Things Have A Soul / Rebeca Monzo

To my granddaughter Isabel.

This was the title of an old Cuban radio show. When I was a child, my grandmother was a fervent listener of that same show, and as I was always at her side, I gave in and also listened to it. That’s why I choose this title for today’s post.

In the year 1968 I was a diplomat in Paris, not as a career, but always in a rush, as had already been happening on my planet for some half a century. Out of the blue one day I was invited to the Elysee Palace, to the French National Festival. As is understandable, such a unique opportunity excited me, but also worried me greatly. We Cubans were, in comparison with the rest of the diplomatic corps, a little more down at the heels.

I had then, to go and visit the most elegant shops of the ‘City of Light’ to choose a dress that would be fitting to the occasion. I chose one from Frank and Fils, one of the most elegant of the time. It’s clear I couldn’t buy it, so after choosing it I kept it in mind and with the greatest of discretion I came away from the window and sketched it out, went back to it to make out the details, until finally my sketch was complete. Then came the best bit. Setting of on a safari trip, from shop to shop, to try to track down a material that would bear the most possible resemblance to the original. Then, buy a good pattern and all hands on deck!

The dress, with the help of a Spanish friend who was very good with her hands, looked beautiful on me. I cut it and sewed it and my friend, with a few impeccably invisible stitches, put in the zipper by hand. It looked pretty but, accessories? The most important was the footwear!

I directed myself to a specialist shop, F. Pinet and I bought myself some Italian shoes by Magli Studio of golden, matte leather, that even today I keep in a perfect state. My then husband loved them when he saw them, but when I told him what they’d cost me, he hit the roof. ‘Don’t grumble,’ I defended myself, telling him ‘If I had gone as far as buying the dress in the shop — and I wouldn’t do that — it would have worked out to be twice as expensive.’

My shoes, whose soles gracefully traveled the red carpet of the Elysee, were those that kept me standing comfortably, the 14th of July 1968, when I shook the hand of General De Gaulle, President of France.

Those shoes have accompanied me in the most important social occasions, of my old life and I still keep them in a perfect state of health and believe me, I’ve never decided to get rid of them, because they’re still good for me or perhaps they’d get a friend out of a tight spot. I learned from a young age, that things have souls.

Translated by: Jessica Burton

September 4, 2010

Lives Condemed Due to Medical Malpractice / Miguel Iturría Savón

Yadima Évora Casales is a 25-year-old Cuban mother from Vista Hermosa in San Miguel del Padron, Havana. She believes she is a victim of deceit and manipulation at the hands of officials from the institutions that “respond” to the interest of the country’s citizens.

Her tragedy began five years ago when she became pregnant. Since she was healthy no one worried about difficulties in labor. The doctors who examined her did not realize that her uterus–high, narrow and backward–would prevent a natural birth and necessitate a Cesarean.

Since no Cesarean was prescribed consequences were awful for herself and the baby, who suffers from severe hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy which causes spastic quadriplegia (a form of cerebral palsy), according to documents given to Joel L. Carbonell Guilar, leader of the Organization of Human Rights of Free Cubans who recently reported the case to international organizations in the face of the apathy of officials from the Clinic of San Miguel de Padron.

In December 2006, Yadima went to the Hijas de Galicia Hospital with contractions, however, since her due date was January 19th the gynecologists sent her home. She went back on January 23rd with new contractions, she was again sent home because of a lack of beds. Upon leaving the hospital, a family friend who is also a doctor recommended that she return on the 26th, he would attend her during his shift. She returned that day to the maternity ward; five days later she was recognized and monitored by doctors but none of them realized she was past her due date. On the 30th her water broke in front of the attending doctor who recommended she sleep because she was not dilated.

Yadima did not dilate. She cried and the baby struggled to be born. The next morning another gynecologist put her on the monitor and the machines began to make noise. The baby’s heart was failing. The doctors decided to perform an emergency Cesarean. Her baby was alive and cyanotic (his skin was blue due to lack of oxygen). Three weeks later they returned home where Yadima discovered that the child could not hold up his head. “He’ll do it later” the specialists told her at her first appointment.

Four years later her baby requires special care to hold up his head, he does not walk, does not chew or have control of his sphincter and suffers from spasms in his hands and feet. He requires physical therapy and medications that are not accessible to Yadima and her family. Solutions are not available at the local clinics or the Julito Dias and Pedro Borras because the specialists and technicians are being sent on medical missions to other countries.

The tragedy of Yadima and her child, Ernesto Arias Evora, is worse because of their living conditions. They live with 11 family members in a small run down house with dirt floors and cement roof. She requested aid from government organizations such as the Administrative Council and the Housing and Health Directorate. After interviews and visits from officials and social workers who “elevated the case”, she wrote the State Council.

Yadima Evora Casales cannot work and waits for aide. She and her child were victims of medical negligence and are being bounced around by officials that have led her to believe they have solved her problem with a check for 158 pesos a month–the equivalent of 6 cuc, not enough for food and medicine.

This mother asks the government agencies for a wheelchair with head support, a blender to make meals for the child, diapers, a bed and medicine. She dreams of a room with ventilation, a bathroom and a kitchen to ease the plight of her child. She is still waiting.

She was told by Joel L. Carbonell that she must combine her plea with the demand, since article 26 of the Cuban Constitution allows for “reparation and compensation” for damages caused by State agents and officials. She also learned about the rules for the protection of children and youth and the obligations assumed by the island’s government when they agreed to the terms of the Instruments for Human Rights and the Conventions of Children’s’ rights.

Translated by: Lita Q.

September 8, 2010

Broken Promise / Yoani Sánchez

The Revolution Is Working Well. Fight, Work, Advance. Continue Onward! Fidel

I swore never again to speak of that gentleman with the well-trimmed beard and the olive-green uniform who castrated* filled every day of my childhood with his constant presence. I underpin my decision not to refer to Fidel Castro with more than one argument: he represents the past; we need to look forward, to that Cuba where he no longer exists; and in the midst of the challenges of the present, to allude to him seems an unpardonable distraction. But today he once more gatecrashed my life with one of his characteristic outbursts. I feel obliged to focus on him again after his declaration to the journalist Jeffry Goldberg that, “the Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.”

If my memory doesn’t fail me, they expelled many Communist Party members for lesser or similar phrases, and purged innumerable Cubans who served long sentences. The Maximum Leader systematically pointed his finger at those who tried to explain that the country wasn’t working. And not only were the nonconformists punished, but we were all forced to don the mask of subterfuge to survive on an island he tried to remake in his own image. Pretense, whispers, deceit, all to hide the same opinion that the “resuscitated” commander now flippantly tosses out to foreign journalist.

Perhaps it is a fit of honesty, as assaults the elderly when it comes time to assess their lives. It could even be another desperate try for attention, like his prediction of an imminent nuclear debacle or his late mea culpa for the repression of homosexuals which he came out with a few weeks ago. To see him acknowledge the failure of “his” political model, makes me feel like I’m watching a scene where an actor gesticulates and raises his voice so that the public won’t look away. But as long as Fidel Castro doesn’t take the microphone and announce to us that his obsolete creature will be dismantled, nothing has happened. If he doesn’t repeat the phrase here in Cuba, and, in addition, agree not to interfere in the necessary changes, we’re back to square one.

Note:
Yesterday, on hearing the news, I wrote a brief tweet: “Fidel Castro joins the opposition, telling the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg that the Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.” Shortly after a dissident friend to whom I’d sent the same message by text called me. His words were ironic, but true: “If He has joined the opposition, I’m moving over now to the official side.”

*Translator’s note: The original text was dictated over the phone and there was an error in the transcription, hence this correction.

September 9, 2010

A New Feature: Photos From Boring Home Utopics / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

Note from the site manager:

The link at the top of the sidebar that says “Cuba in Photos” takes you to the blog “Boring Home Utopics” where Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo — to my mind probably the best photographer working in Cuba today — posts his daily creations.  Another element of the BHU blog is a standing offer to Cubans in exile to take photos of the places that figure strongly in their memories of home, and post them, which has led to some very moving entries. Starting today, in a completely random fashion based on my own taste, suggestions from Orlando, and available time to post them, I intend to start posting periodic samples of BHU’s daily photos.  To see the rest, all you have to do is click on the link.



Photos: Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo
Posted: September 9, 2010

20 Reasons to Doubt / Ernesto Morales Licea

My generation grew up listening to the litany. It wasn’t the only one. It was barely a new one. But I can attest to that: along with a motto I never understood “Pioneers for Communism, we shall be like Ché!”, my legs and my conscious grew up hearing that the country my grandparents had, without a Revolution, was far worse.

The country from the past they assembled in my childish brain never had color. Or better yet, it did: the color of blood. It was a barbarian country, with murderers as rulers and children bruised by pain.

It also had a lot of gray. The images from the past are always gray. Especially, if they were previously passed by an editing cubicle.

On the Island prior to 1959 Cubans did not know happiness. They did not heal illnesses; they did not know orgasms, or sunsets, or chocolate ice cream. They never danced deliriously, nor did they raise world trophies or academic titles.

If Cuban culture is a heritage of the revolution; if sports were never a people’s right; if doctors didn’t heal; if nightlife was nothing but crimes and punishments; if the only Cuban History that exists is the one that tells its wars and its hardships, my country owes its essence and reason for being to a process initiated on January, 1959.

That’s how I was taught. I, the diligent pioneer of Communism aspiring to be like Ché, learned it that way.

But somehow I also learned, by intuition or negligence, to suspect that imperfect past. A handful of books started to do its subversive work inside of me. The flyby information I retained as an antidote against a history that, just like the old saying goes, seemed very badly told.

Just like that, by chance or by destiny, I discovered that the past of my Island had a lot of blood and corruption. But it also had an undeniable splendor.

For example, I learned, that:

  1. The first Latin American nation and third in the world, after England and U.S.A, that had the miracle of the railroads was Cuba, in 1837.
  2. Furthermore, the first trolley that toured the streets of Latin America was in Havana, in 1900.
  3. In 1958, Cuba was the Latin American country with the highest automobile ownership rate. 160 thousand cars circled our streets, one for every 38 people.
  4. The first Latin American doctor to use ether as an anesthetic was the surgeon Vicente Antonio de Castro, on March 11, 1847. With that method he started the era of modern anesthesia for all of Latin America, right from this Caribbean Island.
  5. In the XIX century, the genius Carlos J. Finlay discovered the transmitting agent of yellow fever which decimated populations and instructed prevention and treatment. Had the Nobel Prize existed, this Cuban would’ve won it by far.
  6. In 1955, Cuba was the second country in Latin America where the fewest children died at birth. The rate was 33.4 for every one thousand newborns. For the resources at that period in time, it was a real feat.
  7. The U.N. recognized Cuba as the best country of Latin America in regards to the number of doctors per capita in 1957. We had one for every 957 people, a figure applauded by many developed nations at the time.
  8. In 1942, a Cuban became the first Latin American musical director to receive a nomination for an Oscar. His name: Ernesto Lecuona. Along with Kim Gannon, he was nominated for the statuette for his song “Always in my heart”, before any other Spanish-speaking musician.
  9. The first Latin American woman who sang at the exquisite Scala in Milan, was the Cuban singer Zoila Gálvez in 1946. Her Creole voice still resonates on the walls of that magnificent hall.
  10. And in 1950 another Cuban musician marked a world record not even matched by Elvis Presley or The Beatles. Dámaso Pérez Prado, with the piece called “Patricia” was on the American Hit Parade for 15 consecutive weeks.
  11. The first Cuban peso was stamped in 1915, and its value was identical to the dollar. On many occasions, up until 1959, it rose to surpass the value of an American dollar by a penny.
  12. Despite its small size, and that it only had a population of 6 million people, my country occupied the 29th position among the strongest economies in the world in 1958. I haven’t been able to find comparable data for today. I think only a sick keeper of statistics would dare to specify what position we are in now.
  13. In 1940, Cuba approved the most advanced of all Constitutions in the world at the time. It was the first in Latin America to recognize women’s vote, equal rights between sexes and races, and the right of women to work.
  14. In 1956 the U.N. recognized Cuba again, this time as the second country in Latin America with the lowest illiteracy rate (only 23.6%). At the time, countries like Spain, Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Guatemala, and Dominican Republic had a 50% rate.
  15. In 1954, Cuba had one cow per person. It occupied the third place in Latin America (only outnumbered by Argentina and Uruguay) in the consumption of red meat per capita.
  16. In 1922 Cuba inaugurated the radio station PWX. It became the second nation in the world to do so, and the first nation in the world to broadcast a music concert and present radio news.
  17. Also, the first woman broadcaster in the world was a Cuban: Esther Perea de la Torre.
  18. And if we talk about television, we were the second country in the world to formally broadcast television. The biggest stars in all of America, who didn’t enjoy such progress in their countries, came to Havana to act before the Cuban cameras.
  19. The first Olympic Champion that Latin America had was a Cuban: the fencer Ramón Fonst, in 1900.
  20. The first Latin America who won a world chess championship was the Cuban Jose Raúl Capablanca, who, at the same time, was the first world chess champion born in an under-developed nation. This genius won every world tournament between 1921 and 1927.

So, to recontextualize a poem by León Felipe, I say I don’t know a lot of things, it’s true. I only tell what I have seen.

But when I learned how to read, how to listen to the elderly; when I learned to look behind the blank pages, to doubt the smiles of the powerful, and to think about my Homeland without that gray color many have hung on its past, I also think I started to doubt the colors of the present.

Translator: Angelica Betancourt

September 9, 2010

The Association of Ideas / Regina Coyula

One of the best things I’ve gotten out of my blog is a renewed interest in my surroundings and a bit beyond, and that’s come with a need for me to study up. First, all the mysteries of WordPress, my blog’s support platform, as well as, and still, a lot of reading about the Internet. I think this collaboration among advanced users to create such helpful programs for which you don’t have to pay is fantastic! Free software, the response of Internet users to the Microsoft monopoly (I don’t know about the other giants). And one thing led me to another: I’d like a government for my country like those online collaborations in which all interested parties improve the functionality of the programs, that marvel of transparency that is open source code. I’m tired of hearing so much, “no, you can’t”, “no, you shouldn’t”, “it’s not the right moment”… secrets, secrets, and more secrets, a mountain of secrets under which we’re entombed.

Translated by: Yoyi el Monaguillo

September 8, 2010

Goodbye, Granny / Miriam Celaya

Since I am not always home when the news comes on, and taking into account that information is an integral and offshoot component of one’s opinion, a few years ago I negotiated with a kind neighbor for the possibility of getting a secret subscription to the newspaper Granma. For a long time she has been friends with man who brings her the newspaper each morning. Cuban readers probably know that a clandestine subscription consists in coordinating with one of those retired old men who, in order to round out their meager pensions, agree to hoard the newspapers as they arrive at the newsstands, after having arranged with the official salesperson –the intermediary, who reserves a fixed number of papers each day- so that, for the modest monthly fee of 30 pesos (regular currency, of course) you can get one or another pastoral letter of the communist party which, with a different name and printing, repeat more or less the same thing.

Thus, the benefit is mutual: the newsstand vendor gets a little extra money by offering the reseller a newspaper, whose selling price is 20 cents, at 40 or 50 cents; the reseller, who often has a significant number of regular customers, gets a steady and modest profit without having to walk up and down the streets, in the rain or under the sun yelling: “Granma, Granma!” as happens with other unfortunate resellers; while we, those who have “subscriptions” are guaranteed to get, on a daily basis, a few printed pages that serve several purposes: sometimes they are useful to try to guess what are the other elders are up to (the ones in olive green, who do not have to sell newspapers to survive), the paper occasionally turns into material basis for critical analysis, to measure with any degree of accuracy the magnitude of our national disaster, or it’s useful for wrapping fish waste and other domestic detritus. It is an amusing paradox that, in this corrupt insular unreality, even Granma lends itself to shady business; the official organ of the single party feeds the list of contraband goods, possibly with the highest rate of incidence of crime, considering that some of us can afford to spend on the purchase of a daily newspaper, on the other hand, few times a year do we allow ourselves the excess of buying beef.

But today I have finally decided to quit. I’m sorry for the nice old man who has kept to his promise of bringing me my new Granma, on time and for such a long time, without missing a single day, except Sundays, when Granma is not published and I get, instead, Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth). I’m sorry, in addition, because I will have to adjust my agenda and to try to watch at least some of the airing of the news broadcasts, but, definitively, in recent times, Granma (Granny) has completed its metamorphosis and has managed to absolutely become a newspaper without any news, a hard copy of disinformation and delusions. Each edition competes successfully for being worse than the previous one. Now, as if it weren’t enough for an anemic newspaper to fill large areas with the usual messianic delusions full of dark omens, they have started to publish, in several pages, three times a week, the pile of more than 800 editorial pages that (they say) Mr. F. wrote, although the first edition remains gathering dust, waiting for buyers in more than one bookstore in the city.

The “Granny”, frankly, might be of great interest to psychiatrists, mediums, gurus and other specialists, but not to me. I won’t allow such a burden of negative energy. Thus, I give up the “privileges” of my illegal subscription and close down my last link with the persistent miasma of the past: I personally shut down the Granma. Farewell forever, Granny!

Translated by: Norma Whiting

September 6, 2010

Again, Yoani / Reinaldo Escobar

At the end of 2008 I published a text here titled “The Year of Yoani,” where I detailed the distinctions and achievements of the famous blogger up to that time. I realized, then, that nine was her lucky number and 2009 was also overwhelming, particularly with the mention in the Maria Moors Cabot prizes from Columbia University, and the successful interview with Barack Obama, among other achievements. Now, towards the end of 2010, as she celebrates her 35th birthday, two more laurels have arrived: one from the International Press Institute declaring her a World Press Freedom Hero, and the Prince Claus Award from the Netherlands.

I had the exceptional opportunity to be with her each time she learned of a new prize. She takes it always with surprise and modesty. Now, as she responds to the dozens of telephone interviews from some radio or television station, the journalists say they are confused because it is not clear which award she won on this occasion. Almost embarrassed she answers, “there are two awards,” adding, “forgive me.”

The real joy shows in her eyes when friends from around the world call to congratulate her. The thousands of commentators who come almost daily to her blog, Generation Y; the volunteers who translate her texts into 22 different languages; those who are calling from a pay phone and who, out of fear, can’t say their names. And others, those whom she helped to have their own blogs, or to connect to Twitter on a cellphone without Internet, or alumni of the Blogger Academy; and those to whom she never said “follow me,” but whom she armed with knowledge and courage so that they could find their own ways to empower themselves.

September 8, 2010

News From Yamil / Yamil Domínguez

From the translator:

As there have been no posts on this blog for quite a while, I have chosen to update it by copying recent posts on Twitter from Yamil’s family. Following are two “tweets” from today:

# Yamil Domínguez InjustNotoria

Ayer visitamos a Yamil, él se recupera notablemente, pero su streé aumenta cada día más.

Yesterday we visited Yamil, he is recuperating well, but his stress grows every day.

# Yamil Domínguez InjustNotoria

No tenemos ninguna noticia, ni ningún resultado. Estamos desesperados por tanta demora. Yamil tiene que ser LIBRE lo antes posible.

We have no news, nor any results. We are desperate due to so much delay. Yamil has to be FREE as soon as possible.

September 8, 2010

What Does Martí Have to Do with a Single Party? / Dimas Castellanos

un-solo-partido1The official Cuban press insists on justifying a single-party system. Some of the arguments are based on the fact that Martí created a single party, how lack of unity led to revolutionary failures, how the very existence of the nation depends on preserving unity, and how a multiparty system would be co-opted by imperialism. The last time these arguments were presented, they were published in the Tribuna de la Habana newspaper on Sunday, August 15, under the headline “What is the Role of the PCC in Maintaining Revolutionary Unity?”

To expose this mishmash of half truths and absurdities, I will quote six paragraphs written by José Martí containing the core ideas that led him to found the Cuban Revolutionary Party (PRC, by its Spanish acronym).

  1. In January of 1880, in New York, Martí presented a critical study on the mistakes of the Ten Year’s War which concluded with the Pact of Zanjón. In it he said: “Those who try to solve a problem can’t ignore any of its antecedents…”, and then proceeded to enumerate multiple causes, among them the negative consequences of the lack of unity.
  2. In July of 1882, in a letter to Máximo Gómez about past wars, he outlined the objectives of the Party thusly: “…My sole aspiration is that by forming a visible and tightly-knit body, bound by a shared solemn and judicious desire to give Cuba true and lasting liberty, all of those selfless and strong men will appear united, capable of repressing their impatience in the absence of a means to remedy all ills in Cuba with a probable victory in one quick, unanimous, and grandiose war…”
  3. In the Resolutions of November of 1891, considered to be the prologue of the PRC’s platform, he proposed: “The revolutionary organization should not be unaware of the practical necessities derived from the makeup and history of the country, nor should it actively work towards present or future control by any particular class; but rather towards the association, conforming to democratic methods, of all the living forces of the homeland; towards brotherhood and common action by Cubans residing abroad; towards the respect and aid of all the republics of the world, and towards the creation of a just and open republic… elevated with all and for the good of all.”
  4. In April of 1893, he stated: “That is the greatness of the Revolutionary Party: that in order to found a republic, it has begun with the republic. That is its strength: that by the labor of all, it confers rights to all. It is an idea, not a person, that must be introduced to Cuba.”
  5. In April of 1894, on the anniversary of the founding of the PRC, he said: “A people is not the will of one man alone, no matter how pure that will… A people is the composition of many wills, vile or pure, natural or grim, impeded by timidity or hastened by ignorance.”
  6. In the Montecristi Manifesto, signed jointly Máximo Gómez on March 25, 1895, before committing himself to the armed struggle, Martí proposes that war is not “the unhealthy triumph of one Cuban party over another, or even the humiliation of a mistaken group of Cubans; but rather it is the solemn demonstration of the will of a nation exasperated, as proven in the previous war, and disposed to hurl itself lightly into a conflict ending only in victory or burial.”

The contents of the six quoted paragraphs demonstrate: that there were multiple causes of the revolutionaries’ failures, not just the divisions among them; that the function of the Party consists of leading the war out of which the Republic should be founded, with true and lasting liberty; that the Party should not work towards the present or future predominance of any particular class; that its strength is rooted in that the labor of all, bestows rights upon all; that a people is not the will of a single man, no matter how pure his will, but rather the composition of many wills; and that the end of war does not signify the triumph of one Cuban side against another.

The PRC was founded as an intermediate link between planting the seed of the Homeland and molding the Republic, not to dominate and prohibit the existence of different parties after victory was achieved, not to annul popular participation, not to declare that the streets and university campuses belong to revolutionaries, not to imprison those who think differently, all of which demonstrate that Martí’s democratic and humanist ideas have been ignored and distorted to confer upon them an ill-fitting mantle: the genesis of the Cuban single-party system.

Additionally, it should be said that politics are founded on the fact that men are social and diverse beings. In that sense, parties, as the etymology of the word indicates, are a part of a whole that by its diverse and plural nature consists of other parts, wherein each represents the interests or tendencies of a sector of society. This reason explains why, when the ideas of independence were not represented among the existing parties, José Martí founded the PRC. Diego Vicente Tejera created the Cuban Socialist Party in 1899, because the interests of workers were not championed by the liberal and conservative parties. The Communist Association of Havana in 1923, the Communist Party in 1925, and the Orthodox Party in 1947 all arose for similar reasons: because the Authentic Party did not satisfy a segment of its constituency.

The single-party system is unnatural. The best proof of this is that, in order to establish a single-party system, totalitarian regimes must destroy all other political parties or subordinate them and their interests, allowing for the most perfect and complete model of totalitarian regime, and along with it, stagnation and failure. In Cuba, the existence of one sole party was the result of a reverse process initiated during the era of insurrectionist struggle in the Sierra Maestra mountain range that culminated in 1965 with the founding of the Communist Party as the sole political force, subsequently ratified into the Constitution; a process foreign to the ideas and work of José Martí.

From this, the necessary restoration of the right of assembly and decriminalization of political differences are inferred, so that Cubans can play the active and determinant role that they are entitled to in the destiny of the nation. The irreducible diversity and exhaustion of the current model have created the need for a multiparty system as the order of the day.

1 MARTÍ, JOSÉ. Selected Works in Three Volumes. VI, p.216

2 MARTÍ, JOSÉ. Selected Works in Three Volumes. VI, p.235

3 MARTÍ, JOSÉ. Resolutions Recorded by the Cuban Communities of Tampa and Key West in November of 1891. Selected Works in Three Volumes. VIII, p.23

4 MARTÍ, JOSÉ. Selected Works in Three Volumes. VIII, p.192

5 MARTÍ, JOSÉ. Selected Works in Three Volumes. VIII, p.359

6 MARTÍ, JOSÉ. Selected Works in Three Volumes. VIII, p.511

Translated by: Yoyi el Monaguillo

August 27, 2010

ALL ABOUT E / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

E

Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

Her name is E. She’s twenty years old. She’s alive. She’s crazy. She’s desperate to do things, including, of course, the limitless freedom of her body. She’s sad. She’s very alone. She’s content in Cuba, at the reach of my hands and my writing. At the margin of everything, myself included. It’s impossible to not fall madly in love with such a little creature. E, exclusive vowel.

So thin. So angular. So dyed of an ancestral black. So scanty. A memorandum of death. So much desire compressed in a pair of decades. So orphaned. Such a vision when her smile at last bursts an explosion of pleasure. She smokes. Drinks. So post-Cuban, trapped in the shitty Little Havana of the thousand and one independent artistic groups that only dare to size up their own fear. Where would these lost angels hide if an explosion of hatred or perhaps a military re-concentration broke out right now in Cuba? They would commit suicide, certainly. Private beauty does not tolerate the mediocrity of the communal.

Hopefully E never gets killed. She’s at risk. She’s exposed. Museum of meows. She doesn’t stop. She gets involved. She’s expelled. They pedal over the minimal discharge of her backbone (her back is a cat’s back). She gets lost. Lunatic of the slums. She loses us. Not the faun’s labyrinth, but the nymph’s. She types formulas of circuits and impossible projects of books made with little pictures. She doesn’t sleep, accordingly. She doesn’t eat, except from other mouths. E is exceptionally spectacular.

I hope E reappears. That she resists. That she doesn’t become diluted in the familiar defect that this criminally conservative society has always been. I hope that she’s not deceived in her ingenuity of never telling lies. I hope that E lies. May she lie to us. May she manipulate us. May she mutate, but may she please survive the critical Cuba of the University during the times of Resurrection.

I hope to write more about E. All about E. Don’t envy me. Wait until I understand or extend myself better with E.

Translated by: Joanne Gomez

September 3, 2010

And Where is Pepito? / Rebeca Monzo

For those who don’t know him, Pepito is the mischievous and smart boy whom we make responsible for all those things we would like but don’t dare to express, either because of modesty or cowardice. He has an equivalent in Spain, where he is called Jaimito, and I imagine each country has its own.

Today as I was returning from taking food to Margarita, a little abandoned dog that some of us neighbors care for, I was observing the silence in which some people walk. With their body bent, as if carrying the load of their sorrows. It is possible that they may also do it in order to look down, because the sidewalks and streets are full of potholes and gaps. I thought then that, long ago, when you went for a walk in the neighborhood, there were several people who would call out to you and ask you to come closer, and would tell you, in a low voice, the most recent of Pepito’s stories. I have confirmed that for some years now, one doesn’t hear any talk of this spoiled child, and if someone mentions him, the story is too old by now.

On my planet, the political joke has always been the thermometer with which the social temperature is measured. Through it, all the situations and opinions about the government and its leaders have been recreated. So it is very striking that there are no new stories about Pepito. Could it be that he also left? Maybe on a raft, because I doubt very much that Immigration would have granted the famous exit permit to this emblematic boy,

Translated by: Espirituana

September 7, 2010

Pretending, a New Social Attitude / Rebeca Monzo

It is very regrettable, but there it is, quite the fashion.

Many years ago, when the inaptly named Special Period* started, I commented to my friends, in the get-togethers we used to have at my house: the worst thing about all this material decline is that it carries within itself the germ of moral decline.

Many years have gone by, and the inhabitants of my planet, increasingly accustomed to pretending in public, have by now assimilated it as something natural.

Scarcely a week ago, by pure coincidence, because it is not my custom, I turned on the TV at noon. They were showing a program where, at that moment, they were interviewing a Cuban actress who was very famous in the fifties, and later, without any explanation, disappeared from the TV screen. I am referring to Conchita Brando. An actress of very high caliber – singer, comedienne, dramatic actress, very good comic actress – in each of her many facets.

I was very happy to see her and at the same time it saddened me. At her eighty-seven years, she looked animated, jovial, but sad, like someone suddenly extracted from the darkest ostracism. She had been kept away from television, without any explanation, during more than a quarter century.

Many years ago, at the wedding of a mutual friend’s daughter, I spent the whole evening talking with Conchita, and she told me, as if complaining, that she could not understand why no one would call her for work, that she felt very well and was able to play roles appropriate for her age. She was still a very vital and beautiful woman.

On the TV program I mentioned, there were some interviews on the street, where they would ask passers-by about this actress. It was very painful for me to see how people would lie with impunity. Young people in their twenties, who I am sure never heard of her, and men and women whose faces reflected falsehood, would say shamelessly: we love to see her work, she is very good at any role she plays, etc.

I felt indignant. Far from being flattering to her, to me it was a mockery and a lack of respect to play these comments knowing that they were false. And I felt sorry for these people who, without any shame, are willing to pretend publicly.

*Translator’s note: The years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the withdrawal of its economic support for Cuba, with its devastating effects on the economy, was baptized: “A Special Period in a Time of Peace.”

Translated by: Espirituana

September 6, 2010

Divine Providence / Rebeca Monzo

JJ, sending the news to his wife, Consuelito

Juan Juan Almeida surprised his friends when he told us he was going to initiate a hunger strike, as a final recourse to get them to let him leave. It hit all of us because there is nothing further from JJ’s personality: happy, jovial, optimistic and even has the sweet tooth of a little kid.

Those of us closest to him tried to dissuade him at every chance, but failed. It was his last resort. He had already lost everything, all he had left was his body and his own sovereignty over it, no one could interfere.

The first weeks of the strike, when he still had his strength, Juan Juan went out with signs demanding his civil rights, he always went alone and in silence. He was imprisoned, detained various times; but he never gave up. When he was too weak to stand up, he stopped going out to make his demands.

Then, the Catholic church intervened, and everything started to be redefined, and new hopes emerged. Juan Juan never lost faith.

Finally, just last week, the archdiocese contacted Juan Juan and from then on everything started to flow, moving at the speed of a tornado.

On Wednesday the 24th we took him to take care of several things: Archbishop, Immigration, Mexican Embassy. It all went really fast. We left him at his house very tired, but hopeful. That night he got the big news, they called to tell him he would be traveling the following day, heading to Mexico. Another friend took him to make the last minute arrangements, and finally, to the airport.

Juan Juan had no time to say goodbye to his friends, we know he felt this deeply, but to us it doesn’t matter, we were beaming with happiness for him. Finally he will go to take care of his illness, recover his health and his life, together with his wife and daughter, whom he hasn’t seen for seven years. This time the miracle is due to Divine providence.

August 27, 2010