The Legacy of Laura Pollan

Erasmo Calzadilla

You have to be very intelligent and have your wits about you to do what Laura Pollan did as the leader of the Ladies in White, especially since she knew beforehand that she would be mistreated, made worse due to her age and failing health.

She would march with her companions, all holding flowers in their hands and of course dressed in white. They proceeded without offending anyone, though they themselves were offended. They marched without crying out for a fallen comrade, without encouraging hatred.

Nevertheless, this system acts as if it’s extremely fearful, as if the slightest slackening up on the fear felt by citizens could sweep it away like a leaf in the wind. Could that be true?

It’s not that I have blind admiration for Laura. I lost sympathy for her when on a broadcast of the program Razones de Cuba I heard her supporting the coup in Honduras, speaking directly with the leader of the coup.

I wasn’t born yesterday. I know it all might be a trick, a montage, but I have the impression that in this case it wasn’t. In any case, since they never let her express herself publicly here in Cuba, one is left with tinge of doubt, for example thinking that she could have even later changed her mind regarding the coup.

I do not know what other links Pollan had with the US government. But even if it’s true that they financed her and dictated what she should do, that doesn’t stop me from recognizing that along with her colleagues Laura discovered a very ingenious way of “taking back the street,” which since then will no longer be “only for revolutionaries.”

Thanks to her, now the “streets” are at the disposition of anyone who wants to use them — including the left — and our best tribute to her now that she has passed will be to prevent them from ever again belonging exclusively to one faction.