Private Businesses and Suspicions Flourish in Cuba / Iván García

Photo: EFE. A Cuban sells "burned" (pirated) CDs and DVDs on a street in Havana.

You already see hundreds of stalls selling CDs and videos. Good-natured, calm señoras who offer a wide range of religious articles and, in any Havana doorway, from one day to the next, a snack bar with fast food emerges.

When in October 2010 they authorized the expansion of self-employment, people took their time.

There were — and still are — doubts, because of the typical ups and downs of the orthodox policies of the government of the Castro brothers, who, when they feel the rope tightening around their necks, open their hands; but when they can breathe a little political and economic oxygen, they vigorously pursue those who engage in private business.

It’s not ancient history. In 1994, Fidel Castro reluctantly allowed people to work for themselves, following some advice discreetly whispered in his ear by the Spanish adviser Carlos Solchaga, sent in haste by Felipe González to stop the meteoric fall of an economy that had lost 35% of its gross domestic product. Then thousands of small private businesses appeared on the island.

It was the plank that saved Cuba from sinking back into the Stone Age. It’s enough to recall that in the ’90’s, blackouts lasted 12 hours a day. Due to malnutrition, exotic diseases such as optic neuropathy and beriberi emerged.

At that time, a dollar was exchanged for 120 pesos. A pack of cigarettes cost 100 pesos. A pound of rice, 80 pesos or more. An avocado could be as much as 120. And an awful bottle of rum, in order to get drunk and forget the hardships, was 150 pesos.

Those were hard years, with real hunger, when many people lost a lot of weight and even teeth. To stop the impending famine, along with military strategists, the State designed the zero option: huge pots, where trucks with armed guards would hand out rations for each block.

But blood did not flow to the river. Thanks, among other factors, to the stampede of 120,000 people who threw themselves into the sea in 1994, after having instigated, on August 5, a resounding popular protest for the authorization of the exodus, which permitted the pressure-cooker, on the point of exploding, to find some relief.

The other factor was the opening up of self-employment. Gradually, from 1994 to 2000, nearly 200,000 workers took out licenses, and businesses of all kinds sprouted. From opening a quality paladar (private restaurant) like La Guarida, where Queen Sofia of Spain dined, to rescuing smaller businesses like selling punch, repairing shoes or renting out clothing for quinceañeras and weddings.

Another determining factor was the emergence of more than 200 businesses with mixed capital. These pockets of capitalism led to the advent of new technologies and innovative methods of accounting and business administration.

Most significantly, what allowed that flowering was the legalization of the U.S. dollar in July 1993. Every year, remittances enter the government coffers of over a billion dollars, becoming the first industry of the country in terms of profits. Remittances, along with the development of tourism, allowed Fidel Castro to stay afloat.

Another plank of salvation was the emergence of an important character for Cuba: Hugo Chávez. The Bolivarian comandante became a godsend for Castro. By bartering oil for doctors or sports trainers, he sold black gold to the island at bargain prices.

This allowed the old guerrilla to return to fantasizing about the Latin American revolution and the fall of the “Yankee empire.” Evo Morales, Rafael Correa, Daniel Ortega and Lula da Silva, from a safe distance, joined the red orchestra. From that point on, Castro didn’t need entrepreneurial types who would make money on their own.

Living without state supervision creates a spirit of political and economic liberty that really bothers the spheres of power. Hundreds of controls, sanctions and excessive taxes were established to discourage self-employment.

And it worked. By 2008, the number of self-employed had declined to 50,000. Castro I made a miscalculation. Before handing over power to his brother in 2006, he failed to discern that despite the Venezuelan oil and entente with fellow revolutionary compañeros in Latin America, Cuba’s economic crisis still was not out of the woods, due to a system that barely functions.

On top of that, the experts’ numbers were not reliable. Apparently, the Cuban economy grew each year like an Asian tiger. And Castro thought he had won the battle. He sent a group of foreign investors back home and tried to recover the monolithic power he always liked to exercise.

But the numbers lied. Cuba was shipwrecked, and the global crisis which appeared in 2009 made it evident. Now General Raúl Castro must put out the fire while trying to establish new rules of the game. Trying to win over distrustful capitalists, with some backward investment laws, which don’t provide sufficient guarantees. Losing money is not welcome in times of trouble.

Unclenching the fist and allowing people to go into business was necessary to cushion the blow of more than 1,000,000 workers sent into unemployment. Many Cubans on the street were suspicious. At first they measured their steps. Given the urgent need to raise cash and try to live better, they jumped into the ring.

The owners of the private restaurants, those who rent rooms and private drivers, among others, gripe about exorbitant taxes. But they know that it will always be better to work for themselves than to work for the government at a ridiculous salary.

Relatives abroad, mostly in the United States, have come forward to help with the private businesses. Most of the owners of new private restaurants have received monetary support from their families in other countries, in order to open a business that requires a minimum investment of $5,000.

In this tenuous winter of 2011 in Cuba, those who invest in small private businesses continue to have doubts and fears about how the government will react when they start to make money.

They hope that Raúl Castro will be different from his brother.

If he isn’t, they are praying they can recover the money invested before the General decides to change policy. Like a mouse dodging the cat.

Translated by Regina Anavy

February 4 2011

Pigeon Blisters / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

THE WAKE OF THE POPULAR PIGEON

Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

With no eyes (the preferred organs of sacred sacrifices). With a gag of a stick inserted in her beak (reminiscent metaphor to executions in Cuba). Crucified (historic prank that no beast except for man in a savage state would commit). Exposed on a street post like a public menace (as a feathered Christ, and no less defenseless and innocent than the original mammal).

There are moments when being Cuban leaves me with a death void in the chest. If we are capable of this against a little pigeon, what wouldn’t we do as a people against other people when Armageddon (Arma-G2) descends on Cuba?

I take a look around me. No one gives a fuck. I repeat this to scandalize the prudish censors of the Internet, like Eduardo Fontes in his lieutenant-colonelism auditorium of the Minister of the Interior. A fuck. No one gives a fuck in this humiliation of hate crime of humanity. Not one policeman in the neighborhood would have the guts to touch this spell, to show any pity for the corpse. Not one Public Health technician will protest on the basis of hygiene, nor on the psychological impact on children who will now see all this wickedness, as it rots up there.

The Cuban political police should be censuring this kind of act instead of cornering the emerging beauty of freedom of expression. I wonder what would have happened if someone had drawn an innocent graffiti with that pre-deluge word: FIDEL.

Please forgive me: I am insulted. I don’t know if this little bird was bled to death in the name of a god of hatred. I don’t know if some hominid drank its blood to save himself from cancer or to curse another hominid. I only know that our anthropology is criminal. Low-down. Abusive. With no democratic or educable future. Full of fear and—especially—full of shit. Dictatorial to death. Another half-century of vile violence still awaits us. Trust me. You will see.

I once wrote a love poem to a blonde girl. Rhymed verses, as it’s the norm when we lack the air to break the rhyme. Her little bird—a parakeet, also yellow—had just died. It dropped dead out of sorrow in its cage, a week after its adored blue bird lover died of distemper. It was 2007 and my blond girl-love was also dying of sorrow. We buried the desolated bird in a little soulless park at Alamar, the so-called Hanoi, and it was like burying ourselves alive. We had no strength to go on. We were both exhausted from rage. We would have to die to be reborn many centuries later. Or even never again. But that minimal act of posthumous pity for the little yellow bird had left an open door to hope in the midst of the sickening barbarism of the “camel” buses—also yellow—and almendrones, the fat-almond-old-cars, shared taxis for twenty pesos and people with not one pinch of love.

We were not people with not one pinch of love. We had lost even that last pinch of love, which at the moment seemed to us (but it wasn’t, at all) much worse. Sad little bird that D loved….

Today, like all the impoverished citizens of Cuba, just like you yourself without going any further, Landy arrived late to the holocaust of the pigeon. I walked through that stinking corner with dilated pupils to check on a retinal hypertension. If I did not have it yet, I caught it right there, in front of that unbelievable urban Golgotha. Motherfuckers. Blood filled my brain. I repeat, and, please, someone send this line in a comment to the blogger crew of Yohandry Fontana or Eduardo Fontes or anyone like them: Motherfuckers.

Forgive them, Pigeon, because they know very well what they are doing. And more. They know very well what they—those bastards—will do to us.

Translated by T

February 11 2011

The Inflamed Nation / Luis Felipe Rojas

Photo: Luis Felipe Rojas

The massive layoffs so frequently announced by the Cuban nomenclature have not yet been implemented, but we can already see some of the first effects.

Despite the initial impulse of those who have seen an incentive, escape, or “breath of oxygen” in this, others have decided to “take justice into their own hands”. The absence of labor options, and the economic incentives, has actually really gotten to some people, and everyone has thought up something different.

So far during this new year, there have been a few robberies in some grocery stores, warehouses, and other public service businesses in the city of Holguin. In San German, a series of robberies left a couple of other grocery stores empty. They took the oil, the coffee, and nearly all the rice. All these products belonged to the “basket of basic goods” category, or in other words, they were products monitored by the rationing cards. Now, people do not hesitate one bit when they see 4 ounces of chicken or some kind of “texturized” ground beef (as it’s called here). They immediately go to buy any such products. “Just in case they run out fast,” someone–who nowadays is one of the first people in line whenever products arrive to the local grocery shop–commented to me.

The products mentioned in the Rationing Card are few and seldom available (only once a month), and the distribution company gets caught up, and one day the oil comes in, the next the soap arrives, and then the following week is when the coffee would arrive.

The incursions of the burglars go from the most basic thefts, with the usage of crowbars and pliers, to the sophisticated use of lock picks. In some places, they have left behind some messages warming that what was happening was only the beginning of much more to come. In other cases, these messages point out the negligence displayed by those in power. The unfortunate fact about this is that we are now witnessing a wave of theft which, on the one hand, puts many innocent people at risk, while on the other hand it serves as a “mirror”, as the only way of being able to achieve what one wants.

Robberies in local grocery stores are the reflection of thievery taking place in the high ranks, where men with white collars have amassed personal fortunes, and when this was not enough for them anymore they decided to stick their hands in the coffers of “Father State”.

“The General’s men are the ones who are robbing”, a street corner know-it-all tells me, while adding, “Nobody robs 6 millions dollars from the local shop, and nobody asks to borrow 2 airplanes to later return them. In order to do any of that, one must be up in the high ranks,” he reassures me.

The truth is that in order to carry out such robberies they did not have to get some people from Planet Mars to do it. They have used the same ones who one day went to the Plaza to scream slogans which were forced down their throats, or in the worst of cases, traveled to Africa to kill people they did not even know. They are also the very same ones who scream at the top of their lungs, “This street belongs to Fidel!”

Translated by Raul G.

February 10 2011

My Faith in Elsewhere / Claudia Cadelo

Claudio Fuentes Madan

I received a call from a friend who recently left Cuba. At one point in the conversation he said, “This isn’t another country, it’s another planet.” I hung up the phone and felt myself an alien on the earth. I looked out the window at the mess of wires hanging from the poles as if the hurricane had been yesterday. I went to 23rd and 12th and the traffic light was out. At 23rd and G there was electricity but the light was controlled by a policeman and the street was deserted: Raul Castro was going to pass by. I saw a photo of a building covered with glass–one of those modern constructions filled with light–someplace in the world and wondered when Havana is going to be reborn from its ruins. I sit in the park and enjoy the trees. There’s trash and filth everywhere, but I still love the air of my city. I wonder how long that pleasure will last.

I return home. I turn on the TV and it’s the news. Fritz Suárez Silva is ranting about a statement by Osama bin Laden. I doubt my own senses. I don’t understand if he’s defending the terrorists or saying bad things about Obama. I fade and turn off the TV. I want to know what’s happening in Egypt but on Cuban television they manipulate everything. I look out the window again and remember the photos of the Green Revolution in Iran. I feel nostalgic. It’s ridiculous to feel nostalgia for something I didn’t even experience. I remember November sixth and everyone on the sidewalk at G and 27th staring, mouths agape, eyes stupid, as a group of men in plain clothes forced three young women into a car. I laugh. I can’t imagine the streets of Vedado flooded with young people demanding democracy.

I’m not going to get pessimistic: I always have the Web. When I connect to the Internet the bad taste in my mouth fades. There’s a sensation that the world is changing and I’m on another planet. Forget Raul Castro’s three black cars paralyzing even more, though it seems impossible, the time of my reality. I remembered that public spaces no longer need to be physical. Again I feel that it’s possible, that one day change will come, that the freedom of my life on the Web will one day be matched by my life on the street. It doesn’t matter how much we lack. I will know to hope.

5 Opponents Arrested, Among Them Iris Tamara Pérez Aguilera / Guest Post from Pedazos de la Isla

The Cuban political police violently arrested Iris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, wife of the opponent Antunez, as she screamed, “Down with Raul! Down with Fidel!”

At the time of her arrest Iris was on her way to the home of Alejandrina García de la Riva, Lady in White and wife of the political prisoner Diosdado González, both of whom had temporarily cancelled their recent hunger strikes.

At the time of the arrest of Iris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, four other opponents were also detained: Idania Yanes Contreras, Alcides Rivera Rodríguez, Alexis Oms, and Donaida Pérez Paseiro, who were accompanying her.

This blog post is taken from Pedazos de la Isla, Pieces of the Island, that: “Intends to be a collection of Cuban stories; past stories and present stories. They are voices, first spoken and later typed down, which narrate the pain and passion of an entire country- the country of Cuba.” The blogger, Raul Garcia, Jr., is the son of Cuban exiles and a major contributor to the work of HemosOido.com, Translating Cuba, and a number of the individual bloggers.

Fleeing the Cold, European Tourists Travel to the Island / Iván García

Photo: Robin Thom, Flickr

John, 49, is a clever womanizer from Marseilles, who, besides fucking as many hookers as he can, always keeps an eye out for business. Several times he’s tried to start a little business in Cuba.

But he always ends up splitting hairs. The lengthy and incomprehensible legal procedures and limited legal safeguards end up discouraging him. The Frenchman, an habitual vegetarian, usually spends from three to four months in Havana, fleeing his country’s cold and stress.

While he examines possibilities for investing money, he has a blast, although he gripes about the lack of nightlife in the city, the loads of shortages and the absurd laws. Every day he’s irritated by the expense of an Internet connection and the poor quality of the wine on sale in the habanero markets. On the other hand, he appreciates the hospitality of the Cubans, “something that has been lost in France, where neighbors don’t even say hello.”

Every night, for just $35, he puts a young woman with hard flesh in his bedroom. Then he lounges around as much as possible. In 2011 he would like to set up a small company that would give him certain benefits and a good excuse to spend more time making love in the tropics, drinking rum and knowing people who aspire to live in a different society.

Alberto also flees the harsh winter in Europe. He’s 35, from Madrid, and is taking his first steps in cinema. He also is fascinated by the Cubans and the island’s climate. This Spaniard is not traveling in search of whores, or to bask in the warm sun of Varadero.

Alberto is an idealist and a freethinker, convinced that Cuba deserves better luck. He hates Fidel Castro because of Franco in Spain. “Fuck, we know what a dictatorship is like.” He hopes to make several documentaries. While preparing the script, he gets to know people and reads about local history.

They are two sides of one coin. John thinks only about going to bed with black women and doing profitable business with the Castro brothers’ government. And Alberto, who’s particularly fond of the island, is more interested in its democratic future.

Where the Gallic hedonist and the Spanish altruist agree is that they both touch down in Havana, trying to avoid the harsh European winter. Once on the island, each goes about his business.

Translated by Regina Anavy

February 9 2011

Cuba: Telecommunications Are a Key Piece for Military Businessmen / Iván García

Photo: Flodigrip’s, Flickr. ETECSA office in Varadero.

Discreetly, although in official form, the businessmen who dress in olive green have taken absolute control of the only telecommunications firm that exists on the island: ETECSA.

In recent days, the Official Gazette published what different national firms would do with their shares of ETECSA. The majority group, with 51%, is Telefónica Antillana S.A. With 27% follows RAFIN, S.A., a Cuban corporation created in 1997, and about which publicly nobody knows where its funds come from and the final destination of its profits.

In Miami, where Juan Juan Almeida García — son of one of the sacred cows of the revolution, Juan Almieda Bosque — lives, the news didn’t take him by surprise. In a statement given to an independent Cuban site, he commented that the acronym of the mysterious company is the initials of ‘Raúl Fidel Inversiones’ and was created one night over shots of vodka and ham canapés in a house in the Siboney district, west of Havana.

Other sources who prefered anonymity confirmed what Almeida Junior said. And they calculate that the capitalization of this corporation is around 10 billion dollars and could be a part of the personal estate of the Castro brothers. RAFIN S.A. has its headquarters on Avenida del Puerto, Old Havana, and its president is Luis Alberto González Ruiz de Zárate.

His complete name gets no hits on Google. By his second last name, he can be related to Serafín Ruiz de Zárate (1923-1991) who, in 1959-1960 was Minister of Health, or to the journalist and investigator Mary Ruiz de Zárate. In Cuba, the Ruiz de Zárates come from a moneyed family from today’s Cienfuegos province.

Some years ago, Forbes magazine put Fidel Castro in its number one ranking among the politicians with the largest quantity of money and properties. Castro perceived it as a media vendetta and furiously responded that he would pay a million dollars to anyone who could prove the supposed riches imputed to him.

It has rained a lot since then. A couple of years ago, the Italians who used to do business with the Cuban telecommunications firm left the country, but they continued maintaining their 27% of the shares; those same that just got bought by the up-to-now unknown company, property of Raúl and Fidel Castro. More about RAFIN and other non-banking entities can be found on this page from the Central Bank of Cuba.

The interests of the military businessmen in ETECSA is logical. It’s a business that moves billions of dollars and in the near future promises to double its growth. According to local directives, mobile telephone lines will outnumber fixed (landline) telephones, with 1,200,000 users. And the trend keeps growing.

A cellular line on the island costs 50 dollars and every two months you have to deposit a minimum credit of 10 dollars to keep it operating; to this you have to add the succulent slice of international calls, with almost 2 million Cuban emigrants alone in the United States.

ETECSA is one of the three Cuban businesses which generate profits in cash, together with civil aviation and tourism. But if millionaires are the beneficiaries of mobile telephony and foreign calls, the immediate future should be promising.

In the first fifteen days of February, Cuba will become linked to Venezuela by an underwater fiber optic cable which will permit the transmission of data and internet connections. At a cost of 70 million dollars, the cable will permit the extension of the Cuban connectivity racket which barely reaches 5%.

The cost will probably also come down. Connections with the information superhighway today are by satellite, more expensive and slower than by fiber optics. In the digital era, the creole Mandarins are interested — and very much so — in maintaining absolute control over the new communications tools, which by its reach and power to launch calls to action could, in a matter of hours, provoke a popular revolt.

The Castro brothers aren’t stupid. And they have taken notice. The latest events in Tunisia and Egypt, and the role played by SMS and social networks like Facebook and Twitter, have demonstrated once again the powerful strength of the Net.

They are also conscious that it is not prudent to keep the populace away from key tools in today’s world. Their plan is to offer internet services … under strict control.

Internet is a double-edged sword for the government. It cannot live behind its back, but it brings an uncontrolled circulation of information. The military regime thinks it can minimize this impact, blocking and censoring the pages that they consider “counterrevolutionary”.

According to ETECSA sources, in 2011 it is forecast to commercialize internet service to Cubans. The initial cost will be 150 dollars for a line, and after that they will sell cards for a fixed quantity of hours.

In the last weeks, after General Medardo Díaz, 48, was designated Minister of Computing and Communications, he has called the attention of the workers to the movement of the military and teams in different dependencies of ETECSA.

To outward appearances, the militarization of this enterprise is a fact. Since 2008, Cuba has changed into a country almost basically controlled by the military. The majority of the ministries are occupied by active duty or retired olive green officers.

But what intrigues the coffee-with-no-milk Cubans, if it’s true what’s said in programs from Miami which are seen with illegal TV antennas, is knowing where the Castros have gotten so much money to start a corporation. And neither did they blush when it was baptised RAFIN.

To Humberto, 43, taxi driver, that “makes me damn mad, because the two have spent 52 years selling us the spiel about sacrifice and humility, and then suddenly — with an economy that’s a shipwreck and thousands of unemployed — they pull a mountain of money out of their sleeves, and they aren’t magicians.”

Note: After editing this piece, the vice Minister of Communications, Jorge Luis Perdomo, told Reuters that Cuba sees “no political obstacle” to opening Internet access to the population.

Iván García y Tania Quintero

Translated by: JT

February 8 2011

Hope for Possible Legalization of Buying/Selling Cars and Houses / Iván García

In this spring of 2011, we wait expectantly for the announcement of new measures to allow Cubans to buy and sell cars and houses.

It’s likely that during the sessions of the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba in April, they will abolish the absurd prohibitions in force that forbid Cuban citizens from buying or selling a home or car.

On the black market, buying and selling cars and houses is one of the most lucrative businesses, which has produced unreal profits. An old Ford car, late 40’s in good condition, can cost up to $30,000, twice the cost of an apartment with three bedrooms and 90 square meters.

Evelyn, 54, who sells houses in Havana illegally, is one of those who think that when this type of buying and selling is legalized, prices could fall.

“A good house could be quoted between $80,000 and $100,000. Maybe more. It will depend on the interest shown by foreigners involved with prostitutes and those Cubans living abroad who wish to acquire housing for their relatives on the island. The signs in the underground market indicate that a significant number of people would throw themselves into buying homes because of the housing shortage in the country,” predicts Evelio.

If housing prices soar, car prices could hit bottom. “It’s not possible that a relic of the twentieth century from General Motors is sold today for $40,000. Or that a mediocre car, like a Russian Lada, costs more than $20,000. It’s crazy. If the state begins to sell cars that are modern and economical, even at outrageous prices and for large profits, the speculative bubble in car sales would decline sharply,” said Joseph, 43, who for two decades has been involved in buying and selling old US-made cars.

In the meetings that are taking place these days in neighborhoods and workplaces, to analyze and discuss the guidelines for the future economic and social policies that Raúl Castro’s government will apply at the Sixth Congress, the most discussed points are the disappearance of the ration card and the authorization to buy and sell homes and cars.

Another topic discussed a lot is the abolition of the country’s entry and exit permits for Cubans, which confers on the regime unlimited power, to be used as a reward or punishment, when authorizing foreign travel. According to reliable sources, this topic will not be discussed in the short term.

What’s really hoped for, I repeat, is the repeal of laws that prohibit buying and selling of houses and cars. At the starting gate, after the gun goes off, there will be foreigners or people who travel frequently living in Cuba.

Heinz, a Swiss man who often visits the island to chase skirts, is considering buying one or two floors when the government gives permission. “In my country an apartment costs about 200,000 francs. Here, I think that one in good condition wouldn’t go over $60,000 dollars. Anyway, in Cuba the laws are very complicated, especially if they allow foreigners to purchase property from the natives. If it’s not authorized, it wouldn’t be worth it to buy a house in the name of another person. There are many dishonest people in Cuba,” he says smiling.

It’s also likely that the business of buying and selling homes won’t suddenly blossom. Some 62% of residences in Cuba are in fair or poor condition. Moreover, there aren’t enough houses. Quite the contrary.

It’s common to have three different generations living under one roof. Young couples have no privacy. And many resort to countless inventions, such as building a loft (half-way to the ceiling) or improvising room dividers.

Either way, there are great expectations about possible state permission to buy and sell houses and cars. In a country fenced-in by so many prohibitive measures, repeals are always very welcome. Although few benefit from them.

Translated by Regina Anavy

February 4 2011

Egypt 2.0 / Yoani Sánchez

Darkness and light in Tahrir Square, a red phosphorescence glow interrupted by the camera flashes and the glowing screens of mobile phones. I wasn’t there, and yet I know how each one of the Egyptians felt, gathered last night in downtown Cairo. I, who have never been able to shout and cry in public, overwhelmed by happiness that the cycle of authoritarianism under which I was born has ended, I know I would do the same until I had no voice left, I would hug everyone, I would feel light as if a huge burden had fallen from my shoulders. I have not experienced a revolution, much less a citizen revolution, but this week, despite the caution of the official news, I have the sense that the Suez Canal and the Caribbean Sea are not so far apart, not so different.

While young Egyptians were organizing on Facebook, we were watching with consternation the leaked chat of a cybercop, for whom social networks are “the enemy.” This censor of kilobytes and his bosses have every right to fear these virtual sites, where as individuals we can meet outside the controls of the State, the Party and the ideologues. Reading the words of the young Egyptian Wael Ghonim, “If you want to liberate a country, give it Internet!”, I understand more clearly the secrecy our authorities display regarding whether or not they will allow us to connect to the Web. They have become accustomed to having an information monopoly, of regulating what comes to us and reinterpreting for us what happens both within and beyond our national frontiers. They now know, because Egypt has taught them, that every step they let us take into cyberspace brings us a step closer to Tahir Square, leads us quickly to a plaza that trembled and a dictator who resigned.

11 Titans, 11 Hopes / Antunez

Librado Linares García
Librado Linares García

Librado Linares García, Doctor Oscar Elías Biscet, Ángel Moya Acosta, Diosdado González Marrero, Félix Navarro Rodríguez, Iván Hernández Carrillo, Héctor Maceda Gutiérrez, José Daniel Ferrer García, Guido Sigler Amaya and Pedro Argüelles Morán are 11 Cubans who represent much to our country and who are writing—through their dignified stance—one of the most beautiful and courageous pages of these 50+ years of tyranny.

They know what they are exposing themselves to, and they know—through their own experience—what their oppressors are capable of; in fact, their sentences now respond to the huge crime of peacefully defending the rights and freedoms of their compatriots. The regime is presently enraged by them because these men refuse to accept exile as the condition to recover that which is theirs by right: their freedom. The deadline that the dictatorship established—in conversations with Cardinal Ortega—for their release is now long overdue. What will the regime do with them? Only God—and the criminals who keep them jailed—know that. No matter what happens, we remain convinced of two facts: first, that the strength and resolve of these 11 Titans will not be defeated, and, second, that we will not abandon these brothers to their fate, and will strengthen our fight to get them out of Dante’s inferno.

Translated by T

7 February 2011

Obama Loosens and Castro Squeezes / Antunez

The new recently-approved measures from the North unfortunately only point at—albeit with the best of intentions—oxygenating the dying tyranny of Havana, without providing any benefits to the democratic cause in Cuba.

The administration of Mr. Obama must understand that it is not the United States of America that needs to change their policies regarding their relationship to Cuba, but that it is the Castro regime that needs to implement changes and democratic openness, free its prisoners, respect human rights, and also introduce a market economy and allow free enterprise, without setbacks or cosmetic measures.

The Obama administration continues to act, in my opinion, in an erratic manner, avoiding the marrow of the issue. I would like to think that most of those who support these policies have not lost their faith in the main actors of change, that democratic opposition that—both inside and outside Cuba—never ceases in its attempts to accelerate the transition and the practical implementation of true openness.

I would also like it if some radio journalists who gather the opinions of people in Cuba did so in a more balanced way, not limiting to seek the opinions of only those in favor of Obama’s policies, but also of those of us who have a different view. Journalism, except—of course—for the official press, is supposed to inform with transparency and objectivity, and not to please or praise people or interests, no matter how influential or powerful they may seem.

Dear Journalist: If you have any doubts, please ask Radio Martí journalists Juilo Machado and Jorge Jáuregui, and they will surely teach you how to remain friends while being fair, and without renouncing impartial journalism and without the slightest passion.

Translated by T

15 January 2011

The Reflection in the Mirror: Castro and Mubarak / Angel Santiesteban

Mohamed Bouazizi

The newspaper Granma, official organ of the Communist Party of Cuba, which also controls the rest of the official media as is common in totalitarian regimes, announces that demonstrations against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak are a response to his thirty years in power.

The news seems to mock Cubans. The Castro government is already threatening to reach double that figure at the helm of the country, leading to ever growing poverty and scarcity.

Common sense, however, seems to fail authorities because a certain logic dictates that they shouldn’t publish this image of Mubarak–their reflection in the mirror. Thirty years in power in the Egyptian nation is bad, but fifty-three years for the Cuban dictatorship is good?

Mubarak declared, according to an interview on the American network ABC, that his departure from power would lead the country into chaos. “I hate to see Egyptians fighting among themselves.” It’s hard to know whether all dictators are the same by nature or if they studied the same manual.

What’s laughable–if such a thing were possible–is that they mock themselves, they defy the most basic common sense. Mubarak and Fidel Castro imagine themselves to be gods, chosen ones, capable of guiding their people if not to prosperity, at least to “dignity.” They have no bread to offer but they try to swindle us with populist ideology. The tragedy is that the price of their love of power is paid by their people.

Also, recently, we have the “bread intifada” in Tunisia, a rebellion against a government that, as the official Cuban press describes it, has been “entrenched in power for 23 years.” In Yemen something similar is happening. In the Ivory Coast the population demands respect for the outcome of its elections. Sudan votes in a referendum of self-determination. Peoples, risking their destiny, tired of being deceived, launch themselves like cannon fodder to impose their will.

Just a few hours ago, national television claimed that representatives from the Mubarak government were holding talks with the opposition. The key question is when will the Castros’ government accept democracy, admit the opposition, and stop ignoring plans that could heal the present national crisis.

Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian whose death sparked the wave of riots that are shaking the Arab world today, died like Orlando Zapata Tamayo. Neither of them had any other alternative.

February 12 2011

The Desired Sedition / Iván García

Every revolt, mutiny, or uprising in countries with despotic governments who worship the sweet taste of power, as happened in Iran in 2009 or right now in Tunisia and Egypt, awakens the wish in Cubans on and off the island that the social tension and economic precariousness of the ‘verde caimán‘ might push the people to throw themselves into the streets to try to turn the order of things around.

It’s not that easy. Genetically, Cubans are no different from other races or peoples. At their deepest, they also wish to live in societies with democratic rules and sharing of powers.

If you ask a citizen from the heart of Cuba, he will tell you that he’d like to elect a president every five years and also be able to criticize his leaders without threat of imprisonment. If you put it to them, on balance a majority of Cubans desire changes and a different future. They want the Internet to stop being science fiction, to read magazines and books and follow political and religious tendencies of their choosing. Or follow none at all.

But the Cuban people don’t have a vocation for suicide, nor the making of martyrs. Until today, desperation and the perennial economic and securities crises haven’t pushed them to a street rebellion.

“Wishes don’t make children,” goes a saying. Things happen when they have to happen. It’s understandable that Cubans committed to the future of their country wish to give a push to accelerate certain democratic reforms.

I understand them. I have family living in exile. And in the diaspora, many wish to be able to return to their Fatherland someday. Fifty-two years of personal authoritarian government of the Castros and the pages of the calendar that inevitably turn makes them think that their bones will lie in faraway lands.

Successes and people’s demonstrations in countries with ancient and totalitarian governments — like that of Cuba — awakens in the exiles the hope that the seditious spark will extend itself to the island.

Life has shown that it’s impossible to design and dictate from abroad, or through local dissident groups, a call to peaceful uprising of those who don’t have a profound political conscience, whose life goes on between continuous fear and a simple, human goal: to bring two hot meals to the table every day.

In Cuba there has been no repercussion of the call made by bloggers living abroad, calling their compatriots to carry out street protests. One of the reasons is simple: on the island, less than 5% of the population is connected to the Internet.

Opposition groups — on and off the island — consider it advantageous to use whatever peaceful means to upset the status quo, knowing that there has been an increase in discomfort and wish for profound transformation in a socialist system, closed and single-party.

But what it’s about is not about the coincidence of opinions, that the situation in Cuba should have to change. The disagreements are about which methods to use. And about other factors that range from fear to indifference. And even the lack of balls.

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Translated by: JT

February 8 2011

Messages from José Rojas Bez / POLEMICA: The 2007 Intellectual Debate

Dear Desideri,

Receive once more a warm embrace from this friend “beyond the capital.”

I welcome your fair challenge to the title of “GROUP” being applied to the large and diverse number of participants in the current debate, and the last paragraphs, about our “culture of spectacle” (and their “controls”), motivate me even more.

But I wanted to make an observation. Knowing you for years (you and your work), I know that this is a lapse in the editing when you talk about “the important ones.” It’s worth clarifying that we are all equally important as human beings and potential “contributors” although not equally “known”or “influential.” Let’s avoid falling into the trap that we criticize; thanks to the mass media and other “promotions” we don’t always properly know the best, and very often – this is the more serious! – the worst are too highly “ranked.”

You confirm my reasons, already stated, that the problem is not a “Pavón” nor a “Five-year gray period,” simplifications that, although well-observed, can serve as “symptoms” (“indices,” “icons” and “symbols”) in order to know and reject so many, innumerable “Pavóns” and “Pavonas” and “problems” from yesterday, today and tomorrow (since I don’t think they can be solved from one moment to another – I wish!), but that – poorly brandished – they can serve to focus excessively on the problems over two or three peculiarities and circumstances. Let’s prevent this error! continue reading

In my previous email I pointed out three or four among the possibly infinite number, including those of education and, of course, the media, with their manipulations, open doors to mediocrity and opportunism, and the mistrust of the depth, sincerity and culture that is not the “aesthetic of superficiality.” Although it’s a universal problem – and apart from the fact that another’s wrong act doesn’t justify your own – the “Pavóns,” structures, conditions and uses – especially the “uses “- have worsened it among us. I’m glad you insist on that. What a great topic for a broad debate “shirtless”! (Would it solve anything, I wonder?) I am sending you here an article where not long ago I suggested reflections from the universal to the personal about that. ).

Since it’s very brief, I’m attaching it, so you can take a look when you finish your “current emergency reading.”

Sincerely, Rojas Bez

Another message from José Rojas Bez to Juan Antonio García Borrero

Your email worries me doubly.

I am struck, first, by the double or repeated mistake of seeing only the critic Colina as “sensitized.” I’m glad that Gustavo has now clarified for you that there were others who were “sensitized” even long before Colina, from the very beginning, like Luciano and Frank. I say “before” because of a simple chronological order and not to highlight differences in sensitivity nor anything else, but to point out that, having followed the debate, you should already have “noticed” others.

But you fall back into the mistake, since it’s not “also” Luciano, Frank and Gustavo, but also Rojas, from the very beginning of the debate, along with others (Marrón, Manuel García,…) that I suppose you don’t know as well, but I think you do, because they’re not members of the Association (not everyone is, nor are all not). I hope you haven’t forgotten that I am also critical (and an old acquaintance of yours as the founder of our Association and from even earlier). Or that our youngest friend Gustavo has misinformed you without wanting to. Well, this is teasing.

What happens is that many “film critics” are interested not only in movies, but also even more in Culture and Society. Above all in Culture, Spirituality and Society, and we don’t focus on our “sensitivity” nor on our participation in film (in parentheses, neither does Colina), nor on our being in essence “film critics.” Perhaps because of that you didn’t notice it well.

The second concern: Will you be imbued with excessive relativism? Won’t you have a little more definition? The ending of your letter leaves me with that worry.

Don’t you know that there is critical thinking within the island, which doesn’t need “to be brought into the light” to make itself real for you (and others) because it DOES exist, though it’s not the most widespread officially, and though it can always, and SHOULD BE, enriched by you, and many, many more … even off the island … Is it contempt, folly or another mistake about the above? Remember that you criticized the critics who believe themselves to be “the navel of the world.” You amaze me when you say, for example:

“I know you’ve written all this with the pressure of the ‘hot debate’ and that you’re sharper than what you show in this specific email. I invite you therefore to think more calmly and, of course, to remain critical, inside and out, up and down, in the capital or the province, when it’s with honesty and love for Cuba and Culture.”

Finally, I am not opposed to any meeting of critics, as someone has suggested. Why not, except for the practical problems of cost and schedule? No discussion or reflection is bad. Now is fine, always when it’s not converted into an “elite” or special group, but always merged into the COLLECTIVE DEBATE, of all and for the good of ALL, though, as the Film Critics Association, we should accentuate, emphasize the problems of film.

Sincerely, your old friend, the equally old friend, old critic and film researcher and old exerciser of opinions, not just about film.

Rojas Bez

Message from José Rojas Bez to Desiderio Navarro

I just got your message of righteous disapproval, along with that of other friends and colleagues who, logically, seem to be multiplying.

First of all, I have established that I’m joining a protest that is so just.

However (and here come the “buts”), I regret that such energy is deployed only now and that we have not shown it before (myself included, of course, in the criticism) on countless occasions.

Is the “Pavón” case a symptom, or rather a syndrome?

It’s a syndrome that has never been absent although sometimes it’s more hidden than at others.

I speak to you from a province (typically conservative and exclusionary), and I want to remind you that, if Havana has always been, by obligation and not by mere desire, more permissive and pseudo-liberal than the rest of the country… then imagine the rest that are removed from the best ministers and the best intentions, and in the hands of the local “fates.”

Many Pavóns (even female ones, of course, not to be sexist and also to recognize that some females have the ability to take advantage of the rostrum and others get close to power to “make themselves felt,” to impose themselves like Pavón) have never ceased to exist. Nor have their associations, like opportunism, suspicion and laudatory phraseology beyond work and serious achievements.

Either way, I insist on my criticism (and self-criticism) that we have never made protests nor proposals that are as energetic and collective on numerous issues involving the nation and culture, including the causes (first and second), and not simply the third with the most visible and skin-deep effects.

There is, among countless possible examples, to not get further away in time, that larger problem of the implications of the dismantling of our historic sugar industry, not only for the economy, but also for the life of the villages, communities and other spiritual areas related to that industry.

What about everything that has generated tourism and its managers, the new “status” and “culture” well above being a worker in other areas, which reproduces bourgeois behavior … in this case with State budgets and risks?

But let’s refer to the strictly “cultural.”

How many times do we use that “anti-Pavón” energy to suggest lower expenses and damages in everlasting manipulations to absorb information, and demand more criticism and analysis or, same thing, less triumphalism? Or when Customs seizes political books sent from outside by colleagues for our information, denying us the right to read and judge them on our own?

And what about the opportunistic, distorted views of our history and our heroes, like that pitiable image of Martí (actually anti-Martí), increasingly official and enthroned, of a democratic Marti – popular, “pre-Marxist”? Or the poor little guy, the immature Martí, who had not yet seen the light of Marxism, remaining in the “pre”! What reader of Martí could ignore that he not only knew about Marxism and socialism, but he also did not approve, in the most truly Cuban tradition, that of Father Félix Varela, Agramonte, et al, and he was not a simple pre-university student!?

Brave, the editor (not the writer) who published essays about Martí’s idealism or the fruitful influence of idealism on Martí!

And neither did we protest so much when the mentioned Father Varela was left offensively without the “Father” because, they said, he was a patriot and great “in spite of” being religious.

Brave, the editor (not the writer) who published some essay claiming that the patriot and the man of faith were inseparable, and the more faith the bigger he was!

And how difficult it was to publish essays related to biblical books (of course, when it was to praise them or give them merit) even if on a strictly literary level!

Let’s not forget, by the way, how only an atheist education (not secular, which would have been okay, but aggressively atheistic) was maintained for decades.

When, among thousands of possible examples, we so angrily demanded for years that they publish Dulce Maria Loynaz, and that such an illustrious creator, like many others, let’s say Lezama Lima himself, were “non-existent” in our programs and textbooks on Cuban literature?

Okay, esteemed (and also admired Desiderio, since we owe a lot to your informative work and diffusion of high culture), let’s cry out against Pavón and all the Pavóns, male and female, but the two or three examples given among a possibly infinite number remind us that it’s not a question only of a Pavón or some other individual and circumstance, from that time and before, up to the present year.

Receive, as always, my warmest hugs.

Rojas Bez

Translated by Regina Anavy

January 2007