Tomorrow Could Be Worse

ByAlain Rivero

HAVANA TIMES – Cubans are once again facing a “special period”—that is, a crisis in everything, especially electricity—reviving the phantom of the dreaded blackouts of the 1990s. Back then, people coped with their bitterness through dark humor, calling them “alumbrones” (light-ons), because power was available for such short bursts of time.

It feels like a show of problems meticulously crafted for the entertainment of those who suffer through it.

• Blackouts lasting four, eight, even twelve hours…
• Power on and off in the morning! Off and on at night!
• Off and on four times! Off and on twenty times!
• Today you don’t have electricity but your neighbors do? Don’t worry, tomorrow neither you nor your neighbors will have it!

Try it now, and in just a few days you’ll remember the “joy” of living in medieval times!

It’s reached the point that the participants in this mandatory “reality show” have asked the “organizers” of the spectacle not to bother restoring electricity if they can’t even clearly say when it will be available—if at all—as a technology and not just as a dream.

But of course, the skinny and beaten-down dog doesn’t even have the right to stop eating. If it tries to fast, as a surrender or a protest, the despotic master need only put it in the cage or give it another walloping to remind it that not even death belongs to him. So, once more – cold, hungry, and hurting – the master yells at the dog that he’s already eaten enough, and sends him off to keep watch over the property.

At that moment the animal comforts itself by thinking:

“If my master pretends to feed me, I’ll pretend to stand guard.”

That’s what the scrawny dog thought, with rebellious eyes. But is that the right attitude?

Electricity isn’t a luxury. It’s not something you can do without, but an inherent necessity of the modern world. Maybe the State employees can “pretend” they’re working, but it’s impossible to carry out “pretend” printing, scanning, photographic services, the loading of USB flash drives or daily services that real clients need, when they’re left without electricity.

The problem affects not only in the independent business circles, but the State facilities like the stores, whose only means of payment is with debit cards. If the lights suddenly go out there, the customers have no other choice but to put back their merchandise and leave empty-handed. Worse yet, if it’s a legal transaction or any bureaucratic process that requires the functionary to access a digital database or protocols.

Yet nothing compares to the terror of a home without gas, where lunch and dinner depend entirely on a small electric stove. When the power goes out, the blame always falls on the mother for not anticipating it, for not reading the blackout schedule. But even if she does, it doesn’t matter—the schedule is never followed. By the end of the night, there’s only half-cooked or poorly prepared food, furious parents, and children crying from hunger, boredom, and the punishment of being sent to bed exposed to heat and mosquitoes.

Throughout history, no one has ever been respected for their submission. If you lower your head so they don’t hit your face, you’ll only end up offering your neck on a silver platter. Since ancient times, between opposing factions, enemy countries, kings and subjects, mutual respect between the high and the low only arises when the lower side shows that, even if it gains nothing, there’s a limit to what can be taken from them. There is one thing that cannot be stolen:

“Dignity…”

Maybe if the dog had shown its teeth, maybe if it had shown some dignity, the master would respect it, and today, it would be eating better. Maybe if it had shown some dignity, the master would respect it, and today, it would be eating better.

Read more from Cuba here on Havana Times.