What's Happening In Cuba
by Belén Gopegui, El Mundo, published in Rebelion, 04-08-2006
A while ago I used to think literature might be useful. I read several texts on its possible usefulness, but they
weren't especially clear. I have found a small way of making literature useful as I continue to mull over this question.
Now and then, having written some novels helps to get a bit of space in the mainstream media.
Like now, they ask me to write about Cuba, the situtation there, what's going on. And I say to myself, maybe I could use
this space so those who usually don't read such stuff, "the other stuff", that's being written about what's happening in
Cuba, might read it. Read some fragments, at least. Have some idea, at least, of how and in what terms people speak who
are not against the Cuban revolution.
For example, Nestor Kohan, a young researcher at the University of Buenos Aires, author of books on Gramsci, Negri,
Marx, Mariategui, has written a text entitled "And after Fidel, what then?" in which he says "I have spoken to and been
in touch with friends, colleagues, relatives. people in my country and from other countries....All of us hope with all
our hearts that the Comandante, the revolutionary, the beloved friend of our Che, recovers from his operation. That he
goes on being the same old Fidel. The one who annoys, exasperates and unsettles the most powerful empire in the world.
The one who horrifies so many millionaires as they wander the world counting their banknotes.....The one who continues
preaching world rebellion against injustice. The one who continues promoting the fundamental use of the two most
powerful weapons ever invented : ideas and books...And after Fidel, what then ? Well, simply, new revolutions. Just as
we did after Che Guevara, we will continue to fight in every country against injustice and to change the world. We will
continue in resolute defence of the revolutionary ideals Fidel taught us, teaches us and will continue teaching us."
Someone who writes like that is not writing just in their own name but speaks on behalf of multitudes who perhaps never
appear in the newspapers until one day, some time, they change the destiny of a country and, perhaps, a continent. What
are they saying in Cuba? Lisandro Otero, writer of novels like “Time of Angels” or “Urbino's Passion”, writes "Fidel
Castro has taught a generation of Latin American people to think differently and led his country firmly and fearlessly
through a labyrinth of pitfalls and contradictions, bringing about in a little Caribbean island, despite US hostility
and boycott, a decent space where people can live with dignity."
Live with dignity? some will ask, in allusion to the low salaries of Cubans. A salary which nonetheless, covers housing,
electricity, telephone and so on, high quality education and healthcare. It's true, with that salary one cannot buy flat
screen television sets or Nintendos or tourist holidays or empty houses to speculate with. But is that what dignity is?
Buying stuff? Some think dignity is not feeling ashamed you can pay for expensive medicines or a Masters for your kid
while right beside you someone else cannot. Cubans live without that kind of shame and it's likely they are ready to die
before allowing anyone to force them to give that up.
What else are they saying in Cuba? Someone in the street said, "Fidel has taught us how to win"...." While the
Comandante recovers, Cubans are working stuff out for themselves. It's something unusual and deep. On the outside I have
seen in workplaces and on the street corners how people are talking and the reasoning is so strong and eloquent as to
leave no room to believe Bush's Transition Plan or the soulless Miami Cubans have any support in the island's heart."(1)
Or this too in an e-mail from a Cuban friend "When they began to read the communique, you can imagine my Dad , the long
silence, the tearful eyes,... the phone calls lasted well into the night in my house, including from some of you, for
which I am very grateful. The talk among the neighbours and on the bus to work was all the same, about Fidel's health,
although my journey is short , I saw people were very, very serious." There are plenty more like that. Many messages
from the island to the outside and many from the outside to the island.
Post-modernism, remember was the time that it was discovered that one ought not to believe in words, they were all empty
spaces, one could be ironic about all of them, they were all false, absurd and full of double-meanings. Post-modernism
has died, although it did teach us something. In fact, words on their own are meaningless. Words only have meaning in
action.
Fidel belongs to the advance party, the start of a new era in which no one will ever be able to believe in a State
decree, a politician, an individual in the abstract. They will ask for action. They will want to see the deeds of
whoever is making use of the words. What' s happening in Cuba? Let's hope the mainstream media will take the trouble,
not just for the next few days, to know what's really going on in Cuba. In the end, as Fidel has said, socialism is the
science of example.
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Translated from Spanish into English by toni solo, a member of Tlaxcala ( www.tlaxcala.eshe network of translators for linguistic diversity. This translation is Copyleft.