“Car prices have brought about what Yoani Sanchez, Guillermo Fariñas, the Ladies in White, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Regan and the Bushes were unable to accomplish,” Cuban journalist Javier Ortiz wrote in his blog. He added that “the price of the Peugeot 508 has led to a unanimous consensus” that could prove useful to those who “seek ways to bring the revolution down.” No doubt, as Ortiz points out, never before had a reform met with so much condemnation.
Read MoreI have read and re-read the congratulations that those friends of mine who have left the country (definitively, it seems) sent me this New Year’s. In their letters, they make toasts, wish me good health and express their gratitude for the life they have built far from Cuba and for the miracle of being alive.
Read MoreThough the issue of school brings me unpleasant memories, I watched and enjoyed the film Dead Poets Society. I liked it even more than La Educacion Prohibida (“Forbidden Education”), one of the best documentaries about education I’ve seen.
Read MoreAnother absurd prohibition has been eliminated in Cuba, but this new measure does not go to the root of the crisis – it merely secures more money for the bureaucracy and projects a false image of economic liberalization.
Read MoreWhile reading an international magazine, I came across a quote by Confucius that caught my attention: “In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.” I spent the better part of the night awake, thinking of these words.
Read MoreA former Mexican ambassador to Cuba is proposing that Mexico and Cuba set up “a strategic partnership on matters of energy” to firm up relations between the two countries.
Read MoreFor some months now, Cuban women have been enthusiastically organizing the ninth congress of the Cuban Women’s Federation (FMC), scheduled to take place in March. One of the characteristics of this process that caught my attention is the participation of young women, willing to take on new responsibilities within the FMC and to defend the achievements of the revolution.
Read MoreNo matter where you are, it isn’t hard to come upon people of different ages talking about their vision of the future, where Cuba figures simply as the country they had the terrible misfortune of being born in and the place they must get out of as soon as possible.
Read MoreWhat has sadly become a ritual in Cuba are the yearly mea culpa of the heads of the nation’s most important institutions for failing to fulfill the meager projections they had set for themselves.
Read MoreWhile the reaction to the price list for new and used car sales in Cuba is raging in the alternative online and foreign press, the local print media, which is what the 95% Internet-less population has access to, has skirted the issue completely.
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