To enter and leave one’s country, while retaining one’s nationality, are rights that Cubans have not been able to access for decades, because of the prevailing political system and social theory in Cuba. One of the reforms introduced by Raul Castro is the implementation of a new Migratory Law, as of this coming January 14, which does not, however, eliminate government control over the “exit permit.”
Most Cubans discern the solution to the crisis of rights which confronts us within the Island as getting a visa to settle elsewhere. The exodus has not been effective, however, in changing the situation within the Island with regards to the State’s recognition of these rights.
Cubans don’t protest but they leave the country. It is a phenomenon that can be observed with respect, such as the right to remain indifferent to the political present and future of the country of your birth. It is not that Cubans are less ethical by nature. Vaclav Havel, who illustrated the complex situation in which the individual finds herself in these kinds of societies, imputed to the advent of responsibility in one’s conscience the determining step to overthrow this type of dictatorship.
Much has been written about the changes that occur in human nature when it is subjected to the violence, direct or covert, of a totalitarian system. One of the products of that violence is submission. The capacity for intimidation of the totalitarian system that has triumphed for 54 years in Cuba has been revealed more by the submission of the masses than by their complaints and protest. As it’s about surviving at all costs, leaving the country is the only solution that appears to be left to Cubans.
Solving the problem of Cuba only by sea or air is what seems to be available to Cubans at this time. The ballot boxes will remain closed as long as this silence endures. There is no lack of alternatives such as the Citizen Demand for Another Cuba, or the New Country Project, and supporting them is the best investment in the future, which will arrive more or less immediately depending on our participation.
Human beings do not give up freedom willingly. Just as the Communist regime cannot renounce violence. To leave the country should be just a withdrawal that does not put an end to the controversy. As long as we have some shred of perseverance left in our original nature tending toward freedom, we are condemning the regime. But if we change such that we betray ourselves and even forget our conscience, we are giving our main aggressor the gift of perpetual triumph.
January 11 2013
