English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
Alamar – a pile of concrete blocks without order or agreement – is in this case the work, the artistic object, the clay and the wall on which one has molded and daubed. The artists can be you, me, or anyone else, although for the moment we are going to call them Juan Carlos, Amaury, … Continue reading “Pushing the Limits: Yoani Sanchez Interviews OMNI ZONA FRANCA”
Carlos Saladrigas in Havana (Photo: JUAN A. MADRAZO) An endowed chair with name Felix Varela can not be other than inclusive, Cuban from top to bottom and, of course, plural. A happy chance, then, on Friday March 30, under the image of our illustrious priest, to see the variety of people congregated in a room … Continue reading “Historics, Hysterics and… Histrionics / Yoani Sánchez”
Carlos Saladrigas during his lecture on March 30 On afternoon of March 30 I had the opportunity to attend the conference held by the Cuba-American businessman and politician, Carlos Saladrigas, in the Felix Varela Chair of the former San Carlos and San Ambrosio Seminary in Old Havana, under the auspices of the magazine Lay Space. … Continue reading “To Gain Access to Citizens / Miriam Celaya”
I want to refer to a history that seems to have been forgotten in the ferocious opinions around Pablo Milanés performing a concert on August 27th at the American Airlines Arena in Miami. On June 25, 1993, at the National Hotel in the presence of government leaders and the Communist Party, singer-songwriter Pablo Milanés and then Minister … Continue reading “The Pablo Milanés Foundation / Wendy Iriepa and Ignacio Estrada”
On the 50th anniversary of the University Reform enacted in January 1962, the newspaper Granma published on Monday, January 9, 2012, an article entitled University and Society by Armando Hart Dávalos, in which he proposes that “after the triumph of the Revolution university reform was essential to realizing the final link between the university and … Continue reading “University Reform Without Autonomy / Dimas Castellano”
“History is lived forward, but to understand it we must look back.” Kierkegaard The interaction between the lack of administrative capacity, economic inefficiency, hopelessness, widespread corruption and the massive exodus, have made the current crisis in Cuba the deepest of its history. The combination of these factors, sufficient to break any human group that aspires … Continue reading “Seeing the Past From the Viewpoint of the Present / Dimas Castellanos”
Introduction The exhaustion of the “model”, united with the interaction of a mixture of internal and external factors, has formed a box which — paraphrasing Lenin — is a result that those from below don’t want and those from above can’t follow indefinitely. In that context, the death of the political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo, … Continue reading “The Challenges of the New Cuban Scenario / Dimas Castellanos”
Cuba is immersed in the deepest structural crisis in its history. To emerge from it will require an understanding of its causes and the political will to undertake changes, among which citizen participation in public affairs stands as an unavoidable necessity. Hoping to find new solutions in the behaviors of the past will lead nowhere. … Continue reading “Training the Citizenry to Stop Being “The Masses” / Dimas Castellanos”
The article by Juan Varela Pérez, faulting the control and dedication in the sugar harvest, published in the daily Granma on May 5, 2010, is evidence that the critical condition of Cuban sugar production reflects the situation of agricultural production and the of the economy in general. Among other things Varela said that “the current … Continue reading “Sugar, Half a Century of Failures”
