The ups and downs of history and ill intentions of individuals have made us forget the history – today incomplete – of an institution we could well call the mother of the Cuban nation: freemasonry. However we know more about freemasonry in the United States, whose symbols adorn cities and dollar bills, than about its significance to our own history.
Read MoreIn the course of Cuban history, political leaders have mocked sexual minorities. The medical and religious establishments labeled them sick and depraved beings, and, during the sixties, they were dubbed as weak and counterrevolutionary.
Read MoreCuba’s economic difficulties have a variety of ingredients: the island’s status as an underdeveloped nation, the chosen socialist model, the mistakes made by the government, the US blockade and internal corruption (whose expression is the black market).
Read MoreCuban transportation authorities have been giving us plenty to talk about these days. Denying Cuban non-travelers access to certain areas of the Jose Marti International Airport was a true scandal until the illegal measure was finally repealed. The matter has another side to it, however, enveloped by our government’s familiar secrecy.
Read MoreThe normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States has long been a thorny issue. Bilateral conflicts between the two countries date back to the 19th century and reached a peak with the embargo policy applied following the triumph of the revolution in 1959.
Read MoreA New York Times editorial published urges President Obama to re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba – something that is beyond the scope of the embargo provisions and which falls within his presidential prerogatives.
Read MoreCuban immigrants have always been made a political issue, presented as persecuted individuals who are fleeing communism and given the status of refugees by the United States – despite the fact that 500,000 of these alleged “exiles” visit Cuba every year without anything happening to them.
Read MoreI was surprised to read the editorial from the New York Times on October 11, 2014, not because of the subject but because of the unconvincing and poor arguments presented. As a Cuban who’s lived in exile in Europe for more than 20 years, this subject is in my thoughts very often.
Read MoreCuban authorities backed down from the restrictions they had imposed denying entrance to Cubans in certain areas of the José Martí International Airport after having “inconvenienced many citizens”. It sounds like the government decided to make a concession in order to calm angered spirits, in a small matter that does not really affect the deeply ingrained ills of authoritarianism and full discretion of their powers.
Read MoreThe Cuban State spends a considerable part of its limited resources on education. Why, then, is our educational system facing a crisis? Reality changed as of the 1990s when Teachers began to leave the classrooms.
Read More
