Translating Cuba

The use of a disqualifying language against political opponents has been a fairly widespread practice, though in general certain limits of public responsibility and established decency are respected. There are also laws that penalize defamation, due to which, whomever raises a question about a person must support it with evidence and proof. So it works, at least, in most democratic countries.

During the years of the Batista dictatorship, those who did not agree with his politics were classified as opponents. Except in times when censorship was established, they had the means to express their opinions. They were not detained or imprisoned, and also participated actively in the national debate. Those opponents who opted for violence as a form of struggle, planting bombs and firecrackers and carrying out attacks and sabotage, were labeled as subversives or communists. The word terrorist was not yet fashionable. If caught, they were repressed by bloody or judicial methods. In the latter case, they had available to them defense counsel and fair trials. There are many examples.

Beginning in 1959, those who did not accept the new regime or disagreed with some of its postulates, were labeled counterrevolutionaries. Tossed into this sack were both those who acted peacefully as well those who opted for violence. Soon he put his hand in the dictionary and began to apply, festively, every kind of dis-qualifier: worms, stateless, traitors, mercenaries, lumpen, slag, employees of the empire, and so on. This method continues to today and has increased. Applied for years, with no possibility to respond, (all media and controls belong to the state), citizens have been so manipulated that they react by inertia, without the use of reason, forgetting in many cases that it even exists.

Denigrating and discrediting those who think differently and, moreover, those who dare to express it, only shows weakness, no matter how much the statements multiply in strength. The problems of Cuba must be revolved by Cubans (all Cubans, both inside and out of the country) but for that, we can not be expected to maintain the historical monologue, where only those who govern us think they possess the absolute truth. The continuous failures have shown the opposite. It requires honest and respectful dialogue.

However, dialogue requires there be a willingness in the parties interested in it. to maintain the sectarian and exclusionary position of the past five decades, claiming that those who think for themselves are taking orders from the empire is not serious. The reality is otherwise: every day citizens are increasingly questioning their plight and raising the need for real changes in the interest of the nation, not of an ideology or a party. Coping with them peacefully, with the participation of all, as recommended by José Martí, is intelligent.

April 8 2011

Latin America, historically, has moved like a raft floating in the ocean: forward or backward depending on the ebb and flow of the tide. In the early twentieth century it was carried away by the rising nationalism, believing that isolating itself from the world and closing in on itself, it would be able to better solve its problems. That failing, it opted for strong and autocratic governments: the dictatorships with messianic leaders. Each country exalted a dictator, some for decades, establishing a right of inheritance.

Then, that too failing and tired of patriarchs, it was the turn of the guerrillas, and an epidemic of beards and olive green uniforms covered the continent and the pages of newspapers and magazines. Guerrilla commanders organized in all countries, and commanders and others appeared, by one method or another, aspiring to the violent seizure of power.

Failing en masse, many annihilated, those that survived decided to try legality, converting themselves into political parties or totally immersing themselves in the drug trade. Then came the time of democratic presidents and neoliberalism and the Chicago School, at which the governments of Latin American map with some stability and periods of civic peace.

Then populist current burst on the scene, which has tried to spread like bird flu, but populism has no future, gripped in his own verbiage and contradictions, unable to really solve the economic problems of nations where it has been tried. What will the new wave be which will move the ailing American raft? We do not know. But it would not be wrong to say that until they decide to find land and settle in it, devoting their crew to serious and responsible work, the only proven long-lasting wealth creator, and leave off being carried by the movement of the waves, they will not find the progress or happiness.

April 5 2011

It was very early, the circles under the speaker’s eyes could be seen like two dark wounds, and the sun was not yet too punishing in Maximo Gomez Plaza. On soft seats, a small group witnessed live the 26th of July event in Ciego de Avila province. Meanwhile, the rest of those in the Plaza sat on plastic chairs or were simply left standing. From this side of the screen, we few viewers awake at that hour made an effort not to go back to sleep. The event was so boring and so predictable in its structure that at times it seemed like a rebroadcast from the previous year. Not even a spontaneous breeze moved the hair of the attendees. Even the fly on the face of the orator that took a fancy to the camera, looked unreal.

But the greatest monotony came with the words of Jose Ramon Machado Ventura. An hour after having heard them, it was difficult to remember what had been said by this grayest of all vice presidents, the most dogmatic of the orthodox. During the scheduled pauses in the speech someone shouted a slogan which was then repeated by the crowd. The applause heard was also conveniently administered, without unauthorized outbreaks, with no fits and starts. Enormous credentials hung from the necks of those who enjoyed the chairs, giving the lie, with such an excess of paper and plastic, to the calls from the podium for efficiency and putting an end to the bureaucracy.

In a moment that must have been the end, though it could just as well have been a break in the script, Raul Castro left without having directed a single word to the crowd. He rose from his chair and walked away, followed closely by a loyal bodyguard who has more of a role on TV than some ministers. The Plaza quickly began to empty out, as the speaker tried to close with certain slogans that once moved passions. “And this is all that’s left?” I thought, with sorrow for others. With this exhausted choreography they thought to move passions? I turned off the TV in the middle of a phrase and went back to sleep. Outside the sun was warming the balconies, drying up the puddles, revealing the cracks.

Translator’s note: The 26th of July was the date of the failed 1953 attack by Fidel Castro and others on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba, and was taken as the name of his movement. It is celebrated annually in Cuba.

27 July 2011

The Latin American left, old, new or newest, in its love-hate relationship with the northern neighbor, has always railed against it, making it totally responsible for all our political, economic and social ills. Added to this has been the contribution, over the years, of many of our intellectuals and artists who, enjoying most comfortable economic positions, have tried to establish a kind of political patronage over the masses, trying to cleanse, with them, their bourgeois stigma, which they deny but enjoy. It’s not worth recording their names, because the list is endless.

Acknowledging our shortcomings is something extremely difficult for Latin Americans. We’ve always like the role of victims and it has paid us good dividends. Immensely rich lands have provided us with wealth or well-being and all for the fault of others: first it was the Spanish and Portuguese who destroyed the magnificent and idyllic aboriginal civilizations, which respected the human being, did not go to war and lived in peace and harmony, resting on the banks of rivers and lakes, singing and dancing in honor of the gods, who were so good and so undemanding that they showered them with offerings of tropical fruits. Then there were the British, Dutch, French, etc. who also came to exploit and take over our natural resources that we, wisely, didn’t exploit, reserving them for future generations. In the end came the Americans, getting rid of all the designated governments and doing what they pleased, and so on.

This story, well told, is very comfortable for our leftists and allowed them to disregard the reality and the real causes of our situation: our own incapacity. Other countries with fewer natural resources, with adverse geographical and climatic conditions, with submissions and wars, have been able to struggle, overcome obstacles and develop without exploiting anyone: Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Thailand, Malaysia, to name a few. Why has Canada developed while Mexico hasn’t, both having borders with the United States? Is it that the United States has been magnanimous with Canada and stingy with Mexico? Or is that Canadians, instead of wasting time in fratricidal strife, have dedicated themselves to work hard and develop their country? The answer is obvious, despite the silliness of our left. If we review the history of Latin American nations we find only a string of wars and warlords in a violent and interminable struggle to seize power and benefit from cliques outside the people’s interests, although they often disguise themselves as such.

The people meekly followed these mythical characters and have relied on an endless carnival, which has plunged us into the most appalling underdevelopment, without real hope of leaving it. All leaders have used the same scheme: from liberator to dictator.

Until our people stop whining, blaming everything on their neighbor (whom they envy) and decide to work hard, to settle the caudillism and establish a truly democratic system, where what matters is the management of government and results, not personal sympathies for one or another figure, until we establish and strengthen the institutions that can prevent someone from seizing power and operating at will, until democracy really works and not the current freaks, we cannot solve any of our problems.

Meanwhile, our leftists, supported by the festive leftists of the developed countries, continue to entertain themselves organizing protest marches against everything, burning effigies of Uncle Sam and the incumbent president as well as flags, to the rhythm of a Brazilian samba, a Colombian cumbia, a Venezuelan joropo or a Cuban conga, with large portraits of Bolivar, Che and other convenient figures. It’s easy and convenient to shift onto the shoulders of others our own historical incapacity and indolence, to be able to continue lying against the trunk of a coconut tree napping, while responsible nations and workers cross in front of us and leave us behind.

March 30 2011

One of the accusations most used by the authorities to disqualify and discredit their political opponents, or simply citizens who think differently, is to label them “employees of the empire.” The accusation has its media effect and many honest people accept it as the absolute truth and even repeat it against some of their neighbors, acquaintances and even family members, without questioning its supposed veracity. From so much repetition over so many years, it has become obvious: Those who do not think like the establishment must be paid by someone for it.

I am not going to sanctify a priori all the disaffected, nor put their hands to the fire, defending their moral and civic purity, but as in every social or political group, in the vineyard of the Lord there is everything (even infiltrated agents). Life has shown it every day, and every day proved it. There must be, above all, realists!

Let’s get to the heart of the matter: those who serve the regime in various jobs. In this country, like everything else, all the communication media belong to the State and, therefore, those who work in them are, whether they accept it or not, employees of the regime. In this category are the journalists, broadcasters, program hosts, commentators, director, producers, technicians, consultants, etc., both in radio and in television, as well as in the so-called flat press. This means that, if they don’t follow the orders of their boss, they can run into problems and even become “available” (a synonym for “unemployed”) and lose, in addition to their salaries, some of the incentives provided for good behavior (hard currency, vacations at the beach, gas for their cars, foreign travel, etc.). This is well-known fact. Something similar happens in the privileged study centers (for example at the University of Computer Sciences), where if the professors and students don’t carry out the assigned computer tasks, they risk being thrown out.

A few wise words: Who, then, are the real employees? It is a shame to listen to the employees of the regime repeat insults and diatribes against other Cubans who, unlike them, are, in fact, employed by no one, as if they weren’t following their own conscience.

A lie has such short legs that the truth always catches up. At some point, sooner rather than later, our deluded people will discover for themselves the manipulation they’ve been the subjected to over many years, and demand an accounting from those responsible. They should think about it!

March 27 2011

Everyone has his longed for neighborhood, that marked him forever and set the paths to his existence. Mantilla is mine. It’s center was the Route 4 Station, facing the church, and alongside the Youth Campus, the school whose director was Nilo, and one of its teachers was Delia Padura, my first grade teacher. Next door was the place that sometimes offered boxing and other events.

The Station, which was made of wood at first, was rebuilt and modernized, entirely of masonry, with workshops, cleaning and greasing shots, a snack bar and huge mercury light fixtures, replacing the dim incandescent bulbs, converting the place and its surroundings day and night. Modern General Motors buses, painted green and yellow, replaced the old ones of wood and metal painted orange and brown.

Before coming to the Station, on Mantilla Avenue, at the entrance to the La Lira neighborhood, was the Clinic and then, on Giral street, there was a refreshment kiosk with cigarettes and sweets where, on one side, in two panels, they showed the daily programs for the Palma and Ensueno movie theaters. Further on, there was the El Lucero highway, the house of the statues, facing the pharmacy, where there had always been, in huge bins, white and pink sugar candy to give to the customers. Next door was the ground where, years later, was the Chic cinema which offered on Spanish films from Cifesa for adults. The mail was in a wooden house with counters and shelves, where you collected your correspondence and packages. A little further on the Chinese stand, selling all kinds of chips, fresh fruit, and delicious ice creams made of sorbets. Next to it, an old grocery store where you could find everything.

In This environment, marked by shops and the family homes of our neighbors, the years of my childhood went by. Every memory, indelibly engraved, returns often, transporting me to this unique and unrepeatable time. The friendly faces appear, many already gone, the moments of joy and sorry and the daily events, not less important for being simple.

Mantilla, with its paved avenue and trees on both sides, that came from the intersection of La Palma and extended to the town of El Calvaria, is the place that always made me feel proud, where urban and rural fused, with houses of wood and masonry, an aqueduct and electric light, and spacious patios with fruit trees and pets, where I first heard the radio, learned to read and write, and watched television. Distant in time, totally transformed, unknown, always present.

February 19 2011

Autocrats throughout history have always liked to use, in trying to express their ideas, big words, lofty, bulky, heavyweight. So common ones have been: irreversible, unchangeable, untouchable, forever, eternal, unshakable, indestructible, solid, impenetrable, unyielding, and so on. They don’t look for them in dictionaries, but they fall like rain, part of their vision of society. So they use them without any sense of proportion and sometimes to the point of ridicule.

In times not so long ago, the Hitler’s Third Reich claimed a life of a thousand years and socialism, not to be outdone, declared itself irreversible, saying it would liquidate capitalism and establish communism forever. One as much an outrage as the other, the mentioned words were the common denominator of propaganda campaigns, slogans and even the core interventions of its leaders and followers, each one trying to be stronger, to leave no doubts about the only possible reality, backed by the illustrious history and intelligence of its thinkers.

As words, unless accompanied by events that validate them, do no work, but the larger, bulkier and heavier they are, the framework collapses under them and they shatter, denying what for years they have tried to implant with a chisel in the minds of citizens, into order to disarm them with hopes of change.

Today, reality is otherwise. To try to use them again demonstrates, first, an absolute lack of originality and, what’s more, does not take into account that technological development has arrived, in one way or another, to the majority of humans, and that information, a direct result of the same, is impossible to lock up in tight ideologies, despite all the efforts and resources to devote to it. An informed citizen is very difficult to manipulate and deceive.

It would be healthier for those who cling to these obsolete formulas to try to keep their flock docile, to put their feet on the ground and captured its vibrations, which are manifested today in almost everyone. To hear and feel them is wise; to be deaf is not intelligent.

July 16 2011

It terrified me to know that I could return to the cells for another sixty days, or maybe more. But it caused me more terror to imagine myself “cooperating” with those I didn’t believe, with those who I considered were abusing my country, to know myself complicit disgusts me. I also knew that to be a writer in the system in which I had to leave, to be recognized and have the right to publish, I had to infallibly offer an image of support to the Government or, at least, to pass unnoticed, a “fellow traveler,” apolitical or anarchist. But my literature critical of the system betrayed me in every publication.

A few days from having returned from sixty days imprisonment, I received a visit at home from a man who identified himself as a State Security “agent.” He could see on my face that he wasn’t welcome. He said he would take only a few minutes, because a senior officer was waiting to talk to me.

Outside was a Lada car that took me to an apartment in the Vibora neighborhood. After greeting the owners they told me to continue to the last room. I waited for a uniformed colonel. He asked me several questions that I answered mostly in monosyllables. It was evident that I didn’t like him or that I took those minutes as a waste of time. They gave me pencil and paper and asked me to write a report in the third person. When he understood my hesitation he told me to write about anything because that was why I was a writer. I don’t even remember what nonsense I wrote.

We didn’t even say goodbye, he just nodded and withdrew his presence. I returned home worried, the Colonel’s face said something I couldn’t decipher. What I was sure of was that it would be fatal for me.

Days later, the same official came to house, stopped me in the street, and asked me to accompany him to see if I recognized some guys who were motorcyclists like me and were, perhaps, those who had thrown the Molotov-cocktail. They took me to a tenement and asked me to enter the last room. I refused, saying that I wasn’t a cop and had no vocation to be one. We exchanged various insults and at this point several people came out whom the official insisted I identify. I said I didn’t know them. Two days later they knocked on my door, when I opened it there was a man pointing a gun at me. The gun was within reach of my hand and I felt defenseless.

The sound seemed alien, just the shock of the black, then the smell of gunpowder. I thought I was unharmed but then I felt something sticky running down my leg. I looked and raised my arm and I could see the hold. The bullet penetrated the muscles of my arm, passed through it and went through my ribs to my chest. A patrol car “happened” to be nearby and took me to the nearest hospital.

Two days later, the official, Germán, appeared and relocated me to the Hermonos Amejeiras Hospital and put me in a room with a security camera. The doctors decided to leave the bullet inside me because removing it would have required breaking the sternum and caused major trauma.
When I left I went to recover at the house of a friend, who told me that the same Germán had suggested to him to get me out of his house, and he had responded that friends don’t abandon each other.

That was the direct farewell of their attempt to make me into an Agent of State Security. Against their will I was winning literary prizes, especially those they didn’t reach in time to block the vote, as in 1992 when they threatened the writer Abilio Estevez. Since then I have been a thorn in their side that has denied them the pleasure of eating souls.

When the international jury of the Casa de las Americas Prize in 2006, decided to award it to me for my book “Blessed Are Those Who Mourn,” they were annoyed. One of them approached me at the La Cabaña Book Fair and told me the award had made me into a sacred cow. That from that moment I was more dangerous.

I think he was right. Anyway, I reminded him that the system was executing even its sacred Generals, so how much could one “cow” more or less matter.

25 July 2011

The French Revolution, among its many changes, tried renaming the months and, during its short existence, appeared Rainy, Floral, Windy, Thermidor etc. Luckily for the French, after a whirlwind of severed heads came the calm, and months returned to their traditional names.

The Cuban Revolution could not be left behind and although it didn’t dare with the months, it attached labels to the years, adding a tagline. So 1959 was “The Year of the Liberation” and then followed that of Agriculture, Literacy, Industrialization, Planning and so on. It was a historic accommodation, just like the execution wall replaced the guillotine.

Each new year of the revolutionary calendar has received its tagline, some of them very far-fetched, like that for this year: The Anniversaries of the Decisive Battles of the Revolution. This adding taglines, though it has been a free burden for everyone, has particularly harmed typists and computer operators, who have been forced to load them on to all of their writings after the year’s number.

The interesting thing is, with rare exceptions, the taglines never come to pass, since their objective was centered on the efforts to solve the problem demarcated by their name, during the year in question. We continue, after more than fifty years of taglines, without agriculture, without industrialization, without productivity, without efficiency, without austerity, and so on.

Perhaps, because of that, in the updating of the model that is being carried out, the years can now simply get a consecutive tagline: Year 52 of the Revolution, Year 53 of the Revolution, etc. At least it doesn’t promise anything and, what’s more, needs no explanation for the failure of its objectives. It is more pragmatic.

Perhaps because of that, in the updated model that is being carried out now only have one postscript years consecutively: 52 years of the Revolution, 53 years of the Revolution, and so on. At least not undertake and also do not need explanations of the failure of its objectives. It is more pragmatic.

July 23 2011

The word “opponent,” according to dictionaries, means: He is who opposed to another, who is in disagreement, the dissenting. It’s simply one word like any other in general use. In Cuba, during the Republic it was an accepted and respected word: the government of the day had opponents and these, when they constituted the government, also had opponents in their turn. It was a healthy practice: forcing the leaders to submit themselves to a continual valuation of their acts and to be held accountable for them.

Grau, Prío and Batista had opponents: the majority of historical leaders were opponents of these presidents and their governments. There were stages when the opponents employed peaceful methods, and others in which they used violent methods. Within the opposition there were differences, as is natural in any human group. To be in opposition was not a stigma, but rather simply that one did not conform, was not in agreement with what was happening and proposed other solutions. Opponents, in their respective times, also included Villena, Mella, Torriente Brau, Guiteras, Roa, Chibás, Marinello, José Antonio, Frank País and many others. The list would be endless.

On the establishment of a new regime, the opponents were declared persona non grata and, the same word, excised from the national political lexicon. It was established that the people and the government were the same and, therefore, anyone not in agreement with the government was not with the people. In its place classifying nous and adjectives were introduced, including the current “dissident.” This responded to a logic of power: the opponents, who almost always start as a minority, at a determined moment become the majority, and finally, the government. This, which was and is normal in any democratic country, couldn’t happen here. The dissident, however, being a black sheep, someone who leaves the fold, will always be in the minority without access to power. In general one speaks of the government and opposition, and almost never of the government and dissidence, as different options.

For a government to BE GOOD and, what’s more, efficient and just, a GOOD OPPOSITION is necessary. It’s not healthy for a government to look only in its own mirror, as this is not a counterpart of anything or anyone. When this happens, it is what happens with us: we walk on the edge of the abyss and, in many cases, we find ourselves at the bottom of it.

A serious and responsible opposition, active, open to public opinion (we once again put the word in its proper place), will always be positive for a nation and for all its citizens, whatever they think and whatever policies they defend. Without confrontation there is no development. It is a law of dialectics that has been conveniently forgotten for many years. Dialog is not only an exchange of opinions, it is also confrontation, listening and discussing respectfully, in order to find better solutions to different problems. Our reality has demanded this for a long time.

June 13 2011