Cuba’s President is an Android
Lynn Cruz
HAVANA TIMES – Photos of Cuban people stranded at bus stops, trying to reach their destination, are really quite outrageous. While the atmosphere in the capital is becoming more and more hostile, a doctor friend tells me that Carnival is being celebrated in Las Tunas.
We’ve had to put up with Fidel Castro’s monologues for sixty years, trying to justify the unjustifiable. And as if that wasn’t enough, after he left this world, the system has rebooted itself announcing the surprise (which is totally contradictory but so real it’s frightening) of a new subject programmed in absolute obedience, to a disturbing degree: “Miguel Diaz-Canel”.
Diaz-Canel has a configured discourse and it is repulsive as a result. He echoes a line that only deceives the few. He wants to carry on brandishing the anti-Imperialism flag, when he represents a power which during the Soviet invasion of Prague, defended the nature of that attack.
He wants to make us believe that this “new crisis”, which is in fact already old, stems from the US embargo. Sixty years later, Cuba doesn’t even have its own shipping fleet to be able to transport oil. Scientist and former prisoner-of-conscience Ariel Ruiz Urquiola shared a post on his Facebook wall, paraphrasing the Cuban Apostle Jose Marti and what he said about a statesman, or public official’s inability to have foresight, which is condemnable.
What right does the president of a country have to paralyze its people, and have them on standby waiting for an oil tanker? How much longer will the Cuban people have to swallow their leaders’ never-ending monologues, who walk scot-free with the poor decisions they’ve made?
Performance artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara was missing for over 72 hours. This practice is becoming commonplace. Neighbors, witnesses at the time of his arrest, have said that he was beaten by at least 5 men. Fernando Rojas, the current vice-minister of Culture, put on his best cynical suit on Twitter and stated that he had seen him at an exhibition and then rejected the idea that Otero Alcantara was an artist.
Guillermo del Sol, an independent journalist, is currently holding a hunger strike so as to draw attention to psychological torture techniques, known as “white torture”, which are disguised by the illegal term: “Regulado” (regulated). This arbitrary punishment prevents independent journalists and artists who are critical of the government, from traveling outside the country. It normally happens at the immigration control in Havana’s airport. After getting a passport and visa, as well as a plane ticket, they are told they won’t be able to travel.
In Oriente (Eastern Cuba), members of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) were beaten and locked up while holding a peaceful protest on September 8th. Ovidio Martin Castellanos was one of them and he was sentenced to 5 months in jail and given a 2000 peso fine, to set an example. Everybody knows that people from the east of the country migrate to the west in search of better economic conditions. It isn’t strange that there is a strong movement of people from this region of the country, given their living conditions, that’s to say, they don’t have much to lose.
This is all going on today and the Cuban government, especially the president, seems to be ignoring the situation because it is unpleasant. Yet his triumphalist statements only feed the population’s unhappiness and create more anger. The government is hijacking civic initiatives such as petitions and taking them as their own, using blackmail at workplaces and state-run education institutions which are the majority. So, the Cuban people will now need to sign in support of their leaders’ shoddiness.
My question is: where will their dysfunctional system lead us? Has anyone in power realized that they’ve gone completely off the rails? Do they care about deforming generations and generations of Cubans in an environment of simulation and violence? Will they understand what it means to lose all of the values that they talk about so much? When will they recognize that this also has to do with the entrenchment situation which they have forced the Cuban people into, in the name of freedom for the few?
I once heard someone say that people have the leaders they deserve. Today, I think the opposite is true: governments have the people they deserve.
Yes Lynn, information is anathema for communism. Hence Cuba still being one of the ten most censored countries in the world. But even though there is Internet available to some Cubans, it is pre-censored coming via Venezuela and not the full Internet.
Too late for Raul to go anywhere else, he will end up under a rock in Santiago beside Vilma.
Yes Lynn, information is anathema for communism. Hence Cuba still being one of the ten most censored countries in the world. But even though there is Internet available to some Cubans, it is pre-censored coming via Venezuela and not the full Internet.
Too late for Raul to go anywhere else, he will end up under a rock in Santiago beside Vilma.
Moses but at the same time is difficult to change this system because in the past Batista for example left the country but now, Raul an his men, the know they don´t have a place for hidding. Now there´s GPS, Internet, that´s why they have fear and they also abused the people.
Moses exactly I´m completly agree with you
Thak you! Carlyle
Yes Lynn is wise, she is not being fooled by the Cuban regimes absolute control of the TV/radio and news print media.
You are a wise man Moses. Change in Cuba has to come from inside the country. In my view the communist system itself will like a barrel of apples, rot from within. Once that inevitable rot commences, it will like that which occurred in the USSR, accelerate rapidly. Freedom always beckons.
I used to blame Cubans for allowing the Castros to remain in power. Then I witnessed the election of Donald Trump and realized that even in a “democracy” if the electorate becomes complacent, tyranny can prevail. As a result, 60 years of Castro dictatorship is a result of Cuban complacency as 3 years of an unimpeached Donald Trump is owed to American complacency. One can only hope that more young people like Lynn but with the will to rise up will emerge. Otherwise, as Lynn writes in a prior comment, this period of “no history” will continue in Cuba.
Cuba Lifting The Veil and the Spanish edition is Cuba Levantando El Velo. First published in May, 2016 Lynn. Its on the web at Amazon and others.
Brad they are like characters of a horror movie.
Hi Carlyle, what is the name of your book please? Thank you
I’m so sorry to inform you that i do not do any drugs but perhaps those mojitos you have in Havana while listening the dictatorship’s propaganda had got into your brain. I’m Cuban, Black, and lived under Batista’s “ dictatorship” when Castro got in to power I was 11 years old so I saw the whole destruction of my country. Go ask Cubans if the would to be like Puertp Rico or the Cuba of today,
Bottom line is the Cuban people don’t get to decide anything really only a few select top communists do.
And they have no intention of ever changing it.
It’s pure criminal corruption and the economic situation won’t ever be good.
Olga, are you smoking crack? However, I like how you try to obscure reality by stating “during Batista’s government (you should state more correctly the Mafia’s and the USA proxy govt.) was … “free CHOICE (emphasis added) of education.” Tap that vein Olga, I can see the heroin easing in, … you failed to mention all those Cubans who had no choice under Batista. Was that intentional? I’ll refrain from addressing your other absurdities.
I like you Lynn, see the reality of the current real Cuba, not the tourist facade. The reality of the Castro regime sickens me, for I respect people as individuals entitled to their individual thoughts and actions. The Castro regime practices and policies run counter to the nature of humanity. I ended my book about Cuba by writing:
“For the people of Cuba there remains only that faint hope that they have tenaciously clung onto for so many long years. Hope for thev younger generations that they may yet know freedom and opportunity to live in their beautiful country free of repression with freedom of expression, freedom of the media and freedom to vote for political parties of choice. Cubans deserve no less, for only then will they become members of an open society in a free world that waits to welcome them with open arms. Liberty and that poignant cry for freedom beckon and humanity demands.”
My hope for your generation Lynn is that you will live to see a free Cuba with a democratic society.
Viva Cuba Libre!
Hi Olga, I prefer not make comparisons between the Batista regimen now. We’ve been spending the last 60 years in this limbo. At the begining the Revolution had the reason because most of people wanted changes. This time is the time of no History. Is a pause. Is something wierd. There’s no words to describe my feelings respect Castro family and this dysfunctional system.
Thanks Carlyle McDuff. I’ve this frustating feeling every day watching the ruins of the social justice ideas in front of my face. This small group in power as you say doesn’t care about the people and how danger is to simulate that nothing changed or nothing happened is so sad.
As usual from Lynn Cruz, a stimulating article. I can however answer one of her questions. Lynn asks:
“Do they care about deforming generations and generations of Cubans in an environment of simulation and violence?”
The simple answer is NO, Diaz-Canel as a puppet, carefully presenting the opinions and decisions of Raul Castro Ruz, cares not one whit about the people of Cuba. His only concern is the retention of power and control by the Castro communist regime.
Batista was a horrible dictatorship but at least when he escaped with only 6 millions dollars he left the third stronger economic in the Western Hemisphere, during Batista’s government was a free press, freedom of association, and free choices of education. With the Castro’s dictatorship there is economic misery and REPRESSION.