They Pit Us Against Each Other So We Don’t Confront Them
Reinaldo’s cell phone rings: someone is stuck in the elevator of our building during the power cut this Thursday.
HAVANA TIMES – There is a sudden silence. It is daytime, so the signs of the blackout do not appear through a lack of lighting but through the absence of sound. A deep emptiness that we all know what it means: the power has gone out. Reinaldo’s cell phone rings. Someone is stuck in the elevator with the power cut this Thursday. I see him walking down the hall, with his 77 years on his back, and his enthusiasm of a 20-year-old.
On the Facebook account of the Cuban Electric Union, messages are posted in a cascade. People complain that they cannot sleep because of the heat and the mosquitoes, they tell of towns plunged into darkness and faces with large dark circles under their eyes who can barely perform at work. Along with these complaints, another is repeated: Havana is privileged and does not suffer from the same power cuts as the rest of the country. Regional hatred is stoked, and divisions are emerging, even though the person responsible for our disaster is the same one.
The comments suggest that the residents of the Cuban capital are enjoying the darkness of others, while we enjoy our own illumination. Nothing could be further from the truth. Weeks with scarce water supplies and mountains of garbage with their constant flow of flies and rats have made life in this city an ordeal. The tall buildings, converted into prisons for the elderly, because they cannot bring supplies up or down, add to the deterioration of the entire city infrastructure. What we are experiencing is not a privilege, it is a trap.
Railing against the people of Havana for the supposed regional “privileges” that we enjoy only benefits those who have plunged us into this situation. Those who, incapable of managing a country, distribute power cuts at their convenience in order to also stir up internal conflict, make us lose our bearings over responsibilities and confront us in a fratricidal struggle without end.
No, it is not about here or there, about El Vedado or Piedrecitas, it is about “them.” Setting us up to fight each other is a strategy that has been effective in the past. They threw us into a fight by region, by political colors and by economic levels to prevent us from facing up to them from a civil perspective.
They confront us so that we do not confront them.
Lunch is served, but it is getting cold. It is better that way. It is hard to put hot food into your mouth in the heat. Reinaldo comes back and washes his hands, covered in the thick grease that comes from equipment with bearings. The whole apartment is filled with that rough, industrial smell. I see that he has a bleeding wound on his leg, small but deep. It is the bruises of those who try to rescue those who get stuck in a metal box when the power goes out. They are a brotherhood in retreat.
Some are old, others are sick, and most of those who once helped rescue those stuck in the elevator have died. Reinaldo is one of the few vestiges left in our building of that mixture of altruism and technical knowledge. The “counterrevolutionary” on the 14th floor, the independent journalist about whom so many have made reports to the political police or have distanced themselves from, is the only salvation when they are stuck between those four metal walls, with no supply of fresh air. There is no ideology there: “Get Macho (Reinaldo),” even the reddest (communists) whine. And there he goes to save them. A big heart is like that, and I hope that the future Cuba is full of them.
Translated by Translating Cuba.