English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
The revolution is not in crisis. The revolution itself is a perennial crisis and a chronic illness. 14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, July 2, 2024 — Fidel Castro did not want to call the great Cuban debacle of the 1990s a crisis. He preferred the euphemism “Special Period.” He used the term twenty times during … Continue reading “Never a Time of Peace for the Cuban Economy”
The great Havana pimp was the dandy who dazzled everyone while riding his white braided-tail steed or walking his greyhounds through the streets of the capital 14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 23 June 2024 — Yarini has become news again. The great Havana pimp, the most bastard of national heroes, the greatest sex symbol of … Continue reading “Attack Yarini: The Combat Order Is Given”
In December 2014, Raúl Castro and Obama surprised everyone with the news that relations between both countries would begin to normalize. 14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, May 24, 2024 — The last decade in Cuba is, perhaps, the one that has seen the most changes in half a century. However, we have the feeling that … Continue reading “Cuba: Change So That Everything Remains the Same”
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 21 May 2024 — Some Cubans have dubbed Ignacio Ramonet the “French Randy Alonso,” a reference to the host of the Cuban TV interview show “Roundtable” and his sagging face. The truth is that Ramonet was born in Spain, raised in Morocco and educated in France, where he has lived … Continue reading “Díaz Canel’s Ten Lies”
The complex thing here is that it is not about forgetting a person, but about removing an entire country from your bones, from your liver 14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 11 May 2024 — Those who have had a toxic relationship desire with all their soul to be able to say: it’s over, a clean … Continue reading “How To Forget Cuba in Three Tries”
Six decades of indoctrination can somewhat distort our view of the past. 14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 5 May 2024 — Fulgencio Batista landed a major role in the soap opera that is Cuba on September 4, 1933, during the Sergeants’ Revolt. He went on to become its biggest star, earning the grandiose nickname The … Continue reading “Batista, a Tropical Messiah”
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 27 April 2024 — Alba-TCP, the alliance created by Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro, has reached 20 years with the vitality of an “almendrón,” a 1950s American car, without spare parts. The high price of oil during those founding years was the viagra that unleashed the social-imperialist fantasies of both … Continue reading “The Decline of Alba”
The majority of Cuba’s young people — those who left and those who stayed — are no longer interested in mass rallies 14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, 13 April 2024, Madrid — Those open mass rallies in which Hassan Pérez Casabona stunned the crowds with his rapid-fire barrage of words are still fresh in the minds of … Continue reading “Cubans, Between the Battle of Ideas and the Cultural Battle”
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 14 March 2024 — The most recent edition of the Cuban TV Con Filo* program has touched on “a slaughter” against Cuba’s ousted Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil Fernandez. The most unpopular program on Cuban television began by quoting Che: “this counterrevolutionary must be persecuted and annihilated.” They then established … Continue reading “Cuban TV Program ‘Con Filo’ Campaigns for the Execution of Ousted Economy Minister Alejandro Gil”
Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 29 February 29 — On February 21, an article appeared in El Ciudadano , under the long and boring title The network of interference against Cuba, which goes from the United States to Spain, passing through Mexico. Although the Chilean media declares itself committed to human rights and democracy, it had no qualms about offering … Continue reading “The Fear In the Eyes of Cuba’s Regime”
14ymedio, Madrid, February 28, 2024 — Two Democratic congresswomen, Pramila Jayapal and Ilhan Omar, led a delegation of members of the progressive caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives to Cuba last week, according to el Nuevo Herald. They were joined, according to sources in the Miami newspaper, by the congressional representative for California, Barbara Lee. … Continue reading “Discreet Visit to Cuba by a Delegation of the U.S. Progressive Caucus”
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, February 16, 2024 — Alfredo Zayas is portrayed in Cuba as the most corrupt president of the pre-Castro era. To support this thesis, our school textbooks emphasize one event in particular: the Protest of the Thirteen. No one can deny that buying the old convent of Santa Clara for more … Continue reading “Cuba: The Peseta President”
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 7 February 2024 — No one is stupider than the idiot who thinks he is an intellectual, myself included. When I started becoming politically active, I arrogantly believed that, where others had failed, I would succeed. I thought that the higher the collective IQ a movement had, the better its … Continue reading “Our Intellectual Stupidity”
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 1 February 2024 — The history of Cuba is sung. When Perucho Figueredo composed our own Marseillaise, he did so by disguising it as a religious march. He even played it in the main church during the Corpus Christi celebrations in the presence of the Spanish officials. They, of course, … Continue reading “La Chambelona”
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 24 January 2024 — The Homeland, or what remains of it, is in danger of extinction, and the data prove it. It is not a campaign of the regime’s enemies; their own statistics say it clearly, even if they try to hide them, delay them or cover them with clumsy … Continue reading “Little Homeland, Too Much Death”
