Yesterday were our elections, and once again I decided not to exercise my right to vote. I don’t support the circus that has been staged to legitimize the regime. But neither did I sign the “Urgent Call for a Better and Possible Cuba.”
In almost all bakeries where they make bread rolls for our households, the clerks handle the “products” with the same grimy hands they use to count bills and coins. Even in times like these — with diarrheal epidemics and shortages of medicines — this practice continues.
The fate of Cuba is being played out in the Venezuelan elections on Sunday. I think the average Cuban (except those who know how to fish in troubled waters) has little to gain and much to lose from Venezuela’s vote.
Granma has been assigned (we all know by whom) a daunting and painful task: lying and misrepresenting. And the truth is that is it has been fulfilling this masterfully. One of those topics around which it has “worked” most is beautifying the image of China.
Everything seems to indicate that the chronic water shortages suffered in parts of the capital won’t be solved any time soon. To cope, people have been creating alternatives such as “doing their do” in plastic grocery bags and then throwing it all into the garbage.
Fredrika Bremer was an outstanding Swedish writer and feminist activist who visited “our” city in the mid-19th century. Touched by the romantic wave, she was confronted with the stale values of her society and therefore went traveling around the world alone.
I have to admit that up until today I wasn’t clear whether keeping Cubans misinformed regarding certain topics was a deliberate act or an organic consequence of how the system is structured. The treatment that “our” media has given the conflict in Syria has cleared up my doubts.
Raul’s reforms, at least in the capital, haven’t been successful. The GDP* has been on an uphill march since 1994, but the purchasing power of the average Cuban family seems to be going backward. It’s the same with health care, education, the availability of food and public transportation.
Living only a few miles off the coast of a powerful and aggressive military power isn’t an easy undertaking. A small and poor nation must act with a firm hand if it wants to maintain its sovereignty.
In an attempt to understand modern capitalism, I learned a lot about “socialism” here in Cuba from the progressive Canadian researcher Naomi Klein. A few days ago Cuban television viewers saw “No Logo,” a documentary based on Klein’s book of the same title.