Cuban Singer Roberto Carcasses Has Planted a Seed

Erasmo Calzadilla

HAVANA TIMES — Cuba’s totalitarian apparatus seeks to perpetuate itself, following in the footsteps of the Chinese elite. The least any suicidal individual who chooses to strike this apparatus kamikaze style deserves is our support.

What did singer Roberto Carcasses ask for at Havana’s Anti-Imperialist bandstand? The same thing I and many people long for: freedom of information, freedom to choose a president through a direct vote, the legalization of marihuana, an end to the blockade (both external and internal) and equal rights for all Cubans.

If we’re going to start asking for things, I would, however, add several bitter requests.

The first would be discarding the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) as the nation’s guiding force, a humiliating state-of-affairs ratified by Article 5 of the Constitution.

When you think about it, if there was anything close to an explosive situation in Cuba, a passionate public statement of this nature, a daring request like the artist’s would have set the Tribune on fire.

But what happened there, instead?

I have the impression that Cuba’s youth are entirely indifferent to political issues. For them, at the most, this was nothing more than a game, a game they would not dare play if it put their careers at risk or meant a good scolding.

Let us, however, stay positive: let’s hope that Carasses’ daring gesture was a seed that will tomorrow bear a lush tree. I am confident one day we will have the courage to take to the streets and express our indignation publicly.