Opinion

I remember a private party in which trova musician Pedro Luis Ferrer sang some of his more critical songs. One of the Cuban participants told him with delight: “That’s it; we should reconstruct the Cuba we had before that guy came to power.”

It turns out that the “law of laws” —with which compliance is mandatory by all Cubans— says that “dual citizenship will not be admitted. As a consequence, when foreign citizenship is acquired, Cuban citizenship will be annulled.”

On occasion, the defenders of the Revolution shield themselves from criticism by pointing to disasters that have occurred in other countries, as if the problems faced by other societies can be used to justify the deficiencies of the Cuban system. I’m not disputing that real social, economic and human rights crises exist in other countries, but I think that the problems of others continue to serve as the comfort of fools, because that road only leads to resignation and paralysis.

Not too long ago I went to look for a kitchen faucet at a hardware store that sells products in hard currency. The salesperson told me that they didn’t have any in stock, but she herself recommended that I talk to one of the vendors outside of the store, that “surely they can take care of it.”

Any clamp down on these “crimes” has been useless up to now. Security companies were created, with the net result being that the guards have been added to the chain of theft.