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Cuba the Day After: Chimeras, Transitions and Stages
The article that I published in Issue 19 of the journal Voices “Every frustration is the daughter of an excess of expectations,” a friend repeated to me when the forecasts of beautiful tints that I invent every now and then fell short. The last decades of my life — like that of so many Cubans — have been a kind of unfulfilled forecasts, scenarios that never materialize, and archived hopes. A sequence of cabals, rites of divination and staring at the moon, that collide head-on with the stubborn reality. We are a people of frustrated Nostradamuses, of soothsayers who won’t win at life, of prophets who weave predictions together, without getting any of them right
“Every frustration is the daughter of an excess of expectations,” a friend repeated to me when the forecasts of beautiful tints that I invent every now and then fell short. The last decades of my life — like that of so many Cubans — have been a kind of unfulfilled forecasts, scenarios that never materialize, and archived hopes. A sequence of cabals, rites of divination and staring at the moon, that collide head-on with the stubborn reality. We are a people of frustrated Nostradamuses, of soothsayers who won’t win at life, of prophets who weave predictions together, without getting any of them right.
In our national history the nineties held the greatest concentration of failed prognostications. I remember imagining people in the street, the shouts of freedom, the pressures of need and social misery exploding in a peaceful revolt that would change everything. I was a teenager and we were a beardless society… we still are. So the mirage of before and after, of an event that would again split the calendar of the nation, of our going to bed one night thinking of political change and before the sun set again it would be done. Like all immature people, we believed in magicians. In those who will come with a wand or banner or dais, to resolve everything.
And then it happened. Although it didn’t seem anything like what I had imagined. We had the Maleconazo in August of 1994, but what brought people to the streets wasn’t an attempt to transform the country from within, but rather to bypass the insularity and escape to another place. There was no flag waving, no shouts of “Viva Free Cuba!” Rather doors were torn off to make rafts with a long delayed goodbye on our north coast. My wise friend repeated it… “I told you, you’re disappointed because you always expect too much.”
Two decades have passed, our society never matured but some stubborn gray hairs started to appear on my head. I now know that between desire and events most of the time there is a divorce, an uncomprehending widow. I became pragmatic, but not cynical. Everything I learned about reality — paraphrasing a good poet — was not everything there was in reality. When I woke up thinking “this system already died,” then its capacity to be the “living dead” for 54 years bit me.
So now I’ve stopped believing in the solutions accompanied by smiles and hugs in the street. Hard times are coming. The transition will be difficult and there won’t even be a day to celebrate it. Most likely there will be joy and singing. We have been late to everything, even change. The images of the Berlin Wall falling to pieces were only possible once. For us, and here I venture another prophecy, there will be a gray transformation, without snapshots to record it.
A day after the Castros… if after the Castros there is a day.
One day we will look back and realize that the Castro regime fell or simply ceased to exist, taking with it the best years of my mother, my best years, the best years of my son. But perhaps it’s just as well, not having another January first, no photos of Greek-profiled gentlemen with pigeons perched on their shoulders. Perhaps a change that goes through the waters of apathy is better than another carnivorous revolution that devours us all.
Afterwards, afterwards there won’t be much time for festivities. The bubble of false statistics will pop and we’ll be struck by the country we actually have. We’ll realize that the infant mortality rate isn’t what we’ve been told all these years, that we aren’t the “most cultured people in the world” and that the nation’s coffers are empty… empty… empty. We will hear a chorus of “with Raul Castro everything was better.” We will have to start to change the name of the Stockholm Syndrome and relocate it to this tropical geography.
Responsibility will come, a concept few are prepared for. Taking over our own lives and putting “Daddy State” in its rightful place, without protectionism but also without authoritarianism. Democracy is profoundly boring, so we’ll get bored. That permanent fear that we listen to, that panic that a neighbor or friend could be an informer for State Security, will no longer exist. Then we will see if we dare to say out loud what we are thinking, or if we prefer that the politicians of tomorrow can comfortably manage our silence.
The first free elections will find us arriving early at the polling stations, talking and smiling. But by the third or fourth time the turnout at the polls will be around half the population. Being a citizen is a full-time job and, as you already know, we are not used to efficient and constant work, nor to tenacity. So eventually we’ll again delegate our responsibility to some “sweet talking” populist who promises us paradise on earth and assures us that in the dilemma between “security and freedom” he will be charged with enforcing the first. We will fall into his trap, because we are an immature people, a beardless people.
The scars will take a long time to fade, but the new wounds are rapidly appearing. This combination between high level professional and low level ethics will be a bitter pill for us to swallow. It wouldn’t surprise me if we become an emporium of drug manufacturing and trafficking. This would be another of the many legacies left to us by the Castro regime: a predatory people, where the word “values” is uncomfortable… and unnecessary.
Lurching to the fiercest consumption also seems inevitable. Years of rationing, shortages and pitiful goods with outdated labels, will make people hungrily throw themselves at the market. Time will pass before we see environmental movements, natural food movements, or we are called to moderation and to not be wasteful. The appetites to have, to buy, to show off, will skyrocket and will also be a part of the sequels left to us by a system that preaches austerity while the higher ups exercise hedonism.
We will see them mutate, like chameleons swearing “I never said such thing.” We will watch them exchange ideology for economics, their Manual of Marxism for a Guide to Business, their olive-green uniforms for suits and ties. They will speak of necessary reconciliation, of forgetting, and remind us that “we are all one people.” They will go from acts of repudiation to amnesia, from spying to continuing to spy because once an informer, always an informer.
Every person who was once critical of the government will be, for these “converts” of tomorrow, deeply uncomfortable. Because to look at them will be a reminder that they did nothing to change things, that, from cowardice and opportunism, they kept their mouths shut. So among their objectives will be to bury what was once the Cuban dissidence. They will use it and set it aside. We will hear stories of people beaten and incarcerated being told by the forgotten old men of social security; like today we see Olympic boxers begging on the street. The medals of the past will be offensive to the cynics of the future… there will be no space for heroism, because it’s uncomfortable.
The dates celebrated in the textbooks will change. Many statues will be removed and in their place they will erect some whose names we will have to learn and at whose bases we will have to leave flowers on their anniversaries. One epoch will be replaced, another will be established. With all those who will then say they were opponents and helped “to overturn the Castro regime” we could, right now, establish a civic force of millions of individuals. There will be a competition to see who is more responsible for the change and has more medals to hang on their lapels.
Bad predictions, good preparation
Tired of throwing flowers at the future and imagining its luminosity, I have come to believe that the more we paint it in dark tones the more energy we can put into changing it. The time to think about tomorrow is now because the Castro regime has died but still walks, breathes, tightens its fist. The Castro regime has died because its life cycle expired some time ago, its cycle of illusion was brief, its cycle of participation never existed. The Castro regime has died and we must begin to plan for the day after its funeral.
I look forward to reading proposals and platforms that address the dilemmas that will confront us one hour after the coffin of this so-called revolution rests under the earth. Where are the programs for that moment? Are we prepared for this gray change, without heroes or falling walls, but that will inevitably come to pass? Do we know how we are going to face the new problems that will arise, the problems that will appear on all sides which are here now, but muted and distorted?
If we prepare ourselves for the worst case scenario, it will be a sign of maturity that will help us overcome it. The civic network will play a key role in any case. Only by strengthening this civic structure can we stop ourselves from falling into the arms of the next political hypnotist or into networks of chaos and violence. We are not looking for presidents — they are already here — we are looking for citizens.
Let’s forget the river of people celebrating in the streets and the Ministry of the Interior opening its archive to find out who was and wasn’t an informant. Most likely, it won’t be like that. The enthusiasm for public demonstrations is exhausted and the most revealing documents will no longer exist, they will have burnt them or taken them. We have come late to the transition. But that doesn’t mean it will go badly for us, that we will regret taking it on.
We can, this at least we can, start from scratch in so many things. Drinking in the experiences and disasters of others; realizing that we have the chance to sow the seeds of democracy in world where so many try to straighten a trunk that was born crooked. If our change turns out badly, we will have half the planet pointing at us and asking, “Is that what they wanted for Cuba? Is that the change they yearned for?” With no apologies, we have a responsibility not only to our nation, but to the better part of humanity that believes it can still transition successfully from an authoritarian to a participative system.
Realization is the daughter of a difficult challenge
I know what my skeptical friend will say when reading this article. He will chuckle and say, “Even when you’re pessimistic you’re still a dreamer.” But he will also recognize that I am no longer that teenager who hoped to one day wake up to cries of joy in the street, to join the crowd and head to the statue of José Martí in Central Park. I know it won’t be like that. But it can be much better.
Yoani’s English Language blog is here, and her posts also appear in TranslatingCuba.com here, along with those of over 100 independent voices writing from the Island. You can help translate Cuban bloggers at HemosOido.com here.
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Cuba the Day After: Chimeras, Transitions and Stages
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After 40 Years of Working, Keeping Body and Soul Together Selling Plastic Bags
Selling ‘jabitas’ (plastic bags) in front of an agricultural market in Havana. (Luz Escobar) 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 28 August 2014 – “I need some dark glasses,” Veronica told me one day when I ran into her on the street. Almost seventy, the lady underwent cataract surgery some months ago and now must “take care of my eyes,” as she explained to me. She works in the sun selling jabitas (plastic bags) to the customers of the farmers market on Tulipan Street.
Selling ‘jabitas’ (plastic bags) in front of an agricultural market in Havana. (Luz Escobar)
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 28 August 2014 – “I need some dark glasses,” Veronica told me one day when I ran into her on the street. Almost seventy, the lady underwent cataract surgery some months ago and now must “take care of my eyes,” as she explained to me. She works in the sun selling jabitas (plastic bags) to the customers of the farmers market on Tulipan Street. The harsh midday glare is hard on her eyesight, but that’s not the worst of her problems. “We have an alarm system to know when the police are coming, although sometimes they’re in plainclothes and catch us by surprise.” Last month she paid a 1,500 Cuban peso fine (roughly $60 US) for engaging in illegal sales, and this week she received a warning letter for recidivism for the same offense.
If you read articles like Randy Alonso’s about the absence of bags in the hard currency stores, you might come to believe this resource is being diverted into the hands of unscrupulous traders. However, it’s enough to simply know Veronica to understand that her business is one more of misery than of profit. For the four decades she worked as a cleaning assistant in a school, the lady now receives a pension that doesn’t exceed ten dollars a month. Without the resale of the plastic bags, she would have to beg, but she asserts that she “would die before asking for money in the streets.” She is not to blame, rather she is a victim of the circumstances that have pushed her into an illegal activity to survive.
Having to carry purchases in one’s hands in the absence of bags is something that annoys any buyer. But realizing that Randy Alonzo, one of the great spokesmen of the current system, doesn’t know the human dramas that lead to the diversion of plastic bags, is even more irritating. It’s not about callous people who are dedicated to enriching themselves through the fruits of State embezzlement, but rather citizens whose economic poverty leads them to resell whatever product comes into their hands. Right now Veronica is outside some business, wearing the old dark glasses they gave her, muttering “I have jabitas, I have jabitas, one peso each.”
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After 40 Years of Working, Keeping Body and Soul Together Selling Plastic Bags
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Cuba’s Official Press: Triumphalism, Blacklisting and Censorship
News kiosk (Luz Escobar) 14YMEDIO, Havana, Yoani Sanchez, 22 August 2014 – The phone rings and it’s a friend who works for a government publication. She’s content because she’s published an article that attacks bureaucracy and corruption. The young woman finished college two years ago and has been working in a digital medium that deals with cultural and social issues. She has the illusions of a recent graduate, and she believes she can do objective journalism, close to reality, and help to improve her country
News kiosk (Luz Escobar)
14YMEDIO, Havana, Yoani Sanchez, 22 August 2014 – The phone rings and it’s a friend who works for a government publication. She’s content because she’s published an article that attacks bureaucracy and corruption. The young woman finished college two years ago and has been working in a digital medium that deals with cultural and social issues. She has the illusions of a recent graduate, and she believes she can do objective journalism, close to reality, and help to improve her country.
My friend has had some luck, because she exercises this profession at a time when the national media is trying to more closely reflect the problems of our society. The official journalist exists in a timid Glasnost, 25 years after a similar process in the Soviet Union. If that attempt at “information transparency” was promoted through Perestroika, on the Island it’s been pushed by the Sixth Communist Party Congress Guidelines. In this way, a more objective and less triumphalist press is pushed–from above. The same power that helped create laudatory newspapers, now urges a shift from applause to criticism. But it’s not easy.
The original sin of the official press is not the press, but propaganda. It emerged to sustain the ideological political-economic model and it can’t shed that genesis. The first steps in the creation of the current national media always includes an act of faith in the Revolution, It is also funded entirely by the Government, which further affects its editorial line. It’s worth noting that the official media is not profitable, that is, it doesn’t generate income or even support its print runs or transmissions. Hence, it operates with subsidies taken from the national coffers. All Cubans sustain the newspapers Granma and Juventude Rebelde (Rebel Youth), the Cubavision channel or Radio Reloj (Clock Radio)… whether we like it or not.
Moreover, the official press is structured so that nothing can escape to the front page of the newspapers or to the TV and radio microphones that hasn’t been previously inspected. They are characterized by their strict elements of supervision.
Architecture of Control
My friend is facing at least four strong mechanisms of censorship she must deal with every day and which she rarely manages to successfully evade. Cuba has come to have one of the most sophisticated methods of monitoring information anywhere in the world. At the highest point of this architecture of control is the Department of Revolutionary Orientation (DOR), an entity belonging to the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party. A group of people–designated for their ideological loyalty–analyze all the journalistic content published in the country, and, from these observations, follows certain topics and authors.
The DOR is also responsible for drawing up the so-called “thematic plan” in which it programs the issues the Cuban press will address in a specified time period, and with what intensity it will do so. Right now, for example, just looking at national television we can see that there is a marked intention to speak optimistically about the Port of Mariel, foreign tourism and agricultural production.
Not only political issues or international relations pass through that filter. Control is also exerted over the music broadcast on radio stations and the music videos, soap operas, and science programs aired on television. The so-called black lists of singers or banned authors in the national media come entirely from the DOR. This so painful and prolonged phenomenon has been losing ground in recent years, more from social pressures than because of a sincere process of self-criticism among the censors.
The heads of the press organs must meet regularly with “the comrades from the DOR” to ensure that the plan of topics decided from above is carried out. But the influence of this entity does not end there. The directors of the newspapers and the heads of specific pages or specialized pages will only be appointed with the consent of this department, which in many cases is the person who placed them in their positions. This extends to the national and provincial organs, the municipal radio stations and the specialized magazines. The Journalism School at the University of Havana also receives direct attention from the Department of Revolutionary Orientation, which controls its curriculum and involves itself in the process of choosing new students. Nothing moves in the Cuban press without this watchtower of censorship knowing about it.
Promote the positive results
Another control mechanism that grips the official press is that imposed by the institutions and ministries. From the departments overseeing these entities, journalists are encouraged to promote the sectors they cover. Only with the authorization of these State organs, can the reporters access offices, files, review meetings, press conferences, the interior of a factory, or a cultural center or school.
This second control filter placed on institutions gives birth to a kind of journalism that has done a great deal of harm to Cuban society. One full of triumphalism, inflated figures, and “everything is perfect.” This pseudo-information has been so abused that popular humor is full of jokes about it. Like the one about when the news comes on and people put a bag under the TV to collect the food that appears in the reports, but that never show up in reality. This practice fosters opportunism, as well as making reporters think, “I’d better not get in trouble, if it’s good for me here.” There are sectors that are very attractive to cover, like tourism, because they include gifts, invitations, eating in hotel restaurants, and even all-expense-paid weekends at resorts.
Surveillance in the hallways
The third control mechanism makes people afraid to even say its name. The role of the Ministry of the Interior in every press organ. Every newspaper, radio station, TV channel or provincial newspaper has one or several people who are responsible for “seeing to” the security of the center. This department is responsible for investigating the extra-professional activities of every reporter, photographer or graphic designer. To spy on what they say in the hallways, supervise the questions they ask in interviews–particularly if it involves a foreigner–and whether they have contacts in the opposition or among independent journalists.
The more sophisticated control mechanism
If my friend makes it past those three control mechanism without deleting a line or one of her works being prohibited, she will still face the most efficient and sophisticated of all. It’s euphemistically called self-censorship and is nothing more than the result of pressure exercised over the communicator by the instruments of control and punishment.
Self-censorship acts as a psychological barrier and is expressed in the omissions that each journalist makes to stay on safe ground and not get too close to the allowed limit. However, the victim of self-censorship doesn’t always see it like this, rather she justifies her attitude. For a communicator from the official press who believes in the system, it’s an act of political militancy, a question of faith. So she remains silent about certain topics, to “not give arms to the enemy,” or because they’ve made her believe that “only they can offer constructive criticism.” Journalists come to think that if they question the immigration policy, the single-party system, and the political intolerance in the country, they will be doing more harm than good.
The professional who accepts and successfully passes through these four censorship and control filters and can call themselves an editor, a composer of sentences, a typist, a propagandist… but never a journalist.
Maybe one day my young friend will call me, not to tell me that she has managed to sneak a text into an official media, but to tell me that she’s decided to become an independent journalist. She will take on new challenges and problems, but be much freer.
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Cuba’s Official Press: Triumphalism, Blacklisting and Censorship
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A Caricature of a Cuban Woman
Woman drinking (14ymedio) 14yMEDIO, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 22 August 2014 — A woman on national television said that her husband “helps” her with some household chores. To many, the phrase may sound like the highest aspiration of every woman. Another lady asserts that her husband behaves like a “Federated man,” an allusion to the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), which today is celebrating its 54th anniversary. As for me, on this side of the screen, I feel sorry for them in the face of such meekness
14yMEDIO, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 22 August 2014 — A woman on national television said that her husband “helps” her with some household chores. To many, the phrase may sound like the highest aspiration of every woman. Another lady asserts that her husband behaves like a “Federated man,” an allusion to the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), which today is celebrating its 54th anniversary. As for me, on this side of the screen, I feel sorry for them in the face of such meekness. Instead of the urgent demands they should mention, all I hear is this appreciation directed to a power as manly as it is deaf.
It’s not about “helping” to wash a plate or watch the kids, nor tiny illusory gender quotas that hide so much discrimination like a slap. The problem is that economic and political power remains mainly in masculine hands. What percentage of car owners are women? How many acres of land are owned or leased by women. How many Cuban ambassadors on missions abroad wear skirts? Can anyone recite the number of men who request paternity leave to take care of their newborns? How many young men are stopped by the police each day to warn them they can’t walk with a tourist? Who mostly attends the parent meetings at the schools?
Please, don’t try to “put us to sleep” with figures in the style of, “65 percent of our cadres and 50 percent of our grassroots leaders are women.” The only thing this statistic means is that more responsibility falls on our shoulders, which means neither a high decision-making level nor greater rights. At least such a triumphalist phrase clarifies that there are “grassroots leaders,” because we know that decisions at the highest level are made by men who grew up under the precepts that we women are beautiful ornaments to have at hand… always and as long as we keep our mouths shut.
I feel sorry for the docile and timid feminist movement that exists in my country. Ashamed for those ladies with their ridiculous necklaces and abundant makeup who appear in the official media to tell us that “the Cuban woman has been the greatest ally of the Revolution.” Words spoken at the same moment when a company director is sexually harassing his secretary, when a beaten woman can’t get a restraining order against her abusive husband, when a policeman tells the victim of a sexual assault, “Well, with that skirt you’re wearing…” and the government recruits shock troops for an act of repudiation against the Ladies in White.
Women are the sector of the population that has the most reason to shout their displeasure. Because half a century after the founding of the caricature of an organization that is the Federation of Cuban Women, we are neither more free, nor more powerful, nor even more independent.
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A Caricature of a Cuban Woman
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