I Hate You

Rosa Martinez

HAVANA TIMES — Before anything else, I would like to offer my apologies to all U.S. citizens, particularly to those who are against war and terrorism. This post is in no way aimed at them. It is, rather, aimed at their government.

As a child, I was taught to love the world, nature, my country and people who were different, not only in terms of skin color, but also in what they thought or how they behaved. My parents, a housewife and carpenter, were simple, kind-hearted folk who instilled in me a love for human differences.

This is the main reason I have never felt hatred towards the people of the United States and am against any stance of this nature. The second reason is very simple indeed: I have many friends there, and many Cubans reside in the United States, having emigrated there for different reasons. Thirdly, it would be unjust to apply the same label to all Americans, indiscriminately.

What I do feel is unrelenting hatred towards their government, hatred so profound that sometimes I think I will go on feeling it even after I’m dead. And it has nothing to do with the stupid and failed blockade with which it has tried to starve my people to death, nor with its defamatory campaigns against Cuba, that island we seek to portray, truthfully, in Havana Times.

My hatred does not stem from the scarcity of footwear I have endured throughout my life, or the scarcity of medical supplies which affects many Cuban children who suffer from chronic illnesses, both caused by the cursed blockade.

My hatred towards our northern neighbor has but one cause: death itself. The deaths of thousands of people across the world, of people who have been wiped out in times of peace and in times of war. I hate the U.S. government for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for Vietnam, for Iraq.

I hate them because of the terror they spread, for the over a thousand military bases they have installed across the globe, bases which remind us just how much they need wars.

I hate them for the deaths of Che Guevara and Salvador Allende, and even for Chávez’ death, though their involvement in his untimely passing has not yet been proven. I hate them for the many mothers who have lost their children, in the United States and other parts of the world.

I hate them for the young Cubans they murdered in Barbados and those they have murdered on our own soil. I hate them for the Guantanamo Naval Base, for all the torture and for the many affronts on humanity. For all of this, I hate the United States.