Translating Cuba

This school year my grandson César began the first grade. He is pleased with the expectation of learning to read and write, but above all he is very excited that soon he will get his blue bandana and become another “pioneer for communism,” like his father 28 years ago, and like his confrontational grandmother a long time before that.

Last Monday, fresh from school, he phoned me: “Grandmother, I’m going to recite poetry and I learned what all the children in my class have to recite the day we put on the bandana.” And he continued, in his clean fresh voice, repeating the rhymed doctrine in the worst doggerel:

For my commander with the sweet smile

I keep forever the sun and the breeze

For my commander with his beard and hat

I cut garden flowers in January

For my commander lost in October

This blue bandana covers me   

Struck dumb for a moment, absorbing the bad effect, I surprise myself seeking the stupidest consolations in the world: at least it’s not an ode to the Unnameable, or to the Argentine who murdered so many Cubans with impunity… although I recognize this is a fool’s comfort; before and after, the Revolutionary catechism includes in the program those two protagonists in the sainted olive-green, and there will be other bad poetry, and there will be slogans and ritual perfidies.

Then I was assaulted by the old memories of my own initiation into the Pioneers, when I was the same six-years-old that César is today, and walked gap-toothed and happy about the nearness of my bandana, blue and white then, on the light gray blouse of my elementary school uniform. A photographer came to the school to take pictures of the kids aspiring to the Pioneers, seated one by one at a desk in the school courtyard with an enormous Cuban flag as the background and a pen in hand, as if we were writing the application form, although hardly any of us knew how to write even a little. Because then it was an essential requirement to aspire to the Pioneer organization and to receive authorization from our parents, who had to sign this form giving us their consent, before we could belong to it.

In the span of 48 years some details have changed. For example, in my generation membership in the Pioneer organization was not mandatory, the Pioneer stage was limited to the elementary school years, the bandana was only worn for certain dates and ceremonies, and the textbooks weren’t so overwhelmingly ideological. But basically the content of the organization has always been the same: to establish mechanisms of social control in service to the government, beginning with the manipulation of the conscience of the great masses from very young ages. Thanks to this method, eminently fascist, most of those individuals were subject, if not to the ideology itself, at least to passive submission, acceptance.

For children, however, being Pioneers does not represent a political-ideological affiliation, which in effect it is, rather the bandana is a sign denoting belonging to a school, a group of friends and classmates, who share learning, games, common interests. The bandana says “they are big,” they already know how to read and write or are close to having this knowledge. They ignore that they will receive, between poetry, readings, mottos and slogans, the systematic official brainwashing that their parents and grandparents born under this regime received before them.

In fact, the process of “Communist Pioneerization” has degraded over the last 30 years, through the generation gap between Cubans born just before or just after the establishment of the Castro regime, and the guerrilla caste of the Moncada barracks attack, the Granma Yacht and the Sierras, and those in the wake of the growing disenchantment that occurred basically from May 1980, following the events at the Peruvian Embassy and the Mariel Boatlift.

The “Revolutionary” romance had ended, and in consequence, the conscience of tens of thousands of Cubans gradually began to become independent of the official discourse, while publicly expressed attitudes continued to respond to the call of the government. Thereafter, almost every Cuban who deviated from the Castro creed began to wear two faces and to hold two, opposite, moral standards: a “real” one, for private life with family and close friends; another “false” one, to blend into the labor collective and into society (in “the mass”) and to keep themselves safe from reprisals and accusations.

Thus, the Pioneer initiation rite that marked the official and socially acceptable indoctrination for ideological servitude, has also become a turning point in the exercise of the so-called “double moral standard” (immorality). A vile pact tacitly accepted by the parties, in which the government pretends to believe that all Cuban parents accept the “Pioneer-Communist” militancy of their children, at the same time that they teach their children to “go with the flow” of the doctrine in the schools and to repeat the verses and slogans praising the regime, while at home illegalities and even anti-government speech survives. “What you see and hear here you don’t say at school,” “if the teacher asks you say this, but in reality things are different.”

Finally, there are the children who wear the bandana of “Pioneers-for-Communism-we-will-be-like-Che” even a few days before emigrating with their parents in search of a freedom they don’t find in their own land. And with this practice, for one generation after another, we have inculcated lying and hypocrisy in our children as values for facing life.

Maybe that’s why hearing my grandson recite the stanzas of that bad versification left me cold. However, quick as a flash I thought of a solution when, surprised by my silence, my little boy asked me, “Grandma, why are you quiet? Don’t you like poetry?” “No, but I know many nursery rhymes prettier than that. Let’s make a deal: I’ll teach them to you.” He was delighted. I also know the power of verses, but not to indoctrinate, rather to enrich the soul, to make us free. We’ll see which verses better calm the spirit of my boy, but I’m inclined to think they will be the ones I recite.

16 September 2013

Official secrecy and complicit silence

The original sin of the “Cuban Revolution” in relation to prostitution lies not in the fact of its not being able to eradicate it, a clearly impossible task, but in denying its very existence. Such a denial doesn’t only retard the search for solutions for social problems — sexual slavery, drug trafficking, child prostitution, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS, etc. — that have appeared on the Island, but also prevents the population from having a clear perception of the issue and its social implications.

By excluding the issue from public debate it remains buried under less pressing emergencies related to economic survival and the precariousness of material resources. At the same time, these very privations accelerate the the deterioration of moral values, and feed the growth of prostitution, especially among teenagers under 18, who constitute the most vulnerable sector. A vicious circle that closes in on itself with a Gordian knot that seems to have no solution.

The end of innocence

While many adult women have chosen for themselves the path of prostitution, it is not less true that the entry of minors into the profession is ever more frequent. Eighteen marks the age of sexual consent in Cuba, but it is not rare to find girls between 13 and 17 who have already become prostitutes.

These kinds of activities, although prohibited by current laws, are difficult to detect due the complex web of illegalities that has been consolidated in the heat of impunity, and that now includes the networks of “recruiters” (generally older prostitutes and pimps), brothels — often protected behind the facade of a legal business, clandestine hostels, etc. — and, in some cases, with the complicity of law enforcement.

Police corruption, meanwhile, can be gross or subtle and ranges from simple extortion of the prostitute to the direct participation in obtaining monetary benefits under the concept of protecting the business; but in all cases it constitutes an important obstacle in combating this scourge.

According to the testimonies of several prostitutes, some police officers who cover shifts at certain key points in the capital receive direct payment from them, or from the employees of neighborhood bars, to permit both the trafficking of these sex workers as well as the clandestine trade in rum and cigars that is a scam usually played on unsuspecting foreigners. Prostitutes and bartenders have established a kind of mutually beneficial professional collaboration and have created true niches of corruption, particularly in poor areas of dubious reputation, such as Chinatown in Havana or San Rafael Boulevard.

The absence of institutions

In addition, some life stories suggest that the majority of minors who venture into the world of prostitution come from dysfunctional families and have grown up in hostile homes, both materially and affectionately, without there being any institutions truly responsible for their safety and protection.

A sample study conducted with a group of young prostitutes between the ages of 15 and 25, allows the conclusion that almost all of the cases came from dysfunctional homes, that prostitution among minors is a growing trend, and that the representatives of the repressive bodies or the courts are the only representatives of any official institution with which they have had any contact or relationship, whether it be to be blackmailed, arrested or punished; but never to offer them an alternative life or to enroll them in some social program that allows them to overcome the serious existential conflicts facing them.

Some of them are completely lacking in family support, others have minor children, are school dropouts, have used drugs at least once, and/or smoke and drink alcoholic beverages regularly.

The issue is compounded because it appears that there is no national program, nor even a local one, charged with supporting those who, given their particular circumstances, have taken to prostitution as a way to solve their material problems, not even for those who have lived in conditions of extreme poverty and lack of attention in dysfunctional homes, those who have been abandoned by their families, or for those who have been systematically abused, including by their own close family members.

Such helplessness is even more inexplicable given that, for over half a century, the Government has developed organizations dedicated to “surveillance” on every block through the so-called Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), or to the needs and defense of women through the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC). An institutional structure that, had it functioned in the social interest or fulfilled its founding principles, would have been capable of controlling this evil from the beginning.

Neither the Government nor independent civil society

Even though the problem of child prostitution potentially affects thousands of families, it does not seem to arouse significant interest on the part of the Government, largely responsible for the fate of so many frustrations; the same Government whose educational system, for decades, has robbed parents of their authority and awarded the “paternalistic” State custody of children, teenagers and young people, now abandoned to their own bad luck.

More worrying still is that not even within the alternative spaces is there a particular interest in this matter. In any case, a debate on the topic is not emerging, nor are there civic proposals that take it on, to any extent, from independent civil society. This suggests that perhaps there is an underlying accumulation of moral prejudices or traditional taboos that prevent the same sectors which have opened spaces for questions as complex as racial discrimination or sexual diversity, from taking on the challenge of the debate about prostitution and its social effects.

But far beyond the lack of resources, what is really alarming is the apparent lack of political will within all parties to approach one of the most complex issues that Cuban social reality is facing in the near future.

From DiariodeCuba

Prostitution in Cuba: Part 1.  Part 2.

9 September 2013

No social phenomenon arises suddenly or by spontaneous generation, rather it is the result of a long process of the accumulation of essential components. The rise of prostitution in “Socialist Cuba” is no exception. In fact, prostitution was not eliminated by policies dictated by the Government, which favored the mass incorporation of women into the workforce, nor with the wider social benefits that they undoubtedly enjoyed as long as romance subsidized by Eastern European socialism lasted, as was demonstrated when, impelled by the calamities of the so-called “Special Period*” the Government opted for international tourists as the most expeditious way to bring in hard currency.

With the Revolution brothels disappeared, but prostitution did nothing more than change its attire to disguise itself and survive in other forms, perhaps more subtle, which were enshrined and diversified as the system consolidated itself and installed the “meritocracy,” a predominantly male caste formed by mid- and high-level “leader cadres” of the Government, the Communist Party, high-ranking officials of the army or the Interior Ministry, as well as directors and managers of numerous state enterprises and institutions.

The privileges that the new caste of leaders can enjoy, according to their level, includes everything from travel abroad, free or very low-cost vacations in the country’s best hotels, special medical attention and private clubs, to the assignment of housing and cars, along with a generous quote of fuel, among many others.

The meritocracy, in turn, brought an explosion of a subordinate caste, the vaginocracy, formed by women attracted to the power and benefits of the new anointed, which are passed on to those with whom they are linked sexually, who can now enjoy a way of life that, otherwise, they would not have access to. These were not always their wives. It was an open secret that almost every prominent leader accumulated, among his trophies, some young and beautiful lover whom he maintained out of wedlock, based on gifts, perks and material benefits. The most successful of these hunters managed to wed their protector or came to acquire a good home or well-paid job, among other possible benefits.

It was not exceptional for military leaders to travel with their lovers, including on their “internationalist missions,” as happened in Angola, where they appeared embedded as personal staff. And surely they were.

This, with the advent of Marxism in Cuba and of the new class in power, prostitution for barter was reinstated, exchanging sex for money rather than for material benefits, and for the possibility of moving up the social ladder. The new model renewed old principals, tolerating the “vices of the bourgeois past” painted with make-up in the colors of the proletariat. The new prostitutes had no qualms about marching in Civic Plaza on the ritual dates, dressing as militants on the Days of Defense, or quickly stepping up for the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution or the Federation of Cuban Women. Revolutionary prostitutes had emerged, although neither they, nor the society, would consciously assume this definition.

For its part, society was abiding by the new rules. After all, offering sexual favors to a cadre of the Revolution in exchange for certain benefits was not so reprehensible. They were sacrificed comrades who spent a lot of time far from family and should have some leisure activity; it’s true they traded in sex, but at least their shared their beds with pillars of the fatherland, which in some way turned them into patriots. It was the heyday of revolutionary intransigence.

The double standard was imposed almost inadvertently as a national culture and as part of the mechanisms of the survival in a country in which the scarcity of material goods pushed the society towards the frontiers of moral misery. Almost the entire national spirituality was constrained within the ideological corset, which added to the chronic civic irresponsibility, contributed to the aggravation of the “anthropological damage” that has been brilliantly defined by the layperson Dagoberto Valdés.

Simultaneously, the traditional family structure was fractured and its values disrupted. Parents lost authority to the power of the State-Government-Party which appropriated their children and indoctrinated them into the new ideology of the commune. The children were sent to boarding schools from adolescence and grew up in promiscuity far from family control.

They had laid the foundation for the social disaster that would come in the ultimate decade of the 20th century when we Cubans were discovering that prostitution had overflowed the confined limits of the sex trade and infiltrated the roots of the whole society. Soon, the vaginocracy would yield to the strength and diversity of “jineterismo” — hustling.

*Translator’s note: The Special Period in Times of Peace (Período especial en tiempos de paz) was the name given by the regime to the period of extreme economic crisis following the collapse of the Soviet Union (Cuba’s main political and economic ally and subsidizer) in 1991.  Its end is not very well defined, but seems to have been around the time when the late Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez started to send oil and money to the island.

Prostitution in Cuba, Part 1: The Many Faces of a Conflict

From DiariodeCuba

2 September 2013