Camila and her wicker basket
For a long time we had a New Year’s ritual, we met with several friends at Camilla’s house. Seated on the floor with everyone talking at once, we would put a slip of paper in a wicker basket with our name, a personal desire, a resolution and a prediction for the year about to begin. Many of us came to the gathering with our carefully thought out answers, but some Januarys it was particularly hard to predict or wish for anything, in the midst of the uncertainty of the crisis. Nevertheless, we undertook the exercise of at least imagining our lives, and of seeking or guessing what might happen to us.
Before the conclusion of this annual event, we would read the writings from the gathering of twelve months earlier, and compare them with those most recently added to the basket. That reading was a real tour of aspirations postponed, plans unfulfilled, but all we could do is laugh and continue planning new fantasies. I was rarely accurate with my auguries of what might happen on my Island, though I believe I have finished a good part of what I set out to do, more through personal stubbornness than because of the real conditions to achieve it. Among the participants at this celebration, the most repeated desire was to relocate to another country, followed, far behind, by the heartfelt desire for one’s own roof.
At each gathering around the basket, we noted that the number who managed to emigrate was growing. The so-called “party of the paper slips” thus became a roll call of the absent, an inventory of the illusions of a whole group of friends who—in the absence of expectations—preferred to weigh anchor. Even Camila, our sweet hostess, is thousands of miles from her little house in Ayestarán. These days, she may be revisiting the mountain of pledges and prophecies we wrote, and that piled up—year after year—in her room. I know that she keeps these yellowing sheets, testimony to a scattered generation, clear evidence that we never stopped dreaming, even in the hardest of times.
A big hug at this end of year to all these “pick up sticks” scattered around the world, to the commentators on this blog, to the Cuban bloggers here and abroad, of one point of view or another, to the translators of Generation Y who—voluntarily—make these texts accessible to so many, to those who transcribe the texts that I dictate over the phone and then post them on Twitter, to those who send me thousands of emails from all over the world and call my house to tell me those things that my handicap as a surfer do not let me know. To all, happiness, luck and perseverance for 2010, which begins in a few days.
Enero 8th, 2010 at 02:23
Hmmm!
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 17:20
OK, ANYA! So we should take this “Frei Beto’s” information over more IMPORTANT AND WORLD RECOGNICED INSTITUTIONS AS THOSE BELOW? I DONT THINK SO! PLEASE REPOND!
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH REPORT (November 18, 2009)-New Castro, Same Cuba
“Dissidents are a small and significantly isolated segment of the population. However, their marginalization is evidence not of the lack of dissent in Cuba, but rather of the state’s ruthless efficiency in suppressing it. Fear permeates all aspects of dissidents’ lives. Some stop voicing their opinions and abandon their activities altogether; others continue to exercise their rights, but live in constant dread of being punished. Many more never express dissent to avoid reprisals. As human rights defender Rodolfo BartelemĂ Coba told Human Rights Watch in March 2009, “We live 24 hours a day ready to be detained.” Ten days after making that statement, BartelemĂ was arrested and taken to prison without trial, where he remains today.”
“The Cuban government has for years refused to recognize the legitimacy of independent human rights monitoring and has adamantly refused to allow international monitors, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and international nongovernmental organizations like Human Rights Watch, to visit the island and investigate human rights conditions. In researching this report, Human Rights Watch made repeated written requests to the RaĂşl Castro government for meetings with authorities and formal authorization to conduct a fact-finding mission to the island. As in the past, the Cuban government did not respond to any of our requests.”
http://www.hrw.org/en/node/86549/section/2
Reporters Without Borders: Going online in Cuba - Internet under surveillance
http://www.rsf.org/Going-onlin.....ernet.html
Reporters Without Borders:Authorities block websites, detain 26th journalist
http://www.rsf.org/Authorities.....etain.html
Human Rights Watch: Cuba’s Repressive Machinery:
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/.....-machinery
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 15:41
did castro buy cuba how much money did he pay to own the cuban people and to make them slaves put them in jail and then toture them.why we have let this situasion get out of control been that is so close to our nation,why does the cuban children has to suffer the consecuenses of this type of regime where in 50 years has not going any where.do we just dont care.
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 15:20
CUBA is a large pineaple grower,cuban people have never seen a pineaple.
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 15:18
WHAT it is going to take so the world can understand what castro has been doing for 50 years.this men is the saddam hussein of the caribbean.
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 15:16
CASTRO send young men to angola to war, send doctors to venezuela,teachers to russia,and everything that cuba produces from its own soil it is exported.
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 15:13
CHINA was sending tons of rice for free to cuba for the cuban people castro turned around and started to selling it to other friendly leftist country for dollars.cuba does not need help-the cuban people do.
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 15:00
Humberto, very odd that the Oregon church group would be denied entry to Cuba.
Judging from the group’s website, these are the types of well-intentioned but naive church-goers that the Castro regime usually goes out of its way to curry favor with.
“Cuba AyUUda is informed by mutuality and that concept is reflected in the name. Cuba ayuda literally means Cuba is helping or Cuba helps, but the word “help” doesn’t quite cover what Cubans give US Americans. I would suggest the word “transforms.” We also recognize that Cuba helps in Africa, South and Central America in its own unique way-exporting doctors instead of armaments; creating alliances and empowering through shared healthcare.”
http://www.cubaayuuda.net/site/client/welcome.php
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 13:26
- Articles
11/12/2009
Yoani Sanchez: between blogs and lies - The contradictions of Yoani
Frei Betto *
The world learned that, on 7 November last, the Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez have been struck on the streets of Havana. According to her account, “threw me in a car pulled … a role that one of them took and took it to his mouth. I was struck to return the document. Inside the car was Orlando (her husband), a key asset for karate … They struck me in the kidneys and the head so that I return the paper … We started on the street … A woman came up: “What happened?” “A kidnapping,” I replied. (www.desdecuba. com / generaciony)
Three days after the incident on the streets of Havana, Yoani Sánchez received into his house the foreign press. Fernando Ravsberg, the BBC, noted that, despite all the torture described by it, “there were no bruises, marks or scars” (BBC World, 9/11/2009). This was confirmed by the images of CNN. The France Press reported that she “was not injured.”
In the BBC interview, Yoani Sánchez said that the marks and bruises had disappeared (in just 48 hours), except the buttocks, “which unfortunately can not show.” Now why, in the same day of the alleged kidnapping, it showed through his blog, lots of pictures, as he claimed to have in other parts of the body?
There was disclosed that the attack occurred in daylight, in front of a bus “full of people.” Foreign correspondents in Cuba have not found so far only one witness. And her husband refused to speak to the press.
The alleged attack on the Cuban blogger deserved more prominence in the media that a hundred murders, disappearances and acts of violence of the dictatorship of Honduras Roberto Micheletti, since June 27.
Yoani Sánchez was born in 1975, graduated in philology in 2000 and two years later, “before the disenchantment and economic strangulation of Cuba”, as mentioned in the blog, he moved to Switzerland with his son Teo. He worked in publishing and taught Spanish.
In 2004, he left the Swiss haven to return to Cuba, which it describes as “immense ideological prison walls. States that did it for family reasons. Anyone who reads the blog is terrified of hell Cuban described by her. Yet again.
Could not have secured a better future for the son in Switzerland? Why is returned against the wishes of the mother? “My mother refused to admit that his daughter no longer lived in Switzerland and chocolate milk (her blog, 14/08/2007).
In fact, the case of Yoani Sanchez is not alone. Many Cuban exiles return to the country after they were confronted with the difficulties of adapting to foreign prejudices against blacks and mulattos, the language barrier, lack of jobs. They know that despite the difficulties that the country is experiencing, in Cuba there will have food, shelter, education and free medical care and security because the crime rates there are negligible compared to the rest of Latin America.
What Yoani Sánchez does not show in your blog is that in Switzerland, begged the Cuban diplomats the right to return, they had not found stable work. And you know that in Cuba it can devote full time to blog, it is the rare countries in the world in which unemployed do not go hungry or live in the open …
The funny thing is that it never showed on his blog as street children who roam Havana, beggars played on the sidewalks, the poor families under the bridges … Neither she nor the foreign correspondents, and even the tourists who visit the island. Because there do not exist.
If there is such a lack of freedom in Cuba, as can Yoani Sánchez, inside, issue such great reviews? It is said that in Cuba everything is controlled, including access to the internet?
Detail: the niche Generación Y Sánchez is highly sophisticated, with entries for Facebook and Twitter. Receives 14 million visits per month and is available in 18 languages! Neither the Department of the USA has such a variety of languages. Who pays for translators abroad? Who is paying the high cost of flow of 14 million hits?
Yoani Sanchez has every right to criticize Cuba and the government of his country. But only the naive believe that this is a simple blogger. Nor is the victim of security or justice in Cuba. So he invented the story of aggression. Insists that his lies become reality.
The resistance to the blockade of Cuba USAmerican, the fall of the Soviet boycott of the Western media, uncomfortable, and very. Especially when you know that Cuban volunteers are more than 70 countries working mainly as doctors and teachers.
Capitalism, which excludes 4 million human beings of their basic benefits, it is not even capable of withstanding the fact that 11 million people in a poor country to live with dignity and feeling mirrored in the healthy and happy Buena Vista Social Club.
* Writer, adviser movements —-
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 13:25
the rocks of the bottom of a river would like to navigate the bottom of the ocean and find freedom as well.
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 12:51
THE OREGONIAN ARTICLE: Cuban authorities send Portland church group back to Mexico
“”They said that never bothered the Cuban authorities before,” Rossio said. “They didn’t understand why that was a problem now.”
Rossio said e-mails from detainees indicated that Cuban authorities appeared to be expecting them and intercepted them as soon as they landed. Some of those detained were in their late 70s, and found it uncomfortable to sleep on the airport’s cold concrete floor. She said some Cubans not affiliated with the government offered help and tried to make detainees comfortable.”
http://www.oregonlive.com/news.....rtlan.html
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 12:49
MIAMI HERALD ARTICLE: U.S. envoys see American jailed in Cuba
U.S. diplomats were allowed to visit an American government contractor who has been held for more than three weeks.
““Today the U.S. Interests Section in Havana was granted access to the U.S. citizen detained Dec. 4,” said Virginia Staab, spokeswoman for the department’s Western Hemisphere Affairs section. “We remain focused on the welfare of the detained U.S. citizen.”
Staab declined to comment further, citing privacy restrictions. The two countries maintain Interests Sections in each other’s capitals in the absence of full U.S.-Cuba diplomatic relations.
Development Alternatives Inc., (DAI) a suburban Washington firm that manages an $8.6 million part of the U.S. government’s pro-democracy programs for Cuba, has identified the man as a DAI contractor working to help civil-society groups on the island.”
http://www.miamiherald.com/new.....01360.html
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 10:45
the cuban palms are crying for freedom.
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 10:43
the wall must come down the castros are no body,we are not afraid.
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 10:23
I do like very much the analogy in the article referred by Cita.
The analogy where they compare the regime to an abusive father.
This is the paternalism we have been talking about.
Our abusive father (Castro) does not want us to talk about the abuse and to keep it in the family. If we do talk then he will punish us like he has punished Yoani with not been allow to travel etc.
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 09:37
Let us all push a little harder to see if we can get rid of the wall
Let us make
2010 the year of FREEDOM!
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 09:35
One of Yoani’s tweets in Spanish
Una frase crĂptica y llena de premoniciones, recorre las calles cubanas en estos dĂas: ¡Ojalá 2010 sea el año que todos estamos esperando!
A cryptic phrase full of premonition, runs on Cuban streets these days:
“Wish 2010 will be the year we are all waiting for!”
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 08:50
all my friends are going to the maleconaso ,interesting.
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 08:47
pass the ball around everyone to the maleconaso first day of the new year.pasen la bola.
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 08:45
YA CUBA dejo que agentes de estados unidos hablaran con el americano detenido. CUBA granted the visit to the detainee in habana for passing out cellulars and lap tops.
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 08:42
the world needs to know that the cuban people are not divided,El mundo necesita saber que el pueblo de cuba no esta dividido.
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 08:39
PASS THE WORD AROUND. first of the year all cubans in cuba are going to the malecon of habana is going to be a peacefull demostration in dedication of the political prisioners is called the maleconaso.PASEN LA BOLA el primero del a~o todos los cubanos se reuniran en el malecon de la habana va a ver una manifestacion dedicada a los presos politicos se llamara el maleconaso.
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 08:33
Wow translator you have been very busy!!
Awesome job.
This is the least we all can do to help our brothers in Cuba. So that people everywhere can see and read what the Cuban regime really is.
People everywhere need to understand the nature of the beast.
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 01:03
Humberto and others –
Just go to the site, find a blog and entry you like, and start translating!!!! I will email you, Humberto, with more particulars for the hugely enthusiastic… but basically we just need a lot of people with a whole range of skills.
For example:
First cut — take the Spanish and put it into understandable English. This is a great job for Cubans, even if their English isn’t 100% (or even 75%!). Because they understand all the expressions and slang and so on. If you can’t think of the right word… explain it and put in a lot of question marks and just write out something like “this expression means if you can’t make it better don’t waste time worrying about it.”
Second cut — Others take it the next step… getting it close.
Last cut — someone with strong English grammar skills polishes it off and gets all the commas in the right place.
So really, anyone can help!
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 00:26
English Translator re: Translating Help,
WILL PUT MY CUBAN GUILT IN HIGH GEAR! Give me some more info on what is needed to be done, SIR (Senor?). Send it to my e-mail and I will gear up the troops!
Thanks COMANDANTE? GUSANO? What should I call you? I DONT KNOW!
Humberto
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 00:16
We are building up the Cooperative Translating Site and adding more blogs every day. We are going to try to include every alternative Cuban blogger on the island who blogs under their own name and who wants to be translated.
WE NEED A LOT OF HELP!!!!
The site is new and still has a few bugs… but they are getting worked out quickly.
Please help and ask your friends to help! If each person puts in just one or two hours a week… we can translate the world! (OK, just Cuba… but it’s a start.)
http://hemosoido.com/
THANKS!!!!!!!!
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 00:14
FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT! (Monty Python!)BUT NOT UNRELATED!
NY TIMES ARTICLE:Cuban Painter Carmen Herrera At 94, She’s the Hot New Thing in Painting
“Her good friend, the painter Tony Bechara, raised a glass. “We have a saying in Puerto Rico,” he said. “The bus — la guagua — always comes for those who wait.”
And the Cuban-born Ms. Herrera, laughing gustily, responded, “Well, Tony, I’ve been at the bus stop for 94 years!”
Since that first sale in 2004, collectors have avidly pursued Ms. Herrera, and her radiantly ascetic paintings have entered the permanent collections of institutions like the Museum of Modern Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and the Tate Modern. Last year, MoMA included her in a pantheon of Latin American artists on exhibition. And this summer, during a retrospective show in England, The Observer of London called Ms. Herrera the discovery of the decade, asking, “How can we have missed these beautiful compositions?””
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12......html?_r=1
Diciembre 29th, 2009 at 00:05
I thought the readers here might be interested in this article, although it is not about Cuba.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....c-religion
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 22:47
El B - Carta de PresentaciĂłn (NUEVO VIDEOCLIP)
Primer tema del album Viva Cuba Libre Hip Hop Cubano!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 22:28
THE MALECONASO CON- El B (Los Aldeanos) - La Naranja Se PicĂł HD
La Naranja se PicĂł - El B / Los Aldeanos Disco: El Atropello Written by Bian Oscar RodrĂguez Galá a.k.a El B y Aldo Roberto RodrĂguez Baquero a.k.a. AL2 / El Aldeano Composicion musical Aldo Ro…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....ure=autofb
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 22:24
THE MALECONASO CON- El B (Los Aldeanos) - La Naranja Se PicĂł HD
La Naranja se PicĂł - El B / Los Aldeanos Disco: El Atropello Written by Bian Oscar RodrĂguez Galá a.k.a El B y Aldo Roberto RodrĂguez Baquero a.k.a. AL2 / El Aldeano Composicion musical Aldo Ro…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..ure=autofb
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 21:47
i will be at the maleconaso.yo estare en el maleconaso.
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 21:45
the cuban people needs outside support to help them feel that they are not along please every one pass the word.first of january everyone to the malecon peacefull demostration the world needs to know that the cuban people are not divided.its going to be called the maleconaso.
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 21:40
ANONIMO #77 help pass the word.
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 21:28
good great plan lets pass the word (#74)
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 21:07
obama de acuerdo con la manifestacion.la apoyare como la de iran.
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 21:04
lo mejor que pueda pasar en cuba es el maleconaso .manifestacion a todo lo largo del malecon.esto va hacer una demostracion pacifica y sin violencia es para que el mundo vea que los cubanos no estan divididos.
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 20:41
every one to the malecon first of the year 2010, peacefull demostration,is called a maleconaso.
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 19:24
RE freedom of expression, it is all a matter of degrees, but no one can seriously argue that expression is as limited in the U. S. as it is or has ever been in any totalitarian country of the right or left variety. I’ll worry about who has more freedom of expression the day Cubans in Cuba are free to write and publish anything they want on any topic they wish.
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 19:05
NY TIMES: CARLOS VARELA Trying to Sway America’s Cuba Policy With Song
“Carlos Varela, often referred to as Cuba’s Bob Dylan, had come to remix an album with his good friend Jackson Browne. But he also hoped to help reshape relations between the United States and his homeland.
So before going to Hollywood to work on the album, he stopped in Washington early this month for meetings with legislators and a lunch with a senior White House official. Later he held a jam session in the House Budget Committee meeting room.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12.....9cuba.html
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 19:00
65
291RCR
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 12:09
Julio does it really matter if I am Cuban, live in Cuba, love Cuba, or am a visitor to Cuba as long as I keep an open mind to both sides? My position on freedom of expression it is in the mind of the beholder. You are of the impression you have freedom in the Empire I on the other hand believe very strongly your freedom is limited.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My impresion about 291rcr is that is a person with a very limited expression freedom…. each time he write something here it is directed to US internal situations…. he CAN’T write about the themes we handle here: Cuba’s thing…..
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 18:46
CUBAN HIP HOP VIDEO- El B (Los Aldeanos) - La Naranja Se PicĂł HD
La Naranja se PicĂł - El B / Los Aldeanos Disco: El Atropello Written by Bian Oscar RodrĂguez Galá a.k.a El B y Aldo Roberto RodrĂguez Baquero a.k.a. AL2 / El Aldeano Composicion musical Aldo Ro…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....ure=autofb
Thanks to Joel Garcia of the blog “Un Cubano en Canaria”
http://uncubanoencanarias.blog.....astro.html
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 16:05
every one should come out to the malecon in habana on the first of january 2010.it is called the maleconaso is a protest for the release of the politicals prisioners.
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 16:02
good afternoon.
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 14:56
YOANI,
HAPPY HOLIDAYS ->!!-> :)
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 12:41
291RCR
The only reason I ask if you are Cuban is because that does gives you inside knowledge that is never published anywhere. If you are only to read the Cuban regime propaganda then you are obviously handicap with regards to information about Cuba. As you know they intentionally hide the problems they have because “the claim that will help the enemy”.
Freedom of expression is intimately link to all this problems that Cuba have. No freedom of expression then no way to solve the problems. Open mind does help but you may always claim that I am tainted or one sided it. Because obviously I do not approve of the regime. So the only recurse you will have if for you to have your own experience with Cuba to know and to experience it. And see on your own what we talk about here.
Would you mind telling me how is my freedom limited on the “empire”?
and on a different topic what makes the US an “empire”?
I am sure you have noted already I am very open to opinions different than mine and make my best effort to understand anything you said.
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 12:09
Julio does it really matter if I am Cuban, live in Cuba, love Cuba, or am a visitor to Cuba as long as I keep an open mind to both sides? My position on freedom of expression it is in the mind of the beholder. You are of the impression you have freedom in the Empire I on the other hand believe very strongly your freedom is limited.
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 11:55
I do agree with Noam Chomski
“El intelectual estadounidense Noam Chomski expresĂł una idea que resulta esencial para abordar este tema: “Si no creemos en la libertad de expresiĂłn para la gente que despreciamos, no creemos en ella para nada”. Lo contrario es pura demagogia.”
my free translation
“The american intellectual Noam Chomski mentioned that it was essential (talking about freedom) ” If we do not believe in freedom of expression for the people we despise, then we do not believe really on freedom of expression at all”. Anything else is just pure demagogy.”
this is equivalent to
Votaire’s
“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
that we have mentioned multiple times here.
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 11:48
This post by Ravsberg is awesome!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/mun.....ocado.html
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 10:38
Yes freedom of expression is a different issue than racism. But is an item very important in the solution to problems since without it problems in any society can not be seen. So how would we know about all the problems with racism in Cuban society if we do not let those people that suffer it talk?
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 10:34
Ok 291rcr is difficult to understand what your position is.
Are you saying that freedom of expression in Cuba is not so? That there is no freedom of expression in Cuba? that is what I undertood by this part
“As far a Cuba expression of one self maybe suspect”
as for the comparisons again I have admitted that there is racism still in this country but your claim is that there is more racism here than in Cuba and mine is the other way around.
May I asked, Are you Cuban? or have you lived in Cuba for a long period of time?
Please be honest.
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 10:17
Julio I did not intend to respond but since I am not doing anything and you have brought up so many items I will attempt to give some food for thought. Freedom of expression and discrimination are two different topics, as far a freedom stay silent and listen do you really have freedom of speech. Let me remind you of a one time blogger to this web site who attempted to teach at Boston University only to be fired. Secondly I was listening to a radio talk show featuring the Boy Chief of England who said he had to watch what he said in America as the Corporate World would have him censored. As far as discrimination take a look in the Empires’ real world the Pentagon the Banks and Corporate America and explain the White factor to me. As far a Cuba expression of one self maybe suspect(look at the Arts) I do fullly believe discriminations is not as rapant as in the Empire. Julio thanks for listing.
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 09:53
Cita thank for the article
here is the full link to article you refer
It is amazing to see how similar is the communist party every where.
“For Eastern Europeans the reign of the Communist Party was the period when one party severely restricted all fundamental rights and freedoms. It was also the period of “scientific Marxism”, when only one point of view was acknowledged, which was owned by a group of well-organized people that had the capacity to prevent any other or different thought about anything at any time. Besides, they were convinced that only they knew what the people want, so they actively enlightened the “masses” and cultivated the “terrain”. To have been part of such a society meant – as regards the mutual dynamics and atmosphere – exactly the same as living in a violent, abuse-plagued family. The children in such a family are assigned subordinate places. They show their subordination by being quiet, humble, not mentioning particular things, not accusing anybody; the scope of their words is strictly limited.
Concealed things are very bad. They are avoided like big black holes, on tiptoes. Everyone pretends there’s nothing there, that everything is all right … Those who decide to break the silence and tell the truth have to have a lot of courage. ”
this gives more light into what we are saying
http://www.institut-nr.si/inde.....uknjo.html
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 07:10
Dear Yoani!
I am sending to you an article by a Slovenian journalist Alenka Puhar. She is clever,honest and brave, she is like your older sister.Yoani, Alenka and many others:you have the courage to witness for truth.
Alenka co-authored a film about Angela Vode, a woman terribly persecuted by communists.When asked why she did the film (and also published Angela’s Hidden Memories)Alenka said: Because the story is bitter, because it shows deep belief in discovering the truth,because it is an homage to people with high ethical principles, because it shows that there’s no tear shed in vain. Because it shows that evil does not prevail.
The moral of Angela’s story is important.People will see that her suffering means catharsis and bears witness about our time.
Alenka’s article is here:
http://www.institut-nr.si/inde.....onference/
Diciembre 28th, 2009 at 05:24
New names for the old practices & sterotypes.
The can be from “culture” from idea, form practice; from the begining of time perhaps.
Supported by bibles, old … old catholic dogma and present day unadulterated bigotry.
Yes we are different one to the other as individuals, but we are all from the same from the same world.
I think we need to look inside ourselves, we must decide & choose how to “be” daily.
We’ll fail along the way, perhaps more times than not we’ll succeed in being good to one another.
Some things may never change because our human condition yet … we can discipline ourselves with a simple principle put into practice: “do on to others as you’ll like done onto yourself”
Is a choice, plain and simple, make it or not … that is the hard part!
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 22:02
CUBA IS NEXT!
In pictures: Tehran clashes
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/8431649.stm
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 21:43
I just saw it
7 women out of 30 and all white!
Out of 30 it should be around 15 women since in any population the ratio between women and men are basically around 50 percent so to be representative there should be around 15 women. There is 8 of them that men are taken the place for them!
Why?
Funny look at Yoany ? look at Claudia, Laritza and many other female bloggers. We can see our women are very very talented and very very smart. Without regards to race. So why is the composition of the hierarchy so uneven?
Is got a name
Racism, and Sex discrimination!
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 21:32
forgot to mentioned as we talk about race discrimination, How about sex discrimination?
What percent of the Cuban regime hierarchy are women?
women should be around 50 percent, do you think they get near that?
HEFA do we know how many women they have?
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 21:24
So 291rcr
Are do you now understand what we are talking about or are you just basically disappear because we have presented you with arguments to strong to refute?
Just remember the stronger argument that we have is
that in the US because is a free society we are free to present and discuss problems we have like racism, poverty , health etc
But in Cuba discussing many of this topics and been critical may be consider treason!
Or you may be consider making enemy propaganda or whatever they will tell you to make you fear and not tell about the realities of every day. So in a society like that problems can not be solve.
See that is the explanation of why they are such a big economical failure.
Nobody can tell Castro he is wrong. Who will dare?
As I have mentioned before there is no way to solve a problem if you do not know you have a problem.
The Cuban leadership does have the syndrome of the ostrich where they buried their head in the sand to not see all the problems they have.
Do you think this economical problems of Cuba just landed on their lap now?
They know about them for a long time. But they have not solve them. It is possible to solve them but they did not. They have fail. They are totally inept and they have only themselves to blame for it.
Nobody is perfect. To recognize ones mistakes are the best thing one can do because otherwise one could never improve. The Cuban regime has made many errors and the worst is that it has not learn from them. Or maybe the learning they took from it is the incorrect one.
Unfortunately for us Cubans we have not been able to elect other better choices to the Cuban presidency. Because as you know the current regime absolutely controls the government and only allow for them been the elected officials.
See, the way we see this is that there is no real incentive for them to solve the problems Cuba have because their interest are different. Their interest is how to perpetuate themselves in power. Not how to feed poor Cubans. If that was their objective they would have done it.
It is just but recently that in one of Raul Castro speeches he was talking about providing milk for kids older than 7. To think that they created all this problems themselves!
It has been 50 years of disorganization, of abuse, of corruption. Its too much. A government like that is not a government.
Even now you can see for example Yoani pointing at errors and problems in Cuban society. Do you think they try to solve them?
NO, what they do is to try to attack and discredit the messenger. If they were really honest. They should respond to Yoani’s question and they should try to provide solutions to problems but you see with what they have done so far they just show they do not care about the problems. Not even to solve them.
I guess I keep repeating myself to see if someone in the Cuban regime gets the message. But nobody seems to be listening.
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 20:33
Yeah! What he said! and double for me!
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 20:29
RE 49 Humberto
I want you on my team, too. We share more than ideas.
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 20:28
RE 48 Andy
You’ve hit the Marxist nail on the head with the proverbial hammer–the fact that the Castros have managed to stay white in a country where a person “si not tiene de Congo, tiene de Carabali” tells it all. For all their social justice ranting and frothing at the mouth much to the delight of the likes of Exile, the Castros will go down in history as upper-class Bourgeoisie who simply do not in their personal life mix blood with those not like them. History will “absorb” very one of them.
Happy New Year to everyone!
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 20:14
This is why I want HEFA on my team!
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 20:09
Wow HEFA… thanks for the statistics. I look at the photos of the leadership every now and then and note the sea of white faces at the top (ok, being the top and all you might say the little puddle of white faces)… but never really tracked the ocean of whiteness all the way down to the provincial level.
As a member of an extremely mixed family, ethnically and racially, I’m here to tell you that racism is alive everywhere. But, you all are right. In the US we are far from eradicating it, but most of us don’t try to pretend it doesn’t exist.
And to echo HEFA’s implied comment about the Castro children and their families… when people (many years ago) castigated me for jumping the color line… and even accused me of some kind of reverse racism… I would point out: in a society were say 25 or 30% of the people around you are of some other race or ethnicity, wouldn’t “natural selection” mean that 25-30% of the people would mate across racial/ethnic lines? If only 5-10% do so, (or fewer) then people must be consciously excluding people of other races and ethnicities from those they consider acceptable partners.
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 19:31
RE 34 291rcr
One can say that racism in Cuba is worse than in the U.S. for a number of easily understood reasons and deliciously obvious empirical facts. It is recognized that racism plagues the U.S. despite much progress in this insipid social ill, however, in the U. S. we are free to discuss it and attempt ways to eradicate it. We recognize it is something that is here and must be addressed. In Cuba, on the other hand, racism is denied by the government that supposedly eradicated it–Cuba, they say, is a paradise of egalitarianism and social justice. The racism and discrimination based on gender that was prevalent in Cuba pre-1959 no longer exists, they say.
Well, pardon me while I stop laughing before I go on…
Despite the fact that the black and mulatto population in Cuba is far greater than the white, Castro’s government is and has always been one exclusive white male club.
Just look at the roster of the Council of Ministers–all but one are white–of well over 30 ministers there is only one black man–stereotypically, he is the minister of sport and physical education.
There are only 7 women, all white.
Every single member of the Council of State is a white man.
Certainly, 292rcr, The Revolution can do better than that, don’t you think? Or isn’t there more than 1 qualified black man in Cuba for the Council of Ministers?
Oh, at the provincial level, things are worse…every single president of the provincial assemblies is a white male.
The Castros are the proverbial racist upper-class white family–not a single one of them (Fidel, Raul, Emma, Juanita, etc, etc) has married a person other than a white one and not a single child of the Castro clan has either. Hmmmm….very inclusive…
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 19:11
291rcr
I will said is a lot of racism filling in the U.S and I will go a little farther
It is going both way , some whites practice to be racism again any thing that is not Anglo and some afro-Americans are racist again any thing that is no pure afro-Americans . Ex: the last election where you got gays Afro-American guys seeing that Barack Obama was not black enough to be call afro-American, and others like William Clinton calling himself the first afro-American president .
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 16:12
Andy,
It’s a bio of Fidel who could never be concise! Guess he is staying true to the man (and I use this term loosely!)
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 16:02
About Fuentes, “Autobiography of Fidel Castro”
I got it out of the library and have started reading it… but so far… it’s like reading Fidel (ok it’s obvious it’s NOT Fidel but)… it goes on and on and on and on and on… I can’t get through it! Just like Fidel… it expands what could fit in one decent sentence into 4 or 5 pages…
I’d love to hear from someone else who is reading or has read it. Does it get any better? Move any faster?
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 14:58
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE BOOK REVIEW: The Autobiography of Fidel Castro
By Norberto Fuentes; translated by Anna Kushner
“Fuentes captures much of Castro, balancing the brilliant with the despotic. After all, he knows his man, having formerly been a Fidel literary favorite, along with Gabriel GarcĂa Márquez. Like the Colombian Nobelist, Fuentes is fascinated by Latin American strongmen - and their enemies. (It has been rumored in Miami circles that Fuentes has also spent time with Luis Posada Carriles, Castro’s would-be assassin of many decades.)”
“The continuous play between fact and fiction in the book is nicely augmented by the historic photographs that stud the text. Quite fittingly, it concludes with a 1986 photograph of Castro, his arm draped along the shoulder of a suited-up Fuentes, enjoying a whispered confidence from the writer cum courtier. Perhaps one man the comandante-en-jefe should not have trusted.
It was inevitable that Castro would seek to have the last word, but Norberto Fuentes may have trumped him.”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....1B6H5L.DTL
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 09:45
I HAD POSTED THESE IN PREVIOUS BLOGS AND THOUGHT THEY WOULD CLARIFY JULIO’S POINT. CARLOS MOORE’S INTERVIEW IS VERY RIVETING ON THIS SUBJECT.
NEW AMERICA MEDIA ARTICLE: â€Obama Effect’ Highlights Racism in Cuba
“The European Union recently dispatched anthropologists to study racism in Cuba. Their findings were shocking: Not only was racism alive and well in the workers’ paradise, but it was systemic and institutional. Blacks were systematically excluded from positions that involved coming in contact with foreign tourists (where they could earn tips in hard currencies), they were relegated to poor housing, complained of the longest waits for healthcare, were excluded from managerial positions, received the lowest remittances from relatives abroad, and were five times more likely to be imprisoned.
The report, “Race and Inequality in Cuba Today,” by Rodrigo Espina and Pablo Rodriguez Ruiz, published in the anthropological journal TEMAS in 2006, infuriated Cuban officials.”
http://news.newamericamedia.or.....d170243f0f
MIAMI HERALD ARTICLE: y the delayed outcry?
“For Cuba’s blacks, the humiliation is double. They are not allowed to stay in hotels reserved for foreigners, and the new slave masters seldom hire them to work in their exclusive installations.
Apart from former U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek, a champion of good causes who has always been at the forefront defending all Cubans, or former Miami-Dade County Commissioner Betty Ferguson, most of the signers have been too long under Castro’s wicked spell. Former political prisoner Luis Infante pointed out that for years, sponsored by white Cuban exiles, black Cubans like himself have called upon the Black Caucus in Congress, the NAACP and even Al Sharpton — to no avail. Among the Afro-Cubans whose wrenching stories, told by white exiles for decades, have fallen on deaf ears in this country:”
http://www.miamiherald.com/opi.....89540.html
CUBAN WRITER CARLOS MOORE EXPLAINS RACISM IN CUBA.
“Moore:”There were 526 organizations in Cuba; he banned them. He started banning all of Black organizations, which had come out of slavery, and he started attacking the Black religions, African religions. He said they were primitive. So we said, “There’s something wrong… here, so we must talk to him, we must explain to him what race is, because he’s not understanding.”"
http://www.pbs.org/kcet/taviss.....moore.html
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 09:25
There’s rumors that binladen is in Cuba!!
Does anyone have any more info??
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 09:16
There is a blog at BBC from Fernando
Fernando Ravsberg
the articles are very interesting the only problem is they are in spanish
The majority of them describe the Cuban reality
very different from the fiction and myth described by the Cuban media.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/mun....._ravsberg/
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 08:43
mean to say son of big daddy
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 07:14
Not sure if you guys remember the post I made before about the Granma article from Barredo in the article he was talking about the paternalism by the Cuban regime and how they have to or they want to get rid of it.
Here is a post related to that
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/mun.....ueblo.html
Use Google translate if you can not read Spanish
this is the Granma article
http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/2.....tic03.html
He is paternalist, you are paternalist, I am paternalist
In that article Barredo enumerated a few syndromes that he accuses the Cuban people to have. On the other hand the response article I pointed above responds with a collection of syndromes the hierarchy in Cuba have.
Like
* “Syndrome of Tourist” Were he mention about the gratuities enjoyed by people like Barredo of staying in luxury hotels in Cayo Coco where he has seen them vacationing!!
* The “syndrome of song of big daddy” where the sons of big daddy (people in high position) only sign when they have to enter a place as if they own the place.
* The “syndrome of the travelling manager” So that they sent people that know what to really buy for Cubas need and do not buy machines to clean snow for Cuba :-) Or to have warehouses full of equipment that can’t not be use!
You see that is how they have miss manage Cuban economy. It has nothing to do with embargo etc. But you will mentioned any of above and they will tell you this is the enemy propaganda!
While the normal people, the Cubans that do not have any of this privileges will have to suffer the consequences! They will have to tight their belts more!
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 07:07
HAPPY NEW YEAR AMIGOS!! ;)
http://www.djxoxo.com/2009/12/blog-post.html
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 06:29
291rcr
I will not say there is no racism in the US because it will not be true. But you do have to recognize that there is a huge advance with regards to race discrimination in this country. As for Cuba let us compare statistical information and see on both countries how many people are in management position etc. How many in prison, percentage wise etc. I can only tell what I have seen on both systems. I have lived about the same amount of time on both so I do have a unique perspective.
See 291rcr in the US we can recognize such things as racisms. They are mistakes we as a society make and we should improve and eliminate it. I will give you one form of racism. When people from Latin america migrate to this country illegally and they are allow to work and once we do not need them any more they are deported back.
But you see, there is a big difference with regards to Cuba. Fidel Castro said that there was no racism in Cuba. Do you think racism magically disappear just because he said so? Do not make me laugh!
In a society where you can not even mention problems because you will be place in prison or punished harshly then tell me how will you know that you have them?
The first step to solve problems is to know that you have them.
Tell me do you think that many black american intellectuals will sign a letter about racism in Cuba just because they hate the regime? Would you believe that? is that the propaganda spin from the regime these days?
I wonder how would they explained a black president in the United States to black Cubans? How will that be consistent with what they have been telling them about this country be such a racist country?
The reality is a lot more complex. Yes there are parts in this country that there is more racism than others, Yes there is racism, but we have advance a lot comparing to years ago. Have we not?
I have many black american friends that live thru the segregation period and they tell me how this country was before and I can see how is now. But here nobody make people change magically with just a few words. You can never do that. People will change over time.
As for other statements you said I had made that you like more explanation please let me know to what statements you are referring and I will recognize my mistake if I believe you are right. Do explain to me why do you think I am wrong so that we can debate it.
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 01:45
A very happy 2010 to you too, Yoani, and to your tireless translators. May unexpected good luck come to all of you.
Diciembre 27th, 2009 at 00:48
CUBA = INFERNO Circle 8
CUBA PRISONS = INFERNO Circle 9
http://www.djxoxo.com/2009/12/.....co_26.html
Diciembre 26th, 2009 at 21:44
Julio Julio Julio!!! At one time I thought you knew what you wrote but after the last few blogs and especially your statement “there is a lot more racism in Cuba than in the US” I have lost all respect for your blogs. Maybe it is you live in the forest and cannot see the trees. Have you ever wonder why the white establishment enlist poor blacks to fight there wars? Why is there in the southern states two types of living communities one for the wealthy whites and one for the poor blacks? Maybe I should have included a third the disenfranchised whites. What 2009 has shown us is the 90/10 ratio and I am sure you understand that. I hope you do!!!!
Diciembre 26th, 2009 at 19:56
Andy, when we were coming to the US I remember I saw some blacks very few at the interest section. And someone there approached me. I think they thought I was Cuban american and asked me if there was any racism in this country (US). You see Castros propaganda have always been that this country is a very racist country. I basically remember telling the guys that it was probably regime propaganda but that I was Cuban just like him. Later I found that I was right. It was propaganda. I know now there is a lot more racism in Cuba than in the US.
I am sure many of them know now by the election of the first African american president that it was all government propaganda.
As for entrepreneurship is not only deeply ingrained it is totally natural for Cubans. So change to a market economy will be painless because they have done it using the black market all this time. Nothing new for them.
The Regime has been placing brakes on the normal economy that is the black market economy.
They need to open that up and they will be force to do it otherwise they will starve people to death.
The reality is that many of the food the currently buy could be efficiently produce in Cuba using Cubans labor. But they just need to get over the fact that a Cuban could be the owner.
Now if they do that and they allow for that then who needs them?
That will violate the communist principle of allowing a capitalist to hired people and take appropriation of the capital gain and contribute part of the gain in taxes paid to the state.
As they used to say back in cuba “el ojo del amo, engorda el caballo”
That is something like the eye of the master, fattens the horse.
They eliminated the rich, They are the ones the take risk with their money to produce capital and pay taxes. Without the rich there can never be a Robin Hood.
Robin Hood can never take money from the poor because they do not have it. And as you have seen that’s what the Cuban regime does when they take 20 percent of the money we sent to Cuba. They steal money from the very poor they rule! or when they charge exorbitant prices for thing that cost much less in any other place as we know they do.
They have shoot themselves in the foot. By eliminating the rich. Following the Marxist doctrine. Now every one is really very very poor. The promise was to increase gradually everyone’s well being. Now they can not even pay for their survival.
Diciembre 26th, 2009 at 17:05
Most of the PALADAR is the Cubans ways the free market, the Castros had trying to control the Cuban free market (black market) but always fail at the end . The Castros try to impost Socialist and they got sociolist, They try to impost Co-operatives and the production of food fell down, they are dependent of what Chaves give them . Like they were with the Russians .
Diciembre 26th, 2009 at 16:46
Andy what I mean is the business enterprise is root so deep in the Cubans society , before I left Cuba on 1989 every time Castro wanted to blame someone for corruption he put on jail some of this gays and blame them for the economic problems, the were call the MASETAS . If I don’t recall bad in 1984 was one of those famous pickup from the police that they call plan MASETAS. most of the people that they put on jail . Was for doing things that they are legal in any other country. (like making shoes, from recycling auto tires)
Diciembre 26th, 2009 at 16:21
Yes that really long comment is me… I didn’t put in my email correctly so my little avatar didn’t show up
Diciembre 26th, 2009 at 16:20
re E de la Yncera — I was thinking about this the other day… I think I was out buying the last of my Christmas presents… and really… this gives me great hope. (”This” = all the black market activity based in “stealing” from government enterprises. And in this case, what is taken can be physical goods, or time… the time of the street repair crew, for example, which is not repairing the street but laying an illegal satellite TV cable… the use of a vehicle when it is not being used for other things. And if I can digress a bit more… how sad the gov’t is spending millions on GPS and seat sensors and crap… all bought from abroad… when they money could be used to improve the lives of people.)
The reality is, “free” education and “free” healthcare and a ration book that feeds you for about 10 days… plus as much as $20 a month EXTRA (wowsers! how do Cuban’s STAND so much abundance) = starvation. The people who are living on this and nothing else are the emaciated bodies you see slumped in the street.
So add to that: #1 remittances. (An interesting thing we haven’t talked about here is the racial disparity of remittances, based on the racial make up of the exiles/escapees. I.e. black Cubans are much less likely to be receiving remittances.)
So anyway — those with remittances have money to spend… in dollar stores… where it only goes so far, and in the “black market” where, you might say, it might partially redistribute remittance wealth to Cubans who don’t receive money from abroad.
And add to that: #2 the black market. Of course the black market isn’t just one thing — it can be a cake baked with state ingredients but sold out the back door, or it can be fish caught from the sea, ’stolen’ from nobody, or privately grown vegetables, or labor or whatever.
Alas, I cannot insert graphics here, but it’s easy to imagine a little graphic with the state enterprises… and take some particular state enterprise that is actually functioning at a loss. Is it functioning at a loss because of what is walking out the back door?
I would argue no. I would argue any portion of that enterprise that is under state control is going to be badly managed and function at a loss.
So if we make a pie chart that represents the enterprise… let’s say half goes out the back door. We can then trace that half and show how it contributes to a vibrant economy that actually benefits people. While the other half is a rat hole down which the state pours money — transferred from the few state enterprises that make any.
If we take that same state enterprise and stop all the back door activity — it now becomes a rat hole of twice the size, needing more and more subsidies to keep going.
BUT… if we take that state enterprise and manage to get say 80% going out the back door, the rat hole shrinks, and less money is lost! Because the employees who ’steal’ can make that enterprise (the resources of it, that is) function tons more effectively than the state can.
Two lessons –
Lesson A — someone needs to write a case study for the Harvard Business School — maybe I’ll volunteer.
Lesson B — entrepreneurship is so deeply ingrained in Cuban society already… the real post-biological-solution challenge will be changing the culture to block what might be the otherwise inevitable takeover of all this entrepreneurial energy by organized crime (for example Telesur or whatever the so-called tourist services operated by the military are called).
Diciembre 26th, 2009 at 15:07
Hello, this is all quite new to me, so forgive me if I seem clumsy:
I have been watching and observing the conversation here. I have not wanted to comment, but now I feel that I must. Let us pray and hope that 2010 is better than 2009. Un abrazo muy fuerte a todos ustedes, I really hope for a change. And if I were to go to Cuba, where would I go? A beach resort? Why? I know that the money I might spend there would go to the Castro Brothers, who imprison innocent people for having ideas they don’t like. That seems wrong to me. So, I chose not to go there, and I tell my friends the same thing. Besos, Esmeralda
Diciembre 26th, 2009 at 13:00
Thank you for all your efforts. May the New Year really be a New Year, for all of Cuba.
Diciembre 26th, 2009 at 11:12
It seems the last salvos of the year get sharper and stronger one than to the last …
As Chrismas (or whatever you choose to call it) still is the push of hope to our next year; the limitless dreams, the hopes for salvation from that what hunts us … hope in the possible redemtion for the things we’ve done & regret …
Happiness to know than someone loves us & we can reciprocate … & then we start a new year again.
This is a special time, in whatever form we choose to feel about it and with what we want.
I like to remember:
the fallen, the lost, the forgoten, the hurting, the lone ones, the discriminated … I like to remeber my patria, my soul & the soul of my parents …
my friends & everything … my life is … thanks to freedom, thanks to My Lord Jesus … thanks to God …
… Padre nuestro que estas en los cielos, santifcado sea el tu nombre …
Viva Cuba …
Diciembre 26th, 2009 at 10:12
Hank,
while there is some relation between the Global economic downturn and the situation for the Cuban regime. Because of their bad planning and living of every money they get without saving for the rainy day the great majority of the big failure we are witnessing have more to do with the way the Cuban economy was designed to work.
Whatever happen to the 5 years plan etc could they not predict this?
As we have mentioned before I think it was Andy who mentioned there is no planned economies only planned disasters. There is a reason why the majority of the countries do have market economies. Let the market (the people) automatically decide what is the best choice economically. Democracy of the economy!
This economic situation have been also compounded by the hurricanes.
There will not be soft landing of the economy but a hard crash.
It is interesting to notice and see the difference between economic downturns on capitalist countries. Like US compare to Cuba!
Diciembre 26th, 2009 at 09:57
A taxi driver will have weight sensors in the seats to detect when carrying passengers, which despite being ridiculed and keep the money of the trip.
A few days ago had the car at the mechanic and had to take a taxi, I asked him how much I charged and said “it depends, do you want with a meter or arrangement between us?”.
We agreed a price, “can sit back later, my partner, but I have to put the meter”. Then I became interested in knowing why and told me that they have weight sensors in every seat “to detect when someone assemble.
Yet somehow the cunning and creativity Cuban got the front seat “no snitch” to the passenger so the money from all the races in which a person is traveling to the driver.
But the state is trying to control their vast properties. Fidel Castro himself announced the installation of GPS in all trucks in the country to know the routes that pass.
“It is true that the trucks used for particular work but should also tell us who we spare parts (batteries, tires, etc.) that the State is not,” he says one driver.
The business of buses
The bus drivers of the centers used for tourist vehicles pocketing the profits.
Most of the buses which move in Havana’s public transport are not but belong to companies that use them twice a day to transport personnel to and from the workplace.
These buses are free to test so I got on one. Just got the driver told me “with the battle of ideas ahead,” I stared at him without understanding the political slogan that came true to this morning.
“Let him pay,” he says impatiently a person coming up behind me. Remove weight and gave it, did not return anything or complained that not enough so I never knew it as the ticket. That is one source of income for these drivers but not the only one.
Inquiring around, I learned that weekends are for Cuban tour, go to Varadero, Trinidad and Vinales.
A great business if you consider that the cost of the bus, and diesel maintenance is spent on the trip is paid by the state while all proceeds from tickets go to the driver’s pocket.
A few days ago I went looking for a family of my wife the interprovincial bus station, I found suffocated by the heat, made all the way from Pinar del Rio on a bus completely closed and no air conditioning.
Was broken, I asked and I said no, the driver occasionally lit it to cool but then again turn off “oil-saving insurance that you can then resell on the street”.
The new cooperatives
Many businesses in the state to engage in private work share the profits. In the bakeries, for example, make cookies, candies and cakes to sell on the black market.
Anyone would think that transportation was out of control the government and would not be further from the truth but it would be halfway to what actually happens throughout the country.
A very good friend of mine works in a company coiling Marianao engines have a small building where a dozen people allegedly laboratory for the State, which theoretically should supply them with inputs.
However, the reality is that almost never send them to the wire coils so my friend and his companions bought on the black market. With his service engines and are divided among themselves the benefits.
In the facts have become a state enterprise into a highly profitable cooperative, taking into account that do not pay office rent, water or electricity and even the machinery used gave it for free.
The State responds with inspectors, but these are purchased by counterfeiters to what is already required to create new bodies of inspectors to detect corrupt inspectors.
The new government of RaĂşl Castro appears to have many choices, keep fighting against the current or accept the country you are born alone and try to prosecute him, ordered and focused towards the collective benefit through licensing, taxes and other charges.
At the end of the day, if the state decides to legalize other forms of property, it would only be an exercise in realism because anyone can see that in many industries production facilities are already changing hands.
________________________________________________________________
If you want to know more about life on the island, we invite you to also see and hear
“Five people, five stories”, A tour of the provinces of Granma, CamagĂĽey, Villa Clara, Matanzas and Pinar del Rio, with which we try to compose a small mosaic of life in Cuba. (Click the title of the miniseries to enter).
Diciembre 26th, 2009 at 05:55
This other article is an example of how the regime has tried to control the Cuban informal economy
Placing gps and sensors on the seats of taxis to be able to control people so that they will have to give the money earn back to the government but to no avail. Cubans always find a way to skim from the top. So as it turns out as I was saying
the Castros wanted socialismo but cubans got in mind something else!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/spanish/s.....age6.shtml
Diciembre 26th, 2009 at 05:41
This is about the Cuban reality
http://www.bbc.co.uk/spanish/s.....age2.shtml
Considering that the majority of Cubans can not really survive with the 15 to 20 dollars a month. They have been surviving with what they can steal from the regime.
Even if the regime is able to pay them the 15 to 20 dollars a month something I doubt will happen they may not be able to survive economically.
As for all the “free” things (like education and health) they will have to cut even more on those things. As Castro himself pointed on one of the speeches
“they can not give what they do not have”.
The ISA protest we seen on video is the prelude to the larger protests that will possible bring down the regime.
Socialist Utopia will be coming down and will be time for them to wake up to the new reality. Is possible the Castros will try to hold on to power a little longer. If they do, they may use force against their own people.
If they do the regime will be totally doomed. The best thing they could do is to quickly engage in talks with the US government. They will need to abandon all pretensions and Release all political prisoners and allow free elections.
Freedom is the goal, Freedom from the totalitarian regime.
Diciembre 26th, 2009 at 02:38
Hank… I’m liking it!
I’ve also thought about having multiple versions of some of the main characters
I think this show is going to be so complex it might have to happen in stage left, center and right, all at the same time…
or it might just have to be a huge carnival with multiple stages
It could follow people or threads… like the stage of fidel’s life
OR… it could follow events and time periods… like the 1970s
In the latter case, we’d need multiple actors for the same person.
but for now.. I think you’ve nailed Fidel and raul perfectly!
Diciembre 26th, 2009 at 02:22
Casting call for the Musical:
Andy,
I think Fidel should be played by an openly gay, outright homosexual male on a white horse. With a gun and spurs. Maybe even a hat, like a cowboy. The hat could even have lighted sparklers, the possibilities are endless…
As for Raul, not sure yet — maybe a really ugly and scary dominatrix with a whip dressed in black leather. Just an idea. Work with me.
Others, please add your views. This a collaborative musical.
Diciembre 26th, 2009 at 01:06
From Hank: “Maybe the silver lining of the global economic crisis will be the fall and ultimate demise of the Cuban dictatorship…Tourism down, nickel price down. And nobody wants tobacco or sugar anymore.”
Silver linings… I’m big into silver linings. And I’d like to think the current global economic crisis might be married to the long hoped for biological solution to create a silver lining from an awful big damn cloud. (The cloud’s initials are FCR)
Meaning: perhaps if things weren’t so completely bad and hopeless in Cuba… in every single respect… the biological “solution” would solve nothing because the “true believers” (aka the biggest fattest of all the liars) would find a way to hang on. But it’s really inconceivable. Inconceivable that when biology, the good lord (how long, lord, how long?), the prince of darkness, or WHOMEVER comes along and removes the old nag from the scene, that ANYONE could make a case, a supportable, implementable case for one more day of the misery that is the government and economy and Cuba.
So… there isn’t much silver, lining or otherwise, in the current global crisis for ANYONE… but this would be one.
Diciembre 25th, 2009 at 23:26
Julio,
Thank you for your analysis. I hope you are right.
Maybe the silver lining of the global economic crisis will be the fall and ultimate demise of the Cuban dictatorship. This coming year, 2010. Perhaps. Ironic if you pause for a moment to think about it.
It is impossible to exist completely isolated in the world. This fact, as much as they may try to deny it, is what will end them.
Tourism down, nickel price down. And nobody wants tobacco or sugar anymore. What’s a dictator to do? [expression borrowed from Andy who is brilliant]
Fidel’s insanity has ultimately been shown for what it is — a textbook example of failure and disgrace. So maybe he will one day be a footnote in history, and nothing more, thrown into the trash bin of has-been megalomaniacs who managed to oppress an entire nation of 11 million people and their unfortunate descendants living abroad.*
I am listening to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons this evening. What a beautiful work of magnificent art.
*Fidel Castro - aka - Dictator of Cuba 1959-2010, now extinct and dead (thank God). Classic example of what you should not be. Epitomy of Evil, murderer, oppressor of people, ideas, freedom and all that is right - Lest we forget. That’s your legacy Fidel. You are free to Go, exit stage left, and don’t come back. You won’t be missed.
Diciembre 25th, 2009 at 21:27
other good onehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-1w-THK-K0&feature=related
Diciembre 25th, 2009 at 20:52
a good corto to see from Eduardo del Llano:
http://unbustoparahernandez.wo.....del-llano/
Diciembre 25th, 2009 at 20:14
Ok, here is my quick analysis of what will happen in Cuba.
More than 50 percent to 60 percent maybe even as high as 70 percent of the people currently employ by the Cuban government will loose their job.
The Cuban regime will be force to legalize all the economical activities that were illegal before. Still a large number of the population will remain out of a job.
Large discontent by the population may force the regime or whatever remains to open up the country and let the real popular reform process take place.
We should be ready to help our brothers because the situation will be hard for them
since the regime does not have any social safety net to take care of such large numbers of unemployed people.
The Cuban government may try one of their know trick of letting people unhappy with the system migrate illegally to the US in order to save themselves from implosion.
This change may happen very quick within 1 to 3 month up to a year but one thing seems to be certain. It will happen.
2010 will be the year of FREEDOM.
Diciembre 25th, 2009 at 19:10
can you delete the anonimo post before mine, my mistake!
Diciembre 25th, 2009 at 19:09
MERCO PRESS ARTICLE:Newsweek predicts death of Fidel Castro and coup in Venezuela
Next year will see the death of the veteran Cuban leader Fidel Castro and the fall of Venezuelan President following a coup, according to the predictions from the latest edition of US magazine Newsweek.
“For Fidel Castro it seems it will be his last year on this earth” forecasts Newsweek.
Following the death of the historic leader of the Cuban revolution, there will be room to help transform the island “but it will not happen overnight”. However “the inflexibilities of the past, such as (lack of freedom of speech and free press; migratory restrictions; personality cult; persecution of homosexuals, among others) associated to his name will be reassessed”.
http://en.mercopress.com/2009/.....-venezuela