Terabytes / Yoani Sánchez

zettabyte

On my balcony there is a yagruma tree. Leaves in the shape of hands with rounded fingers, white underneath and green above. However, its sympathetic shape and its peculiarity in growing in a pot more than fifty yard above the ground are not what I like about it. Rather it is its capacity to adapt. It has understood for years that the concrete ceiling won’t allow it to grow straight, and so it leans outward, hanging its boughs over the wall fourteen stories up. After the cat damaged the trunk sharpening its nails it developed scars around a thicker bark, more protective. Before every obstacle it meets it finds a way to avoid it; before every attack a mechanism to protect itself.

Our daily lives are filled with lessons like that of the “potted Yagruma.” For example, in my neighborhood the young people have configured numerous wireless networks to exchange programs, games and files. Like the balcony plant, they don’t want to shape themselves according to the limits placed on them by reality, among which are the absurd restrictions on free access to the Internet. So they have created their own paths to navigate, although in a rudimentary and limited intranet. With a lack of information channels not under the strict supervision of the State other paths also arise to exchange, buy and sell foreign television programs, music and films. In a dizzying variety and quantity.

“How many terabytes do you want?” one of these boys asked me this morning; though he has barely turned twenty he’s already in the “information business.” His question short-circuited my brain because I’d learned to calculate in megabytes, and later in gigabytes, but this is too much for me. He then detailed his offer. He has packages of serials and documentaries, that run from historic themes, espionage, science and technology, to complete biographies. As he could see that I was reader he also added a collection of interviews with the most important authors of the Latin American “Boom.” He left for the end titles such as “The Great Assassinations of History,” “The Drug Route,” “Extreme Surgery,” “China: An Abyss Between Rich and Poor”… And I stood there with my flash drive in hand not knowing what to choose. In the end I took several gigabytes of a wide variety and ran home. With the same sense of victory as that yagruma which, despite the strict limits of the roof… has managed to slip away toward the vastness.

21 August 2012

Kcho: To Clamor for Slavery is Contrary to the Ethics of the Artist / Ángel Santiesteban

Angel Santiesteban, 13 August 2012 — The painter, Alex Leyva (aka Kcho) has stated in a session of the Parliament of the Assembly of People’s Power, in which he serves as a “deputy,” that artists should work for the people voluntarily and for free without receiving any monetary compensation.”

At a meeting of intellectuals and artists he attended last February, he also declared that, in general, the state should impose a 100% tax rate on both working and non-working citizens since, according to him, “those of us who are Cuban all emanate from the work of Fidel Castro.”

In his particular case it should be understood that—during the years he was at school, which he quit at an early age—Kcho attended the Gerona School for Special Education, which provided schooling for children with learning difficulties. You might recall the documentary on his work in which subtitles had to be used so that what the artist said could be understood. Thanks to the work of speech therapists, we can now at least understand what he is trying to say.

How is it possible that an artist can ask his compatriots and colleagues to work for a system that exploits them. Of course, it is understandable given the way he explains it. Whenever the Marta Machado Artistic Brigade —named after his late mother, whose greatest achievement was giving birth to him, developing his innate talent and setting him on his way—calls a meeting to “help” the people, it serves as nothing more than as a means of self-promotion and a way to loot municipal and provincial coffers, whose funds he coldly and larcenously extracts.

A few years ago I was invited by the National Union of Cuban Artists and Writers (UNEAC) to visit a camp set up by Mr. Kcho in Candelaria, Pinar del Rio province to provide “artistic” aid to residents who were victims of a hurricane that had left them homeless, impoverished and virtually without food.

After visiting the site and listening to accounts from the camp’s neighbors, I learned that what was actually ravaging the place was the presence of voracious brigade members, who, in spite of the shortages being suffered by the population, were demanding fresh salads, fruits, desserts, wines and other refrigerated luxuries.

The most appalling thing to me was that these expenses were paid not from the artist’s own funds, but rather by the state, specifically on the orders of Fidel Castro. All the televised propaganda that reported on this project served no purpose other than to give a politically false impression.

But the greatest horror experienced there was that the most scandalous orgies were organized under the camp tents. Kcho and the painters who made up his retinue chose girls they found beautiful to serve as companions. They were selected from art schools or taken from their homes with promises to rescue them from the deprivation and hunger they were enduring.

This was done with the consent of their parents, and the support of the school and regional officials, who introduced the girls as a way to satisfy the sexual pathologies of Kcho and his cohorts. Those who went in as young ladies were something quite different when they came out. Many turned to uterine scraping in an effort to undo their pregnancies.

Of course, pigs roasting on a spit were a daily occurrence, at least on the days Kcho chose to be present, since he only occasionally made the sacrifice of sleeping under a tent. He justified his trips to Havana with the excuse that he had to go look for provisions, allowing him to flee the toil and misery left behind by the natural disaster, and to sleep peacefully in the air-conditioned house at “El Laguito,” given to him by his “comandante,” Fidel Castro.

It was worse at Isla de la Juventud (Island of Youth), where he plundered the culture budget to such an extent that there was no money left to pay artists. Year’s end was drawing near and they had not been paid for two months. Might this be what he means when Kcho talks about working for free — a way for him to enjoy luxuries and binges with his friends? With money from the culture ministry he bought televisions and refrigerators, which later, after his stint with the brigade appeared to have ended, were given to family members. The residents observed how his uncles and cousins came looking for these appliances. Is this not theft? And none of it was hidden. So ignorant is he that the did it openly in front of people who, in general, prefer to remain silent to avoid losing their jobs, which are their families’ the only source of income.

His depredation became so great that many of the island’s artists considered going on strike if they were not paid by the end of the year. To get the matter resolved, someone had to call “Ministry of Culture,” which issued a bank transfer to help the artists and calm heated emotions.

That same official, a fan of dominoes, once invited Kcho to play a game, and to this he responded no, because he couldn’t bear to lose. Of what free work, then, would he be talking if he doesn’t know how to lose. Of course, it’s not about him, he gets thousands of dollars for his work, for which we congratulate him, not for asking his compatriots to be slaves which goes against the essence of an artist. It’s absolutely certain that Kcho didn’t read Marti, because he doesn’t know that the Master wrote that Socialism is the highest stage of slavery.

In one of my published books, The Children Nobody Wanted, in fact, the designer chose a photo of an installation that Kcho made with several rafts and inner tubes, precisely because it expressed the pain of Cuban youth who feel forced to emigrate, and in which he was able to consummate the dreams of several generations who through their luck on the sea in hopes of a better future, and of the other great part of the same youth who never get there, so their lives and dreams are truncated, works whose titles speak for themselves: The Road to Nostalgia, The Infinite Column, In Order to Forget, In The Sea Nothing is Written, The Jungle, The Sons of William Tell, Delaying the Inevitable.

Until Kcho was lifted up by power, his work was a reflection of his generation, since then it has become many things, but sincerely and without rancor, we must recognize that his talent has evaporated, and that for several years it’s been a repeat of the same: the pot and the palm.

Indeed, back in Gerona, his birthplace, friends, neighbors and acquaintances were always ready for this mania many painters have for drawing on any available piece of paper, and sometimes on napkins Kcho would make some sketch for what would later be a painting.

So he gave his friends these sketches warning them they couldn’t sell them. Some, when they were financially pressed, managed to get a few bills from tourists, and when Kcho learned of it he lashed out against them and ended the friendship. In his little understanding it was as if he didn’t comprehend the neediness of those around him, nor that with their sale they managed to subsist in the daily misery, and that the best measure of a friend is when he can, with his art, provide food and comfort to those with whom he shares a friendship.

Summing up the case, in addition to knowing that the human being Alexis Leyva isn’t one of the great lights, the money he raises for his work, for which we applaud him, and the benefits he extracts from the government, which we criticize, and what he has achieved through his disjointed and unintelligible fanatic adoration of Fidel Castro, has made him the favorite son of the dictatorship, and has led to a level of disconnect with the Cuban reality, such that like a robot he only expresses fatal words, lapses before the history that will recall him and the opportunist he is.

Like many artists he’s only interested in living in the moment, and it is not his fault that he lacks the capacity to assimilate a little bit of the knowledge of history, and not knowing the future, when all the horrors he committed in defending Fidel Castro and his followers are exposed before his eyes, then we will hear that he didn’t know, that he could never have imagined, and, like now, we will have to simply look with pity on his bulk that gets fatter every day at the tables of the Palace, the Council of State. That is his pay: the giant shrimp, huge lobsters, and the arm of the dictator around his shoulders as he poses.

August 13 2012

Strange Assumptions* / Fernando Dámaso

If you have been following the media campaign by Cuban authorities (and those of the ALBA** countries, among others) on behalf of Syria and Venezuela, it is easy to detect a number of inconsistencies in approach.

In terms of Syria, the repressive actions by the government against its citizens, who have rejected it and are in open conflict with it, are approved and sanctioned as “necessary actions against traitors and mercenaries.” (The language is familiar to us.) In contrast, the positions taken by a majority of Arab and western countries, which accuse it of genocide and demand it take effective action to reverse the situation in favor of its citizens, are considered “unacceptable interference in an independent and sovereign state.” In other words, according to these criteria, one must permit Assad to massacre his people with impunity while remaining silent, arms folded, and wait for him to complete his task.

In terms of Venezuela—where everything is a bed of roses—any form of support or aid that helps the “comrade president” retain power constitutes a mandate from bothBolívar and Martí. Rather than a form of interference, it is instead a show of “simple revolutionary and anti-imperialist solidarity in the process of Latin American emancipation.”

From this comfortable position, one can—without the least embarrassment—campaign on behalf of the incumbent, and against the opposition candidate, as though this did not constitute crude interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs, which are the sole responsibility of its citizens to debate and resolve. If the situation were reversed, they would have already denounced such actions and sought the intervention of ALBA, UNASUR, MERCOSUR, the OAS, the UN, and even the International Court of Justice at the Hague—as is their normal reaction—in an effort to maintain “the fraternity of the left” and that of all its signatories.

These positions, easy to check daily, demonstrate a lack of seriousness and respect for the accords and treaties signed by governments in the region when the need to defend political and ideological interests are involved. Some come to the defense of others, as though the herd has been attacked.

A recent example of this attitude is the so-called “Assange case,” in which a straightforward accusation of alleged sexual assault has become a political issue—with implications for a number of countries—after Ecuador granted the accused diplomatic asylum in its London embassy over objections from Great Britain. Though the British response was excessive, Ecuador’s went even further. It issued calls for a “holy Latin American war” against that country, reviving yet again the tired slogans of “wounded dignity,” “humiliated sovereignty,” and “independence under assault.”

It seems the president of Ecuador, who overnight has become a champion of freedom of expression (something he represses in his own country), is trying to replace the Bolivarian leader—with help from his Latin American cohorts—as the point man in the “war against the imperialists.” With all due respect to him and the others, the task is too great. These efforts to make a hero out of a common criminal confers neither respect nor dignity on any country, much less on all of Latin America.

These strange assumptions continually throw fuel onto the fire and distort reality, making it very difficult to achieve peace and advance civilized coexistence between nations. The seeds of this new cold war, one of several in contention, are still incubating thanks to widespread indifference. I hope it can be stopped in time so that we have nothing to regret later on.

*Translator’s note: The title is a pun on the Spanish word extraño, which can mean both strange and foreign.

** ALBA stands for Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America). An organization of socialist and social democratic Latin American countries made up of Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Venezuela.

August 20 2012

Losers / Regina Coyula

Fulano? She is in Guanajuato. Menganita? At the Boston Ballet. Ciclano? With MauriceBéjart. Zutanito? Up a small staircase in Miami. Esperanceja? Things have not gone so well for her. She’s giving ballet classes in Barcelona. And so it went as I spent the day with five friends, all former ballerinas with the National Ballet of Cuba, two of them for certain, part of the enormous masses who have settled “outside.”

They did not have to close the doors behind them, in contrast to most of the oddballs in the arts. Doctors are penalized for leaving the country, and that penalty increases and is extended to their families if they “desert” while on a work assignment or on an international mission. It is the same for university professors, military officials and mid-level managers. They must wait for five years after leaving their former professions before asking permission from the appropriate ministry if they want to travel for personal reasons.

Getting back to the conversation with my friends (remember that the microcosm is a reflection of the macrocosm), none of the ballerinas about whom I inquired, all of whom had been more or less successful, had considered returning home. When their longing becomes too great, they put on an album byMaría Teresa Vera or VanVan. On that weekend they were stuffing themselves with pork and black beans.

“You lose so much,” said one of my friends, who had spent twenty years complaining about Madrid’s weather. “You miss your family, your neighborhood, friends, different places. It’s very hard.” The daughter of my friend, who was no longer a child, had studied management, owned her own apartment and car, and preferred to vacation in St. Petersburg. Her own mother tried to convince her to come to Varadero, but she preferred the Maldives.

I pointed out to my friend that, if she were in Cuba, her daughter would be living with her, she would be struggling with mass transit, and would know the Maldives only from magazine photos. She regained her composure and sat down. I praised her figure and asked if she was “doing something” (weight lifting, botox, liposuction). No, none of those things. Just an organic diet and skin care because of the dry climate. She told me she was usingMercadona creams. Judging by the results, some brands must be better than others. It was disappointing to her that I looked my age.

“If you think about it, were are the losers. We had to leave everything behind. I had to deal with the disapproval of others. That is no longer the case, but when I left, it was. And no matter what you want, it is never the same. It is what it is,” she said with conviction.

I think I understand her. Feelings of longing and rootlessness can be very strong. As everyone says, the food is not the same, the sky is a different color, and so on. I don’t have these feelings. My spiritual emptiness is of a different sort.

“We are all losers. It is just that it is less noticeable on you,” I said smiling.

August 20 2012

Not Different, Accomplices! / Miriam Celaya

A new pool of repressors in an image taken from the site of Juventud Rebelde
One of the most noticeable features of “Cubanness” is our ancestral tendency to derive patterns from subjectivities. We like to imagine ideal things, automatically assuming they are palpable realities. If what we imagine coincides with our wishes, then you can count on the legend overflowing beyond what is rationally allowed: a new “truth” would have been born, based solely and exclusively in our childish expectations.

Thus, among the more recent legends that are being constructed in the imagination of dissenters is the alleged difference of positions between the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) and the Political Police regarding opponents, independent journalists and alternative civil society activists. Some essential points on which such estimate is based – whose truth or falseness this writer does not claim or deny, therefore, I beg the readers to read with care where there are quotation marks – are as follows:

  1. The job of the PNR is to care for public order and prevent crimes, while the Political Police aim to eliminate all political opposition to the government.
  2. The Political Police enjoy political patronage which the PNR does not have, such as salary benefits, more favorable working conditions, resort vacations, rich and varied fleet, personal care products and clothing, footwear, etc., inserted in what they call “quality of life” of its agents.
  3. The Political Police are often dismissive or despotic towards agents of the PNR, which are subordinated to it, though, by current law, this should be exactly the opposite: Political Police agents should be subordinate to the PNR.
  4. The agents of the PNR are as exploited and humble as any other Cuban, and go into its employ only in search of better wages, so they tend to distance themselves from the repressive practices of the Political Police.

I will limit myself to these elements, though there are other brush strokes with which the very picturesque populace decorates this theme. I confess that I too am tempted to yield to the illusion of this PNR-dissidence affair. Bottom line is that an agent of the PNR has never addressed me in a disrespectful manner, even the time when, not long ago, by order of the Political Police, my friend Eugenio Leal and I were driven in a patrol car, with the sole aim to get us away from the activity in a public park in the capital. I remember that on that occasion the officers of the PNR seemed downright upset, but not with Eugenio and me. I don’t know, maybe they were just self-conscious and here I am, thinking that they are turned off at having to punish us. We often hope for a wink of approval to help us get over the nightmare. This democratic spirit can make us extremely romantic.

Believe me, I too would like to think that the hangmen of State “security” (insecurity?) are “the bad guys” and the boys of the PNR are “the good guys” but I have great reservations in that respect. After all, there are more issues that link the two forces of repression to one another than any alleged sympathies or consideration of the PNR to police dissent. In any case, the dungeons of the PNR units are the barricades of the Cuban democrats, and numerous are the clubs wielded by those in blue uniforms that have beaten more than a few nonconformists, and they too have been a direct part of or accessories to other abuses, such as “citations,” arrests and detentions.

I don’t think it fit to, nor do I claim a “moral approval” between the police of the PNR and any member of the opposition and independent civil society. The PNR have been quick to handcuff us and drive us off in their patrol cars, they are the same ones that routinely extort the self-employed, the prostitutes, and any of the millions of Cubans who are forced into crime to survive. The PNR is rotten with corruption to its core. Its agents, trained in violence, threats and intimidation, are the ones who close off the streets so the repudiation rallies can take place, the ones that protect its members while leaving opponents in the most profound helplessness. They are, in short, a part of the government machinery stifling the freedom aspirations of Cubans. Make no mistake; both the PNR and the Political Police are an essential part of the dictatorship, though the latter may be only the last wretched link in the chain.

As for me, I will believe in the legend of the “good guys” PNR on that the imaginary day when the blue agents will refuse to follow orders from the Political Police to beat up the peaceful opposition, or when they will simply quit, en masse, an institution whose only reason for existence is to repress and extort. In Cuban conditions, where survival depends on thievery, to be a cop necessarily means to harass the people, which is why one cannot be cop and a good guy at the same time.

And I hope some fool does not tell me that these are a “bunch of country folk” trying to make it in the capital and other cities in Cuba, that they are “too young” or a bunch of “ignorant poor babies” without clear awareness of what they are doing and that they just “follow orders”. It doesn’t sit right with me. Most of the country folk I know are hard workers, honest and with a sense of honor, incapable of abusing other Cubans. A sense of dignity is not exclusive to any age group, nor does ignorance exonerate anyone of their civic responsibility. Perhaps someday the PNR will have to answer for their actions in the same way that State Security will. By then, we will see how many of these “good” policemen will be able to show a record truly free of crime.

Translated by Norma Whiting

August 13 2012

Taguayabón, Far From the Biennial / Mario Barroso

For some weeks Havana has had its Biennial and as almost always in my little forgotten village life goes on between the tedium and mediocrity. Behind these airs of expositions and performances I can’t help but remember what happened in these parts a little after this particular cultural event in 2009.

Reinaldo Escobar and Yoani Sanchez had the crazy boldness to swim against the current and to visit this town to share with a group of locals things that at the time seemed like complete science fiction, things like the Internet and the blogosphere.

As a complement to their words, the friends from Havana projected — excellent value added to this stop of their blogger journey — a video of the performance that the painter Tania Bruguera presented at the Wilfredo Lam Center at that Biennel, under the title, “Tatlin’s Whisper.”


[Translator’s note: The above video is very poor quality but shows more speakers than the video below, which is good quality but omits the last several speakers.]

Yoani and Reinaldo’s journey occasioned, in Taguayabón, a revolt similar to that chronicled by Mikhail Bulgakov in The Master and Margarita when the devil and his minions visited Moscow. Yoani posted a text on her blog Generation Y about that time, titled “The Flight of Suzuki over Taguayabón” and I too have addressed that in other posts such as “Taguayabón DY.”

The agents of the political police, faithful to their ugly habits, tried to search out at any price what the transgressors said to the ignorance reserved for their “Revolution” in these regions; and to do this they subjected some of the privileged participants and their families to rough interrogations and pressures.Given that the issue of the Internet and the world of blogs evidently has no political color, the main suspicions fell on the strange video shown to those present.

Days later I willingly presented myself to the Muncipal Communist Party to demand that they give the order to stop the witch hunt unleashed on the town in an unprecedented police operation in which, in retaliation, even the horse of my poor brothers, who had not participated in the offending activity, was seized and to this day still has not been returned.

It was useless for me to explain to the cadre who saw me that it was Tania Bruguera, that it was a performance presented at the Biennial. For her, these “bad words” could only be more nonsense from the imperialists.

And this has been the greatest contact Taguayabón has had with a Biennial. While in Havana there was another edition of this art festival, life went on as if frozen in time in these parts and the same mediocre type of leaders of the single, failed and obsolete Party continue making the rounds at the cost of the life of a population increasingly depressed and alienated.

[Note: Here is a higher quality tape of the Tania Bruguera performance art at the Havana Biennial, but it does not include the last several speakers. Apparently the whole event lasted 41 minutes, but there were long pauses between speakers.]

July 24 2012

Dengue Fever and No Dengue Fever / Rebeca Monzo

Dengue fever is now a fact of life in our country. Clearly this is not published in the official media, but over the entire year they are fumigating the houses and the establishments, although this measure, for what they’ve been able to show, hasn’t done a thing: it just distresses and annoys people in their homes. The only thing that would put an end to it would be good hygiene in the city, something that doesn’t exist.

Any day, any time, without notice, they burst in to fill the house with smoke from burning oil, which is what they call fumigation. It’s been years with more of the same, without resolving anything. Most people do not protest, although they reluctantly accept it as they already accept everything that is imposed: without question!

Four days ago I woke up with very sore throat, a nagging cough, and spent a terrible night, coughing nonstop. The next morning I rummaged in the medicine cabinet, trying to find some relief. For several weeks I was wandering, from pharmacy to pharmacy to buy aspirin. Now the prescriptions, thankfully, are good for a month and can be filled by any pharmacy, which was not the case until recently.

In all this my husband went out to buy aspirin from a woman who, according to confidential information, had some, because she used to sell medications. He had to pay one peso for each pill, or fifty pesos for fifty pills. It was take it or leave it. If he left it, I would have no relief, so he brought me the little treasure, that fit in the palm of his hand. Normally the envelope with fifty pills, when you can find it in a pharmacy, costs one peso.

If I had been tied to my work, as I was years ago, I would have had to work a full week to pay for a packet of aspirin. Lucky me to be an artisan!

Through all of this I have discreetly stayed “underground,” because if the brand new family doctor or a seasoned neighbor discovers me, they will report me as having dengue fever and send me directly to the old Quinta Covandoga hospital which has rehabbed a pavilion for those sick with dengue fever, which more than a health unit, according to some of the diagnosed patients who have managed to escape, looks like some kind of sick store, with precarious hygienic conditions and without any kind of comfort. One of the escapees tells me he had to send for a boy to bring him a building block, to be able to prop up the fan he had brought. And that’s another thing, you have to bring everything from sheets, pillow, fan, jars with water, towel, in short everything, the only thing the hospital provides is the mosquito.

I feel better, and there is no dengue fever in my house, what with boiled water, honey, lemon and gold plated aspirin.

August 20 2012

Series on Pablo Escobar a Hit in Cuba / Iván García

For the last thirty years Cuba has been a big market for foreign soap operas and mini-series. When state television decided in the 1980s to broadcast the Brazilian telenovela, Isaura the Slave, it ignited a great national passion for melodramas. During evening hours Brazilian telenovelas, almost all produced by Globo TV, alternate with melodramas produced in Cuba.

The audience is in the millions. It is not just bored housewives and retired people who enjoy them. There is a wide range of professionals, poor people and baseball fans who sit down to watch the Brazilian series, which extend for one hundred episodes or more. Because of the impact mini-series and soap operas have had, and given the limited financial resources available, TVCuba offers a wide line-up of foreign programming on its four television channels.

Some 70% of Cuban television programming comes from overseas. Almost 90% of films are from the United States. Because of the trade embargo these are broadcast freely without any worry about having to pay royalties. Of course, if anything deals with a Cuban theme in a way that the government considers offensive or tendentious, its distribution is prohibited.

Enter the vendors who sell pirated CD’s and the thousands of people involved in the business of renting telenovelas. For only five pesos a day (the equivalent of a twenty-five US cents) you can rent programs from TelevisionMartí that showcase comedians who have left Cuba, or Oscar Haza interviewing military officials, spies and deserters.

You can also rent Colombian soap operas that deal with drug trafficking such as The Cartel of Informers or The Dolls of the Mafia, which for reasons unknown are not broadcast on state television.

Right now the most popular new show in Cuba, especially Havana, is a mini-series on the life of the drug trafficker and head of theMedellín cartel, Pablo Escobar. The series, El Patrón del Mal (The Boss of Evil), is also a Colombian export. It was produced by Juana Uribe, whose mother,Maruja Pachón, was kidnapped by Escobar, who also masterminded the assassination of her uncle, the politician Luis Carlos Galán.

This is one of the reasons that led Uribe and Camilo Cano – son of Guillermo Cano, editor and journalist for the daily El Espectador, who was killed at gunpoint by hitmen on December 17, 1987 inBogotá – to buy television rights to the book,The Parable of Pablo Escobar,by Alonso Salazar, a writer and former mayor of Medellín.

The series has 63 episodes and a market share of more than 60% of the viewing audience in Colombia, where it became very controversial over concerns that it idealized the life of a drug lord. It is one of the most ambitious and expensive productions ever made, with each episode costing more than $170,000.

Since July it has been broadcast in the United States from Monday to Friday on Telemundo. Those involved in the business of renting films, TV series and telenovelas copy programs from illegal cable antennas, which have sprouted like flowers over the entire country. “I have up to episode 44, but my customers are impatient and have managed to get hold of every episode,” says Roberto, who sells pirated CD’s along an avenue in Havana.

A formidable competitor like the Olympic Games has not keptEl Patrón del Mal from circulating at full speed through the Cuban underground. The Colombian actor,Ángel Parra, brilliantly embodies the role of Pablo Escobar. Some episodes deal with alleged business ties between Escobar and the government of Fidel Castro and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

“Perhaps this is why it is not being broadcast on national TV. The references to Cuba have generated a lot of interest among young people, who have no memory of the summary drug trafficking trials of high-ranking military officials such asArnaldo Ochoa y Tony de La Guardia,” says Eugenio, who rents out films and telenovelas.

The series’ screenwriter, Juan Carlos Ferrand, has said that ninety percent of the what is portrayed is based on actual facts. As a result the spectre of complicity of the Castro government with international narcotrafficking has been brought back to life.

August 19 2012

KISS KISS, BANG BANG / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

What would have happened if Oswaldo Payá was carrying a legal gun at the time of the tragedy of his death so often predicted by the Cuban government?

If the right to obtain a license for the civilian use of weapons (a right abolished, like so many, after the legislative catastrophe of 1959), the political police, for example, would not be able to act with the impunity of thugs who will take over any street, whether on foot or on their Suzuki motorbikes, or in a car.

The mafia of the Revolutionary materialism would know then that, before such assaults where they don’t even identify themselves, they could end up with a bullet in their forehead and without recourse, because legitimate self-defense in a universal value that survives even here.

The disrespect with which the Cuban repressors treat the bodies of their victims would end. Not one more express kidnapping. Not one more constraint. Not one more public threat. Not one more act of repudiation. The right to defend ourselves with arms, as citizens, would heal all the humiliating rot that has denigrated thousands and thousands of Cubans in the last decades.

If you are not vested with authority, and with the proper documentation issued by the relevant authorities, don’t approach me with your pow-pow because I’ll give you bang-bang! fully exercising my legal faculties.

Peaceful coexistence passes first through such empowerment, through the responsibility of good men who don’t deserve to be treated like criminals by a despotic police force manipulated by the politicians.

Oswald Payá was assassinated hundreds of times in his life as a Christian-democratic activist in Cuba. He could not properly defend himself even once. He couldn’t defend his home from the hired hordes who defaced its facade. He couldn’t defend his brave family harassed even in the hospitals. He couldn’t sell his life dearly at the end.

Perhaps the delayed democratic transition to a future Cuba would begin to conserve its pro-democracy men and women, to stop this silent drop-by-drop holocaust.

They could stop demanding so many abstract rights and focus on one concrete demand, that would have the support of the overwhelming majority of people, beyond political colors, above all not that they are beginning to create interest in the private economy and the crooks are already jeopardizing the security of their owners (the criminals, like the police, always get weapons: why not then their defenseless citizen victims?).

Please, could someone postulate something quick to preside over a hypothetical People’s Bang-Bang Party? The program would have only one point, but a tremendous biological aim:

1) WE DO NOT WANT TO LET OURSELVES BE KILLED.

August 19 2012

The City of Children / Fernando Dámaso

Archive photo

The Lourdes Base, the extinct Soviet Center of Radio-electronic Espionage, that existed in Cuba during the Cold War, was installed in what had been the Torrens Juvenile Detention Center at the time of the Republic, a juvenile reformatory for minors. Today, instead, it is the University of Information Sciences (UCI): returned to its educational function after its military adventure.

Much further out, in Bejucel, in the decade of the fifties, Father Ismael Testé realized a dream that had long prevented him from sleeping peacefully: the creation of a Center (The City of Children), where homeless children and youth or those with serious problems with their families, could live and receive instruction and civic and moral education, to prevent their becoming inmates at the Torrens Prison.

The idea, embraced by the public after it was divulged in the media, counted on monetary support from public collections and from businesses and stores, who cooperated in it, both economically as well as with donations of materials and equipment.

Father Testé’s City of Children, as it was popularly called, grew and developed, and became a reference point for something noble and right, until the arrival of the new regime which, as it did with all educational institutions both religious and private, decided that it was going to be the only one responsible for the education and development of the new citizens: and these it called “The New Man.”

Shelters, classrooms, workshops, sports camps and other facilities fell into disuse, become the staff of a Soviet missile division in 1962 and, after the October Crisis, in Cuban military installations, which used it, and built and enlarged it, according to their own interests.

Unlike Torrens, the place has not yet returned to its original function: the education and training of young people and children as citizens. The dream of the Father Ismael Testé, shaped by voluntary contributions from citizens, was cut short and disappeared, and those who were his disciples were sent out to different centers, losing the ties initially created, lost in the maelstrom of the years.

Father Testé, like many other priests, also emigrated from Cuba, forced by political events, and the burden of intolerance. Today, at least here in Cuba, neither he nor his work are ever mentioned: as if he never existed. The City of Children was a beautiful dream made reality, by the will of a priest and thousands of Cubans. It is not just that the memory of it should be diluted.

August 18 2012

Disgraceful / Cuban Law Association – Veizánt Boloy

by Veizánt Boloy

The laws are used by some citizens today like waste paper. If we take as an example the acts of repudiation — where citizens gather and scream at and even physically attack their fellow citizens or their homes — surely they would change their minds. To those who by Law are allowed to engage in this type of act.

If we describe the acts that are undertaken and that enjoy immunity, we don’t think about murder, manslaughter or robbery, because these are addressed in our Cuban Penal Code. We refer to violations and crimes that emerge from these illicit acts.

These acts of repudiation are an illegal act and to maintain a permissive attitude towards them is intentional. The act of repudiation could entail multiple crimes, such as public disorder, injury, threats, violation of the home; all with a high social danger.

According to the text of the Constitution we are all obligated to remain in strict compliance with the law. Of course, if would be utopian and excessively confident to let the Governing Council of the People’s Supreme Court resolve this problem as long as it is not independent of the Executive Power.

If, indeed, in their role to administer justice and to ensure compliance with the law, the courts and prosecutors are those who allow these illicit and immoral actions to arise, and thus they confirm the suspicion of many that “the country is ungovernable.” With contempt for the law we ask a question: What is a country without laws?

The Organs of State Security belong to the Ministry of the Interior, which acts without impunity, sparing no expense. What happens is considered “collateral damage,” and in this way any injuries are justified.

The Cuban Penal Code in its first article defines as one of its objectives to contribute to developing in all citizens the conscience of respect for the law, of doing one’s duties, and of correctly observing the norms of coexistence.

In our criminal legislation there is no specific article that criminalizes this reprehensible act and hence the degrading acts against “the most dangerous for the Country,” are without an doubt the work of many in a country located on Mars.

As a starting point, we must internalize how difficult it is to create a true nation, with respect for the others, and forgetting all that visceral hatred for those who think differently. However, despite all the force of the government, every day the number of people who want change, but who out of fear don’t demand it, is growing.

August 18 2012

The Lucrative Anti-Imperialism of Fidel Castro / Iván García

According to historical accounts—which in this case are obviously told by the victors—one morning in December of 1958 Fidel Castro observed from his command post in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra a ruthless attack by the air force of Fulgencio Batista. After the aerial raid he wrote a letter to his secretary, Celia Sánchez, in which he described the destruction caused by the bombs, which had been provided by the United States, and issued a prediction: Henceforth, his fight would be against “Yankee imperialism.”

The relationship between Castro and the neighbor to the north is a story of love and hate. During the Second World War, when he was still a beardless boy, he wrote a letter to the American president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, informing him of large deposits of nickel and copper in eastern Cuba. In exchange for this information, which the adolescent Castro considered confidential, he demanded ten dollars. Roosevelt did not acknowledge receipt of the letter. According to some psychologists such scorn can cause feelings of long-term hatred in people with inflated egos.

Narcissists are complex. Fidel Castro grew up on a farm far from the city, where the affections of his harsh father—a former Spanish soldier who fought against the forces of Cuban independence—were doled out in droplets. By the time Ángel Castro legally married his wife and formally recognized his son, the boy was then more than six years old. His mother used to call them to lunch by firing off a shotgun. It was in an atmosphere of stories about the Spanish Civil War, which he heard from the family cook, and passionate interest in the world’s great warriors that the young Castro grew up.

At university he was a gunman, agitator and guerrilla fighter. He later became the longest serving president of any modern country. Doubts remain as to whether his fifty-year autocratic rule was the result of a carefully thought-out plan or an accident of history. In interviews he has confessed that he was always a committed communist but, given the fierce anti-communism of the times, had to camouflage his political aspirations.

I don’t believe it. The ideology of Fidel Castro belongs to Fidel Castro. There is no other like it. He wears Marxism like a ring on his finger. It is a system run by a single party without presidential elections and with almost absolute power. He has exercised authority as though Cuba were a guerrilla camp. He operates from campaign to campaign. Ever on the lookout for Yankee aggression. Promising a shining future. Building a tropical socialism that has never gotten past the foundations.

He has a bad record as an economic administrator. Not even his apologists can defend it. Today Cuba is one of the poorest countries in the continent and the one with the lowest GDP. The one-and-only comandante’s most essential political weapon, both internally and externally, has been anti-imperialism.

The enemies of the United States became his enemies. Their cruelty and tactics did not matter. From Shining Path in Peru, MR-19 and the FARC to the bloodthirsty Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and Pol Pot in Cambodia, they all at various times received political support.

The fuel that sustains his autocratic rule is the confrontation, real or imaginary, with the gringos. On the other side of the Florida Straits there have certainly been some American administrations which have resorted to destabilizing actions in an effort to overthrow him. But Castro has been no angel either. From the earliest years of his rule he has supported groups and individuals with dubious reputations.

Some such as ETA, FARC and Carlos the Jackal were trained in Cuban military camps or became terrorists. Positioning Soviet nuclear weapons on the island in 1962 was a colossal error that almost provoked a nuclear catastrophe. In letters to Nikita Khrushchev he suggested that the Russian leader fire the missiles first.

During his golden age, Fidel supported numerous armed groups in Africa and the Americas with men, weapons and logistics. From a house in Nuevo Vedado he directed the wars in Ethiopia and Angola from afar using a large-scale model with tanks and toy soldiers. He was so meticulous that he knew the exact quantity of chocolates and the number of cans of sardines distributed to his troops. When the Berlin Wall came down and the Cold War was over, Fidel Castro had to bid farewell to subversion and war games.

There was no longer any Soviet money for such undertakings. The domestic economy collapsed and those who were fed up took to the seas in rubber rafts in an effort to escape to Florida. Although the anti-Yankee harangues never disappeared from official discourse, there was a change of strategy. At the end of the 1980s high-ranking military officials, who were committed to bringing goods to the island that were prohibited by the U.S. embargo, engaged in drug trafficking and held talks with the Medellín cartel.

Castro’s friendship with the Panamanian strongman, Manuel Antonio Noriega, known for his support of narcotics trafficking, was solid. If Castro used a barrage of narcotics as means of destabilizing American society, it has yet to be shown. Many people believe, however, that someone who carried a notebook that tracked the rations distributed to his soldiers could not have been unaware that various military chiefs under his command were involved in cocaine trafficking.

Today his strongest allies are in the south. Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales and Rafael Correa are authoritarian leaders in the making who came to power through democratic elections. They form a relief unit that helps guard against the alleged overseas ambitions of the United States.

Raging against the gringos sells. It is natural to want to root for the underdog. It is the key point in the anti-imperialist discourse. When promoting global revolution, it is politically useful to speak on behalf of the world’s poor and weep for those starving in Somalia, even if you yourself are living like a sheik.

Castro is no longer a threat. Retired and now eighty-six years old, his vitriolic pen still occasionally attacks the “imperial perversion.” It is what remains of his lucrative anti-imperialism.

Photo: Kroutchev Planet Photo. Fidel Castro, photographed sometime in the 1990s, contemplates a mural of questionable artistic merit showing the mountains of the Sierra Maestra.

August 17 2012

Anonymous / Yoani Sánchez

cactus
Someone threw a letter through the window of the principal’s office, in a nylon bag with a stone inside. Rows and rows of cramped handwriting, restless, denouncing the diversion of resources in the dining room. There was a meticulous description of the “private” storeroom where the products that never made it to the students were kept. And the huge number of servings that, each week, ended up in barrels to feed the administrator’s pigs. On eight pages it betrayed the tricks to make the numbers add up at the end of the month and even the names of those warned about possible inspections.

The anonymous person forced an urgent meeting. The surprise kitchen audit had confirmed what the incognito vigilante had said. On Thursday, a unanimous show of hands expelled those implicated in the embezzlement and new workers were appointed to their positions. From the chairs of the large space few believed that the stolen food would end up on the trays and that the students’ lunches would recover the ounces and flavors lost.

When Monday came the new kitchen staff already had their own embezzlement dynamics. They hid the sacks of beans and bottles of oil at a distant site undiscovered by the auditors. For at least three days they put the established quotas on the trays, but gradually they took away an ounce here, a gram there. The pigs in some distant sty started to grow fat again with the soup and rice so bland that many of the scholars wouldn’t eat it. Adulterating the accounts guaranteed that the embezzlement wouldn’t show up in the paperwork, while an informant – close to the principal – warned if there was going to be an inspection by the ministry. The anonymous accuser managed only that the thieves had new names and that the diversion of resources put the power in other hands.