Let’s Talk About Martí on His 158th Birthday / Dimas Castellanos

(Published in Cuba Daily, www.ddcuba.com, 28 January 2011)

The birthdays of figures who marked our history in past times and are observed today constitute an excellent opportunity to return to their ideas. This is the case of the 158th anniversary of José Martí’s birthday, who, at this opportunity, coincides with the start of the changes that the government is introducing in the economy, but will have to be generalized to all social spheres.

José Julián Martí Pérez, son of a family with a limited education, thanks to his sensitivity and intelligence, to the love of his mother and uprightness of his father, and to his relationship with the director of the Boys’ School of Havana, Rafael María de Mendive; he became a historian, poet, literate, orator, teacher, journalist, and the Cuban politician of the largest stature.

Nonetheless, despite the quantity of pages about him that have been written, his essential ideas are barely known. Having attributed the intellectual authorship of the Assault on the Moncada Barracks to him and placing him next to Marxism as the foundation of the process which led to a totalitarian system, he has provoked some Cubans — especially the youngest — to show rejection of this alteration of his person. From there, the importance of calling attention to simple, but racial, aspects of his work which remain valid for today’s Cuban. With that end, I advance eight of those aspects.

  • His humanism, putting man at the beginning and end of his libertarian work; to dream that with the first Law of the Republic there might be full human dignity, which is impossible without the freedoms that serve to sustain him. A humanism expressed in the love for one’s neighbor that, like Jesus, he extended to his own enemies and whose best proof consists in that, despite the inhuman treatment he received in the Political Presidio, he never expressed hatred for Spain, or that when he was an enemy of American expansionism, he was also a fervent admirer of the culture of that country and its people. From that humanism emanated his ethic, which in its political action constituted a distinctive element expressed in his human dimension and in the correspondence between thought and action.
  • His deep capacity for analysis, thanks to which he performed a critical study of the errors committed in the Ten Years’ War and demonstrated that Spain didn’t win that contest; rather that Cuba lost it. From that study he derived a system of principles that included: revolution as a form of evolution, the inclusion of all components in the analysis of social phenomena, the union of differing factors, and time in policy. In this system are the cement of a theory of revolution that includes the function of necessary war and the role of the Party.
  • His iron-willed opposition to autocracy, which took him to refuse participation in the Gómez-Maceo Plan of 1884, of which he left perseverance to the General: “A people doesn’t found itself, General, like one commands a camp”; an idea so simple as essential, whose consequence showed itself all throughout the Great War and remained reserved in his Campaign Diary, 14 days before his death: “… Maceo has another concept of governing, a junta of generals with command power, by their representatives – and a Secretary General: the Fatherland, then, and all her officers, who create and animate the army, as a secretary of the army”. An idea that had been repeated time and again, as in April 1894, when he expressed: “A people is not the will of a single man, as pure as it may be… A people is a composition of many wills, vile or pure, frank or stormy, impeded by timidity or precipitated by ignorance[1]. Ideas that should be incorporated into today’s textbooks.
  • His conception of the Cuban Revolutionary Party (PRC) as an organizing institution, controlling and creating of conscience to direct the war that the Republic had to carry out; not to dominate and prohibit the existence of different parties following victory, not to work for predominance, of any kind present or future; but by grouping, conforming to democratic methods, of all the living forces of the Fatherland; by brotherhood and common action of Cubans resident on the island and abroad[2]. For, as remained recognized in the Basis of the PRC, to found a new people and of sincere democracy, capable of overcoming, by the order of true work and the balance of social forces, the dangers of sudden freedom in a society composed for slavery[3]. And he insisted that it was an idea that Cuba had to carry, not just a person[4]. Thoughts completely foreign to the single-party system implanted in Cuba.
  • His concept of the Republic, conceived as a form and station of destiny, different from War and of the Party, conceived as mediating links to arrive at it. A republic as a state of equal rights to everyone born in Cuba; a space for freedom of expression of thought, of many small businessmen, of social justice, which implied love and mutual pardon between the races, built without foreign assistance nor tyranny, so that every Cuban might be a fully free politician.
  • His doctrine of Fatherland, of which he conceived as a “community of interests, unity of traditions, unity of ends, most kind and consoling of love and hope”. An ambition condensed into the following words in “Wandering Teachers“: “Mankind has to live in a state of peaceful enjoyment, natural and inevitable from freedom, as they live enjoying air and light” and “The independence of a people consists of the respect that public powers demonstrate to each of their children.”
  • His enmity for violence, despite having suffered much himself. In May of 1883, he wrote: “… Karl Marx studied the methods of putting the world on new bases, awakened the sleeping, and taught how to throw away broken props. But he walked quickly, and a little in the shadows, without seeing that they weren’t born viable, not in the hearts of the people in history, nor in the heart of the woman at home, the children that haven’t had a natural and laborious birth … They dream of music, dream again of the chorus; but we note that they aren’t of peace.”
  • His rejection of State Socialism, of which he left evidence in “Future Slavery”, where he proposed that “the poor, who are used to losing all to the State, will soon stop making any effort for their own subsistence”; “that when the actions of the State become so varied, active, and dominant, it will have to impose considerable charges on the working part of the nation in favor of the impoverished part”; that “as all public necessities come to be satisfied by the State, functionaries will acquire the enormous influence which naturally comes to those who distribute some right or benefit.” And that “To be a slave to oneself, it will come to man to be the slave of the State. To be a slave of the State, as they call it now, one will have to be a slave of the functionaries. A slave is anyone who works for another who has dominion over him; and in that socialist system would dominate the community of mankind, to which the community will dedicate all its work.”[5]

Just as people who are ignorant of their history are condemned to repeat once and again the errors of the past, and in Cuba political matters have regressed to the 19th Century, we have to be advised that Marti’s political thought continues to be effective, for we are detained in a time in which he would have lived. The republic of all and for the benefit of all is a pending matter. Once the model of totalitarian socialism has failed — exclusive by its nature — Marti’s thought, a combination of love, virtue, and civics constitutes a legacy we cannot depreciate.

Havana, 25 January 2011

[1]MARTÍ, JOSÉ. Selected Works in Three Volumes, Vol III, p. 359
[2] “Resolutions taken by Cuban emigration of Tampa and Key West in November of 1891”. MARTÍ, JOSÉ. Selected Works in Three Volumes, Vol III, p 23.
[3]MARTÍ, JOSÉ. Selected Works in Three Volumes, Vol III, p. 26
[4]MARTÍ, JOSÉ. Selected Works in Three Volumes, Vol III, p. 192
[5]MARTÍ, JOSÉ. Complete Works. Vol 15, pp 388-392

Translated by: JT

January 31 2011

Free Fall / Iván García

"Welcome to Our Green Caiman"

The only thing need to fall is to be above. And although Renato knows this, he is still not used to the sacrifices of the real Cuba’s tough life. He was a heavyweight in an imports firm. A jet-set of the elite.

He wore the red insignia of the Communist Party and had a promising future ahead of him. On many an evening, he would be enjoying seafood, salad dressed with olive oil and fruits at some luxurious restaurant of Havana. And a good Spanish wine on the side, of course.

On his return back to his splendid house at Miramar, he would smoke a Cohíba cigar and have a cup of strong Brazilian black coffee. He would then go to bed, unstressed and relaxed, to have sex with his wife, an exuberant light-brown-skinned young woman of thirty-two.

As it happens in any marriage, they had plans. And Renato aimed high. He envisioned himself at 47 as director of a ministry and climbing up the ladder within the party hierarchy. His life was beautiful. He spoke several languages and traveled the world. He always had euros, dollars or Swiss francs in his wallet. He was not an extremist in his dealings with his workmates, nor did he judge severely the ideological weaknesses of his friends.

He never climbed higher by trampling over anybody else. He followed a very specific ethical system: to give priority to talent. Loyalty was essential, but it could always be second. He was not a shameless corrupt, either.

Yes: like any Cuban official, he knew some tricks and accepted bribes from capitalist impresarios under the table. But he always negotiated in ways that were favorable for the nation.

He was a professional and a Sybarite. He did not have lovers. He never participated in scandalous orgies. He did not even drink rum in excess. Like any other person with political ambitions, he had his aspirations. He dreamed with one day of becoming president.

He had logical and measured projects, in tune with the system in which he lived. He would even say to his closest friends that a socialism with a human face—one that was efficient and that did not support political repression—was indeed possible.

Renato did not see it coming. The day he was summoned to his supervisor’s office he never imagined that he would be subjected to a prickly telling-off and a litany of accusations due to political immaturity and lack of faith on the historic leaders of the Revolution.

A few weeks later he was thrown out of the party and his official car was taken from him. He no longer had a position of trust. No trips abroad, no business with refined capitalists.

He was stunned. He asked around, he begged, he made appointments with the high powers. He felt they were doing him injustice. His only crime was to believe in the reforms that General Raúl Castro was proposing. And to wish these were even deeper.

Months before this, Renato had participated in a meeting with the high cadres of the party. Everyone in the room was asked to, openly and with no regard to censure, say what their opinion was regarding the supposed economic changes that could be tried in the island in a near future.

He thought this was his chance. He had already undertaken meticulous research on a plethora of options to forward the economy. He expressed that the State needed to get rid of inefficient enterprises. He applauded the measure that resulted in the loss of a million jobs, and he thought the number should be higher, as to lessen the burden of the State. And he provided a series of counsels on how to engage the issue of the self-employment.

Our blunt official was betting, and so he said, on large reforms, market economy, small and medium-sized enterprises funded by Cuban-American capital, on the removal of the tax on the US dollar and on the gradual abolishment of the rationing system.

In his thesis, he did not mention anything about political changes, nor did he judge the work undertaken so far by the revolutionary leaders. After he finished his contribution to the meeting, he did not notice any sign of alarm at the big wigs’ table.

Some bureaucrats with power even came over to congratulate him. Twenty days later, when he was summoned to the supervisor’s office, he understood that his pragmatic project had become the cause of his disgrace.

The blow still hurts. Good-bye to those trips to Europe, to those shrimp dinners in the twilight. Only his wife and family are left. And the certainty that a better Socialism is still possible. Now he suspects that it won’t be feasible within the government of the Castro brothers.

The only thing needed to fall is to be above. When you touch ground, you learn a lesson. In the power structures of Cuba there are two capital sins: the ambition of power and thinking big. Renato had wished for both. And now he is paying for it.

Translated by T

February 4 2011

Bureaucratic Obstacles and Obsolete Protectionism Regarding the Self-Employed / IntraMuros

By Dagoberto Valdés

There can be no economic development without freedoms and human rights. As we gather statements from Cuban men and women who are trying to develop their private initiative through their own small businesses—those that have been included in the list of medieval trades that the Cuban government, in a false overture, has approved as a liberalization of work—they are faced with endless bureaucratic obstacles and State protectionism for their inefficient enterprises or useless services so that no one can compete with these fossils of bureaucratic totalitarianism.

The acquisition of permits and the following of procedures take each Cuban who takes on the risk of enterprise on a goose chase from office to office. To mention only a few of these offices, if you wish to build a shack for your paladar—home-cooking and home-based restaurant,—for example, you will need to visit Urban Planning, the Popular Municipal Power Administration Council, the Directive Offices of Municipal Public Health, the National Taxing Office (ONAT) and others. In each of these offices, you must be subjected not only to the contempt of bureaucracy, but also to the obstacles that have been implemented so that no one person is able to earn too much, or acquire titles to more than one property, accumulate properties or money, or have the opportunity to personal progress above the leveling standards of true Socialism. In other words, you are allowed to pursue a minimum level of survival under State dependence and through the mental and daily work that are indispensable for mere survival.

Another insurmountable obstacle is the government’s protectionism over any service, business or enterprise, all of which are the sole property of the State, as to eliminate possible, potential and incipient competition from the self-employed, or the small, private entrepreneurs. A home-based restaurant (paladar) cannot be opened within two blocks from a State cafeteria because it would entail competition against the State-owned business. And this, of course, never takes into account the fact that the state-owned cafeteria hardly ever has anything to sell. Minister Murillo has clearly stated at the Cuban National Assembly that State enterprises should not fear competition from private businesses, as these are but mere “rustic shacks”. And, were they to progress, there are still economic and social guidelines that reaffirm that national economy is in the hands of the State, and that the accumulation of capital will not be allowed, nor will it be allowed to go beyond any mechanism of State planning even if the enterprises in question are not State-owned. Not even water can ever be as clear as this.

Cuba will never step back from the edge of the cliff with only “rustic shacks”. Enterprises that are not subjected to competition can only produce misery and bad service. These supposed overtures from the government, without the element of recognition of private and protected property, are not real overtures. Work and bureaucracy are natural antonyms. And economy and liberty are inseparable.

Therefore, we all know where this is heading. Or, better yet, where it is not heading.

But, being that totalitarianism does not allow for reforms, who knows!

Dagoberto Valdés

January 20 2011

News Without Newness / Miriam Celaya

One of the characteristics of the scandal unleashed late last year by the website WikiLeaks is the frequency with which certain developments that should not be a news flash for anyone are revealed. Simultaneously, an idea seems to be enthroned that tends to overestimate the importance of this site as the information legitimizer. Something like saying that “if it came out in WikiLeaks, is true,” which means the birth of a sort of absolute cyber-dictatorship for informational truth: the substitution of a monopoly (the mainstream media, which WikiLeaks claims to fight) by the monopoly of a supposed “freedom of information” which, in fact, tends to advocate anarchy.

Paradoxically, it is said that the Spanish newspaper El País “has exclusive rights on information filtered by Julián Assange’s Web.” Could it be that this is a free exclusivity deal by virtue of a freedom of expression defense turned offering? Why would a major media, the Spanish language newspaper with the largest circulation, be the repository of filtered “firsts”?

As for me, among the cables published by such a site that somehow make reference to Cuba, I have not found any new news items. I think I am not mistaken if I declare that most Cubans do not need the new defender of published news reports of the US Interests Section in Havana to find out, through its former representative, Michael Parmly, that “corruption in Cuba has become a widespread phenomenon that reaches both the Communist Party leadership and professionals without political affiliation.”

Other cables reaffirm the same, detailing aspects of Cuban life that have been reported by independent journalists and alternative bloggers for a long time, such as “corrupt practices, including bribery, misappropriation of state resources and accounting shenanigans, including purchased jobs for hundreds or thousands of dollars that will later spin off copious interchanges of influence.” We are well aware of that social cancer metastasis, corruption, that has even invaded the police, one of the most affected sectors; but it is absolutely present in every niche of national life. Even the comandante himself, the generator of the Cuban National Disaster, acknowledged in 2005 that the revolution could implode because of the great corruption that exists on the Island. He stated it much later than the independent press. WikiLeaks, through El País, merely sanctifies through the mouthpiece of a foreign official what many honest Cubans –- many of whom are in prison because of it — have denounced in the first place and, more recently, as if to conjure old faults, it has been acknowledged even by the olive green gerontocracy and its most reverent acolytes.

Among the latest of the retro-exclusive news flashes that the site of the famous Julián Assange has regaled us with these last few days is Parmly’s own communication that contains “confidential information” provided to him by Vilmar Coutinho, a Brazilian who in turn received it from the Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim (what a mess!). According to the “revealing” communication, the latter “had a talk with Raúl Castro” in which the General declared “that he had no intention of doing away with the white card” — the travel permit required to leave the country — because “that would produce a mass exodus,” whose host country would be fundamentally Mexico, which “would harm bilateral relations” between Cuba and that country.

Thank you, WikiLeaks! But we Cubans already knew that the white card is one of the government’s more lucrative diabolical “milking” mechanisms. As a Cuban-American economist coined it, the “emigration industry” produces juicy dividends for the Cuban government, at no cost whatsoever, and the famous little card is one of its sources. The so-called white card, which allows native Cubans to exit the country costs only 150 CUC, and it can be obtained, in the first instance, only through the corresponding letter of invitation from abroad, paid to the Cuban government in hard currency, with the exception of those who have obtained their Spanish citizenship, who need no letter at all to go to Spain, though they still need their white card. Add to that the application for a regular passport which has a price of 55 CUC. Considering the large and continuing flow of Cubans to immigration offices to perform procedures related to this, it is easy to calculate that the amount of income generated could be, at least, in the order of hundreds of thousands annually. Add to that the monthly rent required to be paid to the Cuban consulates abroad by Cubans who left only temporarily and expect to return to the Island. That is why the General could not eliminate the white card, not because a supposed massive exodus to Mexico (more like the United States, the main and dreamed-of destination of almost all Cubans aspiring to escape). The cynicism of the General when recognizing the possibility of a “mass exodus” is not a WikiLeaks news flash either.

I could cite other examples, but that would be to extend myself in vain. I agree with those who have found only a great source of old gossip in the controversial site. If you look closely, it is only useful for fleeting chitchat, and to show that the Internet also has that dark and sinister side that that puts issues under a microscope that perhaps should remain in some office files and drawers. Apparently, for media that thrives on scandal, the personalities implicated in the gossip are more important than the news itself. Personally, I’m not very interested in revelations after the fact, unless they have the purpose of amending errors, an issue that is beyond the scope of a mere mortal like Assange. Nor does it seem ethical to me to advocate the collapse of a site –- be it official, famous, or not — as some cyber-fundamentalists have done to avenge the attack to the new idol, because I defend freedom of speech in its universality. As an independent blogger living in a dictatorship, I know what it feels like when an absolute power blocks that right.

I don’t know what WikiLeaks proposes to do ultimately; perhaps it is only about good intentions gone wrong. Maybe my assessments take me beyond a critique, but my readers know I am not complacent, and I hope that they can clarify some of my doubts. I count on that. As for the referenced website, I think so much internet talent could continue, though based on better causes (he’s done it before), and promoting the free flow of information in areas where there are serious access restrictions, while respecting the right to privacy. Freedom should not be synonymous with chaos. The WikiLeaks experience is, in my opinion, one more demonstration of the human capacity to deal ethically with technological advances, just like it has happened so many times before in history. And forgive me, readers, if this seems like an old fashioned presumption, but sometimes what we call “information” is nothing but stupidization disguised as news.

Translated by: Norma Whiting

February 3, 2011

José Martí, Los Aldeanos, and a Christmas Celebration / Claudia Cadelo

There are those who say that every effect has its cause and that there is no chaos in the universe. Each to his own philosophy. A friend — half joking, half serious — asked me is I could define the year when our reality became an absurdity. Something like the Big Bang of our island reality — in an implosive sense, of course, a kind of anti-Big Bang. Jokingly I replied: After seeing some of Fidel Castro’s speeches in the archive, I’d say 1959. Later, when I was alone and thinking, the joke wasn’t such a  joke and the year perhaps not totally exact because I have no first-hand experience. I was born in 1983 and it was just a few weeks ago that I realized I haven’t lived in any other reality than that absurdity my friend was asking me about. Disheartening, no?

Turning to the effect, to the cause and the chaos, it would be illogical to draw a coherent line between the Christmas Eve party, the music of Los Aldeanos, and some of the thoughts of José Martí. However, two brothers from Holguin, Marcos and Antonio Lima Cruz, could attest otherwise, having been prisoners since December 25, 2010, charged with “public scandal” and “insulting national symbols.” This last paragraph from the Penal Code is only surpassed by the emblematic “Disrespect” — mocking the figure of the Commander-in-Chief — whose very existence as a criminal figure implies a hilarious joke, I would say.

In Holguin — anywhere outside of Havana can be frightening territory for freedom-related activities  —  Marcos and Antonio decided to write some of Martí’s thoughts on the wall of their house. Phrases we never see written on the government’s banners though it’s worth pointing out that some of the latter are apocryphal and wrongly attributed to the “Apostle” — as Martí is known to Cubans. Although the reasoning isn’t clear, if we follow the logic of the official propaganda, they supposedly admire Martí so much that they no longer remember what he wrote and what he didn’t, and after several repudiation rallies in front of the brothers’ house, Martí’s thoughts were erased in favor of Fidelist slogans.

Then came the night of the twenty-fourth — young in Cuba, recovering traditions through the perseverance of a people who did not forget them despite certain ideologies — an authorized party, a gathering of those in the area, music for the people. And the people’s music includes Los Aldeanos. So the Lima brothers listened to it while they celebrated Christmas. And because they were celebrating Christmas in Cuba, perhaps they came walking down the street — the rappers in the background — wrapped in a Cuban flag.

So the party was over. They are prisoners. And you, like me, might be asking yourself how listening to Los Aldeanos can become a public scandal, and in what way wrapping yourself in, dancing with, shaking, breaking or burning the country’s flag may offend a patriotic symbol. I didn’t know this outrage could be exercised against inanimate objects. There is no cause-effect relationship, it’s not logical, there isn’t least bit of sense in it, and yet, it exists. Wouldn’t this latter be the rejection of some Marxist principle I can’t remember right now?

February 7, 2011

The Honey of Power, the Reforms… and the Inheritance? / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado

Given the different and legitimate concerns that are displayed by a large part of society with regard to the measures outlined in the Cuban economic and social future, I offer my opinion, because of the indifference and the disbelief as well as the indolence and concerns of the citizens, which deserve attention.

There are concerns in sectors of the population about the real intention of the government to introduce reforms. It is true that there is an unfinished program to discuss in the next Congress, which has been published and will be “discussed and analysed” from its foundations, but the mistrust concerning its likelihood of benefiting society and that it will contribute to economic solvency and happiness crowns the plan with skepticism before its inception. There are so many broken promises and announcements of corrections that don’t correct anything, that a lack of confidence has lorded over and installed itself in a good portion of our fellow citizens.

My experience in these subjects was enriched and reaffirmed recently during a pleasant and fruitful interchange with a full and heterogeneous group of people. Some shared a triumphalist spirit which claims to infuse the leadership cadre of the country with a brave decision to carry out these proposals or guidelines and the lack of criticism generated: is this the system they’ve classified as a “model” and an example to imitate? If it has to be reformed because they admit that it wasn’t working well or, simply, that it wasn’t working at all, it implies a failure. But that isn’t what they’ve said until now, nonetheless, it’s something that many have known for a long time. This “model of inefficiency and anti-democracy” for many decades has ignored the needs and wants of the people and has listened to and prioritized foreign interests over their own needs, thus showing contempt to their comrades on the archipelago.Why weren’t these reforms undertaken sooner? Why just now?

More than two hours went by in which a civil tone wasn’t always maintained; many became indignant that this might be yet another demagogic commercial like that of the “correction of mistakes and negative tendencies” of the ’80s, which was followed by an arrogant “businesslike perfection” — which lasted until the beginning of this decade — and went on to detail the full and successful (for them) catalog of snipe-hunting that has characterized as floating our historic leaders on an unmovable peak of “regression”. Thus, in the group there was consensus in we defined as indisputable: the recognition that the current model failed and that updating it to keep the country moving in the same direction is an act of survival of those who savor and have tasted the honey of power for the last half century, and not a gesture of justice toward Cuban society.

We are not forgetting (we cannot nor should we) that the black and white times of demagogic slogans and the dizzying musical litany about the climb to “The Olympia of the Proletariat” was the refrain of an era’s Hit Parade. We sought strength in power, and it was necessary to dazzle the poor — the majority — confronting them with “the oligarchs who exploited” them or owners of giant ranches, monopolies, consortiums, and even small businesses — who were and are minorities in society — to send the message of the people’s revolution to the world. Thus, even a poetic allegory was seen as a suspicious sign of weakness in the bourgeoisie in moments of liveliness, fishing without a pole and “socialism with reverie“. To think differently remained prohibited by decree.

I have always wondered why we turned ourselves over resolutely to a patrón who persecuted the poets with prose and independent metaphors, and sent for “… Attila the Hun’s colts” to hunt them down. Had César Vallejo and Roque Dalton materialized, perhaps they’d have been more honest in recognizing their mistakes and observing that communism (read: state capitalism; always metamorphosed the same) has been shown to be “an aspirin of the size of … an aspirin!” nothing spectacular. Thus, the ideological Cuban invention didn’t get close to that which it alleged was its initial most elevated and humanist purpose.

Caudillismo — strong man rule — was the strategy to inject prohibitive laws into the arteries of society with the centralizing and nauseating purpose of submission. With strokes of pink teque (the empty rhetoric of political discourse and its phraseology) and red whips they manipulated the workers and looking down their noses, they rolled up their sleeves and took the elevator from demagoguery to “go down” to the proletariat and feel the “civic participation” in the process. What participation? That arising from an enslaving perception: work for me without any rights or demands! With cunning pre-concocted carbon copy phrases, they have held a speech contest; not of participation, but of general benefit for them, not for the national community. Thus they usurped all the gains they had obtained against their former capitalist patrons; now they have the audacity to say that the working class ceded it to them to form the present government of the people.

It seems that the ruling elite (or perhaps ruling bourgeoisie?) has its own vision of interpreting the Cuban reality and uses a language — glossolalia of Pentecost? — different from the rest of society, that for many years has communicated in a language that few seem to understand. Not to mention the added value, that for over half a century, it has taken from the national working masses!

A fleeting reminder leads us by the hand from comments that are not always pleasant — though necessary in order to set out from a basis of honesty, so as to make as most accurate an analysis as possible; of who we are and what we have achieved after decades of sacrifice. It’s a constructive critical look outlined from realistic or honest reading, but with new outlooks and always prioritizing that the spirit which should encourage us is the solution, not the pollution of the problems, and as a result we can get some valid questions that are worth reflecting on here.

We have all been unexpected and surprised witnesses of the critical comments made by government leaders towards the population. It turns out that now “we are pigeons with our beaks open awaiting the food they bring.” My God, from where was this idea conceived? In which planet do the government leaders live? Was it not they who confiscated (nationalized) Pepe’s fry stall, Pancho’s shoe shop, John’s plumbing tools or Kung Fu’s laundry?[i] The list of examples could be the length of fifty helpless years.

They began with the large landowners accusing them of monopoly and ended with the simple Cuban churros seller pushing a modest cart with his own willpower. It is why they continued to subjugate the citizens with the not laudable purpose of making a citizen economically dependent on the state. That has been the case and still remains to this day, even though they have disguised it in the form of paternalism; a hegemonic commitment of domination and subordination, which in this digital era is lagging behind and is condemned by the pragmatism of globalization, libertarian clicks on the Internet and technological advances in general.

One might think then that the price for raising the educational level of society or having “compelled us to think” is that it has to be done solely for the convenience of the institution of the state, and always with the patriotic, democratic and disinterested intent to the hold on power by the historical leaders.

The decades pass and Cuba seems an ageing photo; both the leaders of the State and the manner of imposing norms and implementing discipline remain as coercive and vigorous as ever. Cubans get tiny bites of freedom through development, modernity, the ever-increasing demands of society and its interaction with other individuals or groups of countries, not the will of the state. It is a narrow margin gained against the authorities and has prompted a state reanalysis and refocusing of current circumstances in favour of “maintaining everything that should be maintained” so as not to jeopardize the revolution , or namely, their own status.

In this way reforms are imposed. The reality of the political, economic and social stagnation Cuba has been led into, compared with the rate and international social levels (modernity) suggests, per se, an involution.

Many times we feel that the rest of the world moves or travels by plane whilst we walk. Long ago we should have taken action, but the government’s stubbornness and fear of loss of control or the inconsistency of what they have advocated so far has basically added to their ineptitude and indolence, as the inefficiency and infeasibility of the model has been stretched so far that the bond is about to break. Either way, the lack of self-criticism by the country’s leadership acknowledging that the current model has failed is the typical rubric of its political culture that it should not come as a surprise to all who have followed their litigant and discursive suggestions for more than five decades.

Governmental untouchability with its bad policies in almost every area and the applications of these, have demonstrated the expiration of the ideological prototype it defends. Who are those responsible for economic and social collapse in our national home? The drafting of the “Project of Guidelines for Economic and Social Policy [ii]” is another example of the arrogance that characterizes the government directive: Why introduce reforms now and not one or two decades earlier? The directives, which are now in the hands of many, were written by an elite committed to the leadership (or to themselves) who are, in short, the authors of the current crisis.

Of course we support any attempt to change what obstructs or curbs the development and welfare of society and its unfolding in the national context; but the authoritarian and controlling mentality of the minds of the leaders of government limits the good performance of any real attempt to reform, which would be those that must be made in today’s society. To this, one must add that they do not propose substantial changes, since they obviously obviate the core issues like human rights, freedom of expression and freedom of association, which are the pillars on which rest any proposal for amendments if they are to be genuine and not an ideological fairground carousel for them to continue playing for time.

We are not in the mood for warm washcloths and we must reform “everything that must be reformed” in order to allow Cubans to build their own dreams freely, which though they may not be perfect, at least would give us the opportunity to enjoy all that has been taken away under the guise of an ideology.

Also, the right of ownership should not be treated with prejudice or pseudo-paternalism and the participation of ordinary Cubans in the investment processes must be permitted, something that until now we have been excluded from.

In short, it has been such a long stay in power, and the number of accumulated problems is so high that it warrants changes instead of reforms, not just in economic and social development, as proposed by the leadership of the government, but integrally. The model is unrealizable, and has long been maintained through the force of control and obliged obedience.

I want to return to recalling the productive interchange I had with the interaction group; there was consensus that the maintenance of the system has always been prioritized regardless of the economic or human cost. So where is the humanity of which they boast? Why force this society to suffer and endure, rather than recognize the rights of the citizens? They gave us free education and healthcare (now also in crisis) and it has proved to be a sine qua non – that in modernity there is extortion – to disregard all other rights.

It is worth mentioning at this point how they are still working on the installation of a fiber-optic cable from Venezuela to access broadband Internet and have already claimed it will be “for social utility”, which they will determine, of course. And this is what we aim for as the key to development; free access to information through the mega network that is the Internet and other technological highways, and it is inevitable for the healthy progress and performance of social civility, liberalization or decriminalization thereof.

Someone then added that it seems that the claim over control of the Government has been that the capitalists will subsidize plans for a revolución against them. If they want capitalist finance, which is something they ask for publicly, why persevere in the socialist system?

My friends and I then came back to what we believe is the crossroads that Cuba’s historical leaders have always wanted to bypass, since this would imply democracy and, hence, a change in power. We therefore conclude that this point is also fundamental and an attack on development.

Those who hope that the guidelines will be the cure-all to the problems of the failed Cuban model, I recommend you check the label so that you read that it expired before its implementation. That way we reaffirm the setting of the debate that it already generates and the expectations that it sows amongst Cubans living in the archipelago. We believe it is possible to put into practice new and better challenges that will lead to other new measures, which in turn will contribute to the necessary and inevitable democratization of society. The famous theory of fine-tuning…

[i] In the years before 1959, small dry cleaning and laundry businesses in Havana, were largely in the hands of the Chinese settled in Cuba.

[ii] Document dated November 1, 2010 and drafted for discussion at the VI Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, which will be held this the coming April.

Translated by Eric Peliza

January 3, 2011

The Honey of Power, the Reforms… and the Inheritance?

Given the different and legitimate concerns that are displayed by a large part of society with regard to the measures outlined in the Cuban economic and social future, I offer my opinion, because of the indifference and the disbelief as well as the indolence and concerns of the citizens, which deserve attention.

There are concerns in sectors of the population about the real intention of the government to introduce reforms. It is true that there is an unfinished program to discuss in the next Congress, which has been published and will be “discussed and analysed” from its foundations, but the mistrust concerning its likelihood of benefiting society and that it will contribute to economic solvency and happiness crowns the plan with skepticism before its inception. There are so many broken promises and announcements of corrections that don’t correct anything, that a lack of confidence has lorded over and installed itself in a good portion of our fellow citizens.

My experience in these subjects was enriched and reaffirmed recently during a pleasant and fruitful interchange with a full and heterogeneous group of people. Some shared a triumphalist spirit which claims to infuse the leadership cadre of the country with a brave decision to carry out these proposals or guidelines and the lack of criticism generated: is this the system they’ve classified as a “model” and an example to imitate? If it has to be reformed because they admit that it wasn’t working well or, simply, that it wasn’t working at all, it implies a failure. But that isn’t what they’ve said until now, nonetheless, it’s something that many have known for a long time. This “model of inefficiency and anti-democracy” for many decades has ignored the needs and wants of the people and has listened to and prioritized foreign interests over their own needs, thus showing contempt to their comrades on the archipelago.Why weren’t these reforms undertaken sooner? Why just now?

More than two hours went by in which a civil tone wasn’t always maintained; many became indignant that this might be yet another demagogic commercial like that of the “correction of mistakes and negative tendencies” of the ’80s, which was followed by an arrogant “businesslike perfection” — which lasted until the beginning of this decade — and went on to detail the full and successful (for them) catalog of snipe-hunting that has characterized as floating our historic leaders on an unmovable peak of “regression”. Thus, in the group there was consensus in we defined as indisputable: the recognition that the current model failed and that updating it to keep the country moving in the same direction is an act of survival of those who savor and have tasted the honey of power for the last half century, and not a gesture of justice toward Cuban society.

We are not forgetting (we cannot nor should we) that the black and white times of demagogic slogans and the dizzying musical litany about the climb to “The Olympia of the Proletariat” was the refrain of an era’s Hit Parade. We sought strength in power, and it was necessary to dazzle the poor — the majority — confronting them with “the oligarchs who exploited” them or owners of giant ranches, monopolies, consortiums, and even small businesses — who were and are minorities in society — to send the message of the people’s revolution to the world. Thus, even a poetic allegory was seen as a suspicious sign of weakness in the bourgeoisie in moments of liveliness, fishing without a pole and “socialism with reverie“.  To think differently remained prohibited by decree.

I have always wondered why we turned ourselves over resolutely to a patrón who persecuted the poets with prose and independent metaphors, and sent for “… Attila the Hun’s colts” to hunt them down. Had César Vallejo and Roque Dalton materialized, perhaps they’d have been more honest in recognizing their mistakes and observing that communism (read: state capitalism; always metamorphosed the same) has been shown to be “an aspirin of the size of … an aspirin!” nothing spectacular. Thus, the ideological Cuban invention didn’t get close to that which it alleged was its initial most elevated and humanist purpose.

Caudillismo — strong man rule — was the strategy to inject prohibitive laws into the arteries of society with the centralizing and nauseating purpose of submission. With strokes of pink teque (the empty rhetoric of political discourse and its phraseology) and red whips they manipulated the workers and looking down their noses, they rolled up their sleeves and took the elevator from demagoguery to “go down” to the proletariat and feel the “civic participation” in the process. What participation? That arising from an enslaving perception: work for me without any rights or demands! With cunning pre-concocted carbon copy phrases, they have held a speech contest; not of participation, but of general benefit for them, not for the national community. Thus they usurped all the gains they had obtained against their former capitalist patrons; now they have the audacity to say that the working class ceded it to them to form the present government of the people.

It seems that the ruling elite (or perhaps ruling bourgeoisie?) has its own vision of interpreting the Cuban reality and uses a language — glossolalia of Pentecost? — different from the rest of society, that for many years has communicated in a language that few seem to understand. Not to mention the added value, that for over half a century, it has taken from the national working masses!

A fleeting reminder leads us by the hand from comments that are not always pleasant — though necessary in order to set out from a basis of honesty, so as to make as most accurate an analysis as possible; of who we are and what we have achieved after decades of sacrifice.  It’s a constructive critical look outlined from realistic or honest reading, but with new outlooks and always prioritizing that the spirit which should encourage us is the solution, not the pollution of the problems, and as a result we can get some valid questions that are worth reflecting on here.

We have all been unexpected and surprised witnesses of the critical comments made by government leaders towards the population. It turns out that now “we are pigeons with our beaks open awaiting the food they bring.” My God, from where was this idea conceived? In which planet do the government leaders live? Was it not they who confiscated (nationalized) Pepe’s fry stall, Pancho’s shoe shop, John’s plumbing tools or Kung Fu’s laundry?[i] The list of examples could be the length of fifty helpless years.

They began with the large landowners accusing them of monopoly and ended with the simple Cuban churros seller pushing a modest cart with his own willpower. It is why they continued to subjugate the citizens with the not laudable purpose of making a citizen economically dependent on the state. That has been the case and still remains to this day, even though they have disguised it in the form of paternalism; a hegemonic commitment of domination and subordination, which in this digital era is lagging behind and is condemned by the pragmatism of globalization, libertarian clicks on the Internet and technological advances in general.

One might think then that the price for raising the educational level of society or having “compelled us to think” is that it has to be done solely for the convenience of the institution of the state, and always with the patriotic, democratic and disinterested intent to the hold on power by the historical leaders.

The decades pass and Cuba seems an ageing photo; both the leaders of the State and the manner of imposing norms and implementing discipline remain as coercive and vigorous as ever. Cubans get tiny bites of freedom through development, modernity, the ever-increasing demands of society and its interaction with other individuals or groups of countries, not the will of the state. It is a narrow margin gained against the authorities and has prompted a state reanalysis and refocusing of current circumstances in favour of “maintaining everything that should be maintained” so as not to jeopardize the revolution , or namely, their own status.

In this way reforms are imposed. The reality of the political, economic and social stagnation  Cuba has been led into, compared with the rate and international social levels (modernity) suggests, per se, an involution.

Many times we feel that the rest of the world moves or travels by plane whilst we walk. Long ago we should have taken action, but the government’s stubbornness and fear of loss of control or the inconsistency of what they have advocated so far has basically added to their ineptitude and indolence, as the inefficiency and infeasibility of the model has been stretched so far that the bond is about to break. Either way, the lack of self-criticism by the country’s leadership acknowledging that the current model has failed is the typical rubric of its political culture that it should not come as a surprise to all who have followed their litigant and discursive suggestions for more than five decades.

Governmental untouchability with its bad policies in almost every area and the applications of these, have demonstrated the expiration of the ideological prototype it defends. Who are those responsible for economic and social collapse in our national home? The drafting of the “Project of Guidelines for Economic and Social Policy [ii]” is another example of the arrogance that characterizes the government directive: Why introduce reforms now and not one or two decades earlier? The directives, which are now in the hands of many, were written by an elite committed to the leadership (or to themselves) who are, in short, the authors of the current crisis.

Of course we support any attempt to change what obstructs or curbs the development and welfare of society and its unfolding in the national context; but the authoritarian and controlling mentality of the minds of the leaders of government limits the good performance of any real attempt to reform, which would be those that must be made in today’s society. To this, one must add that they do not propose substantial changes, since they obviously obviate the core issues like human rights, freedom of expression and freedom of association, which are the pillars on which rest any proposal for amendments if they are to be genuine and not an ideological fairground carousel for them to continue playing for time.

We are not in the mood for warm washcloths and we must reform “everything that must be reformed” in order to allow Cubans to build their own dreams freely, which though they may not be perfect, at least would give us the opportunity to enjoy all that has been taken away under the guise of an ideology.

Also, the right of ownership should not be treated with prejudice or pseudo-paternalism and the participation of ordinary Cubans in the investment processes must be permitted, something that until now we have been excluded from.

In short, it has been such a long stay in power, and the number of accumulated problems is so high that it warrants changes instead of reforms, not just in economic and social development, as proposed by the leadership of the government, but integrally. The model is unrealizable, and has long been maintained through the force of control and obliged obedience.

I want to return to recalling the productive interchange I had with the interaction group; there was consensus that the maintenance of the system has always been prioritized regardless of the economic or human cost. So where is the humanity of which they boast? Why force this society to suffer and endure, rather than recognize the rights of the citizens? They gave us free education and healthcare (now also in crisis) and it has proved to be a sine qua non – that in modernity there is extortion – to disregard all other rights.

It is worth mentioning at this point how they are still working on the installation of a fiber-optic cable from Venezuela to access broadband Internet and have already claimed it will be “for social utility”, which they will determine, of course. And this is what we aim for as the key to development; free access to information through the mega network that is the Internet and other technological highways, and it is inevitable for the healthy progress and performance of social civility, liberalization or decriminalization thereof.

Someone then added that it seems that the claim over control of the Government has been that the capitalists will subsidize plans for a revolución against them. If they want capitalist finance, which is something they ask for publicly, why persevere in the socialist system?

My friends and I then came back to what we believe is the crossroads that Cuba’s historical leaders have always wanted to bypass, since this would imply democracy and, hence, a change in power. We therefore conclude that this point is also fundamental and an attack on development.

Those who hope that the guidelines will be the cure-all to the problems of the failed Cuban model, I recommend you check the label so that you read that it expired before its implementation.  That way we reaffirm the setting of the debate that it already generates and the expectations that it sows amongst Cubans living in the archipelago.  We believe it is possible to put into practice new and better challenges that will lead to other new measures, which in turn will contribute to the necessary and inevitable democratization of society. The famous theory of fine-tuning…

[i] In the years before 1959, small dry cleaning and laundry businesses in Havana, were largely in the hands of the Chinese settled in Cuba.

[ii] Document dated November 1, 2010 and drafted for discussion at the VI Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, which will be held this the coming April.

Translated by Eric Peliza

January 3, 2011

Alan Gross, the Ultimate Currency of Exchange / Iván García

Photo: Reuters. Alan Gross with his wife, Judy, during a visit to Jerusalem in Spring 2005.

He had bad luck, this American engineer with his nice grandfatherly face. December 3, 2009, as he was about to board a plane to the United States, he was arrested. And there he sits today.

After 14 months in detention without charges, through a brief note in the newspaper Granma, the people on the island learn that he will soon have his trial and the Prosecutor is asking for a sentence of 20 years for “acts against independence or territorial integrity.”

Alan Gross, 61 and Jewish, will be tried under Article 91 of the Cuban Penal Code, the same one used against the 74 dissidents tried in April 2003 who were sentenced to between 13 and 28 years imprisonment.

Independent Cuban journalists have barely written about his case. According to leaks, Gross had traveled to Cuba as a subcontractor of USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development), to bring modern equipment to the not very numerous Jewish community. There’s also speculation that he helped a group of dissidents. For more than 25 years, Alan Gross had dedicated himself to humanitarian work and development around the world.

In general, it’s not easy to access foreigners who, for one reason or another, are imprisoned on the island. But it’s nearly impossible when it’s an American who, from the beginning, the authorities have kept in isolation in a special prison regime.

The prosecutor’s request for 20 years could be reduced to 5 or 10 years. He could also be acquitted. But I doubt it. Gross is valuable exchange currency for the Castro brothers, in particular for Fidel, who already said last December, to several intellectuals, that the “Five Heroes” or the “Five Spies” (depending on your point of view), would soon be home.

The detention of Alan Gross has been a source of fiction between the governments of Cuba and the United States. For the regime in Havana, it’s become a question of honor and an obsession, to get the five agents out of prison.

Accustomed as they are, on the island, to the president’s being able to decide when a person should enter or leave prison, they think Obama’s signature would be enough to spring their “heroic spies.”

And as things don’t work like that in the United States, Alan Gross could become the man who would permit them to negotiate a trade. Five for one.

February 6 2011

Unions and Now What? / Luis Felipe Rojas

Photo: Luis Felipe Rojas

So far, during this new year the expectation of massive layoffs has increased, and along with it so too the decisions of various people I know to enter the private sector as self-employed workers, whether it be setting up a small shop or becoming agricultural workers for farmers.

However, around here it is a fact that the “re-organization of the surplus labor force” has been held back “until April” (which curiously coincides with the long-awaited congress of the Communist Party). There are already signs of what’s to come, what has been set in motion by the current prevailing malaise.

In the municipal leadership of Culture in Holguin and San German, they have announced that 1/3 of the staff will be cut, without specifying what will be done with those left over. Uncertainty reigns around here, and an old friend of mine (who for a very long time was the leading union member in the Cultural sector) told me that:

“They are going to eliminate many cultural promoters, and you know the idea to form them in first place was of the Commander, but we can’t even escape that. The truth is that no one can make a living from songs and poems. I don’t know where we will end up, for here in this municipality there are more than 100 of us working in the cultural sector and sometimes even rounding up 20 fans is a difficult task. But what can we do?”

I asked her if she would appeal to the union of cultural workers to see which options they would give her. She stared at me with a mocking face and said, “What union are you talking about? They have always done whatever the Communist Party tells them to do, and now the order being given is that we must understand that it is necessary for the country to take such measures.”

In January, it was announced in San German that Housing Inspectors will have their salaries cut by 40 pesos. A neighbor of mine sees that as a contradiction. For many years, he was a union member himself and he always believed that “layoffs were in part to stimulate and increase the salary.” Now, he was another who with an incredulous face told me, “I don’t know what these people are talking about.”

Each citizen I have approached on the street has taken a different tone. In some, I can note the expectations, while in others I hear the frustration. Most commonly, there is a clear sign of alarm. The people have noticed that the direction taken by the government finds itself amid an old dilemma. Many express the feeling that, “Today they say one thing, and tomorrow they announce the opposite. But they won’t take the plunge… they are testing the grounds to see what will happen, to see what the people will do.”

Every corner of San German has become a public spot to debate, although many still do so with much fear. There are no firm demands or accusations aimed at anyone directly. In some instances, some labor centers have been host to heated debates in the presence of Party executives and representatives. Each argument has as its focal point the “The Draft Political, Economic and Social Guidelines,” but as usual many ask themselves, “How are we going to argue about something which has already been approved by Parliament and by the Party hierarchy?”

Antonio, my neighbor, is also a union member. He explains it to me as if it were a grand strategy “The unions are dormant. They only seek to amplify what the bosses of businesses or institutions are saying, but then again, people aren’t protesting much…”

February 6 2011

Brief History of Maternal Wisdom / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado

I still remember how, as a teenager during the ’70s, my mother would give me sex education lessons: “Open your eyes wide and keep your legs shut tight,” was the verdict. A male-chauvinist invitation to my development, burdened by the prejudices of ancient moral concepts and different inheritances from other cultures and from our own Hispanic roots.

Back then, as had been the case since remote times, men—who, as opposed to women, could choose their partners—were entitled to a prize when they married. There were times when they would even receive gifts if they married a damsel, which more than discrimination was an affront. Incredibly so, in the Cuba of the ’70s, the idea that men needed to be awarded their partner’s virginity through marriage or nuptials still existed. Women must remain virgins until marriage, adults and believers would say back in the day.

Supposedly the woman would acquire her name and her representation in society through the husband, and he, in turn, would acquire her hymen and the innocence of a consort, not to mention the multiple and different functions the lady of the house would eventually undertake, (and without the actual help of the husband, due to the scourge of male-chauvinism), so we can reaffirm—something that is evident and many have pointed out already—that the male gender, through marriage, always gained much more than just a life partner.

During my early childhood I heard expressions such as “they married behind the Church” in clear allusion to people who had sex outside of marriage. “Bought on credit” would imply the same. In other words, such people had “played around” or “done little things” regarding their mutual commitment before actually “signing the papers.”

Other warnings would include “after what’s been taken, nothing is left of what was promised,” to warn of men “who promised villas and castles” with the sole purpose of “cleaning their gun“… So I would worriedly wonder what size was that gun, and, for a long time, I would go into utter hiding if someone took an interest on me; that is, until biology and physiology imposed themselves…

In 1989 my husband and I joined the ranks of opposition, and by then, the maternal litany was “open your eyes wide and keep your mouth shut tight,” because, if Rafa and I were imprisoned, what would happen to our children? It was a recurrent expression up until last year, when she traveled to the United States and was able to stay.

Even so, from La Yuma, she still calls and insists I too should leave, repeating her ancient script of the neglected housewife, neglected by the male-chauvinism that defined the society of her time, and which she reformulates, adjusts and reapplies according to the circumstances. All my life I have been chased by a set of words that constitute a set-phrase: “Keep your legs wide open and keep your eyes shut tight,” Or was it the mouth? Or was it keep your mouth shut and open your eyes wide? Who cares! In any case, I am a grown woman now, and I refuse to renounce what has defined my passage through this world: to do what my civic conscience dictates me.

That mother of mine just never got it that I decided to skip the Anglo salutation (Hi) and go straight to the motions, disregarding any moral etiquette that, even if in an ever-decreasing fashion, still permeated my youth. She never understood—and it seems she never will—that I am a transgressor when it comes to anything I deem unfair, and she has still not come to terms with accepting who I am.

The prejudices I have mentioned here fortunately have disappeared from society, and my poor mother reached her old age riveted by the discrimination and humiliation of centuries, and remains lodged at the edge of fear. These days I don’t refute her opinions, I don’t fight her; I limit myself to replying, half-caustic and half-joking, in allusion to her old litany: Let’s shut the doors tight to any expression of intolerance and open our eyes wide to the world, Mommy! (because it’s never too late….).

Translated by T

January 31 2011

Suicide Attempt / Silvio Benítez Márquez

A few days ago I witnessed a dramatic and heartbreaking scene as I walked in front of one of the guard stations at the U.S. Interests Section (SINA) in Havana. It was a suicide attempt by a tormented mother who, in the company of her two young daughters, hastily leaped over the guards of the diplomatic complex demanding a visa to leave the hell that was scorching their meager lives. It was the last straw from a desperate mother trying to save her own from such a precarious reality.

It was mid-morning when the woman broke the dividing line at the entrance to the consular building. She had taken no notice of the vocal warnings from the authorities. Her only aim was to penetrate the diplomatic headquarters and ask for political asylum from the North American officials. The gatekeepers—in a combat ruckus—flung themselves over the poor lady, preventing her from breaking through the official perimeter.

The rebellious woman, once surrounded by the gatekeepers, opted to sit down in front of them and shout anti-government slogans.

The atmosphere turned tense right away. There was a show of the good ones enacted right at the door of the SINA headquarters: a woman, refusing to budge and, in the company of two children, demanding to be allowed to travel to the USA.

It is a sad story whose ending I do not know. But I can imagine it in my sub-conscience. The mother, admitted into a psychiatry ward; and the young daughters—in the best of all possible scenarios—in the custody of some relative.

February 7 2011

Chronos at the Service of Politics / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado

All of our mass media have already announced, with a great fanfare, the VI Cuban Communist Party Congress—which will take place in April, 2011,—and the “Project of Economic and Social Policy Guidelines” which is already in debate within the party’s base and which will be analyzed during said congress. As we read this announcement, we were slapped by the irony of the propaganda and the call being made by those eternally in power.

Debate what? They have already drafted the 291 articles of the program! The rest is just pure formalism to do what they have always done, for over half a century: to give a party or governmental task to their members, so they, in turn, can go back to the people for more shallow and monotonous meetings and discussions, so the people are made to believe in their usual fictitious staged offering of theatrical and participative banquets, when, in fact, all they are giving people is mimicked insinuations of buffoonery.

Then the other part will come, the implementation, which can last… who knows how long! because they never set real deadlines, making use of their usual trick of delaying projects to use the opportunity at hand to make people happy and content. The hope of the citizenry placed on the roulette of their chronopolitics. Always playing in the same key: to gain time.

The appetite for openness of our society is getting bigger and bigger, and more visible, which is why a conceptual change on the part of the highest leaders in our nation is crucial; but they have always demonstrated, and still do, that they are far too conservative and inflexible when it comes to facing such a challenge. Thus, they are leaving us with just one imaginative equation: If the old powers cannot properly drive the government car nor deal with those urgent transformations our country has needed for decades—not only economic and social ones, but also political ones,— then what is left for us, and what is left for them to do anymore, those stubborn and static leaders of the Cuban government?

Translated by T

Spanish post
January 31 2011

Learning My Way in Prison / Pable Pacheco

The weekend passed by with relative normality. I was taking my first steps in a world which was foreign to my will, and I was very far from imagining what would occur during the next 7 years and 4 months. It was a world behind the bars, full of insects, criminals, and soldiers who were real henchmen at the service of the dictatorship (save for some rare exceptions who could not find any other path of survival in a country submerged in a total crisis).

The first common prisoner which gained my trust was Raciel Prieto- a young man with my same age and who served a life sentence for murdering another person to rob their gold necklace valued at 1 thousand dollars, according to what he later confessed to me. Raciel explained to me how the prison machinery functioned — a real whirlwind of intrigue which through the years I finally came to understand but never adapted to.

The prisoners had questions about everything. Most had been jailed for many years without seeing the streets and the outside world. Without really realizing it, most of their minds had extremely weakened, so much so that all they did was take narcotics prescribed to them by doctors or smuggled in the prison by guards. Others just took part in illegal games or just took part in “survival of the fittest”. It’s difficult to find a prisoner in a Cuban penitentiary that has not come to the point of a relapse while captive. For the most part, they return to that world which they supposedly escaped under “re-education”.

From the very first moment I began to spend time with these men, I couldn’t help but to feel a sense of compassion for them. They were so isolated from the world that they did not realize that behind the bars there lay another world- a world that undoubtedly was difficult, but at least it was less cruel than the reality they faced. The majority of these men had lost their significant others, their family, and (worst of all) their will to carry on. Every once in a while, I would ask myself: Am I going to end up like these men at the end of my sentence? Fortunately, I always found the same answer in my conscience: Continue onward, don’t give up. The cause of freedom for my country is worth any sort of sacrifice.

That Monday, after I ingested the piece of bread given to me for breakfast, a soldier approached my cell and demanded, “Pablo Pacheco, get ready to come with me to the office of this prison.”

“No,” I responded. But I ended up being taken anyway.

We made it to the main office of the prison where a group of uniformed officials were waiting for me. The first one to speak was Diosdado, the director of Aguica. Diosdado presented me one by one to the penal Headship Council. I recall that, while we were speaking, they actually tempted to be decent until I told them: “You are all also very responsible for the untenable situation which our country is going through.”

A robust bald man who had a medal of superiority on his military jacket sprung up and shouted, “The culprits behind the situation we are facing are the Yankees and all of you who continue playing their game.”

I thoroughly looked back at him and told him, “You are wrong. The system which you defend is incompatible with human beings. Please, just let me go back to my cell.”

“Take him!” demanded Diosdado to the functionaries who, just a few minutes prior, had introduced me to him.

When I told my new companions about what had happened to me, they all said, “That’s Brito, the re-education chief and also one of the most cold-hearted guards of all.”

“Political one, protect yourself from him”, Raciel ended up telling me.

I decided to read the Bible for the rest of the day and this deeply helped me to withstand all that I was to live during the next few months of my life. Yet, as a source of inspiration I kept in my mind that I was not the only one to have passed through the jails of the regime just for attempting to express what my conscience dictates. In fact, I also was well aware (thanks to some prohibited literature I had read) that other fellow countrymen lived through this process under worse circumstances than myself, during the period dubbed “No one listened”.

In that same piece of literature, I got to familiarize myself with some testimonies from the men and women who had witnessed the ascent to power of Fidel Castro. Many of these Cubans had been supporters of Castro, but were soon betrayed by him, as he proved to be a real threat to all of the fundamental rights of Cubans. Such accounts inspired me to get back up from any missteps and continuing onward in the struggle for freedom, for I knew that I was not alone. The course of my destiny was unpredictable but I would not give up on it.

January 24, 2011

NOTE: Pablo Pacheco was one of the prisoners of Cuba’s Black Spring, and the initiator of the blog “Behind the Bars.” He now blogs from exile in Spain and his blog – Cuban Voices from Exile – is available in English translation here. To make sure readers find their way to his new blog, we will continue to post some of his articles here, particularly those relating his years in prison in Cuba.

31 AND POSTEANTE / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

31 and Keeping on keeping on…!

Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

I remember the conspiratorial slogan. The eighties were coming to an end. The twentieth-century of Revolutionary Cuba was coming to its end. It was December. Another December. It was Robaina and his Ujaycee, spelled like that—UJC, Young Communist League—with the seven colors of the rainbow on all the rundown façades of this city. It was 1989. Another date that ended in a 9, the preferred number for any respected Revolution (reread history to corroborate it.) I had just enrolled at University of Havana to do a BA in biochemistry, free of cost, right by 25th Street at El Vedado, one of the quiet little streets that are, secretly, the most beautiful in the world. A landscape with trees and shade and small, slow-paced businesses whose shop assistants never got old, with love dripping freely from each gaze at the edge of the large avenues and institutions of the capital city.

The Berlin Wall was going down, Gorbachov was God-bachov, our god forbidden after the bullet that stoned Ochoa and half of the Ministry of the Interior (there were hundreds of detentions and sackings: soldiers have always been the first victims of that political power they perpetuate, even if unwillingly).

I was I. My name was already Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo. I was not even 20, for god’s sake. I was eternal. Skinny. Fearful. Distrustful, distant. I had not yet made love. Or hardly. Helpless and intelligent. Prone to getting sick, and healthy afterwards. Sagittariatic. I was not sure if I would have the strength to make it to 2000: so far away, so futuristic, such a lie in the official discourse of magazines shutting down in their wholesale bankruptcy during the general crisis of Socialism (that CGS — General Crisis in Socialism — no Marxism professor ever instilled in us). I was not sure I would ever be able to taste a half-syllable of truth. Pardon me. I remained silent for twenty years because of you and because of me. I was ugly. I was bad. I was another, others.

But now I turn 31. December goes by like a charitable nightmare. There isn’t a worse Cuba than that made from the same wood. Of such a little slogan on consignment, “31 and Forward,” not even forgetfulness remains. Its author was defenestrated when Fidel was still alive, like all other Cuban officials, respected or not. Faith passed away. We were left alone, faithless. It’s nice.

With all the oil of America and those enormous air-conditioned Chinese buses, but alone. It’s beautiful. Raúl as residue, as inertia, as the rhetoric of the red tape to nowhere. The Castro of catharsis. We are still so young, going on 40 and still so young. That is, if we have lived at all. They kidnapped our time. We were exiled. They tattooed our genes with “outside” kills, and “inside” redeems, and we wanted to kill ourselves. Anything to not participate in that false feast in which this country didn’t sur-vive but sur-died, funereally. We left. We rented ourselves for just a while, no more. We would come back eventually, when death had taken care of cleaning up a bit those high positions of our imaginary nation. And we also stayed behind, some of us.

We humiliated ourselves for a while, another while, no more. We would eventually talk to one another, when fear had left our bones, tomorrow or in the following millennium. Or, for example, now, when December 2010 is ending and we are sad but free, and that desperation makes us unique and beautiful like a cosmic race, somewhat comical, and each one extends blank hands to the brother who loves us from so far away, and we tell each other the exceptional experience of the horror of a history without end. 31 and going.. and going good!

2011 is the year of the newest Cuba. That Cuba where we will need to wrap ourselves in a lot of courage so we can avoid killing one another like dogs at the Tienanmenville Square Motherland. Where we’ll need to come out of the closet we all let ourselves be boxed into by too much State or Exile. Neither the totalitarian State nor the totalitarian Exile exist. It’s I, you, we, all of you who exist. Nastiness among Cubans is done with. 2011 is now or never. If we don’t deserve our motherland, our patria, then many blogs will need to be deleted and we need to turn our attention to talking about some other topic.

The twenty first-century cannot go by with us still going on with our little freedom histrionics. We are not eternal. Soon we are going to die, perhaps before those in high positions (death is petty). 2011 is to be lived from this same line in atrocious freedom. Being I, being you, being all of you, being us. Please. What mediocre vice minister can stop such a march? What tinpot premier can scold when all the words in Cuba rebel and reveal themselves like new, shiny, exquisite, sonorous light? Even pain itself will be a virgin and thrilling pasture. Long live life, Cuba! Even a life without the burden of so very many decrepit Cubas! But may I, and you, and all of you and we live forever! There is a Cuba after Cuba. There are Cubans before Cuba, and Cubans after Cuba.

Translated by T

31 December 2010