Translating Cuba

The presidents of the United States have been a taboo topic in Cuba for 55 years. The image of the Evil Imperialist could only be authorized by the upper echelons of the propagandists of the Communist Party (the only legal one in the country) or, where appropriate, by the Council of State itself. The idea was to depersonalize and discredit all the men in the White House (the pamphleteer documentary filmmaker Santiago Alvarez incarnated the vile vanguard of that mission). Every foreign enemy had to be to artificially animalized, assassinated like one more internal opponent. Only in this way, by elementary media comparison before the eyes of a captive audience, could the image of the sublime Maximum Leader shine more brightly in our hearts:

Fidel the future, Eisenhower the fossil; Fidel proletarian idol, Kennedy bourgeois asshole; Fidel internationalist guerrilla, Johnson international warmonger; Fidel sincere to the bone, Nixon scandalously fallacious; Fidel perpetual Comrade, Ford ephemeral as a model year; Fidel pitcher, Carter catcher, Fidel a still young star, Reagan an almost senile stunt man; Fidel in the Special Period in Times of Peace, Bush-the-father post-perestroika bomber; Fidel celibate, Clinton promiscuous; Fidel a horse, W. Bush a donkey; Fidel a dove repeatedly robbed of his Nobel Peace Prize, Obama a white hawk in a blackbird’s skin (showing their racism, the Cuban state media accused him of betraying his race). continue reading

In Galiano, Havana’s former main commercial street, they are installing street lamps that are exact reproductions of the original ones, which have decayed or been destroyed by the passage of time and apathy. The fronts of its surviving buildings are also being repainted, though with garish colors accented in white, which clash with the surroundings. Nevertheless, at least it is something, as long as it does simply end up being a scenic backdrop for tourists’ snapshots.

If they are indeed trying to revive Galiano, it is necessary to do more than than what is currently being done. They could begin by removing the sliding metal doors which cover the glass storefronts and entrances, turning these establishments into virtual safes without any real valuables to protect.

Shops and retail businesses with display windows, which have been closed or fallen on hard times, should be reopened and stocked with merchandise. Small stores that sell meat and groceries but lack refrigeration or are in unhygienic locations should be closed. Stalls that have been set up doorways and windows of homes that had in the past been commercial buildings should be regulated.

The so-called “corporate colors,” which some businesses use to identify themselves without regard for a building’s architectural style or the building materials used (ETESCA’s blue and white, Sylvain’s red and white, and Rapiditos’ ketchup and mustard for example), should be prohibited.

Trasval, that lugubrious mausoleum and monument to bad taste, located in what had been the well-lit and pleasant Ten Cent at the corner of Galiano and San Rafael, should be made to disappear.*

Streets and sidewalks should be repaired and washed daily. Retail businesses and stores should be required to do the same with their entrances and interiors. Illuminated store signs and advertisements, which give so much life to a street during the day as well as at night, should be installed.

This host of tasks cannot be accomplished by the state, which has been the party responsible for the disappearance and destruction of the previously existing retail network and of so much cumulative decay over the years. In spite of its “Golden Rule” and “MS” seal (mejor servicio or better service), it foolishly expropriated everything in the 1970s only to let it all languish. This is why private and cooperative initiative and investment are essential. They are the only guarantees of identity, diversity, efficiency, quality and profitability, replacing the term “users” with “customers.”

Clearly, it is necessary to eliminate the obsolete and unnatural restrictions still in effect and to allow for private employment and commerce without limitations on space or personnel. Retail business administration is not a task for the state, especially since it has quite amply demonstrated its inability to do it. It would then be left to city government to provide what are among its real responsibilities—the necessary infrastructure (water, sewage, electricity, gas, communications, etc.)

Beyond that, there are other important commercial streets in terrible condition such as Neptune, San Miguel, the previously mentioned San Rafael, Reina, Monte and Belascoaín, to name but a few, that they could also begin resurrecting. Havana deserves this and much more given that compensation for all the damage that has been and continues to be inflicted is long overdue.

*Translator’s note: ETESCA is Cuba’s national telecommunications company. Sylvain is a chain of bakeries and sweet shops. Trasval is a department store located in what had been a Woolworth’s, known locally as Ten Cent. Rapiditosa chain of outdoor, fast-food restaurants. All are state-owned.

January 22 2013

If you took a poll in our streets about Cubans’ most serious problems, the answers would agree on many points. Most people would talk about the cumbersome dual currency, the low wages, and the difficulties in finding housing. The oldest would talk about the poor pensions they receive, and many would also expound on the lack of freedoms and rights. The youngest, however, would list among their biggest problems lack of access to the Internet for people on the Island.Those under thirty don’t want to settle for seeing cyberspace in some remote place that almost no one can enter. They want to dive into that sea of kilobytes!

This situation of disconnect could be about to change. From the second week of January the U.S. company Renesys, which monitors Internet traffic, has noted that the fiber optic cable between Cuba and Venezuela is active. At a cost of $70 million, the tendon was installed in February of 2011, but still today it has not been publicly announced that it is working. In these two years, the secrecy has fueled rumors that the so-called Alba-1 failed because of corrupt dealings. However, today there is technological evidence that data is moving through the fiber optic cable.

As always, the official media is silent and many TV programs continue to show the Internet as a conglomeration of violence, pornography and false information. In the few public cybercafes, an hour’s access to the web cost a third of a month’s wages. Not a single internal signal denotes that something has changed. Many young people, however, are excited and anxious about the information from Renesys. The great World Wide Web may be closer than it appears.

22 January 2013

With much fanfare they announced at noon on January 17, a “major” television event to be held that night about “changes in Cuban television programming.” I waited, caught between disbelief and hope, because sometimes it’s nice when they surprise us with the unexpected, but this time it was not. As a group of my children’s friends who were here at the time said: “so much jawboning (chatter) for over half an hour, just to increase — this time, substantially — the live broadcasts of the TeleSUR TV.”

The rest went to “shuffling” the coordinates of the TV because they have so few programs. They changed the channels of some of the domestic programs as if doing so would improve the transmissions in general. It’s like moving the furniture around to get the idea that you have more space and comfort.

For the first time we saw on camera the faces of the “gurus” or directors of the five national television channels. I can not understand why so many masters and graduates are needed to run television of such poor quality. I think anyone can do it, because if we compare it with what we had pre-1959, almost none of the directors of that broadcast mass medium completed college and yet everything worked efficiently. Why not now?

We know public opinion is of no interest to these entities, nor is it of any interest to the government, which only relies on it to ratify with a vote — in order to legitimize their management to the outside — what they planned and decided, although repeatedly, for decades, they have failed. Change happens when the Nomenklatura decides, in a clear contempt for the popular will. So the excuse appearing in the written press that the changes in television programming must respond “to the requests and interests of the audience” is a fallacy.

The “exchange” of greater importance is the live broadcast of Telesur, of which previously we were allowed only a few hours — not live — in the evening and now, after nearly eight years of its existence and with our society contributing to its financing with a “generous” government grant, they will grant us more than 13 hours a day. Wouldn’t it have been better to have enabled a new channel for this multinational television? They’re continuing to beat a dead horse and everyone knows it. This had influenced the production of Cuban TV programs of lower and lower quality, rejected by the citizens, who are ultimately those who consume them.

People welcome the additional Telesur broadcast hours on Cuban television, but not with much enthusiasm because clearly this society is already saturated with 50 years of political propaganda, long speeches, and the endless appearances of the caudillos on our screens, something the South American continent has now been experiencing for a little while.

Perhaps another of the objectives was to “shake a stick” at the press, which is already on the defensive and not about to break its own behavioral blockade — perhaps for fear of losing their perks — for which they are not entirely responsible and because they suspect or suppose — it’s understandable — that in Cuba media freedom could be “a stethoscope to their ideological health, or in the press editing room.”

When will they be able to address these topics objectively? I imagine that none of the “boys” of the official press want to take the first step. It’s natural that after 54 years of restricted freedoms, there is resistance to change — due to accumulated helplessness — in the producers, the writers and the entire terrain of Cuban citizens. Now the authorities pass to our media professionals the responsibility for the lack of information transparency in their spaces, and the ber-partisanship of the same. And so they pay for their unconditional fealty.

Many of us now receive from the television of the south a great amount of news and information in real-time that before we got in doses from the national media system, including the taking of two cities in northern Mali by French troops, the military solution to the hostage crisis at the gas plant in Algeria, the fact that Ecuador exceeds ten million internet users for the first time, and for the first time ever many of us heard live the inauguration speech of a president of the United States.

The speed with which the government is moving its “reformist threads” gives rise to concerns and suspicions in a society that knows the dictatorship has declared that, “this is for more socialism.” And so “these metamorphoses” that are undertaken and envisioned on the sociopolitical Cuban horizon, are more for convenience and survival of the regime than for a real transition to a better future for our nation.

January 22 2013

In geology, a fault is a discontinuity that is formed by the fracture of the surface rocks of the earth, when tectonic forces exceed the resistance in these rocks it causes tidal waves and earthquakes. The same thing happens with power; readjustment is accompanied by apparent cataclysm.

In Cuba, the punishment, harassment and expulsion campaign for foreign businessmen based in Havana started in 2005, days after the General Raul Castro, his entourage and family, returned from a tour of Spain and Portugal, where they had gone as guests by the grace of a man named Amerigo, not Vespucci but Amorim, who is, according to Forbes magazine, the richest man in Portugal; his fortune amounts to 7 billion dollars.

Américo Ferreira de Amorim long ago inherited a small cork factory founded by his late grandfather in 1870; today the Amorim Group is the largest cork producer in the world. A diversified emporium, ranging from oil to banking, textile, forestry, agriculture, real estate and tourism. They have representations in countries such as the Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, Russia, Angola, Canada, Chile, Brazil, Mexico, England, Netherlands, USA, and Spain.

Mr. Américo, a personal friend of Fidel and Raul Castro from the 60s, set up his company (Amorim Trading Import and Export SA) in Havana in the 80’s. Located at 6604 5th Ave between 66th and 68th in Miramar. Amorin, is principally involved in the provision of inputs for the Cuban ministry and industry of fishing. It finances major commercial operations of the Cuban government such as purchasing fuel, milk powder and frozen fish for the army and the population. It has the exclusive right to export Cuban seafood to the European market. With the French group ACCOR it maintains investments in the construction and management of hotels such as the Sevilla in Havana and the Punta Arenas in Varadero. Why does this company stands out above the rest of all foreign firms based in Cuba?

During the trip to Europe mentioned above, and over a platter with brie and raspberry jam, a perfect delight to the eye and palate, General Raul Castro asked his old friend Amorim, that for better enforcement of joint ventures (without specifying the meaning of “sets”), one person in particular should carry the reins of the Amorim Group in Cuba. Wish granted, favor paid. In 2006 Mr. José Guimares, a Portuguese businessman, and one of the oldest directors in the management group was replaced; by someone unscrupulous with ambitions and a bandit’s heart who knows the danger of betrayal. Paolo Titolo, Italian by birth and extortionist by profession, husband of Mariela Castro, Raul’s son-in-law.

Corruption in Cuba is a common practice that has always been present in the most inaccessible of the halls of power, and from there it descends, contagious. The flood of smugglers we’ve seen recently, cases of embezzlement we read about in the press, the diversion of resources, foreign firms dissolved, and the many officials who are publicly renounced or are sanctioned by an apparent anti-corruption policy, is no more than a smoke screen and temper tantrum by power to subtly hide the indecency of a brothel.

January 21 2013

Although far from my beloved planet, I keep up with what is happening there thanks to the internet, which here in this corner of France, as in almost every other country, is available to all, which is not the case back home, where only the most privileged have free access to it.

This small city of 20,000 inhabitants has everything any human being would need to live—heated homes, well-paved roads and excellent traffic signals, clean streets and sidewalks, a system for sorting out the trash generated in the course of daily life, schools, churches, stores, restaurants, parks, supermarkets and museums. Most notably the state and the citizenry also pay a great deal of attention to protected ecological zones, the preservation and care of plants and wildlife, and to city rules and regulations. It has,in other words, everything that a human being needs for a good and healthy existence.

Being with this very important part of my family, I cannot get out of my mind how ironic it is that my small island is being punished— as though all the exhaustion and suffering that has built up for more than half a century were not enough— by an epidemic that had been eradicated since the 19th century.

Today, I carefully observed citizens and neighbors taking their own trash to locations near their homes, where all this material was sorted into separate containers to be later recycled and repurposed as new commodities. Even children know about and take part in this activity. In their homes and in their schools they are educated and informed about the importance of this civic activity. They are also taught respect for community property and the need to abide by rules and regulations. All this made me embarrassed for my country, which until 1959 was at the forefront in Latin America with respect to hygiene and public health. This was also true in many other areas, where we ranked at or near the top, not only in the region, but also in relation to some European countries.

As it began to snow, the picturesque landscape of Alsatian buildings— some very old ones mixed with modern ones, all built according to regulations and respectful of an architectural sensibility that does not disrupt the harmony of the surroundings— took on a new enchantment as it became cloaked in white.

Returning from out stroll, we walked along Allée des Platanes, between the villages of Blotzheim and Altkirsch, which had been planted with trees on both sides of the roadway during the reign of Napoleon III. I could not help thinking about my neighbors in Havana, Carmelo and Felipe, who had not left a single tree standing on our street. Here is but one example of the differences in culture and education.

January 21 2013

Source: Yoani’s Twitter

21 January 2013

The phrase, attributed in Cuba both to Stevenson and Savon, the complete super greats of Cuban boxing, is my compass, my alpha-omega, my real reality since I deal with hardware, software, platforms, all to become technologically literate, struggling to reach the sixth grade.

Whenever I face something new — in this area, and that’s every day, and I, for my part, also find something worthwhile every day — my first reaction is to be stunned. I don’t understand anything, if it’s explained to me I forget it immediately, I am afraid to do something on my own and mess everything up. In therapy to overcome my inferiority complex, I have become a student of manuals, a watcher of video demonstrations, there is no instruction booklet I haven’t examined with a magnifying glass to read how to put the Ariel font in six-point type. It’s ironic because with this aura of knowledge, young people come to me for help, which gives me a tingle of insecurity: of losing the respect of those I try to help, and facing my own ignorance and affecting them.

When I already think like that, imagine last Friday when I got a double challenge: My cellphone debut and I also had to activate MMS to connect my Twitter account with TwitPic, the application for images. I spent a 10 CUC car and a little more (every MMS costs. 2.30 CUC [about $2.50 U.S.]), and I would have continued had a not received a very nice text message, I don’t know from whom: “Congratulations, Please, do not try to send any more Twitpics, you already sent the same photo three times.”

So my training ran between pride and embarrassment. Me? I’m not saying if the technique is the technique.

January 21 2013