Streets of Centro Habana: A Territory Besieged by Oblivion
HAVANA TIMES – Yesterday, I ran into my former philosophy teacher in Centro Habana. Her face showed signs of deep distress. After the hugs, she asked if I had time to talk, and I agreed. It wasn’t difficult to understand that she needed someone to listen to her.
During the walk to the La Fraternidad park, I noticed she was avoiding looking at her surroundings and quickening her pace. Once we sat down, she let her feelings flow. When she left, I felt the urgent need to write about her anguish, an anguish I share but couldn’t express until today.
It’s obvious that not everyone can hear the lament of a city that has been disappearing before our eyes. Most of its inhabitants are absorbed in their own groans. To recognize its death would force us to question a reality that not everyone is willing to admit.
When did we become silent accomplices of its deterioration? Why didn’t we demand the relevant authorities take responsibility for protecting our architectural heritage for future generations? A heritage that has become a physical pain. Could it be that negligence and immobility were an excuse? Could it be that the death of the city is the answer for us to stop existing?
That I now live outside the city and visit occasionally doesn’t exempt me from the pain. Walking on the streets of San Lázaro, Belascoaín, and Galiano feels like witnessing a war zone. The city of my memories, the city I love, no longer exists. I wonder when we stopped preserving memory, when we became builders of oblivion.
The city no longer exists. Its people, once joyful and lively, are now a gray shadow, a shadow that extends its hands, that watches its children leave as the city falls apart and searches among the ruins for a place to forget its former splendor.
I disagree with the comments made by both Mike and James. Being from San Francisco, I can attest to a similar decline to the quality of life of living in this city. Based on my last visit to La Habana last year, while the deterioration of La Habana is much, much worse the decline in US cities is measurable. Likewise, the US embargo has nothing to do with the garbage in the streets of La Habana. The US embargo has nothing to do the lack of food and medicine in Cuba. Both of these basics are exempted from the embargo. As long as the Castro dictatorship can continue to hoodwink a large number of foreigners into believing that Castro-style communism can work in Cuba if only that pesky embargo would go away, the leadership in Cuba will stay in power and Cuba will continue to suffer.
It is very sad that the people are always the ones that suffer from bad governments and the USA tyrant. The USA is not making the government suffer it is the common citizens who are suffering and now with the new administration of Donald Duck is going to be worst for the citizens of Cuba.
Perhaps communism has something to do with it. Ya think?
It’s very sad, but the same problem you describe is happening in Haiti.No authority wants to take charge of their missions,wonder what’s on their mind.I really share your deepest concern.
I have been visiting Cuba for over 20 years and it broke my heart to see the deteriorating condition of Havana. May the future be kinder. Keep the Faith ✌️
I’ve lived in the U.S. all my life. I’m 70 now I came at 8 yrs. of age. Im proud to call myself a Cuban-American more American because I never went back and the few memories have slowly faded with the years. The type of government Cuba has since January 1959 is the reason the country is now 66 yrs. later in the shape it’s in. Only tourist places are kept up so it brings revenue to the system. The people have no food or medical supplies which are the least a government in any country should provide for it’s citizens. Of course what of freedom and humanitarian treatment that has not happened since the beginning either. So it is obvious this socialist/communist system is a failure!!! Same as Venezuela. Soon as it was implemented it has gone down the same path. It’s time the world wakes up and identifies politicians who want to rule a country with these ideologies and run them out of office and stop voting for them. My parents lost everything to that system. Everything was taken away from them. The government seized all in exchange for allowing them to leave the country. The rest is history and everybody knows the outcome. The system is totalitarian and selfish only those serving them live well the rest live in poverty, fear and agony every day of their existence without hope of any change. Change can only come from within. But the people cannot rebel and overthrow the government because they have no weapons. This is the result of gun control. The second reason is the newer generations have already accepted the fact that they either obey and live by their rules or face jail and death. Very sad that your own countrymen treat their own this way and worst get away with it while the world allows it and does nothing to anialete these criminals and assassins. I don’t have any other words to describe them. May God have mercy on us all.
Don’t blame the Embargo .There is no Embargo but the One by The oppression from the Castro regime for 67 years has created .. It’s a corrupt and fraudulent system with no freedom of the press ,no water,hunger, garbage is everywhere and the electric system goes out for hours every day.. Freedom for the political prisoners and the Cuban people
There is no embargo against food, or medicine. There is corruption and theft directly from the Castros and those that work for them. Corruption is what has ruined Cuba period.
So there’s an embargo? Cuba has had access to the vast manufacturing power of China for decades. Is there an embargo implemented by the clothing powerhouse of Vietnam, or the auto manufacturing of Soth Korea or Japan? The embargo has so many holes in it as an excuse. The real problem? Cuba doesn’t produce anything, it’s producción base is destroyed. Communism has strangled all lifeblood in the economy. What’s left are empty promises by a bankrupt and broken system. And this is the victory of the great Revolution in Cuba.
I think it’s a real shame on the deterioration of such a beautiful city and country that my wife and I visited six years ago has now become a place of no return for us and a large sector of the tourism industry . I don’t think anyone knows exactly why cuba fell apart but it is very sad to see the beauty and splendor of a country so close to our hearts fade into the sunsets of the present and ongoing future.
I visited Havana last week as a tourist tour from Varadero.
It is full of unseen tears and broken hearts . It looks like a book that is entitled “the tale of two cities ” the old Havana and the new Havana.
Still wondering why so many countries in the world are not helping the Cuban People.
It is time for Cuban residents of our beloved Cuba to stop blaming the Embargo. It is time for Cubans in the island and in exile to start blaming the real culprits Castro and his accomplices who destroyed our beautiful country.
I have visited Cuba multiple times. Although I am not cuban by birth I have fallen deeply embraced with the people. I have made friends in Havana & Vinales. I have contributed in some construction in Vinales & Santa Clara. The women are so beautiful and the elders are very humble and hospitable. I feel a deep sadness because the economy is so horrible. Its not fair. I will be returning to provide medicine & essentials.
Everyone wants to blame the Cuban government for what happened in cuba…..how about the Cuban people who have really gone against each other. To take from the rich for gain….no it doesn’t work that way …they got what they deserved …
Communism is not only the destruction of a Country. Communism is also the destruction of the people, their future, their Morality and their soul’s. Anyone that thinks that Communism is a good thing needs to go live in Cuba. Not to visit but to actually live in Cuba and endure what the Cuban people endure under their Communist Government.
When you look at old photos of Havana from back in the 1950s it was glorious. The colonial architecture was stunning and the streets were pristine. What a fabulous place it was. The beauty was seldomly matched anywhere else on earth. It is sad that such beauty and significance was allowed to decay to what we see of it today. Where has the pride of Cuba gone? A revitalization program could be a tremendous boost to the lives of Habaneros, and to the entire country. Simply restoring this one city could be a powerful boost to the self esteem of the nation and of her pocket book. Just imagine the influx of tourists that would go to see the beauty and splendor of the old colonial architecture restored to its glory. Come on Cuba, you can do it.
And yet …We all blame the USA Imperialism and the Trades Embargo for most of our society issues.
The US Trade Embargo is perhaps the worst American Policymaking Tool and has caused great damage to Cuba, there is no doubt about that, but many wrongs are of our own making