The fixed nature of Cuba’s new government is becoming clear during the transition period this same prevailing system is undergoing on the island. Aside from opening up a debate about same-sex marriage, the island’s new Constitution and the new government and its cabinet are not reviewing any other aspects of Cuban life.
Anita is now an old woman but she remembers how she was banned from going to university in spite of her high grades as a student, because her records featured the dishonorable Baptist label. “It seems that the Revolution had already forgotten that its first great martyr was Frank Pais, was a Baptist.”
WIFI hotspots already have their own discourse because that’s where Cubans show themselves for what they really are, full of insecurities, contradictions and confusion. This is perhaps the most real-life press office for gauging public opinion.
Sara: “I told my family when I finished my pre-university course, don’t think I’m going to go and study to earn 500 pesos (20 USD) or anything similar as a professional,” said the 19-year-old with a dark vision of the future.
Claribel was a neighborhood representative and president of a municipal government. She has experience working as a leader of state bodies but today runs her own hostel. She told me that she doesn’t want to know anything about the Cuban electoral system.
“They wanted to take him out of the box and take out his pacemaker because it could supposedly serve another heart patient,” Alberto Manuel’s statement horrified me and led to this story…
“It’s hard working for a self-employed business owner, you don’t have any guarantees, the only one you do have is that you will earn more than if you work for the State,” explains Ana who works in a paladar cafe in Havana.
Nicolas, a product the Cuban Communist Party’s Nico Lopez School for leaders in Havana, is unaware of every president’s maxim: to be a political intellectual.
What will happen in a Cuba that wakes up one day with “FULL” internet access? People who already have a computer or a cell phone could access the Internet freely, create their own websites, upload videos, photos, exchange information and opinions and be virtual citizens…
Being the president of Cuba, whether the meaning of this word (first citizen) actually applies on this island, means holding the strings of hundreds of zones of influence.