Cuba’s Job Bans under a Magnifying Glass (Cartoons)
HAVANA TIMES – This week we dedicate our drawings to the prohibitions that limit self-employment and attempt to restrict the creative potential of Cuban entrepreneurs and creators.
This is perhaps a response from the government to artists, journalists and intellectuals who have recently come out to demand that the authorities respect their constitutional rights. For this reason, the official media calls them provocateurs and annexationists [pro USA].
The new scenario provides the State with a legal framework through which to prosecute an important sector. Bothersome people outside its institutions and, therefore, its immediate control. Apparently, the same pattern of outlawing freedoms and creativity continues to be repeated. The objective is to avoid the empowerment of citizens with the ability to question power.
We know all to well what this behavior of social containment based on fear and hatred has brought us. A quagmire in which coincidentally the fault always lies with others.
Wimar Verdecia Fuentes
Unfortunately I am not an artist. But perhaps you can picture this…
A horse called CeDaR with blinders on careening through the narrow colonial streets pulling a wagon with a small load of not so great looking fruits and vegetables all in disarray being bounced off due to the fast pace over the cobbled street. A melon smashes open after travelling past a citizen who is aged and walking slumped over in an apparent attempt to run for the wagon, The melon’s path to destruction having been where an upright person’s head might have been. On the wagon bench are two frightened peasants attempting to reign in the out of control animal. On either side are two officers oblivious to the situation writing out infractions with club shaped implements for transporting goods, wearing bandanas, excessive speed, hoarding, etc. While in the back are the keystone cops attempting to contain and snatch out of the hands of those residents clambering all over and running behind the wagon trying desperately to fill their bolsas with the damaged goods. One or two good looking fruits are tossed up to three well appointed gentlemen having a discussion over lunch on a spanish colonial balcony. A man with a fine looking sports jacket emblazoned with Acopio across the back sits in the middle intently listening to a new Jefe on the right oblivious to what is happening behind him. On the left is another man feeding pigeons bread rolls as they fly about pooping on the desperate scene below.