Translating Cuba

The Cuban government is a joke. They make us participate in elections in which we have to elect a member of their party to represent us to them? Judge and Jury? The conflict of interest mold has been broken!

The second act of the Cuban election parody occurred this Sunday, November 4. I’m not joking, nor do I place it under the comedy genre that it deserves; the truth is that we who are mocked make up the majority of the Cuban people. They entertain us with a low budget and badly written play, although it is well directed, and with excellent actors. And so it is justifiable that in violation of our civil rights, we respond with the caustic and harmless weapons within our reach, rather than continue to legitimize them for other reasons — among them officially directed intimidation — and the dirty and antidemocratic totalitarian games.

They have already elected in the second round from my own neighborhood, the municipal delegates that will offer the “ugly face” of executive inability to the demands of their constituency. They are controlled by the resources they have at their disposal and they distribute them with much propaganda, based on their needs and interest. They also continue to emphasize what they give us, which reminds me of the refrain “favor taken, favor defecated.” It is probable that in any country with a president who is a friend to Cuba – that is to the Cuban elite leadership — perhaps they lack no goods coming from us.

However, the delegates to the Popular Power popular power do not have the authority nor the capital to patch the streets of their locality, fix the burst pipes, replace neighborhood lighting, the park lamps or to repair a damaged sewer pipe and prevent pollution. The most important tasks of the elected will be to go to all the bureaucratic-partisan meetings with the basic purposes of “raising” the demands of the population of their territory on the one hand, and on the other, to listen to negative “justifications” of authorities.

The U.S. blockade facilitates the inadequacies of the unproductive and centralized sociopolitical and economic system that has anchored Cuba in backwardness; they use it to justify their inadequacies.

Many acquaintances and friends have always voted. They are fearful since there are hidden cameras placed in the voting booths. They leave their finger prints on the ballot to prevent annulment. Many ask if the rumor started in the office of the political police, but they are also fearful of risking their good citizenship status, which the authorities for sure would use to publicly scorn them through their organizational network.

The precedent exists of people who lost their jobs because they did not vote, or students who have been denied admission at the university, or expelled from school for the same reason. Of course, that unleashed long ago the submission of citizens to participate in the electoral process so that they can guarantee the well-being of their family. So, to make more effective their suspicions and thick files, the law does not mandate voting, but at any rate, they surreptitiously force people to vote. What a joke! No?

That’s why, between my friends and acquaintances, almost no one cares who are the candidates, and even less about who was elected, because at the end of the day, what’s the difference?

November 6 2012

Once again, a large swath of Nuevo Vedada saw its electricity cut off for almost eleven hours yesterday in order to replace worn-out electrical poles. I believe that in the end they replaced four. A great achievement really. As a result, the hard currency stores in our neighborhood—the majority—remained closed for the duration of the thinly-veiled blackout. If you needed to buy something, you had to travel far from home to find it.

There was electricity today, but La Mariposa was closed again, this time for more than two hours, because it was fumigation day. It was disconcerting to see all the employees of this establishment sitting in the park, patiently waiting for the smoke from the burnt petroleum they use as a fumigant to clear so that the store could re-open. This can take up to two hours.

I kept on walking in search of one of the two small hotels in the neighborhood. These were built to house patients from ALBA* countries, as well as their families, during their post-operative recoveries. Since this exchange has been suspended, they now serve as modest hotels whose guests are usually athletes. On the premises they have small but quite well-stocked stores.

I arrived at the Hotel Tulipán’s store at almost a quarter to ten, when it is scheduled to open. To pass the time, I decided to go to the cafe to have a coffee. The person at the counter apologized and told me that there were only two ceramic cups, which were being used at one of the tables, so he would have to serve it to me in a paper cup, if I was willing. I said that would be fine, but asked him why they had only two cups, considering this was a relatively new hotel. The problem, he told me, was that a request had been sent in, but the company had not yet responded. That’s the difference with private hotels, I told him, since the owner would have gone to buy more cups before they had run out.

I finally returned to the store. It was now a quarter after ten and they still were not open, even though through the glass doors I could see the employees standing around. There were now five of us waiting outside. The assistant manager arrived and an employee then opened the door to greet us, without looking at us or saying anything. A young man, who was also waiting and appeared to be in a hurry, asked her why they were still not open, and she, without even looking at him, said that the calculator was broken.

I continued on my journey and saw a kiosk which sold items for hard currency. I wanted to buy a big carton of juice to take to a sick friend. When I went to pay with a twenty, the employee calmly told me that I would have to come back later because he did not have enough change.

I returned home confused and frustrated at not being able to get anything I needed, thinking that it does not take a hurricane or an embargo to destroy this country. Sloth is taking care of that fast enough.

Translator’s note: A trade alliance of socialist or socialist-leaning Latin American countries, including Cuba and Venezuela.

November 7 2012

YOU CAN CALL ME, Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, on my landline (537)-6988269, where I can speak to you about the obscene repressive wave of Raul’s regime. My cell phone, with more than $100 credit on it, continues to be deactivated by the thieves of the telephone company CUBACEL. Thanks!

November 10 2012

The Cuban photographer Claudio Fuentes Madan from the independent photo agency CUBARAW, is still a prisoner, being tortured without charges or any type of contact with his friends and family, on these supercold nights at the Police Station in Aguilera Street in the Lawton neighborhood.

The police, with their criminal irony, say they didn’t arrest him, he’s not their prisoner, he’s just in arbitrary holding as long as the political police order it.

The state of his health is unknown and it’s very possible he’s on a hunger and thirst strike for three days now.

The repressor called CAMILO is especially brutal towards him, although in the video of the arrests its obvious that Claudio maintained a disciplined attitude toward the repressive authority of State Security the whole time.

DISTRIBUTE THIS URGENTLY, PLEASE…

November 10 2012

The Institute of Basic Sciences and Preclinics of Havana, renewed all its teaching activities last Monday, October 15, after several weeks.

According to information not published in the official media, the student body and professors of this institution focused on higher education are back in the classroom, after several weeks of being relocated to carry out inspections.

The renewal of educational activities coincides, mysteriously, with the 50th anniversary of this institution that carries the name of Victoria de Giron (Bay of Pigs Victory), a date which brought the leaders of the higher education for the Cuban Ministry of Health to this school in the capital.

The reincorporation of the students and educational activities was only from 8:00 in the morning to midday. At the end of this time they pursued the work of inspection in the zones affected by the Aedes Aegypti mosquito which carried dengue fever.

October 22 2012

In Cuba, unlike other countries where a minister is able and authorized to expose governmental policy, this is only the responsibility of the president. Due to that, if one wants really to know its contents and projections, one must go to him, through his speeches and public appearances. Some time ago, in an interview with the foreign press, the Minister of Foreign Affairs proposed that in order to invest in Cuba, one had to come with three or five hundred million dollars and, as the Cuban exiles did not have that, they were dismissed. It seems this character is not well versed in economics and his statement is quite messed up. If he was only trying to make a joke, it fell flat. The misguided approach, so absurd, does not deserve to be analyzed, but can serve as a starting point for some reasoning.

Currently Cuba, undercapitalized, in order to be able to undertake the road to solve its economic problems, should try to attract capital from outside — among the Cubans within, it does not exist — from both Cubans and from citizens of other nationalities, prioritizing the first, because of a basic sense of belonging.

This capital doesn’t have to be small-time nor that exaggerated, as the minister said. To invest in Cuba today is not easy and also constitutes a risk to anyone, because the laws and transparent regulations which would provide minimum and reliable assurances to investors don’t exist. As a result, as long as these are not enacted, investments — if any — will be on a small scale, but given no investment of any kind, even this could represent an injection of resuscitation to an economy in a prolonged coma.

Nor is it possible to aspire to the big enterprise — State of private — but rather to the development of small and medium enterprises, which have shown internationally to be the main generators of jobs and wealth, and which are also more prepared to succeed in times of crisis, because given their size they are more adaptable to changes, react faster and are more efficient in the introduction of the achievements of science, and in their systems of production and service. We are not reinventing the wheel, simply suggesting easily verified realities.

If Cuba doesn’t want to become a rentier state — dependent on foreign exploitation of some agricultural product, nickel, or the hypothetical oil in the gulf waters — it needs to take this path, which is consistent with real possibilities. Everything else is still a dream like soap bubbles, and to try to continue to live on external grants, is more of a political than an economic strategy.

Our country possesses fertile lands that are unproductive — the majority covered with the marabou weed — and other natural riches, as well as a skilled workforce, badly paid, which given the incentive of fair salaries and the possibility to develop their creative initiative, without absurd regulations that strengthen poverty, could produce the much-needed economic liftoff.

To intelligently combine State and private property on an equal competitive conditions, without economic missteps by political and ideological interests, would advance our country. To this end, the State must finally shed its false paternalistic attitude, that is just covering up its totalitarian nature, and exercise its role as regulator of social forces and nothing else, leaving aside impositions and command and control, which have both done so much damage. Only a democratic Cuba will be able to overcome the current crisis and insert itself into the overall world economy, as in the days when it occupied the place of the 29th most developed country in the world.

November 8 2012

Because the right to health doesn’t stop at the cell doors in Cuba. From November 1st to December 10th, 2012, to mark the World Day Against AIDS. We denounce the lack of rights, the poor food and the terrible sanitary conditions in the prisons for people with HIV/AIDS. The number of patients with HIV/AIDS within the six Cuban prisons for infected persons exceeds 600.

October 29 2012

The exposition of Rocío García: the return of Jack the Punisher, exhibited from August until the first week of September in the Galería Habana, of Vedado, fascinates and surprises because of the composite work of the canvases, the insinuating beauty of every frame, and the recreating an old horror story through images that fantasize and refresh, from a feminine gaze, that series of deaths that implicated the English police in America at the end of the 20th century.

In this free version pictorial saga, the artist revives, draws, cheats and subjects to the spectrum of Jack Kimberland — the hypothetical Jack the Ripper — that Irishman who in 1888 stayed in a London hotel before being deported on suspicion of murder, after which he settled in a suburb of New York, where he was followed by the London police to confirm that the bodies of mutilated prostitutes corresponded to the profile of the Irish fugitive, who emerged as a great serial murderer.

As noted by Corina Matamoros in the catalog, “Jack the Punisher’s back. A red forest, with pure white rabbits crouched, saw him arrive armed, fierce, beautifully androgynous. His outlined body … will infiltrate the bar as usual, concealed among drinkers. In his lap he holds, with maiden sweetness, the rabbit of love, while looking thoughtfully at the mirage of a naked lady, sprawled on a sidewalk, sipping his Caipiroshka.”

The Jack of the 14 paintings by Rocío García is exceeded before being surprised, victim of such tempting beauties and the mirages of black magic and white magic. He punishes and is punished without thinking in Niki Cheng, a character invented by the brush to free the rabbit, who finally breaks his bonds and goes in a boat down the river, a metaphor for love and the interchanges between history, swords, pistols, sensuality and fierceness. All mixed by the mastery of the artist, friend of film mirages served in brilliant and unique colors.

Rocío García de la Nuez (Santa Clara, 1955), graduated from the Academy of Arts in San Alejandro, in The Habana (1977) and achieved the title of Master of Beautiful Arts in the Academy of Répin, San Petersberg (1983). Currently he is a professor of painting in the Academy of San Alejandro. He has shown his creative works in many personal and collective expositions within and outside of Cuba.

Among his personal offerings are The Tamer and Other Stories (Habana Gallery, JM 2003. Arts, Paris, 2005); Haikus (Sancti Spiritus Gallery, 2004); La Dama de la patica caliente (Havana Galerie, Zurich); and The Thriller , Museum of Fine Arts in Havana, both in 2007; Very, Very Light (Light Galleries and Suarez del Villar, Madrid, and La Casona, Havana, 2010), and Hidden Things (Sidney Mishkin Gallery Baruch College, New York, 2011).

His works have been in the Havana Auction and dozens of group shows at the Havana Biennial and other international events, among them the Caribbean:Crossroads of the World, Queens Museum of Art, New York, 2012; Cuban Pictures (Wilfredo Lam Center ); Contemporary Cuban Art in Beijing; and Madrid Art Fair in 2010; Dear Van Gogh and Abstract Art Project (Havana, 2009); We Ar Porno, Yes. First Annual of Porno Art (Space Aglutinador, Havana, 2008); Four Decades Before the Mirror (Paris, 2004); and Cuban Artists (Ricoleta Cultural Center, Buenos Aires, 2001).

September 12 2012