Veronica Vega’s diary

A friend who is leaving asked my husband and I to meet at the National Museum of Fine Art to say goodbye. In front of the entrance, of huge glass windows, what should have been a hug became an unexpected greeting: “Nobody outside of Havana knows what Law 349…

A lawyer told me, very seriously, that Decree-Law 349 is one of the measures that has been conceived to respond to demands of including regulation in the new Constitution, which guarantees that Cuban women’s rights are respected. Her remark left me speechless.

After the shock we received from the combination of numbers 3-4-9 (which I have written more than one article about), a recent conversation about the draft Constitution which is being discussed (?) nationwide, led me to examine the other numbers that hold our fate as Cubans.

Discrediting those who question official policies is a common strategy in Cuba. Voiding these individuals or groups who react against economic paralysis or a lack of freedom, slandering them with total immunity and twisting their legitimate complaints.

“A country’s achievements shouldn’t be defined by how many hotels are being built, but by the quality of a meal,” I heard a man say in line at the bakery. (He was referring to statistics that official media publish everywhere, which are so optimistic, biased, cynical).

We need to readjust concepts of happiness, security and success. Because even governments and monopolies have to face the great scam of life, which they can’t sue, or seek compensation to swell the illusions of their survivors.

On August 9th, I stared at a summons from the Ministry of Interior on my fridge for my husband Yasser Castellanos, a visual and Hip-Hop artist as well as a Havana Times’ illustrator. Ever since we had joined the “Cuban Artists against Decree-Law 349” campaign, we guessed that this could imply “crossing the line”.

The new law’s legal enforcement will impose fines that state wages can’t pay, punishments to keep violations in check, crimes of Cuban artistic talent. Unprincipled inspectors will whisper proposals into their victims’ ears to defer fines or the seizure of their equipment and/or other assets.

When I watch movies that are set in first world countries, the thing that shocks me the most is the self confidence that people have in excess. Not a confidence that stems from financial superiority, but from a system where citizens can complain about officials, the State, the Government.

The graffiti movement hasn’t had the same strength here in Cuba as it has in the United States or Europe. There are very few remains of aboriginal pictographs and there are some signs that texts mixed with images were stamped onto walls in Old Havana’s trading areas during colonial times. (9 photos)