Here comes the same old story again, the elimination of restrictions on commerce with the Havana dictatorship. Once again the same voices, influenced by powerful interests, continue talking about the same thing. Sometimes, it’s as if we lose faith in our own efforts as Cubans.
Not long ago, I read and heard about an important shipment of I-don’t-know-what kind of ham that arrived from the United States for none other than the members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. This is a crude insult to the people who suffer, not only from those who eat it, but also on behalf of those who promote politics that allow this to happen.
Enough of double standards, enough of feeding those who spill the blood of and oppress our people! Enough of the dictatorship eating quality ham while the everyday Cuban feeds himself with whatever he is able to fish, if he is even allowed to do so.
Could it be that if we promote tourism, and if we fill up homes and the hotels that belong to the Ministry of the Interior (MININT), the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR), and the oligarchy while our children go to bed hungry and go to school nearly barefoot and in rags; is that how we promote democracy?
Oh, Barack Obama! Oh, all those letters to Congress asking for more trips, increased remittances and cultural exchanges only with artists approved by the dictatorship! Oh, Cuba, how you suffer and how they toy with your pain! Oh, Jose Marti and Antonio Maceo! If only you could see what they have done with your country. If only you could see how our Church, from Rome all the way to Holguin, allies itself with our oppressors, lending itself to an operation to clean out and exile the best sons of the Nation.
If only Pedro Luis Boitel and Orlando Zapata Tamayo were alive and could see how the message of reconciliation, understanding, and flexibility was being appealed to in order to not to bother those who murdered them by starvation during their hunger strikes. But at times when some seemed to doubt and to resort to an alternative without independence, the Bronze Titan* said: “I don’t want even freedom, if with it comes dishonor.”
And that is the watchword of those who struggle for Change in and out of Cuba, a maxim which strengthens and encourages us.
*Translator’s note: Bronze Titan was the alias of Antonio Maceo, historic Cuban freedom fighter for independence from Spain.
Translated by Raul G.
August 20, 2010
