Vandalism on the Rise in Havana

Miguel Arias Sanchez

HAVANA TIMES – You only have to take a stroll through Havana to realize how what government media refers to as “vandalism” is growing every day. What’s going on? Not even the media can explain it.

The thing is that the Cuban people are always the ones to suffer the consequences of everything. Where do we see these acts of vandalism affecting Cuban citizens directly?

Out of every five public telephones, only one works, according to what I heard a presenter say on Radio Rebelde. We watch how people take the handset with cable and everything from the rest, they just leave the phone box because they can’t pull this off the wall.

If you walk through some parks, you’ll see how the seats from benches have been taken and only the base which holds it up has been left.

If you need to go to a public restroom, you will see how the cistern’s lid has been taken and sinks too.

And I find myself asking: What do they achieve by doing this? Who are they really harming? Do they believe that things like this can overthrow a government anywhere in the world?

Talking to a man in a park about all of this, he told me: they don’t have the balls to rise up or do other things so they do this instead.

People who have to use a public phone or sit in a park are the real ones to suffer these inconveniences, not members of the State Council, or ministers or other leaders (who have better options available to them), but ordinary people who use these services. That’s why every necessary measure should be taken and they should be strictly enforced so that misdeeds like this don’t make life more precarious and difficult for people who aren’t to blame and shouldn’t be paying for other people’s frustration and inconformity.

Vandalism is a vile act all over the world, it goes against progress, aesthetics and social wellbeing.