English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
Our government media is constantly repeating political slogans of various kinds, obsolete, recycled and new. The one that says “Cuba is a plaza under siege” seems to be one of the most prominent right now. I agree with it: Cuba is a plaza under siege by dogmatism, inability, schematism, intolerance, incoherence, lack of moral values, … Continue reading “Plaza Under Siege / Fernando Dámaso”
By Alfredo Felipe Valdés The professional trained for at least a decade, with a high educational rigor, who once he or she graduates has a high level of knowledge, is not treated by the State with the consideration deserved from the years and personal effort it took to complete the training. This includes how other … Continue reading “Medicine in Cuba Today: A Series of Shortcuts and Scarcities / Jeovany Jimenez Vega”
After the storm, may also come the storm, the hurricane, the tornado. A few days ago we thought the punishment would be concentrated between Monday and Wednesday of last week, that it would last only as long as Benedict XVI was on Cuban soil. We lived those intense days between prayers and screams, with full … Continue reading “Punishment / Yoani Sánchez”
If a disturbing phrase from Milan Kundera affirms that man can never know how to deal the challenges of each day because life is a performance with no rehearsals, a painting without a sketch, a game played without training, then it is also true that there is a generally useful method for us to try … Continue reading “Cubans and the Lessons from Myanmar / Ernesto Morales Licea”
This article will appear in the November print edition of Foreign Policy Magazine, and is available on their website now. At the end of his July 31, 2006, broadcast, the visibly nervous anchor on Cuban Television News announced that there would be a proclamation from Fidel Castro. This was hardly uncommon, and many Cubans no … Continue reading “Country of Old Men / Foreign Policy Magazine / Yoani Sánchez”
In Cuba, with its pregnant history of violent acts, we pay exaggerated attention to episodes of war in detriment to other ways of making history, such as science–forger of knowledge and of culture–that contributes so much to the formation of nationality the nation and the country over centuries. On May 19 of this year we … Continue reading “Heroes Without Weapons / Dimas Castellanos”
Like a soap opera, the marches and riots in Tunisia and Egypt were followed in Cuba by people committed to the future of their country, like the opposition, independent journalists and bloggers. Those citizens wishing for political and economic changes saw on TV the biased opinions of local experts, and they listened on short-wave radio … Continue reading “When Will Change Reach Cuba? / Iván García”
By Luis M. Cáceres In February of 2010 a book was published by the Cuban State titled: Fundamentals of Planning, which says on page 23: we do business with all the world’s regions, Cuba’s principal commercial partners are: Venezuela, China, the countries of the European Union (composed of 27 developed countries) among them Spain, Italy … Continue reading “Cuba – United States: The Lion Isn’t As Fierce As It Was Painted / IntraMuros”
Divinations Note: This work was originally written for and published in Voices magazine #5, in January, 2011. I want to start with a statement of principle absolutely rigorous and rigorously true: I respect the religious beliefs of all people anywhere in the world. The second statement I will make is as vertical and solid as … Continue reading “Of Oracles and Soothsayers: Cuba, Predictions and Realities / Miriam Celaya”
In Cuba, all he has are a sixth grade education and his sixty years of age. Blas Fortún is one of those rare human beings. If a mission is necessary to the East of Cuba, it is Blas Fortún who offers to go. If something has to be taken to a prisoner, you don’t have … Continue reading “Blas Fortún Martínez: The Best Cuban Opposition Activist (My Personal Opinion) / Antunez”
Left behind was the romantic stage, when a notable majority of leftist intellectuals pinned their hopes on the Revolutionary hurricane of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. A Cuba that clouded the reason of heavyweights in the world of letters such as Jean Paul Sartre, Julio Cortázar and José Saramago has lost its steam. The “snob … Continue reading “The Cuban Revolution No Longer Enchants / Iván García”
When the high creole hierarchy enjoyed the arrival of the 51st anniversary of the insurrection which elevated them to power on 1 January 1959, a violent cold front was ravaging the west of the country. In Mazorra, a psychiatric hospital located on the highway that leads to the principal airport, a major scandal was uncorking … Continue reading “In 2010, Bad News Abounded in Cuba / Iván García”
Jose Lezama Lima (1910-1976) is not gone. This is the feeling you get when you visit the museum of the master of Cuban prose in Trocadero street, in central Havana. You don’t need to be supernatural to sense the weary, asthmatic breathing of the fat Lezama while you pass through the halls of this house, … Continue reading “100 Years of the Fat One of Trocadero / Iván García”
The media have been reporting the alarming growth of the cholera epidemic that is spreading through Haiti. It began soon after hurricane Thomas hit that very poorest of nations. Each new piece of information tells us of a constant progression in the number of infected and who dead are from the disease, and already cases … Continue reading “Haiti: The Two Epidemics / Miriam Celaya”
Fidel Castro is back with the force of a tropical hurricane. Active as in his best days and apocalyptic as ever. He looks good physically. But his predictions of nuclear holocaust and that we earthlings have been the puppets of a global club of the rich and powerful who run governments at will, makes one … Continue reading “Estulin, Castro’s New Ally / Iván García”