English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
By Ambrosio Fornet / See here for background information on this series of posts. 1 It seemed as if the nightmare was something from a remote past, but the truth is that when we awoke, the dinosaur was still there. We haven’t found out — and perhaps will never know — if the media folly was … Continue reading “The Five Grey Years: Revisiting the Term / Ambrosio Fornet”
Nuevitas is my third and last stop on this whirlwind of a trip. The Santiago/Nuevitas journey takes eight hours, two of them in the 16-kilometer stretch between Manatí and Camalote. My trip is the next to last before this itinerary is suspended, pending the repair of the roadway. A passenger who appears to be a … Continue reading “Postcard from a Journey (3) / Regina Coyula”
The story goes that Cuban natives consumed tobacco long before the Genovese admiral Christopher Colombus landed on the island. The studies and evidence show that our natives used it as a medicine, narcotic, aphrodisiac, and in religious rituals and celebrations. They smoked it, breathing through the nose and even drank it in concoctions. Rodriguo de … Continue reading “What Happened to the Cuban Cigar? / Juan Juan Almeida”
Photo by Rebeca For some time the official discourse in Cuba has gone one way and the lives of Cubans have gone another. The agreements and guidelines are a part of the first, constantly referred to by the authorities as if they were part of some holy book of binding obligations, and the struggle for … Continue reading “On Different Sides / Fernando Damaso”
MAY DAY – Even Karl Marx would be surprised at the only parade of slave workers HAVANA, Cuba – All the official media is in a raging fanfare summoning to “the united people’s great mobilization which will take place in squares and avenues” this May 1st. Cymbals and trumpets are pleased with the wild benefits achieved … Continue reading “There’s Nothing to Celebrate / Miriam Celaya”
In 1989, Cuba concentrated 85 per cent of its trade relations on the USSR and the rest of the socialist camp. Thus it assured the supply of components, raw materials, technology and satisfactory loans in terms of due date and interest. With the collapse of European socialism and the disintegration of the USSR, Cuba in … Continue reading “Cuba Seeks Investors with an Old Publicity Strategy / Juan Juan Almeida”
1. March 12, 1965, an open letter by Ernesto Guevara to his friend Carlos Quijano is published in the Uruguayan weekly Marcha. The text, “Socialism and the New Man in Cuba,” is perhaps Guevara’s most significant theoretical writing, and at the same time an emphatic declaration of the regime’s objectives emanating from the Cuban Revolution, then … Continue reading “The Amazing Resistance of Reinaldo Arenas / Rafael Lemus”
Taken from OnCuba, by Cecilia Crespo In November last year, the French channel France O aired the documentary “The Marble Cow” by the renowned critic and film producer Enrique Colina. It was only shown once in Cuba, during the last International Festival of New Latin-American Cinema held in Havana. Some days ago, a Spanish friend … Continue reading “Enrique Colina: Utopian Obstinacy Turns Dreams into a Nightmare / Wendy Iriepa and Ignacio Estrada”
The work of the self-employed, which the authorities are reluctant to delegate by its true name of private work, trying to maintain at all costs the fig leaf of their tropical socialism, with its back and forth, advances and retreats, has represented one option for the survival of thousands of Cubans (according to the latest … Continue reading “Leaving Behind the “Political Trash” / Fernando Damaso”
HAVANA, Cuba, December 24, www.cubanet.org – After all Christmas festivities, including Christmas Eve, New Year’s and Three Kings Day were, with the greatest silliness, ended by decree, the image of workers in the tourist industry decked out as Santa Claus, sweating away in hats, beards and boots (with no air conditioning to save electricity at … Continue reading “Santa Claus in Old Havana / Victor Manuel Dominguez”
PUERTO PADRE, Cuba, November, www.cubanet.org — The latest collapse in this city, that of the carpenter’s shop El Nivel, and the next that presumably will occur, that of the Plaza Hotel, make the residents of Puerto Padre ask themselves: How long will this town destroy itself without the government doing anything to stop it? Of … Continue reading “Danger, collapse! / Alberto Mendez Castello”
HAVANA, Cuba , October, www.cubanet.org – More than six years ago, President Raul Castro announced that he would guarantee a glass of fresh milk to the majority of children as a result of the plan to distribute this food through a group of bodegas (ration stores), experimentally. He said that as production increased, it would … Continue reading “The Eternal Wait for the Glass of Milk / Osmar Laffita Red”
From the same instant in which General Raul Castro was enthroned as President, he hasn’t stopped warning that “The battle against crime and corruption has no room for doubt.” On many occasions he has been seen at the podium exhorting publicly the members of his cabinet to maintain an “implacable” conduct against the mentioned scourge. … Continue reading “They Criticize Corruption and Traffic in Diamonds / Juan Juan Almeida”
Photo: Cuban doctors showing their diplomas in Havana. From Martí Noticias. By 1998 Fernando had already spent a year and a half working for free in the civil war in Angola where, to get to a clinic in an isolated hamlet, he had to be accompanied by a landmine deactivation expert. Twenty-five years later he is … Continue reading “The Business of Exporting Cuban Doctors / Ivan Garcia”
“Without a strong union there will be no economy,” said Salvador Valdes Mesa, vice president of the Council of State and member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) in the recently concluded plenary session of the National Union of Sugar Workers. An approach which clearly expresses the vision of unions as … Continue reading “Are There Unions in Cuba? / Dimas Castellanos”