding freedoms and rights.
Wrapped in his aura of “a pragmatic man” — based on projects carried out in the ‘90s, when he was Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) and created joint ventures, with the participation of elite and “trusted” officers, in hard currency economic activities: tourist-hotel complexes, stores, restaurants, etc. — General Raul Castro has become another failed hope for those who aspire to any economic opening, even if moderate, with a greater involvement from ordinary Cubans, as well as for those who thought that such an opening would lead to a gradual lifting of the numerous restrictions that annul and restrict any possibility of citizen prosperity.
Four years is the usual time allotted to the president of a democratic society to develop a government program and demonstrate its effectiveness and capacities in a nation, a period during which the reduction in poverty and the creation of jobs are usually permanent objectives and two of the most important indicators of progress of every administration.
In Cuba, however, after this period of time, not only is there no government program with clearly established goals and timelines — even the mere promise of a daily glass of milk for every Cuban is an insoluble economic challenge for the government — but there exists an explicit demonization of individual prosperity endorsed in an open war against “enrichment,” while officially announced layoffs have affected more than 1,300,000 workers. No government of a free society could survive such nonsense.
This calamitous socioeconomic state has led the general-president to offer his oft repeated phrase of “introducing structural and conceptual changes,” a line meant to distract public opinion as well as to delude the unwary. It is, in reality, a diversionary tactic to allow the ruling elite, instead of improving the situation or generating social benefits, to gain what we Cubans are losing: time. An apparently reformist discourse to disguise a retrograde and twisted economic policy and the complete lack of any intention to introduce changes.
So, in the last two years the masquerade of an opening was carried forward through the proliferation of tiny businesses, while at the same time an attempt was made to legitimate a state of permanent experimentation — in both the economy and in issues inherent to citizens’ rights — which on the one hand justifies the slow application of the so-called “reforms,” and on the other gives the government impunity, the grace of eternity, and the present and future arbitration over every aspect of national life, be it the economy, politics, or any other niche of society.
Against the ‘reforms’
In any event, it was a timely retirement. The General himself was in charge of assuring that this time there would be no retreat on self-employment, as had happened during the ‘90s. Let no one doubt, under Raul’s regime self-employment had come to stay. What’s more, there would be no discrimination against the self-employed and the dignity of individual effort would be recognized. In the excitement of the economic plans of small family businesses as a palliative to the national misery, self-employed workers seemed to have become the Revolutionaries of our time.
But, indeed, it was barely the mirage of a moment, because it soon became evident that some family businesses, despite being in unequal and unfair competition with the State, not only survived, but were more attractive than their peers in the State sector. Many sellers of clothing, footwear and accessories have better prices, as well as products of better quality and variety which — in the absence of an internal wholesale market — are sent by their families abroad. Some even offer articles not sold in the hard currency stores.
Something similar happened with the private restaurants: the owners of these businesses receive products and supplies from abroad that cannot be purchased in this country, or whose prices in the domestic market are prohibitive. As a consequence, and given that their earnings depend on their own effort, the quality of the food and service in the private restaurants is greatly superior to that of the State’s.
The official reaction shows that retreat on the reforms is not only possible, but inherent in the system. Recent actions include the increase in customs tariffs against imports, and exaggerated hygiene-sanitary measures against the private restaurant sector (not also enforced on the filthy State establishments), added to the other burdens placed on self-employment such as abusive tax rates and the corruption of inspectors and other officials.
As an aggravating factor, self-employment remains illegal under the constitution, as to date there has been no repeal of Article 21, which established that “the ownership of the means and instruments of personal or family labor cannot be used to obtain profits through the exploitation of the work of others.” This is a situation that allows the authorities to walk back or stop the process “until adjustments are made in the pertinent laws.”
Currently, the issuance of license for self-employment has slowed greatly, while the return of licenses already issued has accelerated. Everything indicates that self-employment became too broad a task for State control, and too narrow a horizon for the aspirations for prosperity for many of the proto-entrepreneurs who chose this route as a possible path.
Now the most recent of the Raul regime’s proposals is the oldest “innovation” in the world, to be applied “experimentally” in Cuba: non-State cooperatives. Which, of course, shouldn’t be understood literally as cooperatives independent of the State. This initiative hides under the induced historical amnesia that the Cuban people suffer from, given that before 1959 there were numerous independent cooperatives on the Island which worked perfectly: taxi drivers, restaurants, various trades, and even doctors and lawyers. Why “experiment” in something that is known and whose efficiency is more than proven? Undoubtedly, this is another scam that is added to the list of well-tried reforms.
The Cuban “model” and its “renewal” that won’t be
We’ve all heard the general-president speak of “the Cuban model” when it comes to economics. To “renew” this “modal” has been his roadmap, the backbone of his government endorsed program (?!) in a set of guidelines almost no one remembers.
Few Cubans, however, could describe the concept. What elements support the existence of a Cuban economic model? Did the numerous (innumerable) economic failures derive from the preposterous plans of Castro I, indisputable architect of the national ruin? Is the more than half a century record of moving from first place to last place in this Hemisphere surpassed only by Haiti in misery?
Are the galloping corruption, the chronic inefficiency, the insufficient salaries, the barriers and immobility, more appropriate hallmarks for defining a “Cuban model”? And if so, in what sense would it be renewed? Is there anything salvageable in the supposed model? It’s a rhetorical question.
The essential contradiction facing the government today lies in the impossibility of achieving economic progress or furthering reforms while, at the same time, repressing individual liberties. The system’s totalitarian character doesn’t allow any movement; this is the lesson that the government has learned over these four years.
What Cubans have learned is that there will be no true reforms generated from government initiatives, while all the conditions still have not matured for proposals for change to be generated by citizens. For the government, the only thing left is repression as a means of survival. For Cubans all that is left is the dilemma between rising up and emigrating.
There will be no solution to the crisis in Cuba as long as the United Nations Human Rights Covenants, signed by the government itself in February 2008 and never ratified, are complied with, but it is the job of Cubans themselves to see that these don’t become another waste of paper. The only possible and effective renewal in Cuba today is the recovery of civil society, the restoration of the Rule of Law, and of democracy.
Joaquin Sabina. Image taken from http://www.verletras.com/
Festivals of Varadero, Girasoles Opina, Bossa Nova in Havana… a parade of progressive and talented artists toured the country in the sixties, seventies and eighties. I followed their catchiest tunes and imitated their hairstyles and clothes. Humming “Who told you I was always laughing, never crying…” “What is it, what is it, that goes sighing through the bedrooms,” “Pedro Navaja, his hands always inside his coat.” I remember my sister laughing at me and saying that I had “Brazilian hair” because my profile reminded her of a table lamp, like the profile of María Betania and many other divas of that time. I adored that comparison! It was also a time when we frequently saw Ana Belén and Víctor Manuel on the national scene. Even “La Negra,” Mercedes Sosa, sang “Thanks to life,” in front of the national microphones.
However, these usual artists also stopped visiting us. Some died, others were disillusioned by the abuses and excesses of the Revolution and, most of them, simply stopped considering Cuba among the essential places in their itineraries. From the promotional posters that used to read, “Paris, Berlin, New York, Buenos Aires… Havana,” the largest of the Antilles disappeared. We went from being an obligatory stop to becoming a place where only the ideologically convinced appeared. Politics colored everything, determined arpeggios, tunes, choruses. The music was divided between artists committed to “the cause” and “traitors” who didn’t deserve to appear before a Cuban audience. The last time I heard Joaquin Sabina in a Havana theater, a girlfriend climbed up on the stage and planted a kiss on his cheek. “The caress of farewell” we later called that gesture, because after that we never saw hide nor hair of the Andalusian again. The character (or alter ego) of one of his sung stories said, about his visit to Cuba, “I’ll never return, I don’t enjoy it.”
The regular visitors of those decades were added to the list of other musicians we would never see live. So, we missed the impudent mouth of Mick Jagger and Shakira’s swagger, Lady Gaga’s eccentricity and the soft swaying of Willy Chirino. We grew up without direct experience of the Celia Cruz’s sandunga, the stage lights falling on Ricardo Arjona, or the din of the theater during a concert by Freddie Mercury. Madonna has not come to Havana, Michael Jackson died without stepping foot on Cuban soil, and at the rate we’re going generations of artists will conclude their careers without ever singing in front of us. At least we had Juanes here, with Olga Tañón and Miguel Bosé at that unforgettable concert in 2009.
To be a citizen of the 21st century includes not only connecting to the Internet, having the right of free association and free expression, but also cultural and musical contact in keeping with the times. But our international program shows that we’re stuck in the last century, stranded in that time when Milton Nascimento and Fito Páez sang a few yards from us.
She is a good person: generous, responsible, and educated. She practices a very healthy lifestyle, she doesn’t smoke or drink, and she cares for the environment and its inhabitants, she has a strong character and she has a special devotion to her mare named Cholera, whom she rides every day.
Translated by: Gabriel Sabatés, Eduardo García, and Alek Ubieta
In every neighborhood Revolution. CDR (Committee for the Defense of the Revolution)
The stew was cooked on firewood collected by some neighbors, the flags hung in the middle of the block and the shouts of Viva! went on past midnight. A ritual repeated with more or less enthusiasm every September 27 throughout the Island. The eve of the 52nd anniversary of the founding of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), the official media celebrate on its commemoration, a song intended to energize those who are a part of the organization with the most members in the entire country, and to dust off the old anecdotes of glory and power.
But beyond these formalities, which are repeated identically each year, we can perceive that the influence of the CDR in Cuban life is in a downward spiral. Gone are the days when we were all “CeDeRistas” and the acronym — with the figure of a man brandishing a machete — still shone brightly on the facades of some houses.
Amid the ongoing decline of its prominence, it’s worth asking if the committees have been a more of source of transmission of power to the citizenry, than a representation of us to the government. The facts leave little room for doubt. Since they were created in 1960, they have had an eminently ideological base, marked by informers. Fidel himself said it during the speech in which he announced their creation:
“We are going to implement, against imperialist campaigns of aggression, a Revolutionary system of collective surveillance where everybody will know who lives on their block and what relations they have with the tyranny; and what they devote themselves to; who they meet with; what activities they are involved in.”
These words from the Maximum Leader are now difficult to find reproduced in full on national websites and newspapers. In part because, despite the unconditional support for the Commander in Chief, the current editors of these spaces know very well that such language is totally out of sync with the 21st century.
That is, what seemed like an exalted Revolutionary speech delivered from the balcony of the Presidential Palace, in the light of today has all the hallmarks of partisan despotism, of the grossest authoritarianism. Big Brother announcing his plan. If those words excited exaltation at the beginning of the sixties… they now provoke in many a mixture of terror, disgust and embarrassment for the man who spoke them.
The “sweeter” side of the CDR is the one that’s always related in official reports, talk about a popular force dedicated to collecting raw material, helping in the vaccination of infants, promoting blood donations, and guarding neighborhoods against crime. Put like that it appears to be an apolitical neighborhood group ready to solve community problems.
Believe me, behind this facade of representation and solidarity is hidden a mechanism of surveillance and control. And I’m not speaking from the distance of my armchair or from the lack of knowledge of a tourist who spends two weeks in Havana.
I was one of those millions of Cuban children who stockpiled empty jars or cartons, cut the grass and handed out anti-mosquito products in the CDRs all over the country. I was also vaccinated against polio and even tasted some plate of stew or other during the fiestas of this organization.
In short, I grew up as a child of the CDR, although when I reached adulthood I refused to become a militant among its ranks. I lived all this and I don’t regret it, because now I can conscientiously say from the inside that all those beautiful moments are dwarfed by the abuse, the injustices, the accusations and control that these so-called committees have visited on me and millions of other Cubans.
I speak of the many young people who were not able to attend university in the years of the greatest ideological extremism because of a bad reference from the president of their CDR. It was enough during a reference check from a school or workplace for some CDRista to say that an individual was “not sufficiently combative” for them to not be accepted for a better job or a university slot.
It was precisely these neighborhood organizations who most forcefully organized the repudiation rallies carried out in 1980 against those Cubans who decided to emigrate through the port of Mariel in what came to be known on the other shore as the Mariel Boatlift. And today they are also the principal cauldron of the repressive acts against the Ladies in White and other dissidents.
They have never worked as a unifying or conciliatory force in society, but rather as a fundamental ingredient in the exacerbation of ideological polarization, social violence, and the creation of hatred.
I remember a young man who lived in my neighborhood of Cayo Hueso, who had long hair and listened to rock music. The president of the CDR made his life so difficult, accused him of so many atrocities simply for the fact of wanting to appear as who he was, that he finally ended up in prison for “pre-criminal dangerousness.” Today this intransigent — this one-time “Frikie” from my block — lives with his daughter in Connecticut, after having his life and reputation dragged through the mud like so many others.
I also know of several big traders in the black market who assumed some post in the committees to use as a cover for their illegal activities. So many who took on the role of “head of surveillance” and were simultaneously the biggest resellers of tobacco, gas, and food in the whole area.
With few exceptions, I did not know ethically commendable people who led a CDR. Rather they attracted those with the lowest human passions: envy before those who prospered a little more; resentment of someone who managed to create a harmonious family; grudges against those who received remittances from family abroad; dislike for everyone who honestly spoke their minds.
This deceitfulness, this absence of values and this accumulation of grievances, have been been one of the fundamental causes for the CDRs’ fall into disgrace.
Because people are tired of hiding their bags so the informing neighbor can’t see it from their balcony. People are tired of the worn out sign in front of their house with the figure with the threatening machete. People are tired of paying a membership fee to an organization that when you need it takes the side of the boss, the State, the Party.
People are tired of 52 anniversaries, one after another, like a stale and nightmarish deja vu. People are tired. And the way to express this exhaustion is with the lowest attendance at CDR meetings, failing to go on night watch to “patrol” the blocks, even avoiding tasting the stew — ever more bland — on the night of September 27.
If doubts remain about why people get tired, we have the words of Fidel Castro himself on that day in 1960, when he revealed from the first moment the objective of his grim creature: “We are going to establish a system of collective surveillance. We are going to establish a system of Revolutionary collective surveillance!”
The news hits me because it’s so inconceivable: as he was trying to find out the situation of a person detained in Santiago de las Vegas, the young lawyer Veizant Boloy, of the Cuban Law Association, was arrested.
This arrest took place inside a police station. Veizant was handcuffed and locked in a cell as well. There are no charges; there is no Arrest Record; there is nothing. Now in Cuba not only are the lawyers who are not pro-government not allowed to inquire about an imprisoned person, but those who question and demand compliance with the law must be punished.
The officer, obviously irritated, told him:
“We no longer tolerate lawyers in police stations taking an interest in those who are detained.”
And in a different moment:
“For us you guys are not lawyers.”
For some time we have known the defenseless situation existing in Cuba regarding those who are detained and that we lawyers cannot be with them from the moment they are taken prisoners. We can only do it after a certain amount of time, when the police have already done what they deemed appropriate.
But this matter of not allowing us even to inquire about the situation of a person who is detained is the height of arbitrariness… but only to demonstrate to what extents goes the harassment of those for whom the laws were not written.
And that harassment results — I have no doubt — from the fact that many people are willing to inform other Cubans of the Citizens’ Demand that was delivered to the headquarters of the National Assembly of the People’s Power on June 20th of the current year.
That demand urges the government to ratify the UN Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which seems to be the last thing it wants in this world.
In acting in a repressive and violent way against what they themselves signed, those who do it show their true face to the international community… who observe what is happening not only in Syria or Africa.
Finally, whether they want it or not, those Covenants will be ratified and we will continue to work to that end, we who — although some may not like it — are OUR PEOPLE’S LAWYERS.
The Cuban crisis is advancing inexorably towards its climax for reasons that are economic, political and social as well as genetic. With each passing day the situation for most citizens — shortages, price rises, low salaries and pensions, lack of opportunity — becomes even more complicated. The “update of the model,” now codified into law, neither casts sufficient light on the tunnel’s darkness nor provides real solutions to the multiplicity of problems.
Faced with this impending reality, people from a variety of opposition camps have come together to discuss what might be the best way to achieve this necessary transition. Some feel the best way is through dialog with the government in order to achieve a greater degree of openness, which might be expanded over time. Others reject any sort of dialog in favor of direct public pressure. Still others are looking for a middle ground that might satisfy both parties and avoid violence. There might be other approaches as well. To say which is best poses a great risk, one I feel we need not take since doing so would only add fuel to the debate’s fire and complicate the current contradictions.
Perhaps it would be more convenient and intelligent to try to determine a set of demands to present to the authorities which are premised on bringing about real change. If there is a desire to seriously resolve the nation’s issues, there must be a basic shared platform on which all factions can agree in order to begin to take firm and effective steps forward.
Therefore, it is clear that the different factions must be recognized as negotiating partners, something that up till now has not happened due to the intransigence of the authorities, who consider themselves to be the country and the nation’sonly trustees, imbuing it with their ideology. Only when faced with a united opposition — one united in diversity, not in unanimity; one without fractures — will the government feel tempted to have a dialog without worrying about losing what little credibility it has left with certain sectors of the population.
The level of opposition is not reflected in the figures for election turnout or in the numbers of people who show up for mass demonstrations, which are simply by-products of an entrenched double standard, but rather in the silent voice of the majority of outraged citizens as it filters through our cities and towns. Experience over many years has shown that a fragmented opposition garners no attention.
The last approach of the government with highest leadership of the Cuban Catholic church, as the only interlocutor accepted for some very immediate problems demonstrates this. All of the initiatives should be well received and not just criticized, despite their limited reach, because they can serve to enlarge the spectrum of participation, demanding that the spaces be open to all equally. Nobody, by his own decision, should proclaim himself representative of all the citizens of the nation and pretend to be the only voice to listen to, rather it would be more intelligent to make oneself a bridge or a collection point for different views.
To aspire to a truly democratic country, the road to the transition should also be profoundly democratic. If it is not, we risk the danger of repeating the costly errors of the past, and in losing ourselves once again in the entanglement of the autocracy, intolerance and exclusion, something that none of the opposing viewpoints want, much less so, the majority of Cubans both within the country and beyond.
Translated by: Stephen Clark, Alex Vizcarra, Norman Valenzuela, and Carlos Maristany
Today the UNPACU* activist and promoter of the campaign For Another Cuba, Yosbel Ramos Suárez, has been summoned to a police station. He is being interrogated by an official named Tamayo, who is warning him that there will be no concert at Estado de Sats tomorrow, they will not allow it.
The concert scheduled for tomorrow will be the first in a serious of artistic actions to support the campaign For Another Cuba, which is demanding that the government ratify the United Nations Covenants which it signed on 28 February 2008 in New York.
David D. OMNI will be the host and as guests there will be the reggae group Estudiantes sin semilla (Students Without Seeds), the rapper Anderson, and the poets Amaury Pacheco and Luis Eligio Pérez of OMNIZONAFRANCA.
State Security has deployed strong police operations around recent meetings held at Estado de SATS and made dozens of arrests to intimidate and to try to close this space.
Carlos Lage isn’t laughing because it would be cruel to ask a man condemned to death (when the picture was taken he only had months left in his high position). Although he was at the beginning, of course, in those decades when he traveled in camouflage on a military plane.
He was killed in his engineer’s hardhat or behind his desk. He died of being shot on the 8:00 pm newscast, handing out or taking little bags with soap at the end of the month. Culturally and civilly dead, acting blindly and barely accumulating things in secret, as in all public offices in Cuba since 1959 or 1902 or 1492.
He was dead, and what’s worse, without a body, because the body in communism is always a source of hostilities and should be abolished. Dead and further than ever from our “man before the European Community to star in the Transition.”
A European would have known to laugh and inhabit his own body: Lage, no. A European would have understood that a protest in living flesh is also a feast for the senses; Lage, no. Hence, the constitutional Cubanness of our now ousted politician. Hence his weakness and his despotism with the new generations of Cubans who literally we shit (preferably, we ejaculate) over both the suit and the uniform incapable of articulating even a fake smile (it is the rictus of the executioner who kills a Nobel Peace Prize Candidate just the same as a Major General).
I’m sure Lage thought about what his bosses the Castros would say if they saw him less austere, more relaxed in the photo, almost tolerating the right of citizens to scream nude right in front of presidents. In fact, Carlos Lage was frightened. Perhaps he sensed that the super-model there was pulling out an anti-Cuban Revolution poster (and he was right: every spontaneous or campaign poster, anywhere in the world, is against the Cuban Revolution).
It’s sad. Half a century without touching, without warming up (or worse, trying, but hypocritically, given the certainty that the State Security cameras would be recording, every muscle every death rattle).
Sad, shit. It’s dreadful.
Cuba doesn’t have Cubans who serve beyond their prudish wrecks. Cuba does not have bodies. It doesn’t have tits or ass neatly displayed in public, like faith that we have survived the barbarism of the holocaust. Cuba is not in Europe. Cuba just has perverse little heads, desire on the Island is the realm of violence and possession. The freedom to explode the body outside has been supplanted by the punishment of the corpse, by the stigmatization of prison, by the phobia of the neighbor. Our communism is apocryphal (as are all in practice), a word pronounced by no one. Worse still, pronounced by millions of no ones (our real names only emerge in a State Security file, awaiting the moment of annihilation).
Cuban men and woman listening to me (this column is heard, not read), I have had enough. I want to leave. Be other people. To be real, not associable with this cloaked race and its serious distorted faces, whose bald spots are synonyms of tortured lives. I can no longer tolerate being your contemporary (democracy is not saved from indecency). We don’t deserve a future together. Right now we should be committing suicide from family boredom, like the Revolucionosaurus in the European photo. We would have to submit ourselves to a Pajama Plan* until Cuba scorches the remains of the heart with which I am on the verge of hating you, of hurting me, of bartering my body in combat.
Look, better I leave. Forget my live voice, of this imagination so intolerably vital. And, please, if it wouldn’t be too much to ask, erase yourself too, in time.
Until Europe returns laughter to us.
*Translator’s note: Ousted officials in Cuba are said to be on the “pajama plan.”
I’m not referring to the beautiful song by David Kern, that is now an American classic, but to the terrible smoke of the fumigation that irritate the eyes and penetrate the nasal cavities, making it difficult to breathe; becoming in turn, the cause of so many diseases of the breathing passages that afflict many our citizens nowadays.
Every Tuesday they fumigate in my neighborhood. This makes the majority of the neighbors uncomfortable, but almost nobody refuses to let them pass by, still knowing full well that this doesn’t take care of the mosquito problem. I think that this attitude of the majority of people is induced by fear or laziness, because it doesn’t make sense to do this, and complain later, between those same neighbors, and not in front of the responsible authorities.
If this practice solved the epidemic disease, after so much time, it would have already been resolved. But it isn’t like that, every year we confront the same problem, except that it keeps increasing. This fumigation is already becoming the story of The Good Pipe*: endless! It is about filling your house with an unbearable smoke, a product of burning petroleum. It only serves to kill a few cockroaches and to leave the floors saturated with a slippery substance that becomes the cause of not just a few falls and broken bones by older people.
As long they don’t collect the garbage every day, clean the containers on the same schedule, periodically cut the grass in the yards and vacant lots, sweep and wash the streets, fix the potholes where the sewage water accumulates from the innumerable public and private leaks, and above all, eliminate the major causes: state farms located in major streets and avenues which causes these to always be covered with red soil, urban and suburban agriculture, which in itself attracts flies, mosquitoes and rodents, as well as the waste open to the weather, which these inadequate facilities generate. Until this is not eliminated, no progress can be achieved in combating dengue. The number of years they have been spraying without any positive result is overwhelming evidence of this.
Yet, the private fields are clean and so is the merchandise they offer, too. This possibly is due to the fact that it is the private sector where they demand and apply all the norms, penalties and fines. Why not to the State sector, who should be setting the example?
In terms of household fumigation, the process is too negative and annoying, to the point of threatening those who cannot let the bad mannered fumigators — who interrupt whenever they want and make rude demands — into their homes for medical reasons.
*Translator’s note: “The Good Pipe” is what in English is often known as a “shaggy dog story” — a joke that goes on and on and on and on…
Translated in part by: Derek Gonzalez, Jose Mas, and Oscar Sanz
I had no intention of returning to the issue of state inspectors, which I addressed on 14 April of this year under the title “Inspectors: the new plague.” However, subsequent events witnessed by me and verified information given by some vendors on their own, the main victims, force me to do so.
