English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
Havana is a sort of forbidden city for people from deep inside Cuba. By Decree 217, effective April 22, 1997, residing in the country’s capital is a complicated pattern of bureaucratic procedures and hours of queues at central administration. You have to meet a lot of requirements to be approved to move to the city. … Continue reading “Illegal Cubans in Havana / Iván García”
Again my friend Mari Carmen (arsenal of fresh anecdotes), she tells me another story, as unusual as it may seem, is so real that it hurts to tell it. Her nephew came to her house very upset, to say that he had just come from immigration, where he had been notified that he could not … Continue reading “Transference / Rebeca Monzo”
My mother just closed the business that fed the better part of my family in Cuba over the last decade. The reason: the country’s new plan of economic recovery. A little over ten years ago, someone who shares my blood and who had an immense business vision, became a pioneer in a particular business: Renting … Continue reading “Investors’ Incentives… Cuban Style / Ernesto Morales Licea”
Translator’s note: The translation of this post was delayed; Voices 7 is now out. Friday night, November 12, was one of magic and joy for the sponsors and witnesses of the journal Voices, developed since last August by Yoani Sanchez, Reinaldo Escobar, Luis Orlando and other creators from the Academy Blogger in Cuba, who distributed … Continue reading “Voices 3 About to be Released / Miguel Iturria Savón”
I was recently asked about the time when I used to teach. My teaching experience was with General Integral Professors*, teachers known as Emerging or “Instantaneous.” In addition to help in preparing to teach classes, I visited and assessed them in the classroom. Those guys were very young and came mostly from the eastern provinces. … Continue reading “Bad Experience / Regina Coyula”
When I read articles, essays and books published in Cuba by historians and other specialists dedicated to the analysis of the different governments that existed in the Republican era (between 1902 and 1958),I find that the majority of them assert that the election promises made by those elected were not met. They forget, I don’t … Continue reading “Applying the Same Scalpel / Fernando Dámaso”
In Cuba, we do not fear physical pain. Instead, fear is directed towards all the weapons of the government which they use to oppress. The most lethal of them: the law and its punishments. It is the perfect method used to deprive you of everything: your freedom, your home, your goods, and even your desire … Continue reading “The Lethal Weapon of the Cuban Revolution / Laritza Diversent”
Once again I’ve seen how public opinion can be conditioned just by preparing a group of people and putting a camera in front of them. I won’t question the sincerity and good faith of those who agreed to give their opinions, but in Cuba there is a tendency to say on camera what one is expected to say … Continue reading “Opinion Journalism / Regina Coyula”
Respected colleagues: I have learned, by email, about part of the exchange of opinions stirred up by the appearance on the Cuban TV program “Imprint” about Luis Pavón and Jorge Serguera, interviewed in “The Difference.” I don’t know the contents, and now I’m actually in Spain invited by the Ateneo “Jovellanos” de Gijón. I confess … Continue reading “Message from Loly Estévez / POLEMICA: The 2007 Intellectual Debate”
I am writing to you at the wrong time perhaps, but better late than never, as the well-known adage says. The monastic life I have been leading in one of the programs of the Battle of Ideas has dramatically separated me from my usual contacts with the cultural world; hence the controversy unloosed around the … Continue reading “Message from Leonel Brito / POLEMICA: The 2007 Intellectual Debate”
The trial for the deaths at the Psychiatric Hospital seemed like a bad theater set painted by the official press, which tried to adorn that which we all know with legal technicalities: The setback of public health, the weakness of the judicial system, and the hypocrisy of the communications media. The daily paper, Granma, omitted … Continue reading “The Curtain is Drawn, Matter Concluded / Laritza Diversent”
Talking about Cuban doctors today brings to mind a new kind of slavery, of sad pieces used on a chessboard. Through misfortune, the doctor Oscar Elías Biscet — a free man in the damp shadow of his cell — is hardly alone. I believe that few professionals in the world face a situation more precarious … Continue reading “Reinventing Slavery / Ernesto Morales Licea”
Dear Desideri, Receive once more a warm embrace from this friend “beyond the capital.” I welcome your fair challenge to the title of “GROUP” being applied to the large and diverse number of participants in the current debate, and the last paragraphs, about our “culture of spectacle” (and their “controls”), motivate me even more. But … Continue reading “Messages from José Rojas Bez / POLEMICA: The 2007 Intellectual Debate”
Any nation whose history is full of acts of violence diminishes relevance to figures or events that are removed from this kind of acts. If violence is also promoted as the paradigm of behavior, the concept ends up entrenching so deeply in the conscience of society that it establishes a false identification between war and … Continue reading “Albear, a Patriot of Construction / Dimas Castellanos”
– From Josefina de Diego – I confess that I didn’t remember the full text known as “Words to the Intellectuals,” delivered by Fidel Castro on June 30, 1961, at the National Library to a group of intellectuals. I think that, like many people, the only thing I remembered from the text was his famous … Continue reading “Thoughts on Fidel’s “Words to the Intellectuals” and other texts / POLEMICA: The 2007 Intellectual Debate”