Opinion

Something’s Cooking in Cuba & Washington

The good thing for the prisoners on both sides is that their governments have not ceased in their efforts to rescue them. For 10 years Havana has been orchestrating campaign after campaign, while in Washington people have remained quite concerned since Gross was captured last year.

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Cuba and the Virtue of Dialogue

Havana Cardinal Jaime Ortega and Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos also obtained approval from the Cuban government for the beneficiaries of these measures to relocate in Spain. The first releases took place on July 10, 2010 and corporate media photos demonstrated that the prisoners had been well fed during detention. Most of them were a bit overweight and were in good health. On July 25, 2010, a total of 20 individuals (out of the 52) were flown to Spain.

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Updating Cuba’s Model, Not Reforms

Changes will continue slowly and cautiously – but they won’t stop. In the economic terrain they have already broken through the rigid limits imposed in 1968. The national debate will be on how to save socialism, and therefore there will be no political reforms.

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Cuba’s Education Needed Radical Change

In reality, the labor imbalance seems to have been introduced by official propaganda that overvalued the role of professionals in society. Finally, life has demonstrated that it is impossible to construct buildings relying only on architects.

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The Trap of Stifling Debate

In comments made by Cuban bureaucrats interested in maintaining the status quo and not “changing anything that must be changed,” it’s common to see in their “arguments” the assert that: “While we are under siege by imperialism, it is not the time to make sharp criticism of corruption, bureaucracy or deviations committed in the emancipatory, democratic and socialist advance of the Revolution.”

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Paradoxes of the State

Imagine yourself invigorated amid of deafening cheers of hundreds of children reveling in the comedy of a sea lion dancing to reggaeton, when suddenly…poof, at a lift of your head, there you spot the all-seeing eyeball of our “Lord of the rings”!

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Closed Mouthed or Protagonists?

When assuming the presidency, Raul Castro seemed to propose another concept of unity, one based on the diversity of opinions. He blasted “false unanimity” and opened up discussion by affirming that “from the deep exchange of divergent opinions come the best solutions.”

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Afraid of Everything

The first time I saw my mother cry was over a cat that some boys on the block had thrown against a wall. There it was, in a box, where not the old towel it was wrapped in, nor lukewarm milk nor our caresses could save its life.

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