English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
HAVANA, Cuba, August, www.cubanet.org.- Similar to the theme of Steven Spielberg’s movie Minority Report, where someone is imprisoned for crimes they had not yet committed but it was assumed they might commit, the Cuban Criminal Code devotes several articles to “the state of danger and measures of security.” An index of pre-criminal dangerousness is practically … Continue reading “Workers for the Nomenklatura / Lilianne Ruiz”
They undoubtedly ordered the official press panegyrics in honor of the Youth Labor Army (EJT) for its forty years of existence. Between the two national newspapers they share the responsibility and take turns with articles such as, “At the end of the line,” “EJT: an undefeated army,” “Force for youth training,” and “Immersed in the … Continue reading “My Youth Labor Army (EJT) / Mario Lleonart”
This week I will dedicate my post to what is called the Youth Labor Army (EJT), on the 40th anniversary of its creation, which is Saturday, August 3, and nineteen years since my release from its “ranks,” which occurred on July 28. This so-called Army, created in 1973, it’s said, from a merger of the … Continue reading “The 40th Anniversay of the Youth Labor Army (EJT) / Mario Lleonart”
By Reinaldo Cosano. Havana, Cuba Posted in the blog of Wendy Iriepa and Ignacio Estrada The veil covering violent homophobic repression is slowly being drawn back, but the gulity aren’t asking for public pardon. It is hard to specify just how the virus of homophobic repression was incubated, sharp-eyed with the machismo of the days … Continue reading “Taken Out of the Closet, But No One Asks Forgiveness / Reinaldo Cosano”
By María Matienzo Puerto (English text taken from Havana Times) HAVANA TIMES — The last time I spoke with Angel, I told him to have faith, because the truth always ends up coming out. At the same time I wondered why a feminist had to defend an alleged spouse abuser. Were the accusations true? These … Continue reading “A Caricature of Angel Santiesteban’s Trial / Angel Santiesteban”
Let’s say that for a long time the damn phrase hasn’t been heard in the mainstream media (although I must admit I’m not exactly a follower of that media). In any event, it’s been missing from the speeches, which slyly avoided it, like those who choose to ignore as far as possible the hard expressions … Continue reading “The Legacy of Intransigence / Miriam Celaya”
By Víctor Manuel Domínguez HAVANA, Cuba, February, http://www.cubanet.org. History repeats itself. Another Cuban writer will be sent to prison. Angel Santiesteban, author of the blog The Children Nobody Wanted, was sentenced to five years in prison under the crime of housebreaking and injury. The Supreme Court upheld the penalty. According to what Santiesteban said to … Continue reading “The Children The Revolution Didn’t Want / Ángel Santiesteban”
Mariela Castro says that her uncle [Fidel] “wasn’t aware” of UMAP [Cuban concentration camps] because he was very busy… destroying an entire country.
As a Christian of the Baptist persuasion in Cuba, today is a day where we ask God, and I ask those who govern the nation, for each Cuban the have the right to believe or not to believe, or believe in the manner that he understands, even when it differs completely from what I believe. The … Continue reading “January 16th: Religious Liberty Day / Mario Lleonart”
By Wilfredo Vallín Almeida I always thought that on the day in which things in Cuba would become as they are today, the people in power would behave with much more good sense and flexibility. Those of us who now have grey hairs, do not forget the nationalisation without compensation of many properties, the compulsory … Continue reading “Law or Violence / Wilfredo Vallin Almeida #Cuba”
It has always surprised me how Cuban intellectuals, particularly the generation that lived through the seventies, which later came to be called “the five gray years,” have this bad public memory, and in general, among people they trust, they express the pain they still feel for the abuses committed against them by the functionaries faithful … Continue reading “The Sad Centenary of Virgilio Pinera – Part I / Angel Santiesteban”
The miter leans slightly with the rhythm of the ritual, leaving his back exposed to the stone face of José Martí. On the table of the Mass, the chalice rests and reflects from its golden surface a relief of Che Guevara mounted on the facade of the Ministry of the Interior. Benedict XVI officiates mass … Continue reading “The Papal Mantle and The Red Mass – Reflections on the Pope’s Visit to Cuba / Yoani Sanchez”
It was another summer Sunday, but in 1969. Oswaldo and I, seated on the double bunk we shared, commented that morning about the biography of Albert Einstein that he was proposing to read. Suddenly bursting into the barracks was an official from CIM — military counterintelligence — who was assiduously visiting our battalion of the … Continue reading “Requiem por Payá / Rafael León Rodríguez”
On March 13, 1968, Fidel Castro, in one of his miles-long speeches, announced to the Cuban people what he called “the Revolutionary Offensive*.” In reality, it had nothing revolutionary about it, on the contrary, it was an essentially counterrevolutionary measure intended to eliminate the urban petty bourgeoisie. And with it to eliminate one of the … Continue reading “Do You Remember the Revolutionary Offensive of 1968? / Haroldo Dilla Alfonso”
