Maykel Paneque

My next-door neighbor was in a hurry this time. He asked me from afar whether I had heard about some of the Cuban Parliament’s ordinary sessions and I answered that I had. An intervention which expressed the pressing need to update Cuban History had particularly caught my attention.

Maykel Paneque comments on such a disturbing book which digs into the fate of several Cuban characters, a fate which is sometimes so tormented that many of these characters choose death as a way to escape their anguish and misfortune.”

There’s a knock at the door and I open it. My neighbor shows me a copy of Granma newspaper and there’s a flask of rum in his other hand. He walks in happily as if he were plotting something and asks me if I can switch on the fan.

For the last few months, I’ve been troubled by a suspicion – or a fit of paranoia if you will – which has been confirmed by what’s been going on recently.

A woman got onto the bus and shouted: “If one of them worms comes close to me, I’m going to spit at her in the face. And if they let me, I’ll take out one of her eyes. Let’s see if they stop protesting so much.” It was Sunday. 9 AM. I didn´t expect the expressions of hate and violence to start so early.

A few days ago, my next door neighbor knocked on my door and asked me if I didn’t mind having a flask of rum with him, “or I’m going to explode”, he said. It was 3pm in the afternoon.

Yesterday, the neighbor opposite me shouted, from his doorway, for me to switch on the TV. “Don’t miss the latest act of the Cuban Comedy show.”

This part of our history –the UMAP camps- should hurt us all, and if we are going to be looking for the straw in another’s eye we should have the courage to remember and demand formal apologies here at home.