Discipline vs. Survival / Reinaldo Escobar

No littering

The theme of social indiscipline occupied an important space on the national television news this morning. Music played too loud, trash thrown off balconies, graffiti on public walls, the rubble in the middle of the street, and many more examples from daily life, especially in the country’s capital. We learned that there are “Operations Groups” dedicated to detecting and punishing such irregularities.

Many of these indisciplines, dare I say most, are the reflection of a combination of two elements: on the one hand the lack of conditions to make things as they should be, and on the other the lack of civic education that leads citizens to behave in an uncivilized way. I have seen some tourists (obviously foreigners) walk for blocks and blocks carrying the little paper wrappings from peanuts, while local pedestrians happily throw them anywhere at all. Neither ever found a bin to dispose of their trash. And some residents, when they’re forced to solve their problem of access to the sewer, have had no choice but to cut into the street, thus creating a new pothole in the city.

In fact, one could say that “nothing justifies” the commission of an indiscipline that affects the community, but the truth is that many of them have at least one explanation. And, indeed, there is an overarching general explanation related to this “acimarronada“* conduct of thousands of Cubans every day, and it is the lack of resources available to address our problems, coupled with little ability to participate in the decisions that affect society as a whole.

As always, duties and rights must go together. When the State only seems interested in citizens fulfilling their duties, it entrenches them in their rights and they ignore all the rules. Such a situation is a breeding ground for other excesses, unjustifiable and difficult to explain.

*Translator’s note: “Acimarronada” comes from word cimarrones, runaway slaves. It refers to the way Cubans pretend to do and think one thing, but in reality are always thinking of fleeing.

27 August 2013

Schools filled with men… and prisons? / Reyner Aguero

By Reyner Aguero

Due to recent experiences I have chosen to address an core issue critical to the future of our country. I mean the few opportunities for young people, often under 20, to succeed as workers in our society; and in addition the way, not at all educational, that they are judged when they go before a court of law.

Have you ever wondered how many people in Cuba led a life of crime, such as prostitution, pimping, diversion of funds, theft, racketeering, etc. … who on leaving the country continue to commit the same offenses? Or why Cuba has a such a high rate of its population behind bars and in prisons? If they did, no doubt you can find the answer yourself. Justice and the social system in other parts of the world operate in ways that encourage their citizens to opt for a sustainable and prosperous life without committing violations of law that may lead to a prison.

In Cuba, youth live a paradox partly responsible for the increase in crime. Of 13 million Cubans, 2 million live outside the country, which means their families in Cuban can survive and lead a relatively normal life, without complications. But for the rest, going to a nightclub or a cabaret could cost them the fruit of their labor for a whole month, that is they can’t enjoy these things without balancing the scales by the illegal means mentioned. Because an element that characterizes Cubans, given the economic differences, is to appeal to whatever resource to keep our pride intact.

Thefts from the State are the most frequent crimes. “What belongs to everyone, belongs to no one.” It is an axiom within most of the Cuban population. Therefore such actions aren’t that embarrassing to people. Event National TV has shown shorts confirming the veracity of such arguments: “In many minds stealing from the State is not stealing, it’s fighting.”

In other cases leaving the country by different routes, whether temporarily or definitively, is the greatest hope of every young Cuban. Prostitution and pimping are the choices made by a considerable number, to which you can add those who have not played those roles, who would be willing in certain circumstances to do so as a way to escape the dismal status quo and thus gain opportunities elsewhere in the world.

For the most part the youngest can’t rely on an education policy that will motivate them to contribute to society, with either detention in a work camp or another alternative outside the bars; rather than educate them, we corrupt them in every way.

The solution in many cases is not to repress us or deprive us of our most precious rights. There are plenty of alternatives that can educate our youth preventatively. If there’s anything I’ve learned in my young life is that you win more with intelligence, than with bureaucracy.

24 August 2013

ROSA MARÍA PAYÁ OF CUBA FOR THE FUTURE / ORLANDO LUIS PARDO LAZO

See translation below
See translation below

For Life, For the Truth, For the Future.

Rosa María Payá and her family are taking a risk in demanding from the Cuban State an investigation that clarifies the circumstances of the violent deaths of Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero.

We mustn’t abandon this Cuban family now, before the slanders of a fifty-year-old government accustomed to working in secret and with total impunity.

A GOVERNMENT WITHOUT A FUTURE DETESTS THAT ITS CITIZENS HAVE A FUTURE.

Official Statement about the Petition for Review of the Trial Against Angel Santiesteban Prats

Statement to readers

About the Petition for Review of the Trial against Angel Santiesteban Prats.

A few hours after the official web page STATE OF SATS published the post “Justice for Angel Santiesteban Prats,” in which it was officially reported that the petition for review of the trial by which the said writer had been unjustly and arbitrarily sentenced to five years in prison had been presented before the relevant bodies of the Cuban judicial system, we began to receive worried messages from friends, colleagues and unknown people (but interested in the injustice for which Angel is incarcerated).

Many of those messages presuppose that, the blog The Children Nobody Wanted being the “International Public Face,” the “Official Voice” of Angel Santiesteban Prats, we were in direct contact with those in Cuba who carry out the processing of legal matters.

The concern, in short, centered on three basic aspects:

First, for what reason did the announcement only appear in a couple of media outlets pertaining to the Cuban exile community and were not reproduced, as has happened on other occasions, on other internet sites and in the written press, in order to guarantee that the reach of the news had a more crushing effect?

“Leaving to one side that only a specific and limited sector of the exile community goes to those sites, I believe they must work more so that the civilized world knows that this review has already been presented.  I am a lawyer, I am familiar with Cuban justice because I worked in it, and I know that if that news were more widely spread, in Cuba they would find themselves obliged to pay more attention to the petition,” F.O. Sonora said from Burdeos.

Second, why was the document presented so elemental, so superficial and so unclear?  And why was it, even, badly drafted?

“If those are the weapons with which they try to defend Angel, I see them as bad.  In a totalitarian system defeat is chirped from the first play if it is not forceful, firm and clear,” Samuel Gonzalez Perez wrote from Tampa.

On the STATE OF SATS page itself, Ricardo E. Trelles had written:

“// Indispensable to be clear, lucid and forceful // Facing the pseudo-legal system that we have imposed in Cuba, it is indispensable to act with total transparency and with clear and firm legal representatives (if they are not to be had, look for and use the participation of better document drafters although they may not be lawyers).”

Third, why haven’t this petition or other previous legal documents (for example:  the file of the Further Appeal against the sentence), where firm proofs exist of Angel’s innocence, been circulated for review in intellectual circles?

“I have received hundreds of messages from Cuba, from writers asking me for information about what is happening with Angel.  As I agreed with Angel’s family and with you all, I have been sending to Cuba, to those writers, all the dossiers that we have prepared about the international support that we have obtained; I have sent them all the pronouncements of international agencies and institutions that have been gotten thanks to personal arrangements of the blog’s managers, some Cuban writers living on the outside and prestigious intellectuals and foreign journalist friends of Angel, and since (after an incomprehensible delay the legal files of the case arrived in my hands), little by little, due to its weight, I have also sent to Cuba those files, asking that they irrigate there,” Cuban writer Amir Valle, Angel Santiesteban’s legal Representative and literary executor, reports from Berlin.

All the preceding obliges us to clarify publicly that by decision of Angel Santiesteban, all the legal steps in Cuba are in the charge of his lawyer, Attorney Amelia Rodriguez Cala, working with Antonio Rodiles, Director of the website STATE OF SATS.

Our responsibility is limited to handling the post through the shipments that Angel manages to get from Cuba by diverse means; to establish contact with the hundreds of websites, blogs and internet press that have manifested their interest in following this injustice; amplify our means of press and promotion by print or internet everything concerning Angel’s life and situation in captivity, and to establish ties with international institutions and agencies in order to achieve our statements of support for Angel (to show but one example, the last two of these efforts have been the presentation of Angel’s case in the Inter-American Human Rights Commission and the Request for Precautionary Measures in the face of the death threats that Angel has received throughout this ordeal).

As far as promotion and management of his literary work, Amir Valle, in his capacity as legal Representative, and in coordination with other Cuban and foreign writers, has gotten important pronouncements of support by prominent intellectuals, agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations of the international cultural world.

All that work, which has placed the case of Angel Santiesteban Prats as a point of interest for thousands of intellectuals and dozens of the most important international political, human rights and cultural  institutions and agencies, has been possible thanks to the coordinated work of a small group of people (some today are occupied with other responsibilities in the fight for Cuban liberties, but they keep helping us as much as possible).  And, in any case, always in complete coordination among the managers of the blog, some family members and friends of Angel in Cuba and Angel’s family in exile.

Due to the communication barriers that always exist between Cuba and the outside, and also other reasons that even today we do not understand, we regret to inform that that joint work has not been able to materialize, not with the lawyer nor with those from STATE OF SATS who are occupied with working with the lawyer in those legal efforts.

By luck, until now, in spite of the lack of communication, the efforts on behalf of Angel on both shores have been successful and, although until today we have never been informed directly of the plans or of the legal efforts planned by those  you suppose must be our colleagues in Cuba in this fight to get Angel out of jail, we have always supported and publicized all and each of these efforts.

But, we insist, although we are, by Angel’s own designation his “Public International Face,” his “Official Voice,” in relation to all the legal handling of the case of Angel Santiesteban Prats in Cuba we are simply observers.

Relatives, managers of the blog The Children Nobody Wanted and literary Legal Representative of Angel Santiesteban Prats.

Translated by mlk

19 July 2013

The Myth of Transition / Juan Juan Almeida

I often ask myself why we do not take a moment and dispassionately take note of the indications and evidence that, starting at the top, the Cuban government is trying to design the post-Castro future for us.

Not long ago General Raúl Castro organized meetings throughout the country at the neighborhood level and at places of work. People were asked to discuss their problems  at these events without fear.

The sense of catharsis these provided was important. People discussed their problems, though without seeing them resolved, and the government bought itself some time. As a result commissions were set up and plans were laid down.

Raúl Castro is a military man who retains a Cold War mentality. Before adopting a strategy, he creates commissions and studies every situation in detail before moving forward. Every demonstrable problem has three separate commissions studying it.

All this compartmentalization means deserters, critics, dissidents and the new public faces on political scene can, therefore, act only as reporters. They cannot speak of governmental plans or the future without venturing into the dangerous territory of speculation and error.

Even Miguel Díaz-Canel — first vice-president of Cuba and the person who, according to the current constitution, succeeds the president in the event of the latter’s absence, illness or death — criticized the restraints on the press during an address to the recent Ninth Congress of the Cuban Union of Journalists, but avoided making any commitments to eliminating them.

Personally, I consider Miguel to be an honest man, but he is an official puppet who is not part of the inner power circle. Therefore, he is not privy to what will happen tomorrow, or even in the next fifteen minutes.

The results of the recent elections and the inclusion of new faces in the Cuban government do not represent a significant change. It is a feeble attempt to promote the false image of a transition, a simulation which aims simply to appear pluralistic. Cuban elections are controlled voting procedures designed to obtain public approval of hand-picked candidates and to place civilian marionettes in government posts.

Ah, but might these people’s thinking boomerang, turning them into tomorrow’s faces of change? I think so, but I do not believe for a moment that during the initial phases of the long-awaited post-Castro era these people are capable of moving the foundations of government, changing the character of the judicial system or altering the solid chain of command that currently exists among the power elite and the military.

I presume that in time the eventual passing of the so-called historic leaders will allow for the emergence of new group who, once in power, will be more disposed or will feel obliged to implement truly democratic reforms.

The self-employment initiative — notice they never call it entrepreneurship so as to distance it from capitalism — was a masterful stroke. It showed a convenient — I would add apparent — path to a market economy. It also created hope in a wide segment of the population which looked towards micro-businesses as a way up. With any luck it would allow these people to ascend from the micro to the small, and from the medium to the macro.

But let us not kid ourselves. This is all a myth. The Cuban micro-business economy is one of tiny shops and subsistence. Instead of a stimulus policy, entrepreneurship is hampered. Profits made by the self-employed do not lead to prosperity because they cannot be reinvested; they can only be used to plug holes.

But every rule has its exceptions. There are private businesses with parallel, presumably illegal entrances which — along with a dangerous but necessary moneyed class of entrepreneurs and intellectuals — are tolerated and used to give society a timely touch of success and prosperity.

It is a well thought-out plan for governing. Pretend conditions are good, confuse everyone, and continue down the path that increasingly concentrates rights in the hands of the state rather than promoting a state of rights.

Photo: President Raúl Castro with First Vice-President Miguel Díaz-Canel.

21 August 2013

Positive Spaces / Fernando Damaso

For some time there has been a consolidation of some of the spaces for  analysis and discussion of issues that directly affect society: Critical Space; the magazine’s Temas’ Last Thursday; Dialogue in the Cuban Pavilion; the meetings of the magazines Lay Space and New Word; the independent Estado de SATS project and others.

They range from those closest to the government positions, to some that occupy intermediate positions, and to those the furthest away. It’s true that they are still few and some, in order to meet, must overcome many obstacles, and even confront the misunderstanding and fear of many, and the veiled or overt repression from the authorities, according to the current political temperature.

Usually they arrange a panel and guests specialized in the subject to be discussed, along with the participation of interested citizens. After expositions by the main speakers and discussion of those among different specialists, with the help of a moderator, they are opened to audience participation, usually managing to achieve a constructive and positive environment, in the context of differences in points of view. Some, without public participation, such as Citizen Reasons, have a panel of experts who analyze and discuss the topic in question, with the help of a moderator, which is then edited, reproduced and distributed on CD.

Conspiring against these spaces are two factors: one of a material nature and one of a political nature. The first is a given, because the sites involved, as a rule, are small and do not allow the presence of large numbers of people. Thus, their real influence is rather limited, but then try to disseminate the analysis and debate through different media (written text, email, USB, CD, etc.). Conspiring against the latter are the limited economic options.

The second is a given, first, because the government officials invited, regardless of their positions, have never been present in any of the spaces. Because of this, all that is analyzed and discussed is done so the context of the opinions of those with no real power, and without direct confrontation with the holders of authority and resources.

This brings immediate consequence, that the results are not known to the authorities concerned and, if they become so, it is only through a third party, often in an incomplete or distorted way, depending on their interests.

Unfortunately the authorities, rather than take advantage of these practices of civil society to support good governance, cling to the false and failed method of making different policies in closed compartments by think tanks, to later be approved higher up, and then sending them down (the word says it all) to the base for analysis and discussion, in order to give a veneer of democracy.

It’s no secret that at the base level the analysis and discussion are superficial and formal, and whatever is proposed is quickly approved to be done with it, as everyone is more concerned about the immediate problems of daily survival.

Anyway, it’s healthy to maintain, develop and expand these spaces, despite their limitations. Perhaps, when the participation of citizens is increased, and gains still more in seriousness and prestige, government representatives will have no choice but to someday accept the occasional invitation and participate, duly authorized by their superiors. This would be a sign that dialogue is possible.

26 August 2013

The Political Burden of the Dictatorship after the Dictatorship / Miriam Celaya

Days ago, I had the opportunity to read a smart and funny article by Eugenio Yáñez, in which, based on the age of the highest representatives of the government, the writer was questioning the “youth” proclaimed by Castro 2 in his recent speech for the 60th anniversary of the assault on Moncada barracks. Almost at the end of that article, Yáñez successfully launches a judgment referring to the olive green gerontocracy still in power in Cuba: “Instead of trying to distort reality, it would be better to clear the way for new generations that will do it better, because it’s impossible to do it any worse”.

The extent of the case, as simple as it is accurate, brings to mind a debate a couple of years ago with several of my friends that focused on a discussion about who could be the alternative political actors we might consider for the presidency of a Cuba in transition. On that occasion, there were very interesting analyses around opposition figures and programs of the most diverse leanings and positions, including the dissident spectrum from the last part of the ’80s decade until today. The opinions of those debating were, of course, also very different and emotional at times.

I will not fall into the naïve temptation of retelling a version of that reunion here, or the viewpoints of each participant because, after all, it was not about trying to decide the Cuban transition in a simple dialogue among friends, nor does Cuba possess the necessary minimal conditions for freedom and democracy, political maturity or enough civility, even among the dissident ranks, to tolerate criticism or opinions that are different from their own evaluations. In fact, almost every figure carries within him the messiah virus or the belief that he eats the egg of absolute truth for breakfast every morning, and only the more honest ones, the best, have the ability to recognize the evil in their own hearts, and to keep it duly restrained and not allow it to expand and dominate them. Even the people seem to interpret the criticism of any leader or program as a divisive attempt. Often, people seem to need idols more than freedom itself.

But back to the question, the fact is that at that unique and unforgettable meeting attended by several intelligent and acute individuals, the idea that raised the most debate was that of a fellow member who closed the circle, declaring: “Anyone who is democratically elected and supports civil liberties conducive to the exercise of all human rights will do as president for me, since, if that were the case, we would be guaranteed the right to criticize him, to speak out against his administration, to demand, to force him to listen to demands and, within a reasonable period of a few years, to remove him from office in new elections if he doesn’t meet the voters’ expectations”.

I must confess that at that time I wasn’t 100% on board with his proposal, though I could understand he had made a good point. Maybe I was driven by distrust in imagining what the performance of certain shady characters would be when anointed with legitimate power leading the destiny of a nation in the turmoil of a transition that will undoubtedly be difficult. That prospect terrifies me still.

However, Yáñez’s article has made me think about the Cuban reality and once again taken me back to that memorable gathering where, as so often happens, a group of friends discussed the hypothetical future of a democratic Cuba. That friend and Yáñez are both right: the Castro regime has deliberately performed so badly that no one else could do it worse, not even the worst of the worst hidden kingpins we have in every sector of Cuban society. But, to elect “the wrong thing” so we won’t have the worst one, doesn’t sound to me like a good political sense.

Definitely, in the presence of a democratic election, I would not vote for just anyone. However, due to the stubbornness of the eternal Moncada octogenarian boys who cling to power, I can’t help but to recognize that any other option would be preferable, at least for the majority. The dictatorship has become the point of reference to such an extent of what a government should not be that it has sealed the evil within the fate of the Cuban people, even long after it’s gone. And so, paradoxically, it could still play a political role, in case it becomes indirectly responsible of an unfortunate future election of the transition that awaits us.

Translated by Norma Whiting

9 August 2013

ECURED: Ministry of Truth / Regina Coyula

ecured
Knowledge with all and for all. Cuban encyclopedia on the Web.

The esteemed Haroldo Dilla, after exploring ECURED, has written an entertaining article where he notes some deficiencies in what tries to present itself as a reference encyclopedia for Cubans. Although I am not frequent user of the page, I agree with Dilla about its slowness and other defects identified by him and Rafael Rojas.

What is alarming is that, unlike Wikipedia, ECURED is found on every computer in the island’s schools, it is the obligatory reference for students for their classwork, and announces its access via mobile phones and digital television. ECURED is “fed” by the workers of the Youth Club of Computing, students at the University of Information Sciences (UCI), and others with similar profiles who must expand it by ten articles a month each, copied from printed sources. That is the meaning, here, of “collaborative.” Lacking rigor, lacking qualifications, quantity for quality.

Before its imminent appearance, I could not fathom the need for a labor of such enormous scope,  even with the duplication of contents previously published on other sites; and one can only understand ECURED as the Ministry of Truth, like a version of the world far beyond the “destruction of history” facing the excessive freedom of Wikipedia.

It would have been rational to create a team of Cuban collaborators to contribute content to the global encyclopedia, to post those other points of view that balance (or not), and to have avoided this ill-conceived network, poorly executed and with no future, as evidenced by the diffusion of and avidity for the portable versions of Wikipedia, which can be accessed from multiple paths through the same computers that offer their services privately, but not before meeting the goal of feeding ECURED.

Regina Coyula, Havana

Translated from Penultimos Dias

26 August 2013

Summer Bells / Jhortensia Espineta Osuna

From Sampsonia Way Magazine

El Sexto
El Sexto

By Jhortensia Espineta Osuna | Translated by Alison Macomber

Dunia, your daughter, doesn’t leave her room, or the room that you both share and that you all shared with your mom and your grandmother until they decided to die last June, one after the other, so August wouldn’t remove the liquid that remained between their skin and bones.

Through the window, the neighborhood parades by, wearing their Sunday clothes. Others only pass with their nylon bags to begin the week with whatever is in the bag.

It’s the end of the month; you’re trapped between the window and the cracks on the floor where the ants have made small colonies. The living room is large, with only corroded furniture, incapable of filling the territory. The painted wall exhibits your title “Doctor of Medicine,” along with your white coat and your stethoscope. The three things hang on the thickness of the adobe wall of lime and cement.

You don’t move from where you stand and you look at the old man with the dog on the front sidewalk. Since his son arrived, the old man is in better condition. His ribs are no longer visible underneath his skin, and maybe he doesn’t need to kill cockroaches at night, filling the floor with insects and gobs of spit.

You still haven’t moved from this spot; you continue standing there between the cracks on the floor. The old man pets the dog’s belly as he lifts his leg and urinates on the wall.

‒Bringing that dog here cost two thousand dollars!

Your whisper surprises you and you look out the window.

The old man enters behind the dog, and then he closes the door behind him.

‒A dog!

The old man’s son arrived in a car one night, filling the block with noise and music. When he left, he was just a boy lacking many aspirations other than seeing his father killing cockroaches and spitting everywhere. Now he is a mixture of grease and odors; with him he brought a fat woman as greasy and odorous as he and they filled the house with furniture capable of holding him, his fat woman, and an entire family of smelly, obese white people.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY HERE.

The publication of this story is part of Sampsonia Way Magazine’s “CUBAN NEWRRATIVE: e-MERGING LITERATURE FROM GENERATION ZERO” project, in collaboration with Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, and a collection of authors writing from Cuba. You can read this story in Spanish here, and other stories from the project, here.

Marginalization and Promiscuity / Rebeca Monzo

Much has been said lately about the subject, after the most recent address of Raul, where he addressed these social problems that were simply ignored. Now the media constantly make programs dedicated to this social phenomenon, in efforts to improve what they themselves decided to ignore all these years of Revolution, becoming unwitting accomplices and partners.

Television, one of the most important means of dissemination, is precisely the one that has influenced programs and novels, where vulgar language and gestures have been the constant, regardless of the old and well-known phrase of “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This method, therefore, is a massive “fixer” of good and evil.

I remember about twenty years ago, in a famous and popular TV show on Saturdays, led by an elegant and fine presenter. Interviewing the famed Spanish actor Echenove, she asked: “How has your visit to Cuba been?” Echenove, totally uninhibited, replied, “pues me ha ido de pin…“* She blushed, then said “excuse me, but that word is ugly and you shouldn’t say it.” “What?” he argued, “it can’t be, because everyone here says it.”

As for promiscuity and poor hygiene habits, our press emphasizes offenses committed by individuals, and closes its eyes to the problems caused by bad management and the continued lack of hygiene in food handling practiced in state facilities. The most representative example is the sale of unrefrigerated pork in the farmers market, not to mention that it is transported without any hygiene in open air  vehicles, even on occasion with workers sitting on the pieces of meat.

They also criticize how and where coffee cups are rinsed, that are sold freshly brewed at the various private and public establishments, as well as the water used to make fruit juices sold, improper handling of certain foods, etc. and, what is never mentioned, is where did they learn all these bad habits reminiscent of the Middle Ages.

Weren’t voluntary work and the schools in the countryside the genesis of all this  promiscuity that also brought so much of this social indiscipline? What were the conditions of those camps and schools so that these situations didn’t occur, mainly due to the lack of clean water and adequate facilities, forcing many students to have to relieve themselves “open air” like animals? Why, then, weren’t adequate provision taken so that this didn’t happen? On the contrary, they were established as standard practice.

On the other hand, they are now also attacking the phenomenon of noise and music at soaring that makes people scream to be heard, and annoys the neighbors, forcing them to listen to what they don’t want to. This also happens in many buses, where in addition to crowding, heat and odors, we must also must stoically endure the deafening sound of music, imposed by the driver or some lazy and rude passenger who doesn’t care about disturbing the other occupants of the vehicle.

“It’s never too late if the reaction is good”, I would say, to paraphrase an old maxim, given the new concern of the media. But what concerns me, extraordinarily, is that we have had to wait nearly half a century, for Raul to talk about it in a speech, to “become aware” of it, and that, as he usually does, he continues to attack the effects without having the courage to denounce the causes and, above all, those who caused these and other social ills.

*Translator’s note: He uses a vulgar phrase [which Rebeca does not spell out in full] meaning, roughly, “it’s all gone to hell,” thinking it means “it’s been fantastic.”

26 August 2013

Connect to Facebook, Connect to Cuba / Luis Felipe Rojas

Screen shot taken of the conversation with these “friends” on Facebook.

Accused of being frivolous and made for gossip and rumors, Facebook, the well-known and so active social page, could be affecting in an unusual way a community thirsty to share information inside and outside the island.

A live messenger of information flow in many directions benefits young people inside as well as outside Cuba. Well into the night on Sunday we can talk with some about the impact of this social network on those who have been left inside the information corral. They sent their answers over here through mobile devices at odd times and with the imprint of a Facebook “chat.”

Claudia del Río

A social activist living in Miami, she supports pro-democracy changes believes there is something positive in the exchanges. “First, the active community is composed of many ages and different interests, although statistics could make us believe that 45% are interested and follow the issue of Cuba and part of the informed dissidence, they come to share the news but don’t go any further. There are 15% who are interested in helping and bring a little push to organize themselves, to do something and set aside the concern that something has to be done but they don’t know how to do it.

“They could do many things to help and to create an extremely strong network that could even become uncontrollable by the Cuban Government, but they lack that spark of desire and discipline, and working on a single project to bring about a solution that is in our hands.”

Ted Henken

A specialist in communication and Associate Professor of Sociology and Latin American Studies at Baruch College, he believes that yes, there is a real impact that can already be measured, “Because FB functions as our modern agora. It is a meeting place for many people with frivolities but also causes and sacrifices. The major problem in Cuba is the lack of access and the monitoring.”

Aimel Ríos

He is an expert in international relations and assistance and solidarity projects for ’people in need’. He is active on social networks, believing that the impact of a network like FB within Cuba helps “to have their voices heard in the world, they can speak for themselves. The virtual community is a bridge between the real Cuba on the island and the real community at the global level.”

‘Estre-Llita’

She is an active young woman with a very visible militancy in Miami when it comes to the cause of freedom for Cuba. In the photos she uploads to her FB wall she appears alongside singers like Raudel (Escuadrón Patriota/Patriot Squadron) or Amaury Gutiérrez, or with human rights activists like Berta Soler. The activities she participates in she shares on Facebook.

“Social networks are free spaces to express yourself. Plus, they have the potential to be a bridge for communication from there (Cuba) to here, and here to there. I think it can help revive the interpersonal relations that have been lost through distance. Also it’s super-effective for spreading information. For example, when a dissident is being attacked there. Look, when there was an outbreak of cholera in Cuba… here we first heard about it through social networks, principally through FB.

“Also, due to the boomerang effect… many Cubans on the island also got that information. The flow of information benefits all of us, those there and those here, because we know that the official media are biased and say whatever they want whenever they want. Those of us from here also have a commitment to disseminate what comes out of there.”

‘C.J.L’

(Lives in Cuba and only connects to the web when supportive friends allow it.)

“A social network like FB would definitely affect the island. The social purpose of the network inexorably coincides with the desires and the most primordial thirst for information that we Cubans have: family, neighbors, friends and all those “disappeared” from these geographic boundaries could return to us, those inside, as if by magic.

“For me, going to FB and writing a name os some friend or relative I barely remember, or browse among friends of friends, or among the suggestions on the site and see faces you barely remember and to return to them in this incredible little window of a message that is stronger than a hug and add them to your friends and see what they do every day, their photos, even their jokes… then Amsterdam or Monte Video are no longer those impossible places, where people are lost from pur memories without a word, perhaps another language, other times, but no longer this forgetfulness they condemn us to.”

3 June 2013

Smokescreen / Fernando Damaso

Photo Archive

After the Cuban team stayed on the road following a fifth place finish in the Third World Baseball Classic, having been being beaten five consecutive times in the five games scheduled, on top of that by a U.S. team composed of college freshmen and sophomores, the authorities governing national baseball, supported by some sportswriters, have turned up applauding, having won the Rotterdam Tournament in the Netherlands, with the Cuban national team, and now with the successes in the 3rd Tournament of Challengers in Canada, with the team from Ciego de Avila, also professionals and with some players from the national team.

All the fans know the serious problems of Cuban Baseball and its sustained decline, as well as the reluctance of the sports authorities to confront and resolve them, in order to maintain archaic concepts. Pretending to erase past defeats with current Pyrrhic victories in lower-quality tournaments against inferior teams will not convince anyone. (The team from the United States, called NWCAA, which stands for Northwest County Athletic Association, consists of players under 19 years old from St. Louis, Missouri; the Japanese were represented by JX Eneos, champions of the Yokohama City Industrial League; and of the same caliber, Canada’s team, the worst of all. The only team made up from a nationwide selection is the one from Chinese Taipei). There are none so blind as those who will not see!

It is also possible that all the current fuss has been stirred up as a smokescreen to obscure the poor performance of the Cuban delegation at the recently concluded 14th World Athletics Championships in Moscow, as well as the setbacks suffered in the 15th World Watersports Championship in Barcelona, in the 21st Volleyball Grand Prix by the women’s team, and by the three chess players who failed to qualify for the World Cup, held in Norway. It is a formula already applied on other occasions, under the slogan of “turning setback into victory,” with the goal of trying to keep some threadbare flag flying, in this case that of so-called “socialist sport.” We expect more of the same, until the time when real changes occur.

22 August 2013

The Houses She Never Had / Odelin Alfonso Torna

Elsa Velázquez Mata wanders between delusions and afflictions. She’s always seen carrying a portfolio where she saves several records of housing she never received, despite being dependent on welfare, letters sent to her from ministers, medical certificates that attest to the congenital heart condition of her youngest son, and a diary (little notebook) that holds her laments over 17 years.

Elsa, a 43-year-old agronomist, has suffered physical abuse, eviction, prison, and worst of all, the mockery of a government that says it defends the rights of women.

Elsa Velázquez lives with her son in the home of an aunt, in the Santa Maria del Rosario neighborhood in the Havana municipality of Cotorro. “Someone lives because of me, eats because of me, I have no record of identity and residence,” she says while showing an identity card made for her: a piece of white cardboard where her personal data appears in cursive, her photo and fingerprint in methylene blue.

Five years in prison “for burning her husband”

Her life took a sharp turn in 1997 when she was the victim of domestic violence on several occasions. She was sentenced to five years imprisonment for burning her former husband with hot water. But Mata Velázquez always denied the incident. She says her ex-husband, aided by his brother, a former police officer, carried out the attack on himself to have her charged so he could stay in the house.

This Cuban woman has been watched by the authorities for 17 years. In 2004, after serving five years in prison, and with her two-month-old son, the Director of the Convention Center in Havana, Abrahán Maciques, promised her that before the baby started eating she would have a completely legal apartment, Maciques headed in the Provincial Department of Housing and under the protection of the functionary Rafael Martinez, initiated her first housing file for priority cases, number 290 of 2004.

She occupies an abandoned post office

After a year of waiting without receiving the promised housing, the Popular Power in Havana opened two new files for Elsa, numbers 6000 and 6017 of 2005. Two years later, on September 15, 2007, the case was transferred to the Popular Power of Guanabacoa, and Elsa appears on the housing waiting list with case numbers 05272 and 1146. On December 23, 2009, the municipality of Cotorro took over the case and two other files were opened (061285 and 04568), the latter corresponding to a disabled home in the town of Santa Maria del Rosario. All these files were traded (sold), because according to Elsa, “in the civil registry she appeared with another identity.”

Weighed down by being shunted around so much, in January 2008 Elsa decided to take her child and occupy an abandoned post office, located in the town of Santa Maria del Rosario. Aware of the violation, she decided to send a letter to then postmaster of Cuba, Luis Enrique Blanco Prieto, so that this place would be legally handed over to her. On the 28th of that month she was evicted by force. She says that in her absence, the police broke the lock of the room with gunpowder and took the roof, the windows and a rice cooker donated by Social Security.

On May 24, 2010 Elsa response from Luis Enrique to assess the case. But it was too late, that post office had been taken over by a police chief named Daniel.

The houses she never had

February 13, 2010, was her last attempt to demand a “comfortable” home, as she had begged for in each of the files. She made this demand to Juan Contino, then President of the Popular Power in Havana. In reviewing the records of “social cases Liudmila Mejía and Orlando Nunez, the latter second in command of the Popular Power in the capital, found that Elsa Velázquez Mata appears as the owner of six apartments.

Today Elsa, among her delusions, demands “compensation” for the houses she never had. Maybe that’s why she keeps all the meticulous files on the homes, the dates of appointments with officials, letters, eight ration books, newspaper clippings, speeches by Fidel Castro and even the official donation of an abandoned post office.

About the author

Odelín Alfonso, born Havana, 1970. Graduated in 1989 in industrial electronics from the former Eduardo García Delgado Technology Center. In 2004 he joined the internal opposition as eastern region coordination for the Liberal Orthodox Party, and, in 2005, the independent press.

e-mail: odelinalfonso@yahoo.com

19 August 2013